The Best Smart Home Devices From CES 2022

It may have been a smaller CES this year due to the ongoing and evolving coronavirus pandemic, but that didn’t stop developers from going big on innovation. The annual affair is a smorgasbord of high-tech gadgetry—some conceptual, some on their way to market—and 2022 was no different.

And as happens each year at the convention, smart-home products take centre stage, giving us a glimpse of what the home of the future may look like.

Here are the in-home, intelligent devices that caught our eye.

Kohler PerfectFill Bathtubs

_Kohler

Once merely a CES concept, Kohler is finally ready to roll out its PerfectFill bathtubs. As you might have guessed these are tubs built to alleviate the worst part of the bathing experience—waiting for the basin to fill at the appropriate temperature. PerfectFill technology allows users to dictate—yes, you can speak the command to your tub—your ideal temperature and depth, and the Kohler bath will begin filling, alerting you when the ideal settings have been achieved. For owners who feel awkward talking to appliances, the same features, and additional monitoring, will be available via the Kohler app. Getting out of bed on a cold morning may be more acceptable if you knew you could slip right into a warm bath.

Kohler PerfectFill Bathtubs will be available in May 2022 and costs $3742

Toucan Video Conference System HD

_Toucan

As the ongoing pandemic has made work from home the new norm, video conferencing has grown in importance, and for workers who are looking—finally—for a decent setup, Toucan is coming to the rescue. The Toucan Video Conference System HD is a desktop smart speaker with removable 1080P camera attachment that allows users to present themselves in professional quality video and audio, wherever they may have set up to work in the home that day. The Toucan System features four built-in echo-cancelling microphones and a camera with an 89-degree field of view, allowing for multiple, socially distanced, parties to be captured on screen. Toucan makes connecting to your computer a breeze, with a simple plug-and-play interface, as well as the option to connect the speaker via Bluetooth, or the removable camera via USB, if you’d like to try out some different angles. And while Toucan can’t do anything about the piles of laundry or screaming children in your background, it can ensure that they are faithfully rendered to all your co-workers.

Pricing and release date for the Toucan Video Conference System HD have yet to be announced.

Samsung Freestyle

_Samsung

Of course, it’s not just the realm of work that has been transformed by the pandemic—trying to find some downtime while surrounded by family every moment of the day can also be a tricky affair. Fortunately, Samsung is bringing forth the ever-flexible Freestyle. Looking something like a stage lamp, the Freestyle is an ultraportable mini projector that lets you turn any surface into a TV screen. The Freestyle’s cradle stand provides 180-degrees of rotation (yes, you can turn your ceiling into a TV), while the device itself can project anywhere from 30 to 100 inches at 550 lumens, complete with 360-degree sound. Best of all, however, the Freestyle is outfitted with Samsung’s smart TV platform, allowing users to stream Netflix (or dozens of other services) directly from the device. And at under two pounds, you won’t find the Freestyle cumbersome to lug around your home to whatever space is empty at that given moment.

The Samsung Freestyle is currently available for pre-order for $1246

Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni

_Evovacs

CES is never complete without a new crop of floor-cleaning robots—and this year’s class shows promise, particularly the Deebot X1 Omni from Evovacs. Not only does the Deebot compose intricate and detailed maps of your home’s floor plan, but you can tell it to focus on those especially tricky spots, like the hard-to-reach patch under the couch or a stretch beneath the cabinets and refrigerator. In addition to the standard robo-vac features we’ve become accustomed to (voice command, on-demand cleaning, app control, scheduling), the Deebot features one potent new addition—it vacuums and mops. And it takes care of itself. When the Deebot is full of dust and debris it will take itself back to its charging station and unload. When it’s finished mopping, it will return to the dock and have its mop heads washed and its dirty water replaced with clean water (thanks to built-in water reservoirs) so it’s ready to go for the next job.

The Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni will be available in March 2022 for $2145

For some vacationers, the ideal getaway involves $1,200 ozone therapy or an $1,800 early-detection cancer test.

Call it the longevity vacation. People who are fixated on optimising their personal health are pursuing travel activities that they hope will help them stay healthier for longer. It is part of a broader interest in longevity that often extends beyond traditional medicine . These costly trips and treatments are rising in popularity as money pours into the global wellness travel market.

At high-end resorts, guests can now find biological age testing, poolside vitamin IV drips, and stem-cell therapy. Prices can range from hundreds of dollars for shots and drips to tens of thousands for more invasive procedures, which go well beyond standard wellness offerings like yoga, massages or facials.

Some longevity-inspired trips focus on treatments, while others focus more on social and lifestyle changes. This includes programs that promise to teach travellers the secrets of centenarians .

