Fitness is big business. Many people love to workout but don’t want to pay the high gym membership fees or commit to a year-long agreement. Fitness apps are practical solutions, and many are half the price or even free. All you need to do is to download them to your phone or your smart TV and get working out in the comfort of your home, whenever you want.
It sounds like the perfect solution, but with so many options out there, which are the best fitness apps, and what needs do they suit? We’ve compiled a list of the best fitness apps to make your decision easier.
1. Sweat
This app was designed by a fitness influencer, Kayla Itsines, and she also got some of her influencer friends to join in as well. This fitness app is available to download on to your Apple watch for convenience. You can start off with the four-week intro program as a perfect build-up to strength training. The program continues with developing your strength using dumbbells or weight machines. The app is like having your own personal trainer with you anytime it suits you.
Best for those who want:
To learn how to use the machines in a gym correctly
If you like working out at home but lack the motivation as there is no trainer there shouting out instructions, this is the app for you. This is an app with something for everyone; from yoga to hip-hop, there is something to suit your mood. The workouts are from 10 minutes to 90 minutes, so you can choose the workout you have time for. There are different trainers to help you through your workouts and a BOD community to share your views and ideas with. The app records your previous workouts, as well.
Peloton became famous for its indoor cycling classes, but this app isn’t just about cycling. The classes include yoga, indoor and outdoor running, meditation, boot-camp style classes, and evening walking. You can even choose your favorite artist to play your tunes while working out.
Because the workout is in video format, you can see your instructor doing the workout alongside you. Some of the workouts need simple equipment, like dumbbells or a yoga mat, but this is explained before the class. There are also programs with specific goals in mind. For example, if you want to run a marathon, there is a program for you.
Best for those who want:
Updates, new music, different programs
Clear instructions given by the trainers
A variety of workouts
Unlimited classes
Instructors moving through the exercises in real-time
Formally known as Yoga Glo, this is a great app for meditation, yoga, and Pilates. With over 3700 workouts led by over 50 different teachers, you are spoiled for choice. After you have signed up, the app suggests classes for you to try out, or you can search what you are looking for using the filters. You can choose the amount of time you have, and the system will find a class for you.
Best for those who want:
Meditation
Excellent choice of classes
Instructions that allow you to set the pace
A mixture of spiritual and physical health
Asked questions to direct you to the best workout for your needs
If you want cardio, then you will love this app as this fitness app from Nike lets you work out without needing a treadmill. The 160 different workouts of different lengths combine circuit training, weight training, and body-weight training. The idea behind them is to get your heart pumping. The best thing about the app is that it is free and has a very simple set up, so you can easily find a workout to suit your needs.
It also has workouts design by professional athletes, such as Serena Williams or Cristiano Ronaldo. The app lets you adapt the workouts to suit your ability, time, and also the goals you want to achieve.
This is one of the best fitness apps, both with individuals and companies who like to keep their employees fit and healthy. The app doesn’t just look at fitness but also how to manage weight, overcome injuries, and lower stress.
With yoga, fitness, and cooking advice, this app is an excellent choice if you want to look at every aspect of healthy living. There are different experts giving advice, and once you find one you like, you can follow their regular updates.
This app works around the barre classes. These classes are great if you are on the move in a hotel room with little space. Many of the online classes require no equipment. The classes concentrate on certain parts of the body, but there are many to pick and choose from depending on your goals for a given day.
The great thing is that there are new classes added every week! The idea behind the exercises is to sculpt your body while making you more flexible and improving your metabolism. The classes are streamed online, so you can watch them from wherever you are.
Best for those who want:
To take a class anywhere, anytime
An ability to freeze, fast forward, or rewind the videos
This app is like a virtual studio. With a new workout added every day, you can either do the workout or choose one from the library. You can sign up for classes with other virtual members as well if you prefer a group setting. The app has a wide range of classes, from kickboxing to yoga and many in between. Also, there are some great classes for pregnant and postnatal women. Most of the classes require no equipment and just a small space, leaving you with no excuses not to try it out.
