A Top Technology Initiative Article – By Randy Johnston
January 9, 2025
CES 2025 did not have the pizazz of the past. Yet, as you will see below, we found a few products and technologies that will impact your firm and your clients. We tried to understand why innovations were not as strong in this year of AI. My co-presenter for The Technology Lab, Brian Tankersley, and I noted a variety of AI-promoted products and wearable technologies that have had flowery articles written about them. Still, for many of these new products, we don’t see the practicality for business or home use. The USAToday list of 50 top picks of CES 2025 only had two products that I’ve included in this article clearly illustrating our differences of focus.
CES was held January 5-10, 2025, with official exhibits opening on January 7, with next year’s CES on January 4-9. Brian and I always try to attend Pepcom and ShowStoppers to see the latest products promoted to the media and press corps. We have recorded podcasts on business and personal technologies, and I encourage you to listen to those episodes for more depth on these products. We noted the variety of AI products and smart glasses but found few products applicable to the accounting profession in these categories. Please forgive Brian’s raspy voice from his annual sinus infection, which you also heard on last year’s podcasts. At least (as far as I know), you don’t have to put up with my COVID-19 voice this year like you did last year.
So why was CES 2025 so subdued? Our guesses include:
- 1) AI sucked all the resources out of companies, and other tangible products didn’t get the attention,
- 2) with a significant number of countries facing uncertainty in their election cycles, company planners would not take big swings and risks in non-AI products,
- 3) engineering cycles and supply chain concerns with costs, tariffs, and restricted trade were a consideration (one trusted vendor cited that directly),
- 4) the demise of Windows 10 in 2025, and a new Windows from Microsoft will affect applications, plus AI features in phones affected software developers ability to deliver,
- 5) both VC and PE investors are demanding returns on existing investments which typically leads to less research and development, and
- 6) talent losses have resulted in brain drain from the development, product management, and marketing teams.
While we could guess at more reasons, all these were mentioned in one or more direct conversations with CEOs, product managers, and marketing/PR managers.
So, What Solutions Are New for Accountants?
There were hardware innovations worthy of purchase, with most available now. For example, Ricoh PFU (formerly Fujitsu to you) had one of my favorite employees in attendance, Scott Francis, who showed us the new PFU Ricoh Meeting 360 conference table camera (pictured). Designed to compete against the Owl, the camera seems superior, and the microphone and sound engineering were well thought out. The new ScanSnap Receipt scanner was on display. So was the light, durable, and portable monitor introduced last year.
We did note new portable monitors from ViewSonic with reduced prices on all sizes, using panels from LG and Samsung, which included OLED technology, a folding stand, and a variety of size choices to support your auditors or other mobile users. As has been the case since 2018, one of our favorite portable monitors was the 15″ Espresso Display out of Australia. Espresso won an innovation award again this year with their new mobile display.
Speaking of monitors, we know that many of you are buying large, curved monitors for your team and yourself. While the promotional materials and emails about CES stated that many new monitors would be on display, we saw very few. Even the typical TV displays from LG, Samsung, Hisense, TCL, and many more were subdued with few new announcements. We admired a very thin Samsung display that could be used in an exterior office with windows that could be translucent and then create an opaque background for temporary use during meetings or full-time use if office space was limited. I mentioned to Brian that the last CPA firm where I performed a Tech Assessment in 2024 could have used these monitors and were trying to get by with something else for that conference room.
Most big-name vendors only had private suites again this year and were running scaled-back demonstrations. The exception was HP, which demonstrated six new Ultrabook models that were very impressive (pictured). HP’s X360, G11, and Dragonfly lines will all receive upgrades with products available now (or in February) that are exceptionally light, have AI capabilities, and extremely high-resolution cameras and screens. HP also had a new generation ZBook and mini workstation with stunning performance (pictured).
Rounding out their display were new Omen gaming computers and monitors and a Bluetooth-sensing docking station (pictured) that automatically configures itself to your laptop. Lenovo had attractive new models, including a ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 “rollable” laptop, the ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition 14 and 15, and the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i. Dell has wholly rebranded its product lines, leading to confusion if you are a Dell buyer.
Gone are the OptiPlex, Precision, Latitude, Inspiron, XPS, and Vostro lines, replaced by a confusing new naming convention of Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max, which does not follow Apple’s approach to naming because of the addition of Base, Plus, and Premium. Then, throw in the screen size, like 13 or 14, for good measure. PC Magazine has a good chart for these names, which you can see here. PC vendors are doing their best to obfuscate consumer-grade, business-grade, and workstation models.
The CEO from Matias, Steve McGowen, came from Canada with a new ergonomic keyboard for $99 (pictured) that has a soft, chamois feeling magnetically attachable wrist rests. He mentioned that Matias has had great success building similar yet superior products to designs discontinued by major manufacturers. In this case, the Microsoft ergonomic keyboard is the target, and their design team did a fine job of improving the sculpted design. He also pointed out that they were capitalizing on the USB-C requirement in the European Union but were maintaining USB-A receivers for our lagging engineering and regulations in the U.S.
Brian tried the Click keyboard for the iPhone 16 and concluded that the weight and shape threw the balance of the iPhone off, and while it sounded good on paper, it was not good in use. I watched his frustration as he tried to use this unsuccessfully, even though he wanted to benefit from the design in the worst way.
