Hello, and welcome to day 2 of CES 2022 – well, it’s sort of day -1 if you’re looking at the official start time, but it’s also the second day of announcements if you’ve been covering it hard from the start like we have.
TechRadar would have been at the event in full force this year, but due to health concerns over omicron we’re covering it virtually – thankfully, the announcements have been rolling in thick and fast.
We’ve already delved into Samsung’s raft of announcements (the TVs being pretty special), LG’s updated OLED offerings are exciting and we’re gearing up for the new announcements from AMD and Nvidia today too.
This live blog will keep you up-to-date on all the big announcements, the quirky stuff that we only get to talk about during CES and everything inbetween – leave it open in a tab and it’ll auto-refresh with everything from CES 2022 for you to pick through.
CES 2022 keynotes: live coverage
- Jan 4, 7am PT: AMD CES 2022 Product Premiere event live blog: will Team Red strike back?
- Jan 4, 8AM PT: Nvidia CES 2022 Special Address live blog – is it time for the 3090 Ti?
- Jan 4, 10AM PT: Intel CES 2022 On the Road to the Future live blog – what does Team Blue have in store?
The big announcemennts
- Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is official, and now we know how much it’ll cost
- LG brings brighter OLED TVs and a sequel to the C1 and G1
- Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX is a solar cell-clad EV with huge range and an 8K display
- Samsung’s 2022 QLED TV lineup offers near pixel-perfect contrast
- Jabra Elite 4 active could be the best running earbuds ever
The quirky, fun stuff
- LG OLED TVs are about to get even better
- Toss the batteries! Samsung’s new remote uses Wi-Fi to charge
- Withings new Body Scan scale goes way beyond weight measurement
- This smart mirror will have all the answers, and your music, too
- Kura Gallium is perhaps the most promising AR headset yet
- LG is bringing flexible OLED to a wild, rotating easy chair
- Alienware made a concept gaming server to take on PC game streaming
Refresh
Good things come in threes for JBL, it seems, announcing three new mid-range true wireless earbuds at CES 2022.
The audiomaker has unveiled its latest in-ear offerings: the JBL Live Pro 2, JBL Live Free 2 and JBL Reflect Aero.
All three of the new models are feature-rich and budget-friendly, too, off of the back of a slew of another three new product announcements just a few months ago in September. That’s a LOT of new devices for one manufacturer in a short period of time, so let’s hope the sacrifice has not been the quality.
If you’re anything like me, no power on earth can move you to remember where your phone is.
This extends to 90% of things that I own, with the 10% representing body parts that are attached to my being and things that never leave the spot they live in.
So, Targus’ new Cypress Hero backpack with built-in Apple Find My tracker has got me hook, line and sinker. Announced yesterday, this sustainably-made product is loaded with handy storage and is compatible with Apple’s Find My feature. Plus, its onboard tracker shares the same technology as AirTags.
While Android and iPhone users alike can use the Targus app to track down the erroneous backpack, only iPhone users can use the Find my Phone feature from the backpack itself – which makes sense.
The in-built tracker has a year of battery life, and can be charged via. USB. Simple!
I really, really love dogs, so I was excited to see this product come up on my radar – the Labrador Systems assisted robot.
Sadly, it’s not the canine-inspired robo-dog friend I was hoping for, but it is an incredibly useful device, especially for individuals with chronic pain, injury or other health issues.
Labrador Systems has announced two robots, Caddie and Retriever, designed to help with heavy lifting around the house. Think robot vacuum crossed with a shelf, and you’re almost there – but probably still underestimating them. It can carry an impressive 11kg (25lbs), and travel between designated locations around the home, directed by either voice control or in-app and automatically steering around obstacles.
We’ve seen a lot of robot butlers, companions and other whacky devices over the years, but this simple take on a much-needed home aid seems to have more focus – and, we hope, will have more success.
Adding this one to my dream home design list – Masonite’s first residential smart door has hit the scene at CES 2022.
It’s got more than just Masonite’s legacy of door-y goodness, too – the M-Pwr Smart Door is a collaboration between Masonite, Ring, and Yale, kitted out with all the bells and whistles. From sensors and lights to a video doorbell and smart lock, this door can do everything except make you a cup of coffee in the morning. And, well, anything else you wouldn’t expect a smart door to do.
