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The latest news and reviews of kitchen tech, home theater and smart home devices.

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I want everything in Kakao's smart home collection
I don't use Kakao Talk (mostly because none of my friends do), but I've always appreciated the messaging app's sticker-based characters -- known collectively as Kakao Friends -- which include a mischievous peach, a Jay-Z-loving secret agent and a pickled radish that walks around in a rabbit costume. Kakao and Nendo, a design studio with offices in Tokyo and Milan, have used these lovable creatures as inspiration for a family of adorable smart home devices. There are seven pieces in total: a thermometer, humidifier, air purifier, scale, lamp, alarm and baby camera. In short, I want all of them. Immediately.
Vote for the Best of CES 2020 People's Choice Awards!
We've announced our Best of CES finalists, so now it's time for you to cast your vote for your favorite gadget at CES 2020! Just head over here (or below) to pick your three favorite items from our pool of finalists. You have until 6 PM ET tomorrow, January 9th, to get your votes in.
Echelon made a more-affordable smart rowing machine
If you've heard of Echelon, it's probably in the context of its cheaper-than-Peloton connected spin bikes. The company also makes smart exercise mirrors, and here at CES, it was showing off its forthcoming Echelon Row rowing machine. After spending a few minutes on the show floor rowing, I think I might be smitten with this quite affordable, pretty clever machine, which is a world away from what I'm currently using.
This in-home water recycler is meant to help the planet, and your wallet
With concerns over water scarcity on the rise, companies are increasingly looking to give people ways to reduce their water consumption. For Hydraloop founder and CEO Arthur Valkieser, the answer was clear: Build a device that gives homeowners and building developers a way to sterilize and reuse their water.
Julia is a smart kitchen gadget destined for the shopping channel
If there's one thing that CookingPal's Julia is going to have to deal with, it's the implication that it's destined for a life as a shopping-channel mainstay. You can imagine the smooth-voiced announcer listing all of the things it can do: It weighs! It chops! It mixes! It kneads! It cooks, but that's not all, because it can even cook your food! It's a stand mixer that you could conceivably use to make an entire meal, and it'll even wash itself up... all for three easy payments.
The Arcadeo Gaming chair has 10 customizable zones of haptic feedback
Arcadeo isn't messing around with its first connected-gaming chair. The Arcadeo Gaming chair has 10 haptic transducers positioned along its spine and seat, plus a 16-core multiprocessor that takes multichannel audio and turns it into physical vibrations. The chair connects to a PC, TV or console via USB-C: Since the sensors are tuned to read audio, it works with any platform and any game (or Netflix binge session) instantly.
Yale Home aims to fend off porch pirates with its smart delivery box
Whenever you're not home and a delivery driver leaves a package on your porch, there's a chance that an opportunistic thief will amble by and snag the box. In a bid to help protect your stuff, Yale Home is releasing a smart delivery box.
I remotely patrolled a house with a $10,000 security drone
Imagine you're filthy rich and have a five-bedroom home in the English countryside. How do you keep your house secure? An enormous gate with a fancy intercom system? Multiple cameras and smart locks? That's so old hat. Sunflower Labs, a company led by former Evernote executive Alex Pachikov, is pitching something far more extravagant: a residential security drone that, once deployed, can check out disturbances autonomously.
August's smaller smart lock doesn't need a Bluetooth bridge
August's Smart Lock Pro is one of the more highly praised smart locks. In a moment of doubt, users can double check that they've secured their doors via an app, rather than returning home. Plus, it's easier to unlock the door remotely than it is to share keys with friends, dog walkers and the like.
iRobot's IFTTT support lets smart home devices talk to your Roomba
iRobot's IFTTT support is about to become much more useful if you're a fan of smart home tech. The company has formed a partnership with IFTTT that will let you integrate smart home gadgets directly inside iRobot's Home App, effectively giving those devices control over your Roomba vacuum or Braava mop. To start, iRobot's IFTTT page already has five recipes for common devices and apps.
Citizen's Alexa smart speaker is like a Sonos One with an analog clock
Following Citizen's release of the Alexa-powered clock last year, the company is releasing yet more timepieces with a technology bent. At CES 2020, Citizen showed off not just a multipurpose olfactory alarm clock, but a new Alexa-powered smart speaker as well.
Smart garbage disposal composts your food scraps instead of grinding them up
Composting is a fantastic way that regular folks can help both combat climate change and reduce the pressure on local landfills, but the practice is fraught with having to wrangle slimy, smelly, and easily spillable food scraps. But with the Sepura mounted under your kitchen sink, all you have to do is scrape your plate.
Don't ask Samsung to say more about its rolling robot assistant
When we rolled (Ed note: groan) into Samsung's CES keynote address last night, we expected lots of platitudes about the power of AI and the experiences made possible by 5G. We got those, but also something else: Ballie, an adorable, rolling smart home control center that comes off like a mix between BB-8 and Haro from the Gundam series. Needless to say, I fell pretty hard for it.
I skipped breakfast, but Samsung had a robot make me a salad
Normally when I miss breakfast, it's by choice. Today, it was because I was in a rush to get to Samsung's booth on the CES show floor and see if I could get any face time with the company's cute new rolling robot. (That, uh, didn't go so great.) The trip was still well worth it, though, because I got to eat a tofu salad partially made by a pair of robotic arms slung from the bottom of some kitchen cabinets.
Go Dogo trains your pup while you're away
A bored dog is an unhappy dog. So if you have to commute to the office during the work week, keep your pup entertained and mentally engaged with Go Dogo.
Samsung’s Galaxy Home Mini is finally landing in early 2020
Samsung says it will release its first Bixby-powered smartspeaker sometime later this year. Hyunsuk Kim, CEO of the company's consumer electronics division, told Bloomberg the Galaxy Home Mini will be available to buy in "early 2020."
The KamiBaby monitor makes it easier to see your child's breathing
This small, cone-shaped speaker topped with a camera lens wrapped in bunny ears. It's adorable, but hiding behind the facade of cuteness is some serious AI computing.
Google adds sticky notes and speed dial contacts to its smart displays
It's the dawn of a new decade, and our devices are amazingly intelligent and powerful. Google's Assistant is continuing to get smarter and more helpful with a set of new features being announced here at CES 2020. There are updates for different devices, which makes things a little confusing to keep track of, but let's start with the easiest to visualize. You'll soon be able to get the Assistant to add sticky notes to your smart display, so you cam let the cat sitter know, for example, if you've already fed it.
Google makes it easier to ask the Assistant about your data privacy
2019 was not a great year for smart speaker security. Amazon, Apple and Google were all caught saving user recordings from assistant interactions without explicit permission, leading all three giants to refine their policies on that front. Google even went as far as to promise never to store recordings, adding ways for users to prevent misuse. As it continued to roll out new features for the Assistant here at CES 2020, Google also added methods to make it easier to access your privacy settings.
Philips adds more garden lights to its Hue lineup
There's a bunch of new goodies for anyone looking to clad the outside of their home in Philips' Hue lights, so get excited. Unless, of course, you happened to spot these new entries when they were leaked last month, in which case you've been excited for the better part of a month already.

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