The future lives in 2019 – Part 2 #CES2019
January 7, 2019
The future lives in 2019 – a 19 part series to kick off the new year exploring products, technology, manufacturing, and how advancements that we may think of as futuristic actually live today in 2019. What are the trends? What are the new exciting products? How are they made? We will take a look at all of these from a market viewpoint and from a rapid manufacturing viewpoint.
For part 2 we take a look at three product markets that I personally like and three products from #CES2019 that match up with these markets. It is #CES2019 week so no time like the present to review what cool products will be debuting in Las Vegas.
As someone with a product development background, when I think of market areas that I really want to be a part of, fishing, golf, and babies come to mind. These markets are gold mines for selling product with people paying just about whatever cost you put on your product if your product connects with them and is deemed to be a solution product.
Golf – I am a golfer (average golfer) and I see how much money people will spend on the latest and greatest new item that will definitely turn them into Tiger overnight. No it won’t. Spend you money on lessons people 🙂 My advice aside I still want into the golf product world. The amount of money that people will spend on rubber band like products to help their golf swing is staggering. Now IoT is the big time in the golf world and IoT is crushing it by delivering the future today. So many small gadgets on offer for a captive audience that has a lot of disposable income (golf is not cheap). I will listen to anyone that has a golf product idea, from rubber bands to IoT.
Fishing – I fish (not really, a little bit), more like drink beer while a fishing rod is close by. But I have spent countless hours in outdoor stores reviewing potential market opportunities for fishing products. Plus countless weekends attempting to fish while partaking in a beverage. What have a learned? 1. The price for fishing gear is absolutely crazy and people will, and do, pay it all the time. 2. Fishing products that sell for $18 cost $0.50 to make. Those are the kind of margins that I like, and the kind of customer that I love so I want in. Problem is, I don’t really fish much so I am unlikely to cash in, but bravo to those making products in the fishing world.
Baby – I do have a baby (7 months) and can report back that the price for baby stuff is out of control. I don’t buy most of it but I do see parents who load up on useless baby stuff so for sure they will buy something innovative that is a solution product. The baby product market is lucrative and I want in. I mean, people spend $1000 on a stroller that is marginally better than the awesome FICO stroller that I bought for $225. So they will certainly buy any solution product that is priced $100 to $300. I downloaded a $25 baby white noise app at 3am when my daughter Maple was about 3 months old and I did not regret that impulse purchase at all, ever, because that investment solved a real world problem. That is the power of babies. If you can find a solution product that truly helps the baby and/or parents you will kill it in the market. If I am ever involved in bringing a new product to the market again it will probably be in the baby area.
So how does this tie into our theme of the The Future Lives In 2019? Below I have identified a fishing, golf, and baby product being showcased at #CES2019, that, if I had not found them by searching the #CES2019 website I would have thought that they did not exist. Maybe that is my product ignorance but all three product examples below resonated with me because in the past I had thought, I wish they had this…turns out they do 🙂
Golf – https://voicecaddie.com/product-category/play/voice-caddie/ – I have owned the distance scope that tells me how far out the green is. I have used my playing partner to tell me what distance his GPS golf watch is telling him…because I am too cheap to buy one. Now this company adds voice to existing GPS IoT golf ball location technology but what a game changer in my opinion. Adding the extra task of constantly looking at a wearable or pulling out some gadget scope is annoying and distracting when golfing. With the Voice Caddie my virtual caddie assistant just speaks the vital information to me? Yes please. Maybe speaking technology is not that futuristic, but bringing a feature set like this to the regular golfer at a reasonable price is a winner in my books. I just hope Sean Connery can be the digital voice of my virtual caddie 🙂
Fish – https://cyberfishing.com/ – Ok, so I am not a great fisherman by any stretch. Mainly because I get bored as their is not enough action in fishing. I know, I know, my failing, but that is how I feel about it. So this gadget, I put it on my fishing rod and it remembers where I caught a fish or got a strike? It remembers where the honey hole is? Sign me up. A great use of miniaturization technology as a consumer product. I think they will do well if price matches market expectations. I for one would find fishing more interesting if a gadget like this would help me bring some more action into the sport of fishing.
Baby – https://mikucare.com/pages/mikucare – Sign me up, this is a show stopper! Ok, so a lot of baby products are garbage. Overpriced pieces of plastic and if you shop around you will likely find a competitor product at a quarter of the price. Most are baby products that will marginally help you with your baby but not game changers. But this offer from Miku? Brilliant. This is not just a baby monitor. This is a parent anxiety relieving baby monitor. FACT, babies breathe weird. FACT, it is almost impossible to tell sometimes if a baby is breathing. FACT, SIDS is real and it is a real concern for any parent with a newborn baby (most SIDS is around breathing issues). FACT, I checked my daughters breathing about 1000 times in the first 5 months of her life often waking up several times in the middle off the night to do so. The Miku baby monitors camera is so good that it can detect the breath reps of a sleeping baby and in a world of IoT relays that information to your smartphone with warnings. Why did I not find this months ago? This is a solution product. This is the kind of baby product that I will spend whatever dollars on. Great example of using technology to solve a real world problem. I think they will do very well.
#CES2019 introduces so many great new products to the world each year. Miku is a real winner in my book. I wasn’t expecting to pick one, but this really does stand out in the crowd. #CES2019, where the future is introduced today.
Gary Moran