The Vergecast - The smart TVs, Matter gadgets, and concept cars from CES

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

The Verge’s Alex Cranz, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Chris Welch, and Andrew Hawkins discuss the best TVs, cars, and smart home gadgets they saw at CES 2023 — from a color-changing car to a vacuum suction system on an OLED TV. Further reading: CES 2023: Verge Video’s best of Why Matter mattered at CES The $3,000 totally wireless Displace TV is the definition of CES absurdity Roku does the obvious thing and announces its own TV line  TCL’s 2023 TVs have new branding and are gaming powerhouses Samsung’s 2023 TV lineup bets everything on picture upgrades and AI tricks LG’s latest Signature OLED TV receives all of its audio and video wirelessly LG’s 2023 OLED TVs are brighter (again) and make webOS smarter LG wants to reinvent how you think of TV picture modes Sony breaks from tradition and won’t announce new TVs at CES 2023  Sony and Honda just announced their new electric car brand, Afeela The Peugeot Inception concept is an EV knife aimed straight at the future The BMW i Vision Dee is a future EV sports sedan that can talk back to you Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Hello and you're listening to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of recovering from the CES funk. I'm your host, Alex Kranz. No, I'm your friend, Alex Kranz, and I am joined with the lovely Gentui.

Hello. The lovely Chris Welch and the lovely Andy Hawkins. Hello. Two of the three of these people were at CES last week. And so we're going to be talking a lot about CES today. We're going to be talking about smart homes. We're going to be talking about TVs. And as you probably guess from Andy being here, we're going to be talking about cars.

And next week, we're going to have another special episode, still getting into CES, where we're going to be talking with Monica all about the laptops and that weird dual screen laptop that she's actually obsessed with. We're talking with Victoria's song about all kinds of health stuff that happened at the show. But today, we're talking about what really matters, matter. That was my segue there, wasn't it? That was your segue. But let's get started because Jen, it feels like we voted Matter as like the thing of CES. This was the big thing at CES. You made a very passionate case for it.

Now you have to do it again for all of our listeners. I did not. It was not my suggestion. I just want to point that out. I held back. I mean, not that I didn't agree, but, you know, it was kind of obvious coming from me. But the rest of the team actually was like, you know, it was kind of the thing. We couldn't escape it.

Even Chris was like, the Samsung booth was terrible because it was all smart home. So, okay, weird. He said it was weird, not terrible, sorry. It was different because you expect like every year you go there and it's like TVs and gaming monitors and all this flashy stuff and hardware. And this year, some of that stuff was there. But like on the whole, just like Jen Singh, it was all matter stuff and smart things, this and that. It was just very different. It was very notable.

I mean, the last, so the first CS I went to, I want to say was 2019. and I remember going to the Samsung booth, which was the place that Chris loves, huge TVs. It was, I think, when they debuted the wall. And in one little corner, I managed to find a Smart Things Hub and a few senses. And then this year, the entire booth was Smart Things. And you literally had to go find the TV that was hidden in a room somewhere. I mean, it was notable. And that's not the case for everyone. But, you know, the LG's booth still had the giant walls of TVs and but Samsung really went all out with smart things and the smart home and in general. So for people that aren't familiar at CES isn't two venues. So there's the big Las Vegas Convention Center, which is where the Samsung and the LG booths

are. And then there's the Venetian Convention Center formerly called the Sands, which is where the smart home had always been put. And again, it's sort of been in a corner in the conference room in the major sort of conference space. And now, again, you walked in and it was the first thing you saw and it took up. half the show floor. It was definitely smart homes year and matter obviously is a big topic in the smart home right now. So matter was everywhere. I mean, literally, I took our video director to try and sort of shoot some footage because when we announced that matter was the best in show, he said,

what am I supposed to shoot? It's not a TV. What do I shoot? So we went around looking for the logos and, yes, the dongles. And they were everywhere. I think, as I said in my piece, it was like the easiest game of Where's Waldorf ever because there were just Matter logos, just peripherating, yes. But, and you know, it's not like now matters here, it's ready and we can all just run off and enjoy this great new smart home. It's still early days, but the sheer number of announcements, the sheer number of new products, the real concrete details we're getting about how this smart home protocol is going to work in our homes definitely made it feel like something much more tangible than it has been for the last three years. So that was one of the reasons we kind of gave

it this big accolade. Well, kind of walk us through those details, because honestly, I was surprised to see Samsung Smart Things come back. I feel like it has a really passionate, really small user base. And now it seems like Samsung's like, oh, wait, we still have this. We should do something with it. Matters here. Yeah. So from the Smart Things side, I mean, the smart things you see today is not really the smart things you're thinking of, not the original kind of groovy-based smart things for the tinkerers. That's still there and they're very keen to point out that, you know, they haven't got rid of that, although they are transitioning. But what smart things really is now today is Samsung's connectivity platform for its home appliances and TVs. But they have

remained open. So it's always been the most open of all the smart home platforms because it works with Zigby and ZWave and a whole host of cloud provided smart home integrations too. So, you know, you can use, am I allowed to say things like Alexa or are people going to get mad at me? But you can use the Amazon Smart Home Assistant, the Google Smart Home Assistant, or with Smart Things. It's very open, it's very interoperable. And they're keeping that. And then Matter, obviously, is making it even more open.

So it means that now things will work with Apple Home as well as Samsung Smart Things. You know, and Apple obviously wasn't on the show floor, but it was a big part of what's made, you know, the push for matter. They created Matter along with all of the other companies we've mentioned. And as they like to say, they contributed the main framework of HomeKit to the Matter Protocol. So it feels a lot like using Apple HomeKit when you use Matter products, which I've done, managed to use a few. And it is. It does feel a lot like using Apple Home with a sprinkle of smart things and a sprinkle of Amazon and a touch of Google. So they felt like Apple was still kind of there at the show, even though they weren't actually.

