Curiosities at CES 2023: smart toilet blocks, photo robots, exoskeletons and universal translators from Star Trek

U-Scan: Smarter Klo-Sensor Source: PC Games Hardware U-Scan: Smarter Klostein scans your urine

A classic as a curiosity at the CES is about the smart toilet. Except that the whole toilet no longer has to be smart here, only the toilet block that is hung in the bowl and analyzes the liquid excretions. Withings introduced the U-Scan – yes, U stands for urine. It’s a device shaped like a hockey puck that sits in the toilet bowl and analyzes urine and sends the results to a smartphone app via Bluetooth. The beam flows over the U-Scan, into a small hole in the device; a tiny pump then pushes a sample into the test chamber, where a cartridge looks at what’s in the urine. Why do you want to know that? For example, to track the menstrual cycle, to monitor more general health information such as fluid balance or vitamin C levels – or simply to conduct studies as a researcher.

Timekettle: Almost a universal translator like from Star Trek Source: PC Games Hardware Timekettle: Not quite the universal translator from Star Trek

Less spectacular, but still cool, simply because it reminded us of the universal translator from Star Trek, are the Timekettle earbuds. The Chinese want to enable real-time translation in a direct conversation. Of course, it doesn’t work quite as smoothly as in Star Trek. The earbuds still have a few seconds of delay in the ear, so they are not yet a simultaneous interpreter, but apart from this bumpiness they work quite reliably.

Displace TV: Wireless OLED that sticks to the wall Source: PC Games Hardware Displace TV: Wireless TV that sticks to the wall

The exact opposite, so really cool, but actually not really useful, is the first wireless television, Displace. How does that work without a cable? Quite simply with batteries that last up to six hours and a processor box that streams the image onto the OLED panel. But what’s more: the display is light enough to be carried by one person, can be easily glued to a glass pane and, thanks to a webcam, can be controlled by gestures. Is that cool? Definitive. Do you need that? Definitely not. Especially not as a simple gas bill payer, since such a display costs around 3,000 US dollars.

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Ixana Wi-R: Efficient Bluetooth with a touch Source: PC Games Hardware Ixana Wi-R: Efficient Bluetooth with a touch

In Corona times everything should be contactless, that’s understood. But those days are almost over. “Hold my beer,” replies the Ixana company and develops Wi-R (however you pronounce it). This is a kind of Bluetooth that works by touch. Who needs range anyway? Okay, a bit more serious again: Why would you want that when Bluetooth already exists? The killer feature here is power efficiency. The touch connection is said to be up to a hundred times more economical for the devices than Bluetooth or WLAN. This saves the battery of wearables of all kinds, such as smartwatches or earbuds.

Rollkers: treadmills for the sole of the shoe Source: PC Games Hardware Rollkers: treadmills for the sole of the shoe

Also, the 80’s called and they want their roller skates back, please. The French “Rollkers” are electric roller skates. With the thick shoe sole you should be able to run twice as fast, but only four kilometers before the battery dies. It could also take some effort to dare to go public with it.

Meropy: agricultural photo robot Source: PC Games Hardware Meropy: agricultural photo robot

Of course we stop with such a strange device. This rolling robot called Sentiv from the French Forma Meropy fits into the category “looks spectacular, but it’s not”. Because it’s just a rolling camera that reports to the farmer’s cell phone whether a field plant has had a lice on its leaf. Certainly useful for agriculture, but nothing for the home garden.

German Bionic: An exoskeleton as a lifting aid Source: PC Games Hardware German Bionic: An exoskeleton as a lifting aid

We still have one: exoskeletons are not really new and also far from the Ironman suit, but they do look interesting. Unfortunately we were not allowed to wear one ourselves, although we would have really liked to try one out. The company German Bionic from Augsburg develops and manufactures these lifting aids, which are to be used in logistics, for example. Lower back supports lifting up to 30kg.

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How did you find our trip away from CPU, GPU and AMD, Intel, Nvidia? Are you interested in more such curious trade fair gadgets? What topics would you like from the electronics trade fair CES? Let us know because there are still a few events ahead of us. You are welcome to comment on the curious technology in the forum.