Mark Blaskovich, 66 years old, spent $4,500 on a five-night trip last year centred on lessons from the world’s “Blue Zones,” places including Sardinia, Italy, and Okinawa, Japan, where a high number of people live for at least 100 years. Blaskovich says he wanted to get on a healthier path as he started to feel the effects of ageing.

He chose a retreat at Modern Elder Academy in Mexico, where he attended workshops detailing the power of supportive relationships, embracing a plant-based diet and incorporating natural movement into his daily life.

“I’ve been interested in longevity and trying to figure out how to live longer and live healthier,” says Blaskovich.

Vitamins and ozone

When Christy Menzies noticed nurses behind a curtained-off area at the Four Seasons Resort Maui in Hawaii on a family vacation in 2022, she assumed it might be Covid-19 testing. They were actually injecting guests with vitamin B12.

Menzies, 40, who runs a travel agency, escaped to the longevity clinic between trips to the beach, pool and kids’ club, where she reclined in a leather chair, and received a 30-minute vitamin IV infusion.

“You’re making investments in your wellness, your health, your body,” says Menzies, who adds that she felt more energised afterward.

The resort has been expanding its offerings since opening a longevity centre in 2021. A multi-day treatment package including ozone therapy, stem-cell therapy and a “fountain of youth” infusion, costs $44,000. Roughly half a dozen guests have shelled out for that package since it made its debut last year, according to Pat Makozak, the resort’s senior spa director. Guests can also opt for an early-detection cancer blood test for $1,800.

The ozone therapy, which involves withdrawing blood, dissolving ozone gas into it, and reintroducing it into the body through an IV, is particularly popular, says Makozak. The procedure is typically administered by a registered nurse, takes upward of an hour and costs $1,200.

Longevity vacationers are helping to fuel the global wellness tourism market, which is expected to surpass $1 trillion in 2024, up from $439 billion in 2012, according to the nonprofit Global Wellness Institute. About 13% of U.S. travellers took part in spa or wellness activities while traveling in the past 12 months, according to a 2023 survey from market-research group Phocuswright.

Canyon Ranch, which has multiple wellness resorts across the country, earlier this year introduced a five-night “Longevity Life” program, starting at $6,750, that includes health-span coaching, bone-density scans and longevity-focused sessions on spirituality and nutrition.

The idea is that people will return for an evaluation regularly to monitor progress, says Mark Kovacs, the vice president of health and performance.

What doctors say

Doctors preach caution, noting many of these treatments are unlikely to have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, producing a placebo effect at best and carrying the potential for harm at worst. Procedures that involve puncturing the skin, such as ozone therapy or an IV drip, risk possible infection, contamination and drug interactions.

“Right now there isn’t a single proven treatment that would prolong the life of someone who’s already healthy,” says Dr. Mark Loafman, a family-medicine doctor in Chicago. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Some studies on certain noninvasive wellness treatments, like saunas or cold plunges , do suggest they may help people feel less stressed, or provide some temporary pain relief or sleep improvement.

Linda True, a policy analyst in San Francisco, spent a day at RAKxa, a wellness retreat on a visit to family in Thailand in February. True, 46, declined the more medical-sounding offerings, like an IV drip, and opted for a traditional style of Thai massage that involved fire and is touted as a “detoxification therapy.”

“People want to spend money on things that they feel might be doing good,” says Dr. Tamsin Lewis, medical adviser at RoseBar Longevity at Six Senses Ibiza, a longevity club that opened last year, whose menu includes offerings such as cryotherapy, infrared sauna and a “Longevity Boost” IV.

RoseBar says there is good evidence that reducing stress contributes to longevity, and Lewis says she doesn’t offer false promises about treatments’ efficacy . Kovacs says Canyon Ranch uses the latest science and personal data to help make evidence-based recommendations.

Jaclyn Sienna India owns a membership-based, ultra luxury travel company that serves people whose net worth exceeds $100 million, many of whom give priority to longevity, she says. She has planned trips for clients to Blue Zones, where there are a large number of centenarians. On one in February, her company arranged a $250,000 weeklong stay for a family of three to Okinawa that included daily meditation, therapeutic massages and cooking classes, she says.

India says keeping up with a longevity-focused lifestyle requires more than one treatment and is cost-prohibitive for most people.

Doctors say travellers may be more likely to glean health benefits from focusing on a common vacation goal : just relaxing.

Dr. Karen Studer, a physician and assistant professor of preventive medicine at Loma Linda University Health says lowering your stress levels is linked to myriad short- and long-term health benefits.

“It may be what you’re getting from these expensive treatments is just a natural effect of going on vacation, decreasing stress, eating better and exercising more.”