Isn't that always the way? But they don't have a booth. There's not like a special room where you go and meet with Apple people unless you're doing, like, talking about monitors that you want to own. Yeah, they're not there. There's no home kit presence. But a lot of new products that were announced were from companies that traditionally hadn't worked with Apple Home. And now because of matter are going to be able to work in that ecosystem. because Apple is fully in on matter. So if your device works with matter, it will work with Apple Home. And then there's the vice versa. So products that only worked with Apple Home will now work outside of Apple Home, like Eve,

who we've covered quite extensively. But for example, like Govi and Yellite and GE Sync are all brands that have lighting. Because lighting's big and matter right now because it's one of the first device types supported. those companies all announced products that will now support Matter. That means you can buy those inexpensive, which is not normally something that you associate with Apple Home products. Those inexpensive devices will now work with Apple Home if you want to use that as your main Matter interface.

And, you know, that's quite exciting for a lot of people that like Apple Home because it is traditionally been an expensive smart home space to play in. And, you know, Amazon, on the other hand, you can use its Smart Home Assistant with, many inexpensive brands that you can find on Amazon of dubious quality in some cases. Yeah, like I think I gave up on using Amazon as my smart home because it just, I moved houses and it was like, okay, you need to manually delete every single light and then manually re-add every single light. And I had like 20 lights on there. And I was like, no, I'm just stop.

I'm just done here. They fix that. They have fixed that or about to fix that. That's quite exciting. It's not really to do with matter. I'm hoping it will become a thing with matter, though, because there could be a lot of duplicates if you start using multiple smart home platforms. And that could be one of the problems. But hopefully, so what's kind of happening with matter is that each company is doing something new or bringing a new sort of slant to it. And we're kind of waiting to see whether the other companies will all follow track, because the whole point of matter is that everyone should be able to be interoperable in the same way. So, for example, the Amazon feature is there now working with device group sync.

So if you add a device to Amazon and you also, you know, say it's a hue bulb, rather than it being called kitchen light in hue and then just light one in Amazon, which is for some reason the way it's defaults, now it will sync the name across, which is going to be really useful. Because you know when you say, hey, A, turn on the lights. And it's like, you have 500 devices named light. which one would you like to turn on? This will help with that. And, you know, that kind of just keeping your smart home a bit tidier, because you're so right, you should see my Amazon Alexa app. It's kind of scary.

How many devices are you having it? I think we're going to save that one for the Halloween episode. Like, we can't show that right now. It's too sensitive, too scary. I have a question. Yes. And as a smart home agnostic, I don't have any smart devices in my home. And I'm generally wary of handing over my personal.

personal data to companies like this. And I have, you know, sort of like the basic laundry list of concerns that people have for not, for not, you know, installing any of these devices in your own. Did you get a sense from the show that the companies that are building these products are getting better at bringing new people in as consumers? Or do you feel like they're preaching to the choir and still continuing to sell things to, like, the people who are already, like, invested in turning their home into a smart home? That's an excellent question.

and actually one that was definitely on everyone's mind because it is the latter. Because matter isn't actually going to be that great initially for people who are already invested in the smart home. It isn't as functionally advanced. So you won't be able to do things like adaptive lighting. So, you know, where you have your lights change colour in sync with the sun or dynamic lighting effects. Like, you know, your hue lights will kind of flash with your TV, those kind of things. Those features aren't available in matter. So it doesn't mean you won't be able to use them.

You'll just have to use the relevant company's app to get to that function. So really what Matter is designed for is to be really simple for people who've never used the smart home before. So that when you go to Lowe's or you shop on Amazon or Best Buy and you're like, well, I need a new thermostat and maybe I need some new light bulbs and you buy them. And as long as they work with Matter, then you can set them up with any smartphone. any ecosystem, any smart speaker you have in your house. You don't have to look for all the little works with badge to see whether it works with your phone or works with your voice assistant.

So that's really the sort of core purpose of matter is to make it really simple so that everyone can use it. Because right now the smart home is not simple. It's far from it, which is why I have a job, really. Well, thank God for that. It's like Jen, Homebridge, Hoobes. These guys are like, we need it to be super complex. for as long as possible. Yeah, I mean, and Matter does work with those platforms too. So, you know, it's less exciting right now for people who are already really deeply involved in the smart home.

The most excited group was probably the HomeKit users because they're getting access to devices that they didn't have and they won't have to use devices. They won't have to use Hoobes and HomeBridge to bring those devices into their ecosystem. Like your Nest thermostat will work in HomeKit natively now. Your new one, though, not the old one, which is really annoying. Because I want the learning thermostat in my home kit. But anyway, digress. Yes.

And that's where you hear a lot of complaints about matters. People are like, oh, it's really not that exciting. It doesn't really add any new features. It's kind of boring. Well, that's kind of the point. It's plumbing, yeah? It's roads. It's infrastructure.

It's just making everything work properly, which it hasn't done for a long time. Chris, you saw a bunch of TV stuff. Were you seeing any, like, that was much. matter trickling in there too for you? Yeah, I think they said that all the LGs no support matter. They did last year too, I believe, but this year that's there again. And I think some other companies are also on board. So yeah, it's definitely kind of like naturally making its way across all the big brands. Not sure what that will look like in TVs necessarily. Like some might have hub apps and stuff like that, but they will support it,

like at the core, which is nice to see. Yeah, I think Hysense just announced that it's supporting matter. It just announced it at CES. And basically, I think ultimately TVs can be matter controllers, so you wouldn't even necessarily need any kind of hub device separately. And that's another part of matter, is the idea being that these hub devices will already just be built into what you own or buy. So you're not going to have to buy extra little dongles and what's its names to make your smart home work. And then Samsung actually announced that going forward, it's going to build matter and thread directly into its products. So all TVs, monitors and their smart fridges will have refrigerators and the

fridges. Yes. Yes. So they all currently have smart things software hubs in and then they will also get a matter thread, Zigby, Mata thread Zigby chip, nosy wave. How far do these upgrades go back? Because like I know I've got a 2017 LG that I'm trying to bully Nelai to also replacing his. and we're stuck on the pre-home kit, pre-smart home stuff right now. They're like, no, we don't have support for Airplay. We don't have support for Chromecast. Sex to be you. And we're probably not going to get that support now, right?

Like these older products just aren't going to get it. You're just going to be SOL. Yeah, no, yeah, unfortunately. There was a lot of talk about backward compatibility. And for connected devices in some cases, there will be bridging opportunities. So like Phillips Hugh has a matter bridge. Sorry, its bridge will be updated to support matter. And it's proudly said and rightly so that it's original Phillips Hubold that you could have bought 10 years ago will support matter through that bridge.

