The Coresight Research team attended CES Asia 2019 (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show Asia) in Shanghai, June 11-13. In this report, we feature three key insights from the event. 1. IoT-Powered Smart Retail Combined with Big Data Will Bring New Vitality to The Industry Smart retail – which integrates AI, IoT and big data – was a major theme. Suning, one of the largest retailers in China with over 1,600 stores in 700 cities and an e-commerce platform, exhibited several smart retail store components. Its smart camera uses facial recognition and big data to make personalized product recommendations. [caption id="attachment_91255" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Smart camera selects products to recommend
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]   The smart store is equipped with sensors to detect and record the entire process of how a consumer interacts with the store – such as moving around, the time spent, the attention level on a product, the touch or selection process. This data can then be used to create a “commodity heatmap” to improve product display. The data on the shelf is sent to a “smart inventory” platform to manage inventory and enhance efficiency. [caption id="attachment_91256" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Smart shelf with various sensors
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]   The “smart shelf” offers benefits such as weighing fruits and vegetables automatically when consumers pick them up, giving consumers information about the product’s source, and offering product recommendations based on touch preference analysis. [caption id="attachment_91257" align="aligncenter" width="324"] A Smart shelf can automatically weigh the products taken out of the shelf and display product and price information
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]   [caption id="attachment_91258" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Sensors detect which products are touched to give customers product information and a smart recommendation based on preference
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]   2. The Next Generation of Intelligent Home Ecosystems Is Around the Corner We saw more companies displaying smart home products than last year – and not only technology companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi. We saw traditional electrical appliance and electronics companies such as Skyworth, Midea, and Haier launch central smart home systems, which variously integrate voice control, touch control, facial recognition, motion sensors, environment detection (such as wind, air, sunlight, smoke), usage and habit data analysis, and personalized smart displays. [caption id="attachment_91259" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Skyworth Intelligent Home System; Haier Smart Home
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]   Casarte, Haier’s high-end brand, developed its own AI voice control central system called Xiao You that can connect all the electrical appliances and electronics in the kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom. Its new model of smart refrigerator uses AI technology and can give users information about food and health. It can detect what’s in the fridge and suggest a weekly menu, taking into consideration nutrition and calorie intake. If the user wishes to know how to cook a dish, just say “Xiao You, give me recipe” and the fridge will show recipes. If any ingredients are missing, the user can say “Xiao You, I want to buy…” to show e-commerce platforms selling the product – to be delivered within one hour. An electronic scale linked to the fridge records each family member’s weight and BMI so the AI system can provide personalized food recommendations. [caption id="attachment_91260" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Casarte AI smart refrigerator
Source: Coresight Research [/caption] 3. Applications that Bridge Real-Life Scenarios are Capturing Attention iFLYTEK’s AI Recorder was one winner of this year’s CES Asia Innovation Honorees Award. The product uses AI technology to process audio recordings into transcripts with an accuracy rate of 98%. It can deliver the transcripts of a one-hour recording within five minutes, with a search and edit function. This tool can dramatically simplify a process that used to be done manually, a much more time-consuming approach. The iFLYTEK AI Recorder makes it faster and easier to transcribe meeting minutes, media interviews, study and training notes. Another iFLYTEK product we saw was the AI Translation Machine, which the company claimed was able to pass the intermediate level of the official China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters (CATTI). The handheld translation device can manage 58 languages plus a dozen Chinese dialects and has database of specialized vocabulary. [caption id="attachment_91261" align="aligncenter" width="700"] AI Recorder
Source: Coresight Research [/caption]   [caption id="attachment_91262" align="aligncenter" width="700"] AI Translator Source: Coresight Research/iFLYTEK [/caption]   Other innovative devices we saw include Wacom’s simultaneous notebook display, Skyworth’s mini-size giant-screen projector P2 (100’’) and Huawei’s 5G high-speed router. [caption id="attachment_91263" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Wacom/ Skyworth /Huawei 5G
Source: Coresight Research/PConline.com [/caption]