We know the HDMI hardware standards are being upgraded this year from HDMI 2.1 to 2.2, 6G products are beginning to evolve, and Wi-Fi 7 is now incorporated in many products. While TP-Link had a display of wireless access points reminiscent of Star Wars TIE fighters and won innovation awards for the DECO line, we note the threat of bans on many consumer-grade products because of Chinese influence on the devices. Speaking of Star Wars, SK had the absolute best booth display (pictured). Other products we discovered, like the UGreen NAS last year, did make it to market with their official release this week.
On a personal technology front, we believe there were useful products from Evenflo with a light and sound-enabled car seat (pictured) for $259. The car seat can use light shows and music or sounds to calm infants restricted to their carriers. It also had a swivel feature for easy placement and removal of the child. Also useful was the GrandPad tablet (pictured).
Scott Lien, CEO and Co-founder, formerly with the banking division of Intuit, wanted to create a secure and easy experience on a tablet. Restricted cell phone calls, secure email, websites, video calls, and more are directly supported to protect elderly users from scams. The live, U.S.-based support can assist if the user has additional needs. The product costs $449, and the subscription costs $65-95. For many elderly users, this product is all that is needed.
There were not many notable software improvements for the accounting profession at CES. However, there are a few technologies of note. We discovered and used vimmerse, which can turn still photos into videos using AI. The results were impressive for low costs. Interactive video would make your website and other marketing far more engaging. Brian and I were stunned at how good the results were with flexible options.
Both Brian (pictured) and I trained and used the .lumen Glasses for the Blind. The concept is that there are three million blind people on the planet who could benefit from a seeing-eye dog. The cost of training and maintaining one dog is $200,000. The headset uses sensors, lidar, and haptic feedback to enable you to walk completely unassisted. The vibrations on my forehead made it easy to avoid objects and walk freely blindfolded. The company aims to give away as many of these units as possible, funded by charitable and governmental interests.
Four hundred users already have these today. The founder of .lumen comes from a family where all members except himself have disabilities, which motivated him to solve the lack of assistive technology. Using self-driving tech scaled down to a headset, the .lumen Glasses replicate the main features of a guide dog without the drawbacks that make the guide dog a non-scalable solution ($0.5 billion training cost and there are only 2 thousand guide dogs per year, resulting in 28 thousand guide dogs to over 300 million visually impaired individuals).
Also back this year, but with a software strategy, was the Sightful laptop. These glasses allow you to simulate multiple monitors (up to 100″ in size) to work privately in a public space like a coffee shop or an airplane. I liked the experience with the product last year, and this year’s software version was an improvement.
We enjoyed a conversation with Brad Gorman of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), discussing IP6 and why your organization should deploy Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) to minimize security risks. Along with restricted top-level domains like .CPA, you can improve your security profile. While I won’t go into the details of RPKI in this column, you should ask your technology infrastructure provider if they have this active. We also discussed Linux with Brock Abramson of Canonical, considering the potential replacement of Windows 10 when the end-of-life is reached later this year on October 14, 2025, for hardware incompatible with Windows 11 or its successor.
We suspect many of you have purchased perfectly usable hardware that is incompatible. I will use this Linux strategy on many of my family’s machines and for the right clients. New versions of Linux run Windows applications like Office and Adobe without modification. As more applications are cloud-based, I’d like to have the extra security of Linux, just like I want the additional protection of the GrandPad for elderly users.
There were some impressive Micro LED TVs with 98″ screens common to over 200″ in size. These products had sharper images through intense black backgrounds. QOLED also made progress, with 7 and 8K products shown. We benefited from an update on ATSC 3.0 showing new devices from MyVelo (pictured) for $100 for unlimited free streaming that incorporated streaming services, too. We were told that a 5G/Wi-Fi base would shortly provide a private VPN between your home, vacation property, and office.
Further, the units are portable and small at 4x4x1. Broadcast companies like Gray will be promoting your use of ATSC 3.0. Son-in-law Dan Rivers, who oversaw the Gray Local Media, Inc. mobile apps, confirmed that he worked on this project. Like last year, we still recommend looking at FreeCast to consolidate your TV streaming capabilities as an alternative. Depending on your market, you will soon have ATSC 3.0 streaming capabilities to vastly improve your content’s variety and quality.
We also admired the pop-up projection TV from XGIMI (pictured), which was far more compact than other pop-up video products we have seen in the past. Finally, the micro projector from XX (pictured) was impressive, with the size being less than that of a flip phone.
Samsung also featured a conference room space (pictured) that used the Canon CR-N300 Pro PTZ camera that we have previously discussed. A key innovation was the cube, which could configure the meeting room (also pictured).
So, What Products Are Practical?
Our expectation for CES was to see more useful AI and smart glasses. Some advances were made, but significant steps forward in these areas are still needed. The hardware and software identified above have merit. Likewise, those discussed in our CES podcasts are worthy of consideration.
This CES was more about “experiences,” and we were actively separating reality from hype. Many columns I’ve read on the CES event don’t represent the reality I understood by attending. Other consultants to the profession in attendance reacted precisely the same way.
Keynotes were trying to set expectations in alignment with company visions, restrictions, financial interests, and competition, but they didn’t necessarily reflect my understanding of reality. However, “experiences” seemed to be where exhibitors placed their efforts, potentially trying to attract new generation users or un-informed buyers. We do our best to avoid being lured to the “bright lights” and flashy features of products that just don’t work. We’ll do our best to separate the true gems from the stones.
Thanks for reading CPA Practice Advisor!
Subscribe Already registered? Log In
Need more information? Read the FAQs