So that's great. But there's not a lot of, you know, it's going to be down to individual manufacturers to support that to add matter to their bridges if they have devices that connect to the bridge that can then connect to matter. But in general, most of the benefit of matter is going to be going forward. When you buy new devices, you're going to see an easier setup and easier connectivity and easier interoperability. One good sign for your old TVs, though, and old fridges and old washing machines, if they have any kind of Wi-Fi compatibility, so going back about 10 years, most appliances have some compatibility with Wi-Fi, there is the new Home Connectivity

Alliance is working to do sort of a similar thing to matter, but cloud to cloud, because matter's local, which is something we didn't mention, but that's one of its sort of selling points. And this new alliance, which is run by Samsung and includes LG, higher, which is like GE. And it's like 80 to 90 percent of the home appliance industry, which is what, like five companies, are all on board with this home connectivity alliance. And they have said going any device that had Wi-Fi capability will work with HCA, which means that you can control it through any app that you like. That is, so like if you have an LG think Q app and a Samsung TV, you can control your Samsung TV through that LG think you app.

So you could use, you could have all your devices in one app, all your home appliances. So theoretically. Theoretically. That's a good point. Well, like, because I mean, I definitely have that horrible LG app and it is truly the worst. It's quite bad. One of the worst apps on my phone. I only use it like when I can't find the remote and I'm too late and too tired at night

to like look for it reasonably. And even then I cry when I use it. But they don't care about those apps, right? They haven't cared about those apps for years. They've kind of just like they did them. They made them and they're like, all right, it's here. Enjoy your slop. Do you think we'll start seeing other like third parties making apps to be like,

okay, here's your app to control all your 10-year-old appliances? So yes, I think we'll, we may see that. But with the HCA, it has to be one of their appliance companies. But where you will be able to use it is Smart Things because that's Samsung's. So you'll be able to control all your old LG appliances with the Smart Things app. So you're all in on Samsung now. You look really thrilled about that idea. Whether you want it or not, you're all in on Samsung.

There is a chance, though, that the Home Connectivity Alliance and Matter will get together at some point. I mean, they are talking to each other. So it is, and white, good appliances and televisions are in the matter spec. So, you know, there's going to be some more political shuffling going on. But I wouldn't be surprised if eventually they converge. I did hear the chairman of the HCA joke that they were just waiting for matter to buy them for a billion dollars. Which is kind of funny when CSA is a nonprofit and Samsung runs the HCA. So I'm not sure which should buy which.

Well, okay, so it was a lot of matter. What was like the coolest matter thing you saw, the coolest implementation that had you really excited? Oh, there are a couple things. I think most exciting for me was probably the mooie board. And it's not that it is necessarily a sort of whizbang technologically exciting device. It's more of a sort of shows what matter could bring us, which is because companies don't have to develop for all different platforms now and they don't have to be. And they don't have to start-ups don't have to spend, you know, 90% of their budget with their engineers having to develop for five different platforms. They can really focus on innovation that we might start to see some more interesting devices in the smart home. And the mooie board is a piece of wood

with LED lights behind it that just is touch sensitive. So you can, you know, you can touch it to turn your lights on and off. You can draw on it. It's just, it's a very sort of delightful device. It doesn't feel like technology. And that's something. if anyone's been following my coverage, you know, I have a real, I don't like smart home tech that feels like technology. I think it's important that your smart home tech needs to fit into your home. And, you know, Google's been trying this with all their sort of fabricy mesh things. And there have been numerous sort of shifts in the way smart home technology looks so that doesn't sort of stand out too much in your home. But that's what the Mui board does. It's not really a product.

I mean, they say you're going to be able to buy it. It's going to be on Kickstarter. It's more of a kind of concept though, you know, like this is what we can do. And that's what I'm excited about with Matter that we'll see more of these things. Because now that you just have to develop for one protocol, it's going to be a lot easier for startups and inventors to kind of come up with cool ideas for the smart home. And, you know, there's obviously there's some fun stuff. Like I actually think some of the new hubs we're going to get a kind of fun. Like Samsung came out with the Smart Things Hub, which was a shocker because they had stopped

making Smart Things Hub's years ago. But it's three and four in one device. It's also a wireless charger. It's also a FindMy or Samsung's thing finder, whatever their name is for FindMai. So it has, you know, multifunction. And that's something we saw a trend of. There were four or five new devices that were announced as matter controllers. It's because I kind of haven't broken out of that mindset that hubs need to happen.

But now they're like, oh, but hubs can't just be hubs. Yes. So that's the thing. Hubs no longer are just going to be hubs on their own. They're going to be in your TV. They're going to be in your Wi-Fi router. They're going to be in your wireless charger. They're going to be in your temperature sensor.

Will they be in your car? I don't know, Andy. What do you think? They've been trying to stick smartphone operability in cars for years now with like, I would argue, less success than they've had in the home. It's all basically about, right, like controlling your car from your home, but not vice versa, I think. And I think maybe they're starting to pick up a little bit on doing home stuff from your car,

but there is a sense that like, oh, you're in your home. You've got a, you know, Tesla sitting out in the driveway. Maybe you should get the battery started on that car. It'd be nice to be able to do it from your bedroom as opposed to, you know, while you're sitting freezing your buns off in the car itself. But you're dealing with all these companies that have all, you know, that everyone wants to, you know, lock everyone in their various, you know, walled gardens. and I think they haven't quite figured out how to move forward from that.

Well, that's what they need then. Matter is all about breaking down the walled gardens. And the CSA, which is the Connectivity Standards Alliance, who promotes and runs Matter, has said that they are very much looking at bringing matter to other parts of the connected world, including cars. They need to get the home sorted out first, but hopefully they'll move in, you know,

and that's the natural next step would be automotive because there's so much connection between, the home and the car, and in particular, because one of the things that matter, hopefully, will really help kickstart is home energy management. It should make it a lot easier for apps and infrastructure for energy to sort of talk to each other and gain data to be able to understand energy usage. And obviously cars and EVs are kind of key to that when it comes to home energy management. So I can definitely see some integration that's kind of going to come along in that space. to make it easier from an energy standpoint,

and then that could also make it easier from a user sort of interface standpoint. I mean, I actually did see, I did a demo with Apple CarPlay in the Amazon booth where I could talk to both Alexa and Siri at the same time in one device. Oh, that must have been a fascinating conversation. It was very cute because it was the way Amazon was going,

look, you would ask Siri for these things, And then these things you would ask Amazon for. I'm like, but I could ask Siri for all those things too, you know. Don't really need to. Don't really need Alexa. But their point was if I like to use Siri and my husband likes to use the Amazon assistant, you know, you can do it all in one device. But you could go back.

