Appliance and bedding innovators abounded — if you could find them

By Alan Wolf, YSN

While global powerhouses like LG and Samsung garnered much of the spotlight at CES, there was plenty of innovation to be found in the far corners of the world’s largest consumer tech show.

Here’s a look at some of the unsung appliance and bedding pacesetters at this week’s Las Vegas event:

No Place Like Foam
Piana Technology, a 439-year-old textile company, believes you can build a better mattress with its futuristic E/SMART fiber. The material, which earned a CES 2022 Innovation Award, is a high-performance, non-woven fiber that surpasses the qualities of polyurethane foam with its superior compressional and thermal resistance, unprecedented airflow, lighter weight, antiviral abilities, and reduced environmental impact. Integrated with flexible pressure sensors, E/SMART can enable healthy posture and sleep quality and serve as a diagnostic tool in hospitals, Piana says.

Chef of the Future
On2Cook is an award-winning countertop appliance that its makers describe as “the world’s fastest cooking device.” Using a combination of induction, microwave and radiant heat, the patented product can cut cooking time by up to 70 percent while reducing energy consumption by upwards of 40 percent. That translates into a rice and chicken curry meal in six minutes; baking a cake or baked potatoes in less than four minutes; and frying up a jumbo patty in under 90 seconds.

The Sandman Cometh
Hisense-owned Babysense introduced what it described as the first smart mattress to help parents understand their children’s sleep patterns. The Babysense Cloud mattress and camera connect to the company’s mobile app, which leverages AI to provide insights into the average time it takes a child to fall asleep; the temperature and humidity of the room; the type of sleep; and when the baby is awake, out of bed, or needs to be changed. The mattress, which won Smart Home and Health & Wellness honors at CES, is 100 percent breathable and washable, and each of its sides have opposing levels of firmness for either infants or toddlers.

Floored
Another CES Innovation Award winner, Tineco’s Floor One S5 Pro smart wet-dry vacuum takes hard-floor cleaning to a new level with built-in intelligence and optimal usability. Leveraging a patented iLoop sensor, the product detects, vacuums and washes with auto-optimized suction power, water flow, and roller speed to achieve a deeper clean. With 3D animations on a 2.1-inch LCD display instructing the user in real-time, and an iLoop ring that changes from red to blue when the floor is spotless, the Floor One S5 Pro is, claims Tineco, “the most advanced wet-dry vacuum ever seen” that tackles everyday mess with ease.

Bed Whetter
Another sleeptech entry, this time from Germany’s Variowell. The company’s Swayy mattress uses state-of-the-art material to allow natural cooling of the foam core and generates warmth using a low-power USB-C connection — allowing for simultaneous cooling and warming across different sections of the bed surface. An accompanying app can pull sleep data like heart rate from smart watches and provide a wide range of pre-programmed temperatures for feet, hips, shoulders, and lower back.

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