Barre is a great strength training workout. The workouts range from 5 minutes to 60 minutes on this app, so you can easily fit them into your daily routine. The workouts are recorded live classes or used from previously released DVDs. Watching others do the workout is great motivation. There are elements of ballet, Pilates, and light training in each workout, meaning you’ll never get bored.
This is a great fitness app for people who want to follow a structured workout plan. There is a wide range of workout options and styles, and the app can build workout programs tailored to your fitness goals. You can stream the workouts from wherever you are. If you can’t work out with the live classes, then you can use the recorded version at your own convenient time.
This app has five different workout programs, the most popular being the extended barre. You can stream the workouts to your phone, tablet, or TV. The app also has wellness and nutritional programs that can be tailored to your individual needs. There are on-demand and live classes in many different styles, such as Pilates, stretching, running, and cardio, meaning there’s something for everyone. One exciting feature is that, during the class you can turn on your camera so the trainer can offer live advice to you. Talk about personalized!
Each signature class is 28 minutes long, and you can stream these classes live or on-demand. The app is inspired by colorful workouts from the ’80s. There are a series of classes offered at different times and are cardio-based with flexibility training. They are designed for a mixture of fitness abilities, so find the one that suits your level today.
Best for those who want:
Instructors who can see you live and give you encouragement
This is a yoga-based app with healthy lifestyle advice. With a variety of length options, from 5 minutes upwards, and the need for only a small space and a yoga mat, this app is great for people who have busy lives.
With the free version, you can get two new workouts every day, and with the paid version you can also get tips from the trainers and a customized workout plan. There are courses that you can sign up for, such as an 8-week fat burn, or you can choose individual classes based on your energy level for the day.
Whether you work out in order to reach your dream body or to ease your mind through meditation or yoga, there is a fitness app for everyone that you can practice in the comfort of your own home. Hopefully, one of our suggestions for best fitness apps will help you get started and achieve your fitness goals.
Stretching before and after a workout is a great way to promote blood flow to the muscles and increase flexibility.
Stretching may help you improve the range of motion of your joints, which in turn may help improve your athletic performance and decrease your risk of injury (1).
Although you may feel a slight burn in your muscles as you stretch them, you may not know exactly what muscles the stretch is actually affecting.
These 34 pictures made by Vicky Timon, a yoga expert and author of “Encyclopedia of Pilates Exercises,” and James Kilgallon, CSCS, creator of Mazio’s Body Maintenance Program will give you a better sense of how your body actually responds to your favourite stretches.
1. Camel Pose
Muscles emphasized: Rectus Abdominus and External Obliques.
This stretch requires a good base of flexibility. Simply sit on your heels with your hands behind you, and push your hips up and forward. Try to keep the pressure off your lumbar spine. If you have any neck pain or imapaied mobility in the neck, don’t drop your head back as you perform this stretch.
2. Wide Forward Fold
Muscles emphasized: adductors and hamstrings.
This little stretch will open your hips. Start by sitting on your bum, with your knees bent and your feet alined with your groin. Hold your back straight and breathe deeply. As your muscles begin to relax, straighten your legs out. Gently lower your chest and reach out for your feet. Pull the balls of your feet to stretch out your calf muscles. You can also use a belt if you can’t reach your feet.
3. Frog Pose
Muscles emphasized: adductors.
Stretch out your groin with this deep stretch. Start by resting your hands and knees on a yoga mat. Widen your knees until your feel resistance in your groin and upper thigh. Gently push your hips forward or backward to deepen the stretch
4. Wide Side Lunge Pose
Muscles emphasized: adductors.
Stand up with legs apart in a wide stance Bend forward and walk your right leg outward. Bend your right knee and point your left toes towards the ceiling. Keep your right foot firmly on the ground and rest your weight on your right hip.
5. Butterfly Stretch
Muscles emphasized: adductors.
Sit down comfortably and bring the soles of your feet together. Keep your back straight. Deepen your stretch by applying pressure on your knees with your hands or elbows. The closer you keep your feet to your groin, the more you’ll stretch your upper thigh muscles. Once you feel a good stretch, move your feet away from your hips and bend forward to try to touch the ground. This will loosen up your lower back muscles.
6. Forearm Extensor Stretch
Muscles emphasized: Forearm extensor.