And I said, but can I talk to them both at the same time? Because, you know, that sounds like fun. And they're like, yeah. So that was kind of interesting. Chris, how angry do you think Sonos is that? these car companies and stuff are getting to like proper voice integration when Sonos is like struggled with it for five years. I think they're mostly mostly happy with being in the home. They've had some car partnerships. I think they did one last year pretty recently. So I think it's more

of like a, hey, we're here and just have like some some kind of Sonos branding in the car. But I think on the home, on the whole, they're very happy to just, you know, focus on your home, home theater and maybe headphones down the line and who knows what else. But I think cars are like a secondary thing for them. That's way back in the back. They're like, it's in the rear of your mirror for them. I'm so sorry. Neely somewhere groaning.

Like, Sonos isn't part of matter, right? Because it doesn't have the audio integration yet. So they are member of the CSA, if I remember correctly. But from the conversations that we had in Amsterdam, which is where they had a matter kickoff event last year, they're sort of just there for the view at the moment. You know, just kind of looking around, seeing what's going on. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's true of a lot of the sort of speaker manufacturers outside of the smart speaker voice assistant manufacturers. Because for them, especially for Sonos, who already has their sort of home audio, multi-room audio pretty nailed down, there isn't really a much benefit that they can see at the moment. Right now, speakers are not part of any Matter spec. So I know one of the questions people kept asking me was like, oh, now can I add my Google Nest Hub to my Apple Home Kit? And, you know, that stuff isn't going to work yet. But I think in the future, they are trying to move that way. I think there's resistance, though, from, because the way matter works is they create Tiger teams,

where they get all the people from each group together who are, you know, so like, so no, and Bose and name me some speaker companies, Chris. JBL. JBL, sure. We'll get together in a room and talk about how they want matter to work with their speakers. And then they go to the CSA. And they don't. Right.

And that's thing. They don't do that. So that hasn't happened yet from what I've heard. So it would need some consumer pressure, I think, to move it along. All right. Well, we're going to take a break. And when we're back, Chris is going to tell us all about the TVs that truly sucked at CES. I'm so sorry. I will not stop. Stay tuned. We'll be back.

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That's Grammarly.com. And we're back. Chris, I know this was like, this was such a big CES show. Jim was having an awesome time seeing everything. And TVs were kind of like a little quiet this year. There wasn't as much big stuff happening in that space. Yeah, it was pretty low key. I think we finally got over that hump of like two years ago where like all these HDMI 2.1 features like 4K 120, VRR. Those are finally fairly widespread across all TVs right now. So if you spend like $700 or $800 on a TV, you're going to have those features now. That really wasn't the case necessarily two years ago or even last year in some cases. So I think that's finally settled. And this year we saw like a focus on brightness, especially with OLED. Those are getting brighter and trying to close the gap with mini LEDs. So both Samsung and L. said they have the brightest OLEDs yet they've ever made. They're trying to close that gap with many LEDs from TCL and Hysens and I just get the best of both worlds.

But on the whole, it was like software. They're saying, oh, we can, you know, pick out the subject in scenes now and give them more depth and make them feel more lifelike. There were quite a few tricks using AI. What does that mean? Right. Yeah. Just making things feel more lifelike. That's one of those things I always hear.

I don't know. I come from the, I want it to be exactly what the director intended, even though I don't have a 30,000 reference monitor. Right. And they always say, well, you can turn all these AI features off if you want. But why put them in there and to begin with? Jen, Andy, do you guys use the AI features on your TV? Oh, hell no. I don't know if mine has an AI feature.

I don't know if mine does honestly either. I assumed you were talking about motion smoothing, right? That's what we're talking about? No, I'm kidding. No. But motion smooth, like, I just, like, Chris, why do they keep putting all of these crappy things that we don't actually want on our TVs on to our TVs? And then you always get at least one person who's like, well, actually, I like the motion smoothing. It makes the ball look fast.

And like, that person's dumb. There are sickos out there who love motion smoothing, but I think, but I think all TVs are really pretty good now. So, like, manufacturers are trying to come up with ways to differentiate and, like, get you to upgrade after five or six years or however long people keep. TVs nowadays. So it's all software, software, software, and like very gradual picture refinements too. So that was the case this year, but it was nice. We saw a lot of very nice TVs and quite a few gimmicky TVs as well. We should talk about the gimmicky TV because this was one of my favorite things to come out of CES. And I think the worst part was I was reading your story earlier. And I was like, wait, I almost want to buy this TV. What was it called? It was called like, it was used to

Just a vacuum, but I cannot remember the name of the TV now. Yeah, it's a startup called Displace. I think this is their first time at CS. I haven't seen them before. But I saw earlier in the show, there were some tweets about it, and I was like, oh, this is going to be the thing that everybody kind of like, oh, gets excited about it is some kind of silly gimmick. So it costs $3,000. It's a 55-inch 4K OLED TV that is totally wireless. And so there are four batteries that you can hot swap around and charge and keep it running at all times.

There's a base station where you plug on all your stuff. Same sort of thing as the LG wireless thing that we talked about last week. But this one is totally wireless. Even the power is handled by batteries. And it lasts. So if you watch TV for six hours a day, then it'll last a month. And you can watch for 7.5 days straight through. And I've seen already on Twitter people are like,

those batteries are nowhere near big enough to have that kind of a charge. But there's a key thing about the batteries. Yeah, because it sucks itself off. on to the wall, right? Yeah, so there's a vacuum suction system. So you hold the TV against the wall, and after a few seconds, it's like wears up, you can hear it. And then it just kind of like sticks to the wall and you just kind of back away. And it's on there.

You can like pull at it and tug pretty hard and it stays on there. But that is also battery powered. So in the event that all the batteries run out, your $3,000 TV will just fall to the floor. That's where we're at with the CS gimmicks. I'm all for the wireless stuff, though. Ultimately, you know, I don't think, well, one day we will have no wires on our home whatsoever. Anyway, you know, our lighting doesn't need wires. You know, things just don't need wires.

