The coronavirus put a halt on, well, pretty much everything. In some sectors, however, life goes on. It’s 2021, and the home consumer tech industry is still booming. With everyone stuck in the house more than ever, people are very interested in the ways in which technology can better their lives.
It’s tough to say, just what we have in store for us this year. The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is every January in Las Vegas, but even that is going virtual in 21. It will be interesting to see just what goodies these companies have in store for us, but for now, here’s what to look out for.
-The COVID vaccine
Forget politics for a second. We can argue about vaccines maybe being mandatory or if they have side effects that we don’t know of yet another time. What is amazing is that we have people in America being vaccinated before the year’s end in the first place.
The COVID-19 vaccine getting produced and distributed this quickly is an awe inspiring bit of science that should be respected. Never in human history has anything like this been developed in such a small amount of time.
– Google Meet
That dreaded phrase “the new normal” has been permanently ingrained in our collective heads, hasn’t it? We learned in 2020 that video conferencing might be here to stay, Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view.
I am thinking that the days of work conferences with excessive per diems and the corporate credit cards are going to scale back heavily. My day job through college was as a bartender at a big casino on the Vegas strip, and believe me when I say that our biggest, most busy days were days where we had an in house convention. People in town for work related reasons could DRINK.
Party time is over, though.
With Google getting involved in the video conferencing game, companies will have that much less incentive for companies to continue to spend like they used to. Your boss learned the beauty of videoconferencing, and don’t expect them to change their mind anytime soon.
– Virtual Reality
This is my hail mary shot. You heard it here first. We are due for a breakthrough in home entertainment technology, and I think it’s time that a company out there takes another shot. Movie theaters are closed and seemingly going away for good and people are reluctant to leave their homes, vaccine or not, so people will be a lot more open minded to VR in the house than ever before.
Think about it. 4K televisions are just becoming affordable to the average Joe’s, mainly because now 8K is on the horizon. Sooner or later, we are going to run out of K’s. Our K tolerance levels are getting up there. The idea of wearing a silly gadget on your head turned people off before, but now, not so much. It’s been around for a while now, but the software wasn’t exactly there for it yet. What we have had at our disposal up to now has been a bit ahead of it’s time.
The Oculus Quest 2 is already here, and relatively affordable at less than $500. With people dying for new experiences they can experience safely, look for game and TV developers to embrace VR more and push more content down that road.
It might seem to you that we haven’t seen that killer, must have thing in a while. The PlayStation 5 is out, but in my most humble of opinions, it’s not worth getting until this Christmas when more games are made for it. Also, we still don’t have those flying cars I was promised when I was a kid. Tune back in here after CES to see if we finally get them.
Anything I miss? Let me know!