Stand up with your shoulder and back straight. Roll your shoulders backwards to open up your chest. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Place your right hand over your left hand and apply pressure. Your left hand should bend at the wrist and you should feel pressure in your forearm. Your can also bend your wrist in the opposite direction for a fuller stretch.
7. Lateral Side Flexion of the Neck
Muscles emphasized: sternocleidomastoid “SCM”.
Keep your neck long and straight, slowly band your neck towards your left shoulder, but do not touch it. Try to make sure that your neck is straight and in line with your spine. You can take it a step further by sitting on a chair and holding on to the bottom of your seat
8. Neck Rotation Stretch
Muscles emphasized: sternocleidomastoid “SCM”.
Begin by slowly rotating your neck towards your left. Make sure to keep your chin up to engage the right muscles. You can also use your left arm to apply pressure on the right side of your chin.
9. Neck Extension Stretch
Muscles emphasized: sternocleidomastoid “SCM”.
Stand up straight and place your hands on your hips. Keep your back straight and gently tilt your head backwards. Keep your shoulders back to make sure your spine is in the right position.
10. Lateral Side Flexion of the Neck with Hand Assistance
Muscles emphasized: sternocleidomastoid “SCM” and upper trapezius.
This stretch is similar to the Lateral Side Flexion of the Neck (n°7). Keep your neck long and straight, slowly band your neck towards your left shoulder. Take your left hand and gently pull your head towards your left shoulder. You can deepen the stretch by sitting on a chair and holding onto the seat with your right arm.
11. Half Kneeling Quad / Hip Flexor Stretch
Muscles emphasized: psoas and quadriceps.
Start on the floor on your knees, standing tall. Bring your left hip forward, supporting yourself by placing your left foot in front of you. You should feel a stretch in your hip and you put you weight on your left foot. Place your right hand your right foot and bring it towards you. Hold the stretch for a minute if possible.
12. Forearm Extensor Stretch
Muscles emphasized: forearm extensor.
Stand up with your shoulder and back straight. Roll your shoulders backwards to open up your chest. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Place your right hand over your left hand and apply pressure. Your left hand should be rbent at the wrist and you should feel pressure in your forearm. Your can also bring your arms above your head while holding the same position to stretch your shoulders.
13. Lateral Shoulder Stretch
Muscles emphasized: side deltoid.
Place your right arm across your chest. Cross your left arm across your chest and apply pressure just above your right elbow.
14. Standing Assisted Neck Flexion Stretch
Muscles emphasized: trapezius muscle.
Stand tall with your feet together and firmly grounded. Slowly sit your hips backwards and round your upper back towards you. Slowly push your chin into your chest.
15. Lat Stretch with Spinal Traction
Muscles emphasized: latissimus dorsi.
Using a wall bar, grip the tallest bar you can reach and begin you lift your feet off the ground. You should feel it in your chest and lats. If you can get your feet completely off the ground, you’ll also feel it in your lumbar spine. If you suffer from shoulder pain, do not perform this stretch.
16. Lat Stretch at the Wall
Muscles emphasized: latissimus dorsi.
Place both your hands on the corner of a wall or post. Hold the corner on the left side of the post and slowly pull your body to the right. This will stretch the right side of your chest and hips.
17. Child’s Pose
Muscles emphasized: latissimus dorsi.
Start on the ground with your hands and your knees on the floor. Sit backwards unto your legs and place your forehead unto the ground in front of you. To get a better stretch, keep your knees wide apart. Your back should be slightly arched.
18. Standing Calf Stretch
Muscles emphasized: soleus and gastrocnemius.
Stand near a stair step with our legs shoulder’s width apart. Place your toes onto the step and try to keep your back straight. To get a better stretch, turn your toes slightly outward or inward to engages different muscles in your calves.
19. Front Split
Muscles emphasized: psoas and hamstring.
This stretch requires a high level of flexibility and really needs to be done in a slow and controlled way. Start in the kneeling lunge position (see number 11). And slowly extend your leg in front of you. You can also start by standing with one leg in front of you and the other behind. Slowly move your legs further apart until your groin touches the floor.
