The Coresight Research team is attending CES 2019 in Las Vegas this week. Many of the companies that we saw on day one are collaborating with leading retailers, brands and technology companies. Others are disrupting their respective markets with innovative products and services. Snips offers voice assistant technology as a white-labelled solution for enterprise device manufactures. The French startup software developer kit (SDK) offers its service to any company wanting to run voice-activated search with an added layer privacy for customers. While Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant run in the cloud, they may be more susceptible to hacks — or just data mining. Snips runs locally on the device — not in the cloud — giving greater user privacy. The company said one survey found 66% of respondents would be apprehensive about using a voice assistant because of concerns over privacy. To date, Snips has raised €22 million in funding from investors such as Korelya Capital, BPI France and Eniac Ventures. Dreamlight provides a “smart” sleep mask, a complex sleep-aid system that uses lighting and sound to help people sleep better. The mask includes embedded speakers to deliver natural sound to stimulate a relaxing and natural environment. Internal orange pulsing lights promote mindfulness via deep breathing practices. The Bluetooth-connected Dreamlight App analyzes sleep patterns to collect sleeping data. The company offers three products: Dreamlight Ease ($49), Dreamlight Heat ($99) and Dreamlight Pro ($299). Startup exhibitors offering sleep technology grew 20% from CES 2018, according to Robin Raskin, founder of technology event provider Living in Digital Times. [caption id="attachment_58895" align="aligncenter" width="326"] Dreamlight’s Smart Sleep Mask
Source: dreamlight.tech[/caption] Liven is a rewards-based payment platform from Australia that connects users, merchants and charities in a seamless blockchain payment system. Liven allows users to discover new experiences, pay bills and earn rewards to use within Liven’s network or to share with a charity. FoldiMate is a robotic laundry folding machine. Users feed clothes into the top of the machine and FoldiMate dispenses the folded articles below. The FoldiMate will be available at the end of 2019 and retail for $980. [caption id="attachment_58898" align="aligncenter" width="202"] FoldiMate
Source: Coresight Research[/caption] Lululab showed offLumini, an artificial intelligence skincare assistant that analyzes facial skin to make personalized skincare product recommendations. Lumini examines facial skin based on six categories: wrinkles, pores, acne, sebum, melasma and redness. The mobile app features a chatbot that logs and analyzes users’ data to provide more comprehensive skin analysis and recommendations. Beauty industry players that adopt Lumini can use consumer data for targeted marketing and product development.