Tuesday, February 10, 2015

In our final report from the 2015 CES International consumer electronics expo, which happened in early January out in Las Vegas, I wrap up with a peek at some of the coolest gadgets, as tipped by cnet.com.

If you believe that art should be seen and heard, cnet.com says Soundwall's new connected canvases should be a perfect solution - if it's in your budget ($3,500). An example of the company's offerings is a limited-edition Bruce Springsteen print that features an exclusive audio interview with the photographer and a Springsteen playlist he curated himself.

Sarah Tew of cnet thought the Kube was pretty cool. This 60-pound cooler doubles as a giant Bluetooth speaker ($1,100). Tew says it only holds 33 quarts (37.5 liters) not including ice, but a company rep says they hope to trim its weight to 30 pounds (13.6kg) by its May 2015 launch.

Cnet also spied the Netatmo Welcome - a little device that uses face recognition to detect and alert you to people in view, and notifies you when it sees an unknown face. The App lets you check who is home, access live streaming and past events.

You can customize privacy settings for each family member, as well as decide whether Welcome sends you notifications or stores your videos. And the best part - you own your data - recorded videos and sensitive info stay entirely private on an SD card.

No pricing yet, but shipping in mid-2015.

Similarly, pet lovers can spend a lot more time with their furry friends thanks to the Petcube, a monitoring camera that streams video to your phone and lets you communicate with your lonely or misbehaving animals.

It came out of a wildly popular Kickstarter and finally began shipping in December - just ahead of its CES debut - for $199.

Finally, cnet.com seemed to develop a growing interest in Parrot's Flower Power sensor with water-bottle attachment. Just screw in a standard bottle and the device automatically waters your plant.

Besides its practicality, the Flower Power collects a variety of plant-relevant data, using it with its robust database to make plant-specific recommendations.

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