20. Seated Forward Fold / Seated Toe Touch
Muscles emphasized: hamstrings and calf
Sit into your bum with your legs in front of you. Bend forward and try to touch your toes. If you can’t quite reach, bend your legs and grip your feet. Slowly extend your legs until you feel a stretch in the muscles under your legs.
21. Single Led Forward Bend
Muscles emphasized: hamstrings.
Stand with one foot in front of the other. Keep your back straight and place your hands on your hips. Bend at your hip and lift the toes of your front foot towards the ceiling.
22. Deep Squat
Muscles emphasized: glutes.
Begin by standing with your feet a shoulders width apart. Hold your weight on your hips and heels. Place your arms in front of you inside your legs and place a bit of pressure inside our knees.
23. Seated Half King Pigeon Pose
Muscles emphasized: glutes.
Sit down with your legs in front of you and pull your right leg towards your chest. Rotate your hip outward but keep your spine straight.
24. Standing Calf Stretch at the Wall
Muscles emphasized: soleus and gastrocnemius.
Stand in front of a wall and begin in a lunge position. Make sure that your back foot is slightly turned outwards. Gradually lower that foot towards the floor to stretch your calf muscles.
25. Lateral Flexion at the Wall
Muscles emphasized: external obliques.
This is a milder version of stretch n°16. Standing tall, hold the outer side of a post and push your hips away from that post.
26. Supine Twist
Muscles emphasized: glutes and external obliques.
This stretch is great to relieve sciatica pain. Start by lying flat on your back with your arms on your side. Bring your left leg across your body and hold your left knee with your right hand. Take deep breaths to really open up your chest and rib cage. If this stretch is too hard for you, hold both knees towards your chest and gently rotate them to your left, keeping your back and head on the floor.
27. Lateral Flexion with a Dowel
Muscles emphasized: external obliques and latissimus dorsi.
Stand tall with your hands above your head. You should be holding a stick or a towel, keeping your hands about a shoulder’s width apart. Gradually push your hips out to the side and keep your shoulder rolled back. If you have problems with your lower back, do not perform this stretch.
28. Triangle Pose
Muscles emphasized: external obliques.
Stand with your legs far apart, the left should be straight in front of you and the right behind you. Your back foot should be away from you at a 90° angle. Place your left hand on your leg in front of you and bend forward, keeping your back straight. Then, place your right arm towards the ceiling, slightly rotating your body in the process. Your head should be looking up.
29. Chest Stretch at the Wall
Muscles emphasized: pectorals.
Start by facing a wall and place your right hand on that wall. Your hand you be turned towards the right with your thumb towards the ceiling. Gradually rotate your body away from the wall. You should feel this stretch in your chest and belly. Don’t push it too far or you can damage your shoulder joint.
30. Assisted Chest Stretch
Muscles emphasized: chest and latissimus dorsi.
You’ll need a partner to perform this stretch. Begin by lying down on the floor and holding your palms face up. Your partner should be seated in a deep squat near your hands. Ask you partner to hold your hands and gently pull them away from you. The stretch should affect your chest, arms and spine.
31. Seated half Pigeon Variation
Muscles emphasized: anterior tibialis.
Sit with your feet out in front of you. Fold your right leg, bending at the knee so that your right ankle rests on your left knee. Place you right hand behind you and slowly bend forward. You can also rotate your body to the left to stretch your back.
32. Supine Shoulder External Rotation Stretch
Muscles emphasized: subscapularis.
Lie flat on your back and place your arm beside your body. Your elbow should be at a 90° angle and your forearm should not be touching the floor. Gradually lower your forearm to the floor above your head. If you can’t reach, your rotator cuffs are too tight: loosen them up with a massage or physical therapy.
33. Down Dog Variation at the Wall
Muscles emphasized: pectorals and latissimus dorsi.
Stand far enough from a wall so that when you touch it your body is parallel to the ground. Lower yourself into this position by rotating your hips and keeping your back straight. Once in the proper position, move your chest forward and make a slight arch in your upper back to stretch your lats and chest muscles. You can also bend your knees to really get into it.
34. Assisted Chest Stretch Variation
Muscles emphasized: pectorals.
