Technology

Inside Netflix’s bet on advanced video encoding

Published

7 months ago

June 22, 2024

Inside Netflix’s bet on advanced video encoding

Anne Aaron just can’t help herself.

Aaron, Netflix’s senior encoding technology director, was watching the company’s livestream of the Screen Actors Guild Awards earlier this year. And while the rest of the world marveled at all those celebrities and their glitzy outfits sparkling in a sea of flashing cameras, Aaron’s mind immediately started to analyze all the associated visual challenges Netflix’s encoding tech would have to tackle. “Oh my gosh, this content is going to be so hard to encode,” she recalled thinking when I recently interviewed her in Netflix’s office in Los Gatos, California.

Aaron has spent the past 13 years optimizing the way Netflix encodes its movies and TV shows. The work she and her team have done allows the company to deliver better-looking streams over slower connections and has resulted in 50 percent bandwidth savings for 4K streams alone, according to Aaron. Netflix’s encoding team has also contributed to industrywide efforts to improve streaming, including the development of the AV1 video codec and its eventual successor.

Now, Aaron is getting ready to tackle what’s next for Netflix: Not content with just being a service for binge-watching, the company ventured into cloud gaming and livestreaming last year. So far, Netflix has primarily dabbled in one-off live events like the SAG Awards. But starting next year, the company will stream WWE RAW live every Monday. The streamer nabbed the wrestling franchise from Comcast’s USA Network, where it has long been the No. 1 rated show, regularly drawing audiences of around 1.7 million viewers. Satisfying that audience week after week poses some very novel challenges.

“It’s a completely different encoding pipeline than what we’ve had for VOD,” Aaron said, using industry shorthand for on-demand video streaming. “My challenge to (my) team is to get to the same bandwidth requirements as VOD but do it in a faster, real-time way.”

To achieve that, Aaron and her team have to basically start all over and disregard almost everything they’ve learned during more than a decade of optimizing Netflix’s streams — a decade during which Netflix’s video engineers re-encoded the company’s entire catalog multiple times, began using machine learning to make sure Netflix’s streams look good, and were forced to tweak their approach when a show like Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures tripped up the company’s encoders.

When Aaron joined Netflix in 2011, the company was approaching streaming much like everyone else in the online video industry. “We have to support a huge variety of devices,” said Aaron. “Really old TVs, new TVs, mobile devices, set top boxes: each of those devices can have different bandwidth requirements.”

To address those needs, Netflix encoded each video with a bunch of different bitrates and resolutions according to a predefined list of encoding parameters, or recipes, as Aaron and her colleagues like to call them. Back in those days, a viewer on a very slow connection would automatically get a 240p stream with a bitrate of 235 kbps. Faster connections would receive a 1750 kbps 720p video; Netflix’s streaming quality topped out at 1080p with a 5800 kbps bitrate.

The company’s content delivery servers would automatically choose the best version for each viewer based on their device and broadband speeds and adjust the streaming quality on the fly to account for network slow-downs.

To Aaron and her eagle-eyed awareness of encoding challenges, that approach seemed inadequate. Why spend the same bandwidth to stream something as visually complex as an action movie with car chases (lots of motion) and explosions (flashing lights and all that noisy smoke) as much simpler visual fare? “You need less bits for animation,” explained Aaron.

My Little Pony, which was a hit on the service at the time, simply didn’t have the same visual complexity as live-action titles. It didn’t make sense to use the same encoding recipes for both. That’s why, in 2015, Netflix began re-encoding its entire catalog with settings fine-tuned per title. With this new, title-specific approach, animated fare could be streamed in 1080p with as little as 1.5 Mbps.

She-Ra and the Princess of Power is another good example of an animated show with fairly simple visual complexity versus live action-fare.

Image: Netflix

Switching to per-title encoding resulted in bandwidth savings of around 20 percent on average — enough to make a notable difference for consumers in North America and Europe, but even more important as Netflix was eyeing its next chapter: in January of 2016, then-CEO Reed Hastings announced that the company was expanding into almost every country around the world — including markets with subpar broadband infrastructure and consumers who primarily accessed the internet from their mobile phone.

