The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s that time of the year again…

The tech world floats through the holiday season and dives headfirst into the New Year with the biggest convention in the industry: the International Consumer Electronics Show.

It’s as much a spectacle as it is a business affair. Hands are shaken, business cards are swapped, drinks are poured, and corporate charge cards are swiped.

Every year, somebody hops up on his soapbox to announce that the Consumer Electronics Show, casually known as CES, is dead, and that it’s no longer relevant.

The people who make these claims are often former attendees who were somehow disappointed with the huge annual convention.

Maybe they didn’t make the business connections they wanted. Maybe it was too expensive to set up a booth. Maybe they found the whole idea of traveling into the middle of the desert to have meetings a bit inconvenient.

Based upon the size of the show, these things are statistically very likely to happen to a lot of people who represent a lot of important companies. It can’t be beneficial for everyone.

This will be my third consecutive year NOT attending the show, but I have no argument against it. I went for six years straight, and it just really takes a toll on your spirit (and your aching feet). It’s massive and overwhelming and can burn you out for a few weeks afterward.

Despite this, I think the whole thing is a net positive. It gives the tech industry a milestone against which everybody can measure their progress, it facilitates tons of new connections, and it lets us see broader trends collected in a single space.

Every year, people make predictions about the year’s trends, but the actual ones don’t become evident until after the show.

However, we can look at shifts in the makeup of attendees and exhibitors to gain some early insight into the state of the industry.

First Look at 2015

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) organizes CES, and it’s very forthcoming with information about trends.

It usually starts talking about exhibitors six to eight months in advance, so there really aren’t many surprises it can whip out.

1. Wearables — In June, the CEA announced the smartwatch marketplace will be twice as big as it was last year, netting a total of 2,000 square feet of floor space.

We’ve been watching the wearable tech space grow for the last three years, but it appears to finally have built up a head of steam. Since the CEA made this announcement, the industry has grown substantially.

Just yesterday, smartwatch company Pebble announced it has more than 5,000 apps for its sub-$100 device. This milestone is important for a few reasons. But first, how it got there…

Ninety-nine dollars is often referred to as the “magic price point” for new gadgets. This is the point where hesitant buyers see the device as affordable enough to be worth the risk. In September, Pebble dropped the price of its smartwatch, launched it broadly in big-box retail like Sam’s Club and Fry’s, and watched its adoption grow.

As the user base starts growing, app developers scramble to grab a part of the audience. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation that we see all the time in the tech world, and Pebble sped up the process by scattering the proverbial chicken feed of cheap tech.

2. Sports Tech — 2015 will be the first year that CES has a sports tech marketplace. The growth of this space is thanks in large part to the availability of cheap biometric sensors.

Companies have applied them to different pieces of sports equipment with a great effect. Athletes can train more efficiently, and — far more important — they can play more safely. In 2014, we looked at concussion-monitoring football helmets, impact-resistant batting helmets for baseball, and big data harvesting applications for sports managers.

This is changing the course of amateur and professional athletics, and 2015 is a turning point for the industry.

3. 3D Printing — Another realm we should all be familiar with is 3D printing, and it’s getting its own space for the second year at CES.

Like wearables, this space has doubled in size from 2014. With more than 30 companies showing off their products, the CEA has devoted a whopping 14,000 net square feet to 3D printing. Sales of desktop 3D printers are expected to reach 67,000 units by the end of this year.

You’d be smart to watch the Christmas sales data for 3D printers this year to see if expectations are met or not. Companies to watch are: 3D Systems, Autodesk, MakerBot, Stratasys, Materialise, and XYZ Printing.

4. Personal Privacy and Cybersecurity — 2015 is going to be the first year CES devotes floor space to the massively important cybersecurity sector.

We can’t go a single day in this industry without discovering another security breach or vulnerability, and the data security industry continues to grow.

I have long maintained that this side of the tech world cannot make money since there is no “cure” for technological vulnerabilities, but this year’s CES will show that it can support hundreds of robust companies. Vysk, Hyprkey, iWallet, Private Internet Access, and Silent Pocket are all major exhibitors in this new space.

Obviously, this is just a tiny taste of what we can expect from the International CES this year, and if you’re like me, you’re going to keep your ear to the ground for the next big opportunity to arise from it.

Happy Holidays!

Good Investing,

Tim Conneally

 @TimConneally on Twitter

For the last seven years, Tim Conneally has covered the world of mobile and wireless technology, enterprise software, network hardware, and next generation consumer technology. Tim has previously written for long-running software news outlet Betanews and for financial media powerhouse Forbes.