Once again, you’ll need a partner for this exercise. Start by lying face-down on the floor. Your arms should be along your body with your palms face down. Your partner should stand above you at hip height and pull your hands upwards and back. You should feel a deep stretch in your chest muscles, but it’s not recommended for people suffering from shoulder pain.
Once again, we scoured the edges of the 2.4 million square feet of exhibit space at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show looking for what we call Big Bang Disruptors.
Those are the innovations that enter the market both better and cheaper than existing products or services, creating the greatest opportunity for dramatic—even catastrophic—success, and setting incumbents up for the biggest possible disruption.
As usual, we found plenty of disruptors—some large, some small, but all with the potential to cause big changes, many of which their developers almost certainly don’t intend.
Before we get to our five most disruptive innovations, a few general observations.
If there was a theme song for this year’s CES, it would be “Everything is Connected” (sung to the tune of “Everything is Awesome” from the Lego Movie). From routers that can recharge every device in a fifteen foot radius (the WattUp from Energous) to yoga mats that talk to your phone (the SmartMat), ever cheaper and ever smaller sensors, antennas and other electronic components are quickly making every one of over a trillion items in commerce programmable, collecting actionable data for consumers about every activity in their lives.
We noted this trend last year, but like everything else at CES, nothing exceeds like excess. As the basic components are built in high volume (many made initially for smartphones), price, availability and standardization accelerate, generating a feeding frenzy for entrepreneurs combining them in every conceivable way. Areas that once had a only a few pioneering products now have their own rooms full of competing vendors, each trying to crack the code that will give them the big bang.
And connectivity isn’t just for devices. One interesting new trend this year is the confluence of industries in the midst of reinvention, with odd partnerships forming between seemingly unrelated companies. As digital technologies continue to disrupt industries that have up until now been immune, convergence is bringing together widely divergent companies who may have never even heard of each other a few years ago.
Gaming powerhouse Nvidia, for example, is now making user interfaces for automobile dashboards. And Nest, the smart thermostat acquired by Google in 2014, has developed an extensive ecosystem with its “Works with Nest”program, including the Hue lightbulb, Whirlpool dryers, Ford cars, Kwikset smart keys, and Jawbone fitness trackers.
Communicating with the Nest, these devices respectively flash when something goes wrong, slow down the drying cycle if you’re away, lower the heat when you drive off, reset the temperature based on who enters the house, and again when you’re waking up.
Information itself is fast becoming the critical asset in digital businesses. At Accenture, we say every business is now a digital business. It doesn’t matter if you’re a phone company, a car company, or an underwear brand—you have some unique information assets that some other business can combine with their own and leverage on behalf of consumers. And that means that sooner or later you’re going to connect the dots—and the data.
Naturally, privacy and security are areas of concern as billions of inert objects become, in effect, small computers with Internet connections. While new standards and technologies are being developed, we saw some innovative authentication techniques that could replace relatively insecure passwords. Helix, for example, uses the camera on your smartphone to generate an identifier based on the unique shape of your ear, while Myris by Eyelock scans your iris, where the chances of a false match are less than one in 1.5 million.
Of course the core of the exhibit space is still devoted to the latest in consumer electronics. There were plenty of eye-popping displays to see, with 4K and even some 8K OLED Ultra HD televisions just waiting for content to render. (Manufacturers and content providers have formed an alliance to standardize 4K technology to speed things along.)
This year, everything seems to be curved—not just televisions (if that word still means anything), but also computer monitors and even mobile phones, including some from Samsung and LG. Curved displays offer improved peripheral views and, for phones, more ergonomic design, but the trend may really mess with a generation of interior design that assumed thin flat screens would simply get bigger, not change their shape. The design team of TV’s Property Brothers, who were in attendance, may have had a rude awakening walking the show floor.
Our overall groupings of disruptors aren’t all that different from last year’s list. As many attendees we talked to agreed, this year was mostly though not entirely about more, better, faster, and cheaper rather than the introduction of entirely new technologies. Still, there were plenty of disruptive innovations worth highlighting. So without further ado:
1. Transportation
Disruptive energy continues to emerge. Toyota’s Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, which emits nothing but water, will go on sale this year in California. (When we wrote about it last year, it was just a concept.)