Per-title encoding has since been adopted by most commercial video technology vendors, including Amazon’s AWS, which used the approach to optimize PBS’s video library last year. But while the company’s encoding strategy has been wholeheartedly endorsed by streaming tech experts, it has been largely met with silence by Hollywood’s creative class.

Directors and actors like Judd Apatow and Aaron Paul were up in arms when Netflix began to let people change the playback speed of its videos in 2019. Changes to the way it encodes videos, on the other hand, never made the same kinds of headlines. That may be because encoding algorithms are a bit too geeky for that crowd, but there’s also a simpler explanation: the new encoding scheme was so successful at saving bandwidth without compromising on visual fidelity that no one noticed the difference.

Make that almost no one: Aaron quickly realized that the company’s per-title-based encoding approach wasn’t without faults. One problem became apparent to her while watching Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures. It’s one of those animated Netflix shows that was supposed to benefit the most from a per-title approach.

However, Netflix’s new encoding struggled with one particular scene. “There’s this guy with a very sparkly suit and a sparkly water fountain behind him,” said Aaron. The scene looked pretty terrible with the new encoding rules, which made her realize that they needed to be more flexible. “At (other) parts of the title, you need less bits,” Aaron said. “But for this, you need to increase it.”

That’s a lot of glitter to properly encode.

Screenshot: Netflix

The solution to this problem was to get a lot more granular during the encoding process. Netflix began to break down videos by shots and apply different encoding settings to each individual segment in 2018. Two people talking in front of a plain white wall were encoded with lower bit rates than the same two people taking part in a car chase; Barbie hanging out with her friends at home required less data than the scene in which Mr. Sparklesuit shows up.

As Netflix adopted 4K and HDR, those differences became even more stark. “(In) The Crown, there’s an episode where it’s very smokey,” said Aaron. “There’s a lot of pollution. Those scenes are really hard to encode.” In other words: they require more data to look good, especially when shown on a big 4K TV in HDR, than less visually complex fare.

Aaron’s mind never stops looking for those kinds of visual challenges, no matter whether she watches Netflix after work or goes outside to take a walk. This has even caught on with her kids, with Aaron telling me that they occasionally point at things in the real world and shout: “Look, it’s a blur!”

It’s a habit that comes with the job and a bit of a curse, too — one of those things you just can’t turn off. During our conversation, she picked up her phone, only to pause and point at the rhinestone-bedazzled phone case. It reminded her of that hard-to-encode scene from Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures. Another visual challenge!

Still, even an obsessive mind can only get you so far. For one thing, Aaron can’t possibly watch thousands of Netflix videos and decide which encoding settings to apply to every single shot. Instead, her team compiled a few dozen short clips sourced from a variety of shows and movies on Netflix and encoded each clip with a range of different settings. They then let test subjects watch those clips and grade the visual imperfections from not noticeable to very annoying. “You have to do subjective testing,” Aaron said. “It’s all based on ground truth, subjective testing.”

London’s smoggy fog of the early 50s in The Crown made for another encoding challenge.

Screenshot: Netflix

The insights gained this way have been used by Netflix to train a machine learning model that can analyze the video quality of different encoding settings across the company’s entire catalog, which helps to figure out the optimal settings for each and every little slice of a show or movie. The company collaborated with the University of Southern California on developing these video quality assessment algorithms and open-sourced them in 2016. Since then, it has been adopted by much of the industry as a way to analyze streaming video quality and even gained Netflix an Emmy Award. All the while, Aaron and her team have worked to catch up with Netflix’s evolving needs — like HDR.

“We had to develop yet another metric to measure the video quality for HDR,” Aaron said. “We had to run subjective tests and redo that work specifically for HDR.” This eventually allowed Netflix to encode HDR titles with per-shot-specific settings as well, which the company finally did last year. Now, her team is working on open-sourcing HDR-based video quality assessment.

Slicing up a movie by shot and then encoding every slice individually to make sure it looks great while also saving as much bandwidth as possible: all of this work happens independently of the video codecs Netflix uses to encode and compress these files. It’s kind of like how you might change the resolution or colors of a picture in Photoshop before deciding whether to save it as a JPEG or a PNG. However, Netflix’s video engineers have also actively been working on advancing video codecs to further optimize the company’s streams.

