What happens in Vegas, shouldn’t stay in Vegas

Around the year and all over the globe, there are a lot of tech conventions and trade fairs that can make a geek jump around in glee like an 8-year-old kid in the proverbial candy-store. There’s MWC at Barcelona, IFA in Berlin, Computex in Taipei or the gaming nirvana, E3, in Los Angeles.

But only the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, manages to capture the attention of even those who are not geekily-aligned. And it’s got nothing to do with its venue, Las Vegas (well, almost nothing). The very fact that CES is the first major tech trade fair of the year, makes it so exciting – it sets the tone for the year. Right at the beginning of the New Year, we get a glimpse of what’s to come next. Sure, some of it may look right out of a sci-fi flick, but somehow, by the end of the year, it becomes reality.

2014 has been one awesome year for gadgets. But what does this New Year have in store for us? We’ll definitely get a good idea from what happens in CES.

We saw a lot of smartwatches as soon as 2014 kicked off, right from the Pebble Steel to Moto 360 to the Apple Watch. But this year, we expect some really cool smartwatches at CES – Android smartwatches, to be precise. And that’s because Google released Android Wear last year. While there have been early adopters, we reckon that smartwatches will be perfected over time, and this is just the beginning. A large number of devices might show up from Samsung, Lenovo, LG, Motorola and the whole gamut. Also, with Google’s new Fit app and Apple’s iOS 8 Health integration, new fitness trackers might give the much needed prod to some couch potatoes amongst us.

Apart from the gadgets worn on your wrist, we may be treated to some devices that we can wear on our faces too. Samsung displayed its Galaxy VR devices, made in collaboration with the big daddy of virtual reality, Oculus. We are expecting (more like hoping) that new VR devices, maybe more compact and practical, to show up at CES this year. And this may sound like a Christmas wishlist, but we would love to see more smart glasses in 2015.

IoT was the buzzword of last year, with connected televisions, air-conditioners and thermostats, refrigerators and the general appliances around the house. What if CES 2015 pushes the envelope a little further?

Picture this – your fitness tracker knows how much you’ve slept the night before, and ‘tells’ your coffee machine whether you need extremely strong coffee, or just decaf. Or, your cooking range tells your toothbrush what you’ve eaten, so you get instructions from your toothbrush about which areas need extra attention. Sceptics may shake their heads and give reproachful looks, but Internet of Everything is probably one of the biggest things to happen to humankind (maybe on a par with the invention of fire or the wheel).

If you thought that you had had enough of 4K TVs last year, you’re terribly mistaken. Despite the dearth of 4K content (and it’s growing at a painfully slow pace), Samsung and LG are at each other’s throat to dominate the UHD market. But the sad part is that these devices are still at the top of the price spectrum, and 4K is still out of reach for many. Still, we can expect a new line of 4K televisions from LG and a few other manufacturers.

While most smartphone makers have their own extravaganzas for launching their flagships, we can expect a lot of new mid-range smartphones and a few good tablets too. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 is the most talked about processor right now, and it’s a game changer.

The action camera and drone industry can also see a lot of new innovations, with the grapevine abuzz about a drone that GoPro is working on.

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