It’s funny, the things that, as a child, you think will excite you about being grown up. Late nights, unlimited sugar intake, watching TV all day.
I still do enjoy doing all of these things, mind you – but what really gets me excited these days are the boring adult things like remote controls.
Not just any remote controls – specifically, the freshly announced Samsung SolarCell remote.
Needing no charging base, the remote uses solar and RF energy harvesting to wirelessly charge, meaning even your end-table lamp can be a part of the process. Wild.
Ok, so let’s talk about the new JLab Go Air Tones, while we’ve got some time.
Announced yesterday, the new line of the JLab Go Air earbuds presents a new set of colors, with a focus on skin tones. Crickets.
Sure, the original colorways were erring more on the side of garish, but I just don’t get the point of wireless earbuds being that discrete.
Personally, this seems like more of a hindrance than anything. I don’t wear wireless earbuds because I don’t want people to know I’m wearing them – it’s just more convenient when I’m on the go. If anything, the bane of wearing them is people not noticing and trying to talk to me as I stare blankly into the void listening to emo music from my teenage years.
It’s a no from me, but at least it shows they listened to consumer feedback.
Uh-oh, looks like we might need a plumber – there’s a potential leak from CES 2022! The victim? Samsung’s QD-OLED TV.
It’s not completely out of the blue – we’ve heard rumblings of a QLED/OLED hybrid for some time, but has yet to be formally announced. So, when it turned up on the CES.tech website, honoring the unannounced television in the CES 2022 Innovation Awards, it looked like the Samsung TV has had a rude awakening from its development stage.
If you’re not checking out our live blogs for today’s keynotes, you really should be – there are some exciting developments already.
From AMD’s side, the host of the keynote and CEO Dr Lisa Su has teased “lots of new tech” from today’s presentation, and there are high hopes that the company will be turning up the heat even more in its fierce competition with Intel. Read more in our AMD live coverage.
Next up will be Nvidia, and we’ve got high hopes for an action-packed show featuring new hardware, GPU’s and DLSS technology – which could also mean we’ll catch a glimpse of upcoming games. Read more in our Nvidia live coverage.
Last in today’s keynotes, we have Intel, and it seems like it will have quite the show to follow up on. Thankfully, it’s coming in on a high, with the release of Alder Lake under its belt and a host of new developments to show off – including, we hope, some news on its graphics cards. Read more in our Intel live coverage.
Back to the more mainstream tech now: Garmin has unveiled the Vivomove Sport and the Garmin Venu 2 Plus.
The Vivomove Sport is a hybrid watch, with a hidden digital display behind the analog dial, with watch hands that skedaddle out of the way when you ened to see your metrics.
It’s very similar to the Vivomove 3 but a lot cheaper – it’s £159 in the UK, and we expect that to land at $159 in the US.
The Venu 2 Plus is just an upgraded Venu 2 (the name gives that away) and it’s adding in a microphone to get involved with voice assistants – I like the look of that display, and it lasts way longer than an Apple Watch. Want.
Oh man, can you get more CES than a smart dog collar? Smart tech: check. Pet stuff: check. Something like something else but for dogs? Check.
This is Invoxia’s attempt to bring Apple Watch-esque beauty to your pooch, with the ability to track both respiration and heart rate, using GPs and accelerometers as well as AI (another CES trend: check) to allow you to monitor the health of your pooch as well as making sure it doesn’t go missing.
- This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we’ve seen yet from CES 2022
What’s been the biggest story so far? Well, it’s been the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, the phone that’s attempting to breathe life into the S21 range 11 months after launch, and just a month before the likely launch of the Galaxy S22.
We’ve already had extensive time with it, and have published our full Galaxy S21 FE review – this is likely to be the biggest phone of the show by some distance, given it’s from a huge brand. But will the OnePlus 10 make an appearance too?
So, here we go again. This is the 13th time I’ve covered CES, and it never gets any easier. Mostly because of the annoucements while Samsung’s latest QLED display is important, and Jabra bringing out new earbuds is great, it’s the alternative stuff that people really want to read about.
In years gone by, it’s been an exoskeleton that every tech journalist ran to try out. It’s a robot that brought you toilet paper when you ran out. It’s a portable IMAX screen that obviously nobody is going to use, but just sounds cool.
So the stress begins again in 2022 – what’s going to be big in the world of quirk? Thankfully, that’s what this live blog is here to solve.