Netflix is a founding member of the Alliance for Open Media, whose other members include companies like Google, Intel, and Microsoft. Aaron sits on the board of the nonprofit, which has spearheaded the development of the open, royalty-free AV1 video codec. Netflix began streaming some videos in AV1 to Android phones in early 2020 and has since expanded to select smart TVs and streaming devices as well as iPhones. “We’ve encoded about two-thirds of our catalog in AV1,” Aaron said. The percentage of streaming hours transmitted in AV1 is “in the double digits,” she added.

And while the roll-out of AV1 continues, work is already underway on its successor. It might take a few more years before devices actually support that next-gen codec, but early results suggest that it will make a difference. “At this point, we see close to 30 percent bit rate reduction with the same quality compared to AV1,” Aaron explained. “I think that’s very, very promising.”

Meridian was a short film made by Netflix specifically to test and train codecs and algorithms for streaming.

Screenshot: Netflix

While contributing to the development of new video codecs, Aaron and her team stumbled across another pitfall: video engineers across the industry have been relying on a relatively small corpus of freely available video clips to train and test their codecs and algorithms, and most of those clips didn’t look at all like your typical Netflix show. “The content that they were using that was open was not really tailored to the type of content we were streaming,” recalled Aaron. “So, we created content specifically for testing in the industry.”

In 2016, Netflix released a 12-minute 4K HDR short film called Meridian that was supposed to remedy this. Meridian looks like a film noir crime story, complete with shots in a dusty office with a fan in the background, a cloudy beach scene with glistening water, and a dark dream sequence that’s full of contrasts. Each of these shots has been crafted for video encoding challenges, and the entire film has been released under a Creative Commons license. The film has since been used by the Fraunhofer Institute and others to evaluate codecs, and its release has been hailed by the Creative Commons foundation as a prime example of “a spirit of cooperation that creates better technical standards.”

Cutting-edge encoding strategies, novel quality metrics, custom-produced video assets, and advanced codecs: in many ways, Netflix has been leading the industry when it comes to delivering the best-looking streams in the most efficient ways to consumers. That’s why the past 14 months have been especially humbling.

Netflix launched its very first livestream in March of 2023, successfully broadcasting a Chris Rock comedy special to its subscribers. A month later, it tried again with a live reunion event for its reality show Love Is Blind — and failed miserably, with viewers waiting for over an hour for the show to start.

The failed livestream was especially embarrassing because it tarnished the image of Netflix as a technology powerhouse that is lightyears ahead of its competition. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters issued a rare mea culpa later that month. “We’re really sorry to have disappointed so many people,” Peters told investors. “We didn’t meet the standard that we expect of ourselves to serve our members.”

Netflix wants to avoid further such failures, which is why the company is playing it safe and moving slowly to optimize encoding for live content. “We’re quite early into livestreaming,” Aaron said. “For now, the main goals are stability, resilience of the system, and being able to handle the scale of Netflix.” In practice, this means that Aaron’s team isn’t really tweaking encoding settings for those livestreams at all for the time being, even if it forces her to sit through the livestream of the SAG Awards show without being able to improve anything. “We’re starting with a bit more industry-standard ways to do it,” she told me. “And then from there, we’ll optimize.”

The same is true in many ways for cloud gaming. Netflix began to test games on TVs and desktop computers last summer and has since slowly expanded those efforts to include additional markets and titles. With games being rendered in the cloud as opposed to on-device, cloud gaming is essentially a specialized form of livestreaming, apart from one crucial distinction. “They’re quite different,” said Aaron. “[With] cloud gaming, your latency is even more stringent than live.”

Monday Night RAW is coming to Netflix next year and will bring with it even more opportunities to challenge the streamer’s video encoding technology.

Photo: WWE/Getty Images

Aaron’s team is currently puzzling over different approaches to both problems, which requires them to ignore much of what they’ve learned over the past decade. “The lesson is not to think about it like VOD,” Aaron said. One example: slicing and dicing a video by shot and then applying the optimal encoding setting for every shot is a lot more difficult when you don’t know what happens next. “With live, it’s even harder to anticipate complex scenes,” she said.

