Invisible headphones to chameleon cars: standout tech from CES 2022

From colour-shifting cars to digital art TVs and stress-predicting watches, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which opened on Wednesday, offered its usual mix of wacky, visionary and desirable goods. Here are some of the highlights.

The non fungible token, which confers ownership of a unique digital item such as a work of art, became a multi-billion dollar market in 2021 and Samsung announced a new TV feature that allows enthusiasts to browse, display and buy NFT-based art. Given how much some NFTs cost, you may not have much left over to pay for the screen.

Nowatch has produced a smartwatch that monitors your cortisol levels to predict stress. Developed with the electronics firm Philips, the watch predicts if you are about to become stressed an hour in advance and recommends activities to avoid that, such as going for a walk or meditating.

Running out of interconnected home products? A lightbulb that tracks your body temperature and heart rate using a combination of radar technology and artificial intelligence was unveiled by Sengled, the Shanghai-based maker of smart bulbs. The bulb connects to a smartphone app and its colours change if it detects anything amiss. Sengled says its Smart Health Monitoring Light can even detect falls.

CES is also a big event for the automotive industry, which likes to show off its cutting-edge advances alongside the usual displays from mobile phone makers, TV set manufacturers and big tech players. BMW, for instance, unveiled a concept car that, thanks to an external wrap filled with electronic ink, was able to shift colour from white to black at the touch of a button.

John Deere unveiled a self-driving tractor that can be controlled by smartphone and plough and sow seeds in a straight line. It plans to make the self-driving system available to a small number of farmers later this year.