We have wireless power. I mean, that's another thing we saw the wireless power, which I know has been around. They've been promising for years, but it seems like it's getting closer. They'll get there one day. Right, yeah, patience, y'all. Just don't force the hand. You've got both LG and this company doing it this year, and it's like, you know, Wi-Fi's not there yet.

Do you think, like, next year, displace in partnership with the guys who've been doing the wireless power for years, trying to keep that TV up on the wall? But just, did they explain what they expected to happen if the batteries ran out? Like, were they like, oh, no, people will always remove their TV with not in use and put it in the closet? I mean, they're hot swappable, so I guess the idea is you'll always be, like, popping one or two in at a time and switching them out. And who wants to maintain that schedule, you know? That's so much work. It's like having to remember that. And there's like a base station that charges all the batteries.

But it's just like more and more anxiety that like isn't even there right now. Who wants like battery charge status for your TV? It's like range anxiety for your EV. Right. It's the same exact thing but for TVs now. Suction anxiety. Yes. We have to pause a minute for that one.

I'm so worried that my TV isn't sucking well enough. How do you go to bed at night? Like, oh, no, I can't, like, I would wake up every 30 minutes being like, is my TV still on my wall? I could just take it off the wall. Honey, did you take it down? I didn't take it down. Maybe we just need to position, like, a bunch of pillows under the TV so that it can fall gracefully, some sort of net. I'm just thinking of, like, the person who has this and then also has all the IKEA blinds,

and then they just have another room for all of the battery packs. They have to keep constantly charged. So they're super smart of the future home works. Yeah. So it's kind of say. I think they know it's a concept thing. They're only going to sell 100 of them. So they're not saying, oh, this is going to be like a mainstream TV.

But it got a lot of buzz on the show floor and was very CES. That TV without the suction, that's like a $1,000 TV, right? Right. Yeah, it's just your standard, like, LG display, OLED panel, probably not even, $55, $700 or so. Can you vacuum with it? It doesn't have the vacuums. Okay. Well, it's even if it's sucking. I just don't know if you can suck other things. So we saw, you saw that TV. Moving on, we saw that TV.

But you also saw like a lot of, I feel like we saw a lot of light stuff happening behind the TVs. I know we talked about Govi earlier, but there was a couple of other people doing that, that Phillips Hugh. What if we have lights behind the TVs? That's a big theme this year. I think there were like six maybe announcements around TV, audio, gaming syncing. So yeah, the Govi, sinkbox, Nanoleef had one, which used a camera. And then there was one from Twinkley, which is an Italian company. And that's an app-based one, which is similar to the Phillips Hugh app-based one. But Twinklies cost zero dollars, whereas Phillips Hughes costs

$130. But, you know, they only work with their own light systems. So Phillips-Hugh has a lot more options when it comes to immersive lighting. And then I think there were a couple others, and there are some that already exist. So now it seems like everyone thinks that everyone really wants flashing lights when they're watching TV. Chris, I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, this whole market is so fascinating to me.

Yeah. I mean, I've done it once and I liked, like I tested one box, and it was kind of fun for some movies, but I probably only turned it on once or twice after, you know, doing the testing because, you know, you don't want to watch the nightly news and see, like, black and red sort of flashing in the background. It's really quite specific for certain entertainment. And then obviously gamers. I think gamers are really the market, no?

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't really know anybody who, like, has these lights in their home. Oh, I definitely do. Certain people definitely do. Like, they're, like, I know a ton of people who don't. So one out of four super nerds on this call has it. That is a small percentage of the wider population.

The problem I have, though, is, you. You can't sync it. Like, I have a frame TV. So it doesn't really go with the whole lifestyle TV trend. There's definitely two diverging things here. So we got the frame because I love the idea of it not looking like a TV. But then I can't fit my LED light strips behind it because it's on the wall and it's like this thin. So, yeah, I mean, you can do it with other lights.

But it seems more suited to gaming monitors, honestly, than to TVs. I know Thomas Ricker tested it out, tested out the Govi one. and he really liked that, the older Govie one. Now this is a new version, I think. But it's definitely a trend, syncing with your content and audio. It's not just, so it's visual and audio. And the key difference here between, say, like, what you can do with Phillips Hugh MusicSync in the app

and doing this on the TV for all of these products is that it uses software to go across multiple lights. So, like, you can buy a light strip with a microphone and just sync that light strip to the beat if you want, one little light strip. But this way you can go across the entire ecosystem so you can have your whole house flashing in the beat with the beat, which I might have to do for Halloween next year.

That would be fun. It's the worst thing in the world. I've done it. And then it's just like, I just realize I'm too old. I was like, if I was like 18, 19 in a dorm room, it is the coolest thing in the world. I feel like so awesome. But I am about to hit 40.

I am so, like, no, I want my house to look like a house, not the inside of my computer. Right, not a disco party. Yeah. But this, I was going back to, like, this was how Phillips Hughes started, right? Like, it was originally, they had these lights on the back of Phillips TVs, like 10, 15 years ago, and they realized there was no market for it and nobody bought them. And they got, like, or a few people, you know, a quarter of the nerdiest of the nerds bought it. And nobody else. And then it went away.

And so I'm like, is it coming back just because it's easier? Just because more companies have figured out the secret sauce that Phillips had all those years ago. Like, why is it back again? I think the less you need hubs and like all these accessories, like that makes it more enticing. Like if you don't have like hook up, hook up like 10 things to make it work up and sync up. It's like the easier it gets, the more temptingness for everybody, I think. That's fair. That's fair.

You can actually, you don't have to put your camera, like pacing at your TV all the time. making him just natively out of the back of the TV. Well, what kind of, so you saw, I know, some of the other things you were kind of excited about, the CES was we saw Roku announce their own TV sets, which I was less enthusiastic, but you seemed pretty enthusiastic about. So I'm willing to fight with you on the Verge cast now, if you want, Chris. I didn't even bother going and looking at their smart home stuff. They had all their smart home stuff out there.