But the big news this year is the continued evolution of fully self-driving or “autonomous” vehicles. Their arrival is now just a matter of time, perhaps no more than a decade or two at most And, as with many big bang disruptions, we expect the transformation of transportation will continue to proceed gradually, and then, at some inflection point, suddenly.
The technology and cost for autonomous vehicles are almost ready for the mass market—with the real hold up being the regulators, who barely know how to begin rethinking a hundred years of safety, insurance, and traffic laws.
Unlike the awkward-looking prototypes of the first Google cars, the incumbent automotive companies (who fortunately already know more than a few things about disruptive innovation), are showing concept vehicles that will just look like cars, with the cameras, sensors, and other new technology hidden from view. Audi has a console that can be removed and replaced, like a tablet computer. VW will use ultrasonic technology to predict where you can find a parking space.
Now the question becomes what you will do when you’re not actually focused on driving. Mercedes demonstrated a vehicle, guestimated for 2030, whose side panels would all be flexible displays, turning the car into a theater for Infotainment, social media, and other information-intensive applications.
(The Mercedes-Benz F 015 concept car was a big hit with CES attendees)
2. Health and Fitness
There’s been an explosion since last year of new vendors and new applications that collect, report, and respond to information from the user’s own body, a trend that is sometimes referred to as “the quantified self.”
Although in many cases their component hardware is the same, and while most use phones and tablets for the user interface, right now these offerings are largely stand-alone point solutions for particular uses. Some are health related, some for improved fitness training. There are separate categories for seniors, people with disabilities, kids, and athletes, again using much of the same technology.
The overlaps can be surprising, even to the developers. The ReSound LiNX, for example, is a state-of-the-art hearing aid that is beautifully designed to be nearly invisible, with its controls moved to Apple and soon Android devices over a Bluetooth connection
Other than the price tag, which is $1,000 or $3,000 depending on the severity of a user’s hearing loss, the LiNX could easily substitute for earbuds and other listening technology, many of which themselves now include sensors to double as biometric trackers. The Dash from Bragi, for example, is a “hearable,” providing both an attractive wireless earphone (though much larger than the LiNX) and over fifteen sensors, tracking heart rate, respiration, oxygen saturation, and more.
At some point we believe all of these technologies will converge and rationalize, and when they do the result will be nothing short of a revolution in health care in the broadest sense, with patients shifting from passive to active participants in diagnosis, treatment, and preventive care. For an aging population in particular, this technology could add years to our ability to stay in our homes and defer the need for assisted living and home health care.
The earliest devices (back only a few years ago) took advantage of plentiful sensors from the exploding smartphone market—including accelerometers, magnetometers and gyroscopes–to track basic movement, count steps, and recognize when we were asleep.
But as more kinds of sensors become better, cheaper, and easily recombinable, the range and sophistication of human and environmental sensing has expanded dramatically. Today, you can get products that measure and report on a wide array of biometric data including glucose levels (iHealth), emotional state (Being by Zensorium), temperature (TempTraq andPacif-i by Blue Maestro), sleep patterns (Sleep Number), pulse (Fitbit’s PurePulse), alcohol level (Alcohoot), weight (Withings), blood pressure (QardioArm by Qardio), and much more.
Each of these metrics has important applications. We wrote last year, for example, about technologies at CES’s Eureka Park, a special area for start-ups, aimed at improving the lives of patients with chronic medical conditions, and this year we found even more worth noting.Veristride, which we singled out in last year’s review, continues to make strides with inserts for shoes that can help stroke victims improve their walking.
This year we were impressed with UMoove, which is developing software-based eye tracking technology that uses the camera and processor already on a tablet to measure attention and focus. The company’s short-term goals are to diagnosis and help treat conditions such as ADHD and autism.
And Linx IAS has adapted technology it originally developed for the military to make a small sensor device that athletes can wear (with or without a helmet) to measure and report on impacts to a player’s head, giving coaches instant alerts about the possibility of concussions.
