It's time for the usual January consumer tech bonanza.
The Consumer Electronics Show — or CES — in Las Vegas, which runs from Jan. 8-11 this year, is arguably where you’ll see the most news coverage and the most impressive demos of the year. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association, CES showcases more than 4,500 exhibiting companies—and many of them are from Massachusetts.
Last year, a total of 54 Boston-area companies took part in the event. This year, the number has added a single unit to 55; a few companies are coming back, such as Formlabs, Vesper and Markforged; some others are going for the first time, such as 3-D printing startup Makerfleet.
Here are the Boston-area companies at CES 2019 that caught our attention:
Formlabs
The Boston-based maker of desktop 3D printing systems will have a visual presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, including live demos from industry creature designers showcasing their workflow from scan-to-sculpt-to-print. Attendees can stop by for a demo that would include scanning their face and showing how they can be "creature-ized" (see photo). In October, the company announced a partnership with Gillette, which includes an e-commerce customized razor concept for consumers called ‘Razor Maker.’ Booth info.
MakerFleet
Based at the Harvard Innovation Labs, MakerFleet is the eight-month-old Cambridge startup that dreams of connecting the manufacturing world to the Internet through a worldwide network of 3D printing ‘farms.’ The dream belongs to Harnek Gulati, a recent computer science graduate from Harvard who previously raised over $75,000 on Kickstarter to build wood watches. In a recent video story for BostInno, Gulati explained that there are no boundaries to the things that MakerFleet customers can 3-D print, from mugs to bones (of all sizes) for students and expositions. Booth info.
Markforged
In September last year, 3-D printing rivals Markforged and Desktop Metal settled a dispute about trade secrets. Filed in March, Desktop Metal’s lawsuit accused a former intern of pilfering secrets about the company’s metal-printing technology and sharing them with Markforged, which responded with claims of its own against Desktop Metal. At CES last year, Markforged showcased the strength of metal additive manufacturing with daily demonstrations; two years ago, the company introduced its Metal X 3D printer. Booth info.
Orig3n
The local competitor of Californian personal genomics company 23andMe provides customers with a DNA analysis that is meant to help people make informed choices about their health. In October last year, Boston-based Orig3n announced a research collaboration agreement with Harvard University to develop cell therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Booth info.
Perceptive Automata
Perceptive Automata, a Somerville-based startup that builds software that teaches autonomous vehicles to watch humans as humans do, emerged out of stealth mode in July 2018 with a $3 million seed round from First Round Capital and Slow Ventures. The startup’s CTO Sam Anthony is a vision scientist who studies human predictive behavior. The technology benefits more than just self-driving cars and can be applied to robots, autonomous forklifts, low-flying drones; basically, any machine that interacts or is in the vicinity of humans. Booth info.
Pillo Health
Pillo Health is a Boston-based health care startup that provides an in-home digital care management platform. In December last year, the company launched a voice-activated interactive robot ("Pillo"). Equipped with facial recognition, the in-home device will help users take their medication on time, remind them of dosages and provide care plans. Booth info.
Woobo
In addition to Pillo, a robot that helps users take medications on time, there's another Boston-made robot exhibiting at CES this year: Woobo, a talking educational toy that looks like a talkative, furry round animal. Equipped with games and functionalities for children age four to nine, Woobo raised over $220K in a Kickstarter campaign launched in 2017. Booth info.
Vesper
Alexa Fund startup Vesper will showcase its "piezoelectric" MEMS microphones—dust-resistant mics built for voice-enabled connected devices like, of course, Amazon Echo's Alexa. At CES, Vesper will be explaining what makes smart speakers so smart, and showing how Vesper microphones work in smart home devices like a touch-free and voice-activated garbage can, smart doorbell, voice-activated TV remote, smart speakers, and more. Vesper has $46 million in funding behind them to date. Booth info.