I was like, yeah. So I'll fight with you, Alex. Thank you. We're here to gang up on Chris. you have to side with Chris, okay? That's fine with me. So I think it's not so much a case about, like, the actual TVs themselves. They're going to be fine, decent TVs, but like more so Roku making its own TVs, quote

unquote, like we don't know who's making these. We thought it might be T's Della High Sense, and apparently it's not. So it could be like a Foxcon situation or who knows. But the fact that they're like coming in now, like apparently it wasn't enough to sell, they said like one out of every three TV sold in the U.S. As is runs Roku software. And so now they want to like come in with their own TVs on top of all that. And they're going to be priced.

super aggressively. And yeah, it's going to be pretty fascinating to see, like, just like what happens throughout the industry? Because, like, what are TCL and Hysen's going to do now? Like, are they going just still make Roku TVs at, like, very similar price points? Or, like, will they go all in Google TV now? Because Google making its own TV seems pretty unlikely, but I don't want to speak too soon. Who knows? Like Apple making their own car. Because, like, Roku, the reason that we know who TCL and Hysens are, the reason they've come as close as they have been to being, like, name brands that we all recognize in our homes is because of Roku. Right? These were two smaller Chinese TV manufacturers that nobody had heard of. And they were like, okay, our first inroads are going to be on Roku. Is there like, were you seeing like friction there between these companies now that Roku's like, we're doing it on our own.

That's a bit too early to say, I think. But like all the TVs that were announced by TCL, this, the CS, those are only Google TVs and also high since the same thing. So all they showed off were Google TVs. Now they come in waves. Like sometimes TCL would do like a phase of like Google TVs and then comes spring. they'll do Roku. So it's like too early to say like what the ripple effect's going to be. They know obviously that Roku is coming into like their space. And we'll see like how what the TVs are. I'm very curious about because like T-Cell and Hicense make very phenomenal TVs for like $800,000, $1,000. So I'm not sure that Roku can really like top them just coming out of the gate.

But we'll see what they can manage. And I think like I'm not sure how it's going to matter. Jesus. I'm not sure how it's going to matter if they don't actually like beat. TCL or Icense, like, based on, you know, just like a sheer picture quality because they're going to be in, like, every Walmart and Target and be priced super aggressively. So I think they'll make a dent. That was like a big part of their selling point with those original TVs, right? Like, they were like, okay, you don't know who TCL is. You don't know who Hysens is. But we,

you know, Roku, and we worked with them to make sure the picture quality is good. So it's kind of like they're doing that again, but they're like, but we don't want to even partner with these brands. We just want our name on it. Don't care about who it is. Right. Yeah. So they're going to be out this brand. They're coming like a ton of sizes. they start very cheap. And I think even like the 75-inch model is like well under $1,000. So. Oh, wow. Yeah.

So they're coming full of force. Are you going to be just surrounded by TVs when I get to the office, softly weeping under your Roku pile? That is very likely come April. It's always that time of year where they start coming in. So we shall see how they end up. But it. Plus like Roku now they can like have a full stack.

They can like do all this advertising stuff. They already do a ton of advertising. That's like huge part of their business. and now they have the full stack of hardware and software. And so that just gives them even more power and control. Was there anything besides Roku that really just got you excited as far as TVs go, despite it being kind of a, all right, year for TVs? Probably the Samsung QD OLED.

I think it's kind of super fascinating how, like, within two years, Samsung displays kind of come into the OLED market and, like, B and LG display at it, the QD OLEDs. Really? Yeah. So, like, it's more vivid color, and the color brightness is better. So it gets brighter and it looks better than LDs do. Samsung TV still don't do Adobe Vision, which is like they're one major come on already. Let's just do this.

I mean, they've got Atmos but no vision. So it's like they're just saving that for one year where there's nothing else to announce. And they're like, okay, now I have double vision as well. So they said the QD OOD can reach up to 2,000 nits of brightness, which is like right up there with the very brightest many LADs. And like granted, that's just like one small part of the screen that's going to hit 2,000 nits. but that's like way better than where things were even like two or three years ago. So then like a very short time period, yeah, these OLEDs have gotten very, very good. So that's the TV I'm probably most excited about.

So for years now, it's always been like somebody says, I want to buy a TV and I don't want it to be like a TCL or a high sense. I want to spend some money. You just say go get an LG OLED. Are you now saying maybe go look at those Samsungs? Yeah, the Samsung was great. Last year, too. That was their first model last year. It was the S95B.

And then Sony had their like top top. top top of the one that used the same panel as Samsung, but Sony has better processing and like better sound and speakers and stuff like that. So if you want like the absolute best TV, Sony is usually the way to go. We didn't see them at CES this year. They didn't do TVs. They had a car, which we'll cover shortly, but they kind of punted other TVs to later on. So we'll see what's coming from them pretty soon. All right. Well, speaking of, we're going to zoom to another break. And then when we're back, we're going to talk with Alex.

When is it enough? We're going to talk with handy about cars. Just don't say start your engines. Start your... No. No. I can't do it now. You ruined it.

All right. Time for a pit stop. Yes. We're going to take a pit stop and when we're back, we're going to talk about cars. See you soon. Support for this show comes from whatnot. Whether you're selling online or out of a storefront, you already know the challenge. You're simply hoping for people to find your listing,

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There's a reason it's trusted by so many of the Fortune 500. And that's because it's a platform built by developers for developers. MongoDB, it's a great freaking database. Start building at MongoDB.com slash build. And we're back, Andy. Hello. How's the drive? How are the cars? I thought this year was surprisingly great for cars.

Even though we had the big goofy concepts? Even that. Because who doesn't love a big goofy concept? I mean, everyone loves, you know, a bunch of like, you know, a pastiche of, like, ridiculous ideas mashed together in the shape of a car. That's, that's what's fun about CES is just looking at goofy concepts and imagining, you know, what is possibly something that could end up in an actual future production vehicle. And I think this year was, was a good year in terms of that. And we also got some actual cars, some real life. cars that we'll see in real life in the future, alongside the color-changing cars and the weirder stuff. So for that reason, I thought it was a good balance between, like, actual, legitimate, like, this is going to be something that you could potentially end up buying in the future. And also just like, here's a little bit of a, you know, a whimsical bit of imagination for you to take with you. How about a color-changing car? That would be great, right? Are you saying we're not going to get a color-changing car? Because that's what I want.