We were also impressed withQuell, an FDA-approved device that stimulates the brain to block pain receptors for patients with chronic conditions. The device is worn around the calf in a neoprene wrap and is approved for overnight use, and will sell for around $250 later this year. It performs similar functions (though not as specific) to existing devices that today must be surgically implanted at dramatically higher cost and risk. Better and cheaper technology could translate to a big bang disruption for the company.
3. Manufacturing – 3D Printing and Robotics
In the world of mass market 3D printing, the trend is for more, more, more—more vendors, more printing media, and more applications. The new kid on the show floor only a few years ago with just a few vendors showing expensive prototypes, this year boasted over fifty 3D printer vendors, many selling home products for under $300.
Industrial 3D printers have long been used to create manufacturing prototypes, but up until now the disruptive applications to go along with the rapid decline in price for the key components haven’t been obvious. Now the devices are increasingly being used for remote, just-in-time manufacturing and printing more sophisticated designs including 3D printed fashion.
Still, we’re just getting started with disruption of a wide range of manufactured goods and processes. This year, 3D printing pioneer MakerBotannounced the availability of filaments (the basic plastic media used by the printers) that have integrated real-world materials including iron, bronze, maple and limestone. Printing objects with these new media can produce much more realistic looking and acting output, moving the technology closer to printing “real” items rather than plastic simulacra.
A company called Voxel 8, for example, will soon sell a 3D printer that can print electronic circuitry as part of an object—a true printed circuit—with the potential for making functioning electronic devices. Where will this end? In the future, 3D printers may be able to print more 3D printers.
Even more exciting were several new printers capable of using edible media to print actual food, one of the applications that has long been on the wish list of the 3D printing community. 3D Systems, another early industry leader, demonstrated the CoCoJet, which uses Hershey’s chocolate as its medium. “Ideal for the baker or chocolatier,” according to the company’s website, “the CocoJet prints custom designs in dark, milk or white chocolate.”
Even more impressive is the company’s ChefJet, due later this year, which will print with sugar or candy, examples of which were on ample display at the booth (we missed out on the offer of a sample). The ChefJet, with a large build volume, will allow cake decorators and candy makers to prepare elaborate designs and then print them, once or (hopefully) repeatedly.
Finally, we were impressed with a 3D printer that isn’t a printer at all, but rather a pen known as the 3Doodler, which has already sold over 100,000 units. As you draw, whether on a surface or not, the pen extrudes heated plastic filament, creating solid objects. If that’s hard even to imagine, then you’ve just experienced what makes big bang disruptions so unnerving.
Outside of 3D printing, the manufacturing innovation that most caught our attention was a start-up called Graphene Frontiers, which like many of the innovators in Eureka Park has received funding from the National Science Foundation.
Graphene is a form of carbon that is a single atom thick, which in sheets has been shown in the lab to have remarkable strength and conductivity. Graphene Frontiers has patented technology to mass produce the substance, and is working on ways to print it directly onto silicon wafers, where it might provide very low cost medical diagnostics when combined with specific antibodies. But applications in the life sciences are only the beginning. Graphene could prove to be the most important discovery of the early 21st century.
4. The Internet of Things
We declared last year to be the year when the Internet of Things—in which everyday items became fitted with the ability to collect, send, and receive information—finally became a reality. That was clearly the case with this year’s exhibits, which included very large companies including Samsung and Bosch and plenty of start-ups using the basic technology in surprising new ways. The theme for this year was everything connected to everything else, whether it made obvious sense to do so or not.
The shift from computers as computers to everything else as computers has already disrupted industry leaders. As recently as a few years ago, Intel’s very large booth in the Central Hall mostly focused on PCs and laptops that featured the company’s chips. But as the market for computers slows, the company has shifted its attention to the IoT, offering ever smaller and more powerful components that can be embedded into everything that isn’t already “smart.” Intel’s booth this year had hardly any traditional computers.
Similar to the health and fitness applications, the IoT solutions are so far more of the standalone variety, with little integration. (Several competing standards and platforms are still vying for dominance, as is typical for emerging technologies.)
That hasn’t stopped the innovators, however, and the general idea of the smart home has now given way to very specific applications for specific and previously dumb things. We saw smart air conditioners, outdoor grills, water bottles, locks, light bulbs, wallets (like the Wocket), shoes, forks, toothbrushes, glasses and pretty much every item you can think of.