Live is unpredictable: that’s not just true for encoding but also for Netflix’s business. The company just inked a deal to show two NFL games on Christmas Day and will begin streaming weekly WWE matches in January. This happens as sports as a whole, which has long been the last bastion of cable TV, is transitioning to streaming. Apple is showing MLS games, Amazon is throwing tons of money at sports, and ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. are banding together to launch their own sports streaming service. Keeping up with these competitors doesn’t just require Netflix to spend heavily on sports rights but also actually get good at livestreaming.

All of this means that Aaron and her team won’t be out of work any time soon — especially since the next challenge is always just around the corner. “There’s going to be more live events. There’s going to be, maybe, 8K, at some point,” she said. “There’s all these other experiences that would need more bandwidth.”

In light of all of those challenges, does Aaron ever fear running out of ways to optimize videos? In other words: how many times can Netflix re-encode its entire catalog with yet another novel encoding strategy, or new codec, before those efforts are poised to hit a wall and won’t make much of a difference anymore?

“In the codec space, people were saying that 20 years ago,” Aaron said. “In spite of that, we still find areas for improvement. So, I’m hopeful.”

And always eagle-eyed to spot the next visual challenge, whether it’s a sea of camera flashes or a surprise appearance by Mr. Sparklesuit.

Technology

L’Oréal’s new skincare gadget told me I should try retinol

Published

47 minutes ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

L’Oréal’s new skincare gadget told me I should try retinol

Las Vegas is punishingly dry. The arid winter air means I woke up on Day 3 of CES 2025 with a nosebleed, chapped lips, and ashy legs. This in spite of the fact I slathered myself with two pumps of a fermented bean essence, eye cream, moisturizer, and a lip mask. Staring at my face in the hotel mirror, I wonder if any of those products were doing what they’re supposed to — and if maybe, I should try something different.

This is why I was so eager to try L’Oréal’s Cell BioPrint.

For anyone who’s struggled with their complexion, the Cell BioPrint feels like a holy grail gadget. The device is a mini-lab setup that analyzes a skin sample to generate a report about your skin’s current condition. It’ll also “grade” your skin with regard to oiliness, wrinkles, skin barrier function, pore size, and uneven skin tone. Based on the proteins in your skin, you’ll also see whether you’re more likely to be susceptible to those issues down the line — even if they aren’t issues now. The test also determines whether you’re responsive to retinol, a popular and well-studied skincare ingredient that nevertheless causes a ton of confusion online.

My results. I’m happy to say my skin’s biological and chronological age were aligned.

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

In my demo, using the Cell BioPrint was simple. Mainly because I didn’t have to do a thing. While L’Oréal hopes to one day make Cell BioPrint an at-home device, it’ll first be aimed at retail, dermatology offices, and skincare clinics. As in, the actual test will be done by a professional to ensure accuracy. A L’Oréal staffer collected a sample from both my cheeks using a special kind of sticker. I watched as he then dissolved it in a buffer liquid, placed the resulting solution into a cartridge, and fed that cartridge into a machine. I also had my cheeks and forehead scanned with an imaging wand before answering two questions about my age and demographic data.

After a few minutes, I got to see my results. Apparently, I’m doing something right because the report said that my chronological and biological age were aligned. But it also said that while my skin barrier function is currently good, I’m biologically prone to have issues with that as I get older. My report also said that I don’t have to be concerned with pore size — either now or in the future, and that I am highly responsive to retinol, meaning my skin is likely to tolerate it well.

There were several other insights I won’t bore you with, but after going over my results, I have a better sense of what I need to focus on. For instance, I should continue using moisturizers with ceramides, button up my sun care habits outside of sunscreen, add a vitamin C to help with my skin tone, and add a retinol. I also know what I don’t need or can remove from my routine. For example, I don’t need to buy products targeted toward shrinking pores.

Most of this wasn’t surprising. My results aligned with the concerns I’ve noticed and where I tend to concentrate my skincare routine. For example, the few times I’ve tried retinol, I’ve never had an hint of the sensitivities other people seem to experience.

Of course, this kind of personalized recommendation is only as good as the science behind it. After all, lots of health and beauty tech companies promise the moon, but are intentionally coy when it comes to explaining why you should trust them. Barring regulatory certification (which isn’t generally required for wellness and beauty tech), it’s left up to the individual to try to discern whether an explanation passes the smell test.