I love that idea. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it seems very unlikely that you can actually have a production car that's covered in e-ink. It just seems, I know, Alex, you tell me, as soon as there's a hail storm, like, what's going to happen to that car? Your car will look so sick and so busted. I'm like, no, no, no, this is the aesthetic. If that's what people want, if they're willing to take that risk in order to have a car

that has 32 different color options as the BMW I Vision D purports to have. And yeah, why not? Who knows? I loved, it felt very back to the future like, though, right? Didn't they change car colors in that? Or in some, like, sci-fi movies. I love concepts like this that feel like we could actually get something we've seen in the movies. Yeah.

It felt very, like, old school CES. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, people remembered what this show is truly about. And it's about presenting ridiculous concepts. that probably don't have much chance of ever being a reality, but are still super fun to look at and think about and talk about and share videos about. And, you know, it makes us feel good and warm and fuzzy about the future. Well, we talked a bunch last week about the aphila.

Ah, the afila. The afila. But what were the cars that, like, what were the concepts that you were actually excited about? Was it the afila? Yeah, I think legitimately the afila. is an interesting concept. Well, first of all, you've got Sony, who has not previously ever made a car,

deciding suddenly that they are going to make a car with Honda, which is a company that has a ton of experience making cars. And it seems kind of like a natural pairing between the two of them to work together on a production vehicle. So that's exciting. This is a new brand, a new name. It's ridiculous sounding, but then again, you know, all car companies

tend to be named after like white dudes. So why not just have like a completely? completely made-up name to name a car company after, too? Like, it's that, it's not too outlandish to think that we're just, like, making names up. I mean, that's, that is what branding is all about, is just inventing a new word by sticking a vowel at the, the front and end of the word feel. Sure, why not? So, I think that that's exciting.

I think Sony has a lot to offer the car space, especially when it comes to things like computers, electronics, entertainment, sound system, you know, all. infotainment, all of the things that CES is typically about, you know, sort of like the future of the in-car experience in a lot of ways. And I think Sony has a lot to bring to that conversation, which I think is really interesting. And they've set a production schedule for themselves. They say in three years, we'll have this car. It's going to be available. You'll be able to drive it. You'll be able to buy it. But is that real? I mean, like, maybe. It's, it is like, you know, they're not just like some fly-by-night company that can, like, make up deadlines for themselves, too.

They're not displaced, yeah. Yeah, and Sony is a gigantic, you know, global conglomerate that has shareholders and expectations. And, like, you know, and they're not run by a guy named Elon Musk. So they're, you know, they potentially have like a little bit more of, I think, a little bit of credibility, I think, when it comes to say the stuff. I mean, like, Chris, you tell me, you know, when Sony obviously didn't have any TVs this year, but when they come out and say that that we're going to do something, and they tend to follow up on that for the most part, right? Yeah. And, you know, the PS5 is now apparently, like, readily available to anyone who wants to buy it. So it stands to reason that they'll have a car eventually, too.

So I think that that's kind of excited, you know, like a brand new brand, a new company that has not previously been in the space. Now, there's a lot of, I think, challenges along the way. I think we've seen companies come out that are non-car companies that say that they want to make cars and has not worked out. So wait for them. I mean, Dyson is like the one that sort of springs to mind immediately when they said, that they were going to make an electric car. And everyone was like, oh, sure, yeah, you made a really cool vacuum. Why wouldn't you be able to make a car?

And so just because you make an amazing TV or a console or something like that does not necessarily translate into the business of making a cool car. But, again, Honda, you know, Honda does make cars. So. Well, because they're working with an actual car company, it makes it like 80% more likely to happen. I agree. Well, yeah, it gives it some cachet. And Honda's not going to, like, you know, stake its name on a project that I think ends up flopping, you know, with like, you know, necessarily as well.

I think that they have a stake in this to make sure that it happens. And Honda is a company that's also working with one of the biggest car companies in the world, GM on electric car technology. So there's like a lot of through lines here that could be really interesting, I think, depending on how this exactly shakes out. So I think that that's exciting. Could it also just end up being like that very first iTunes phone? It was like Sony Erickson or something. It was just like, and we had iTunes on it. Bam.

Oh, yes, the rocker. I don't know. I think like if you went up to somebody who's like a PS5, but you can drive it. Like that's like people would be very excited for something like that. So I think that there, you know, there's maybe like a little bit more like kind of like as a foundation potentially. But then again, the car itself was a little silly looking. It was not like the most like design-wise. It was not the most like a resting vehicle that I'd ever seen.

It looked like a mashup of like a portion 9-11 and a lucid air. So it was not, they were not breaking new ground design-wise. But at the same time, maybe that's good. Maybe they're sitting their sights, you know, somewhere more realistic. They're not trying to reinvent the wheel necessarily. And I think it's there's a strong possibility. And if I turned out to be wrong, then you can bring this podcast back and shove it in my face and show me how stupid I sounded. We're just going to play clips of it if you're wrong.

To humiliate me. I would welcome that. Well, what other concepts did you see that you were, like, kind of excited about? Or it doesn't have to be concepts. It can also be real cars that we know will actually exist next year. Yeah. So, like, Volkswagen came with a real car. They have the ID7, which is a family-sized sedan and their next global EV.

after the ID4, which has been on sale for a number of years. And I think it's kind of cool that it's a sedan. I mean, that's not something that most carmakers are proposing these days, especially American carmakers. And we saw that with RAM at the show, and they had their RAM-1500 revolution, which was a big-ass truck. And that makes sense because Americans love their big-ass trucks.

But here comes the Germans, and they're like, oh, but what about the sedan, yeah? And I think that that's kind of cool, because I think, like, they can't, all be giant humongous trucks with batteries as heavy as a Honda accord, because then you're kind of negating the whole idea of electrification. The industry is shifting to electric. If they're all trucks, we're just going to end up in the same place that we are today with a lot of environmental disaster, basically, because of the mining that needs to take place,

the effect that these heavy vehicles have on our roads today. There's way too heavy to really, Our road infrastructure already sucks at supporting RAM-1500s in their ilk. And I think the fact that a battery-powered RAM-1500 would be exponentially heavier than the gas-powered one is just going to, you're going to see sinkholes across the nation as a potential outgrowth of that. So I thought it was cool that Volkswagen was like, hey, what about a sedan? I don't know. We'll see how well that sells in America.