One of the finalists for this year’s “Best of CES” products was a smart belt, known as the Belty, that senses when you’d had a big Las Vegas dinner and automatically loosens itself. (In theory, it can also get tighter, if that was ever necessary.)
Taken separately, these devices may not need much in the way of remote user control and may not offer much in the way of useful information that can be uploaded to computing devices and consolidated in the cloud. But once we put it all together on standardized platforms, the disruptive impact will cross many industries, including manufacturing, distribution, retailing, consumer products, agriculture and transportation. To name a few.
Among a long list of contenders, we were especially impressed by Parrot’s smart Pot, which has built-in sensors that measure temperature, moisture, sunlight and fertilizer level. When it’s time to take care of your plants, the pot lets you know by—you guessed it—communicating wirelessly with your smartphone or tablet. A related product can go directly into the ground for outdoor plants.
And Belkin’s WeMo line of smart home offerings, which we wrote about last year and extensively in our Big Bang Disruption book, continues to expand. This year, WeMo has finally integrated technology it acquired some years ago from a startup called Echo. New WeMo sensors and software are now in field trials that will expand the system to monitor water and power usage and identify from a single location, such as the breaker box, multiple devices and their individual performance.
The water sensor will analyze vibrations in the pipes to calculate and improve usage efficiency and to alert users to possible leaks. The electricity sensors, likewise, will identify waste, determine devices that need repair, and help improve the design of home security systems. In an era of growing sensitivity to the need for resources efficiency and sustainable practices, these technologies may provide a level of power and water management that is inconceivable today.
5. Augmented Reality
Last but not least are advances in display and audio technologies that enable users to experience real and imagined environments with ever-greater richness. Whether in the form of virtual reality goggles and earphones that provide immersive gaming experiences, or superimposed displays that augment the view out a car window, the continued decline in price, size, and power requirements for basic computing components continues to spark revolutionary change in the world of sensory input.
We first met up with the developers of the Oculus Rift, a prototype goggle for 3D gaming, at CES 2013. The start-up, founded by a community college student named Palmer Luckey with an obsession for military simulation hardware, had just completed a wildly successful Kickstarter fundaraising campaign and didn’t even have a booth on the show floor—the founders were demonstrating their proof-of-concept in a hotel suite which also doubled as a crashpad.
A year later, the company’s developer’s kit won best of show, and in March of last year Facebook acquired the company—still without a commercial product—for $2 billion. Bang!
For CES 2015, the company had a flashy and over-subscribed booth at the Convention Center where attendees waited in long lines to try out the latest prototype, known as Crescent Bay. Those who were skeptical about the remarkable value placed on the company by Facebook learned pretty quickly how a 3D immersive picture can be worth 2 billion words.
The company has set a high bar in both price and performance for future display technologies. And even without a commercial product, Oculus has disrupted industries well outside of gaming. Based on the prototype developer’s kit, other companies last year were demonstrating applications of the Oculus technology.
Middleware producer SoftKinetic, for example, attached depth and gesture recognition cameras onto the Oculus Rift, allowing the user’s hand motions to translate into real-time manipulation of objects in the 3D space. Intel is embedding SoftKinetic’s technologyfor what it calls RealSense, which could someday facilitate virtual design and other fine motor manipulations, including medical applications.
This year, we saw the Oculus technology in such unlikely places at Lowe’s and OnStar. Lowe’s was using it to demonstrate in-store design simulations for home improvements, while OnStar applied it for demonstrations of new in-vehicle experience.
Competitors, naturally, have also appeared, including Razer, which announced an open source virtual reality headset in hopes will prove easier for third parties to integrate. The device will sell later this year for about $200.
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Like Lynx, Quell, and even Oculus, many of the most disruptive innovations we found this year, as in previous years, fall squarely into the early market experiment stage of Big Bang Disruption. Some–perhaps most of them–will never make it to mainstream success. But even those that don’t succeed send a strong signal to incumbents of imminent disruption when some entrepreneur hits on the right combination of new technologies and business models.
That is, for incumbents who are listening. As the number of innovators working with new technologies continues to expand, that better include everybody.