With that in mind, I asked L’Oréal to dive deep into the science — which Guive Balooch, global vice president of L’Oréal’s Technology Incubator, happily obliged.

Balooch says the company had 800 biologists working (and publishing clinical studies) to discover whether there are specific proteins expressed in skin cells that could determine your risk factors for certain skin conditions. The challenge, he says, is that there are a lot of proteins produced by the body. Finding the few out of the thousands that can give actionable skincare insights is like finding a handful of needles in a giant haystack. It required L’Oréal’s researchers to sequence all of them and then find the relevant biomarkers.

This particular branch of research, Balooch says, is called proteomics — or the study of how proteins are expressed in the body. “It’s understanding that our cells every day are making proteins. Depending on our lifestyle, our geography, and our genes, they will make more or less of these proteins. It changes over time and habits can change it as well.”

Balooch says L’Oréal tested 4,000 people over 10 years across the US, Europe, South America and Asia, and found five proteins related to skin health, including two that are related to how well a person’s skin will respond to retinol. And while the Cell BioPrint can only currently analyze responsiveness to retinol, other ingredients like niacinamide and hyaluronic acid are also in the works.

“In some ways, it’s meant to tell people what not to buy.”

Cynically speaking, a device like this could also be viewed as a pseudoscientific way to sell more products to a group of people already prone to reach for their wallets. But Balooch argues the Cell BioPrint isn’t meant to encourage people to buy more.

“In some ways, it’s meant to tell people what not to buy,” he says. “Of course, we would love to sell more products, but not by overconsumption. That’s not actually good for your skin. It’s about helping people find the right products based on science.”

To that end, Balooch has a point. The skincare market right now is rife with misinformation and influencers pushing expensive 10-step routines that sometimes do more harm than good. I know better, and yet I’m as guilty as the next skincare nerd. (I’m still haunted by the full bottle of snail mucin influencers claimed would fix all my problems. It broke me out instead.) Even now, I know that I’ll probably get influenced again. The difference is at least I can choose to be influenced towards a retinol cream or vitamin C serum — things that have a higher chance of helping me — rather than throwing my money to the wind.

Technology

Best cutting-edge health and fitness tech from CES 2025

Published

1 hour ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

Best cutting-edge health and fitness tech from CES 2025

CES 2025 has once again showcased a remarkable array of health and fitness technology that promises to transform our well-being.

From artificial intelligence-powered sleep aids to smart ear-cleaning devices, this year’s event highlights cutting-edge solutions designed to enhance our health and fitness routines.

These groundbreaking innovations are sure to offer something for everyone.

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Kurt giving a thumbs up to CES 2025 (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

1. AI sleep wearable promises better rest and sharper focus

Frenz Brainband (Earable Neuroscience)

The Frenz Brainband is this cool new AI-powered sleep headband that not only tracks your sleep, but actually helps you sleep better and focus more during the day. The Frenz Brainband uses some seriously advanced tech to monitor your brain waves, eye movements and even tiny facial twitches while you snooze.

The Brainband uses all that info to play personalized audio through bone-conduction speakers, helping you fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. The folks at Earable Neuroscience, the company behind Frenz, have done their homework. They’ve got research backing up their claims, and they’ve even snagged a CES Innovation Award. So, whether you’re struggling with insomnia or just want to optimize your sleep and daytime focus, the Frenz Brainband might be worth checking out. It’s available for purchase at a price of $680 or through a rental option for $45 per month.

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2. The smart ear-cleaning device that lets you watch in real time

The Bebird EarSight Flow is an innovative ear care device that combines high-resolution imaging with advanced cleaning technology. Featuring a 1 million-pixel camera and Aquatic Ear Canal Cleaning Technology, this device allows you to safely remove earwax while providing a live view through a smartphone app. As a CES 2025 Innovation Awards honoree in the digital health category, the EarSight Flow offers a modern solution to ear hygiene, enabling you to see inside your ear canal during the cleaning process.

The device comes equipped with a high-definition camera with over 1 million pixels and a Ball Axis Adjustment Megapixel Lens for precise positioning. You can easily integrate the device with your smartphone, using compatible Android and iOS apps to stream the real-time cleaning process. The advanced cleaning technology gently removes earwax and debris, providing a safe and interactive ear care experience. You can buy a Bebird EarSight Flow by clicking here.