But I think, like, you need to have all the foreign factors. If we're going to be like an electric car world now with no more gas, that's going to take a couple decades to do. And they can all be trucks and SUVs. There needs to be a mix of form factors. And the sedan is obviously, I think, a very important one to keep in the mix. And so I'm glad to see Volkswagen's keeping the torch lit for the sedan, the family sedan. Yeah, well, honestly, the EVs are never going to take off until you get the soccer mom into the EV. And right now there is not a decent vehicle for a family.

That's right. I have, I don't, and you know, really, we're the ones on the road all the time. Yeah, no, I know. We need a minivan, too. There needs to be electric Honda Odyssey's, electric Chrysla Pacificas, you know, Kia Sorrentos. There needs to be all the beaters and the jalopies and the junkers. We need all of those to be electric because that's the only way we're going to get, like, carbon out of the situation altogether. And obviously, we need bikes and scooters and, like, smaller form factor vehicles as well.

And there were a lot of those at CS, and there were some cool ones to see, I think, Cake, which is a... Great band. A great 90s band, but also a great Swedish electric motorbike company. They released at the show a pretty cool-looking e-bike that's for the U.S. for the first time. Really great-looking. The design is awesome. I know Thomas Ricker has tested out one of their vehicles in the past. He's really excited about this new one that they've got coming out.

So more smaller form. Sedans, obviously, but also more smaller form, weird smart cars, neighborhood electric vehicles. There were a lot of those at the show, too. And I think that that's, you know, like a neighborhood full of electric golf carts that can go 30 miles per hour would be a really interesting concept that you'll never see. You know, that's actually my neighborhood. Well, do you live in the villages in Florida? Is that?

I was like, that's my mom's neighborhood currently. But we need to get our seniors into electric golf carts. And so those are a good way to do it. Those were like the main concept, I would say. The BMW color-changing car, the Volkswagen sedan, the RAM truck. And there were some other ones as well. But I thought most of the show was focused on what's going on inside the car. Screen stuff, tech stuff.

We were seeing, like, Chrysler and reimagining sort of the cockpit. BMW was like, hey, how about no screens? But your windshield is an AR screen. And everyone went, no, that's a bad idea. Bring the pot. Because we need to see through the windshield so that we don't run over people. And if I'm getting notifications about all of my, I'm getting slack notifications on my windshield while I'm driving,

that doesn't seem safe. But it's an interesting concept. And that's what CS is all about. It's interesting concepts. Well, this is, we've still got the Detroit Auto Show coming up pretty quickly, right? And that's where we'll see the more actual. Actually, no, they've moved the date of that. It used to be right after CES, which was always fun for all of the auto reporters and their deteriorating health.

But now they've moved it to the summer. I think that Detroit realized they can't compete anymore since CES has become such a car show over the years that they just threw their hands up and said, screw it. We're going to move the show to the summertime. So now it's Detroit in the summertime. And, you know, auto shows in general have like waned in relevancy over the last. last decade or so. But CS still stays as remained, I think, a pretty relevant auto show. And I don't think the pandemic has really had an effect in that respect. It's still, is still a pretty great car show. And I think it's going to remain a really important car show, I think, moving ahead.

Well, and they have tractors and boats and stuff then. Yeah. Yeah. All manners of moving vehicles. There were electric boats. There was tractors. Yeah. I mean, like, that's, you know, I thought it was a positive element to see that, you know, the electrification shift and also more AI-focused software applications were also making their way into, like, beyond, like, the consumer vehicle and into more industrial and commercial applications, which I think is really interesting, especially for autonomy, because that's like, when you think about, like, a tractor, you don't need a guy sitting in a tractor driving that back and forth across the field. A robot could very easily handle that type of situation. So that's a really interesting.

interesting application. I think a lot more realistic application than your robotaxies and your Tesla full self-drivings and things like that is something where you've got like a contained, you know, sort of like a very well-defined operational domain, like a field, like a soybean field or a cornfield. Like that makes a whole lot more sense to have an autonomous driving bit of software doing that as opposed to your Tesla Model 3. Well, there was, I will say, I was watching NBC this weekend after the show, and there was a whole segment about autonomous electric race cars. Oh, yeah. Did you check out the autonomous race cars?

I have not personally checked it out, but I've been pitched by the indie autonomous racing organization many times. And they seem like it's really, I've loved to check that out someday. They're an exciting organization. They, yeah, all the vehicles are driverless. They operate obviously on a racetrack, and it's all about speed, which is not something that you typically see AV developers focused on. They're all focused on safety and following the rules

and making sure that we don't run over pedestrians. This is just go for it, knock everything over it. Yeah. And the racing guys are like, let's just make this go as fast as we possibly can, which is kind of exciting. And I think you're starting to see like motorsports are like really kind of like gaining prominence in the US,

especially with like the popularity of F1. And then you've also got obviously Formula E, which is I think gaining a lot of popularity as well. So this could be like a next, a possible next step beyond Formula E. Autonomous Racing Vehicles, I think is a very cool concept. And it'd be, maybe like, you know, they'll get picked up for like a Netflix series or something someday. But like, would you really watch two computers just race each other? Isn't that just like watching the bots and Mario Kart race each other?

People watch the robots fight, right? Isn't there like bot wars? Yeah, I wasn't it, like, robot wars. Robot wars. I watch my vacuums fight each other. It's so much fun. People love that stuff. So the idea, because there is like, there's still a human element.

Like somebody had to develop the software and the vehicle. There are people behind this robot that are racing on the track. And while there may not be a guy in the car itself, like there is still some sort of human element that was, you know, and human ingenuity and, you know, all the effort and work that went into making those cars drive themselves that I think you can still celebrate and feel excited for. Well, you almost got me excited about autonomous racing. So well done. Hell yeah. All right, well, you guys have got to go recover from an absolutely exhausting but very awesome CES. I'm going to like you guys go. This Friday, we are going to be back with another episode of the Vergecast. And next Wednesday, we will be back with even more CES coverage. This time we're going to be joined by Monica and Victoria talking all the wearables and all of the laptops and tablets and stuff is going to be a lot of fun. But for now, you can find everybody on Twitter. Andy is, at Andy J. Hawk.

Gin is at JP2E. And Chris Welch is at Chris Welch. I'm at Alex H. Cranes. Stay classy. Have fun. See you on Friday. Peace.