You don’t need a robot butler. You just need toilet paper.
That was the vibe at CES 2020 in Las Vegas. The biggest tech show on the planet usually screams “future.” But this year? It felt different. People were tired of smart fridges that order milk you don’t want. They wanted utility. They wanted weird. And they definitely wanted solutions for problems they didn’t know they had until a robot handed them a roll of TP.
The 2020 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show was a mix of genuine innovation and absolute madness. It wasn’t just about faster processors or brighter screens. It was about hardware that stepped out of the box and into your living room. Sometimes literally.
The toilet paper robot and other home helpers
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Or rather, the small bot in the hallway.
There was a robot designed specifically to deliver toilet paper. Yes, really. In a year where the pandemic was starting to whisper its name, this wasn’t just a gimmick. It was a weirdly specific response to anxiety. You’re in the bathroom. You’re out. Do you really want to leave the sanctuary? No. So the robot comes.
It’s absurd. It’s also kind of brilliant.
This device highlighted a shift in home automation. We moved past “turn on the lights with your voice” to “perform a task that saves me dignity.” The line between helpful and creepy is thin. This robot walked it.
But it wasn’t alone. The theme of 2020 was connectivity. Everything wanted to talk to everything else. Your car wanted to talk to your watch. Your watch wanted to talk to your fridge. The infrastructure was there, but the gadgets? They were getting quirky.
Why your dog’s mood matters (and how a collar tracks it)
Here is a question for the pet owners among us: How do you know if your dog is happy?
You look at his tail. Or you listen to the woof.
Well, a startup called Whistle had a different idea. They brought out a smart collar that didn’t just track location. It tracked mood.
Using sensors, the collar analyzed the dog’s behavior. Heart rate. Activity levels. Sleep patterns. It then fed this data into an algorithm to guess how the pooch was feeling. Stressed? Excited? Anxious?
“We’re not just tracking where they go. We’re trying to understand who they are.”
This is the kind of tech that makes you pause. Is it invasive? Maybe. Is it useful? For a dog owner who works from home during a global health crisis? Absolutely. It bridges the gap between human and animal communication. It turns vague barks into data points.
And it’s not just dogs. The trend is clear. Pets are getting smart tech too. The market for pet tech is exploding. Why? Because we treat our pets like children. And we love buying gadgets for our children. Even if those children have four legs and no concept of Bluetooth.
Which other strange gadgets made the cut?
The toilet paper bot and the mood ring collar were the headlines. But the floor was littered with other oddities.
- Smart mirrors. Not just for checking