Note: Health care professionals recommend consulting with a medical expert before using any ear-cleaning device to ensure safe and proper usage.

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3. Next-gen smart ring offers digital sizing

Circular Ring 2 (Circular)

The Circular Ring 2 introduces a groundbreaking digital sizing method that allows you to determine your ring size using only a smartphone camera and a dedicated app. This innovative approach eliminates the traditional plastic sizing kit used by competitors like Oura Ring and Samsung Galaxy Ring.

A standout feature of the Circular Ring 2 is its FDA-approved atrial fibrillation detection algorithm, which marks the first such certification in the smart ring market. The Circular Ring 2 will launch in mid-to-late January 2025 with an expected retail price of $349 to $380, depending on the finish selected (gold, silver, black or rose gold). The ring will ship in March 2025 and is notable for being subscription-free.

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4. The AI-powered home gym

The Amp Fitness machine is a groundbreaking $1,795 home gym powered by advanced artificial intelligence that transforms strength training. Featuring adjustable cable machine weights, an integrated camera and a smart companion app, the device provides dynamic workouts that adapt in real time to maximize your fitness gains.

You can access hundreds of workout variations, participate in fitness challenges and even compete on a global leaderboard that tracks strength and progress. The machine’s AI technology continuously analyzes performance, adjusting resistance and workout intensity to ensure you are constantly challenged and making consistent progress. The Amp Fitness machine is priced at $1,795 and is available with a $99 deposit. It is expected to ship in early 2025.

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5. Revolutionizing hearing technology with AI-powered features

Elehear Beyond Pro (Elehear)

The Elehear Beyond Pro is an innovative over-the-counter hearing aid that combines cutting-edge AI technology with user-friendly features. This smart hearing wearable offers real-time translation capabilities across multiple languages, making it an invaluable tool for global communication.

The device also provides customizable tinnitus relief, addressing a common concern for many individuals with hearing issues. At the heart of the Beyond Pro is Elehear’s proprietary Vocclear technology, which significantly enhances sound clarity and speech intelligibility. The Elehear Beyond Pro hearing aid is expected to be released later in 2025.

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6. Shocking your taste buds with an electric salt spoon

Electric salt spoon (Kirin Holdings)

Kirin Holdings has unveiled an innovative electric salt spoon that uses a mild electrical current to enhance food flavor without adding sodium. This $127 device concentrates sodium ions on the tongue, making low-sodium foods taste up to 1.5 times saltier. The spoon offers four adjustable intensity levels, ranging from mild (yellow light) to intense (blue light).

Developed in collaboration with Meiji University, the device addresses critical health concerns by helping people enjoy flavorful meals while reducing salt intake. First-time users are recommended to start at the lowest intensity setting to acclimate to the unique sensory experience. You can purchase the electric salt spoon through Kirin’s official online store.

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7. The smart air purifier that pampers your feline friend

LG’s innovative AeroCatTower is a device that seamlessly blends pet comfort with air purification technology. The tower features a dome-shaped seat where cats can relax, complete with a built-in heater and an attachable stepper to help older cats climb.

Its intelligent air purification system automatically adjusts airflow when a cat is present, ensuring minimal disturbance to your furry companion. Through the LG ThinQ app, pet owners can track their cat’s weight and sleep patterns, adding an extra layer of pet care technology. Pricing and availability remain undisclosed by LG.

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8. Your personal AI yoga instructor

The YoctoMat is a smart yoga mat that transforms your practice through cutting-edge embedded sensor technology, providing real-time feedback on your posture, balance and weight distribution. By creating a visual map of your movements, this intelligent mat acts like a personal yoga instructor, helping you perfect your alignment and technique with precision and ease.

The mat’s advanced IoT capabilities allow you to track your progress, analyze your performance and receive instant corrections, making every yoga session an opportunity for growth and mindfulness. Lightweight and portable, the YoctoMat brings the expertise of a professional yoga studio directly to your home, enabling practitioners of all levels to enhance their practice.

Its AI-powered system not only improves physical technique but also supports stress reduction and mental well-being, turning your yoga routine into a holistic wellness experience. Whether you’re a beginner seeking guidance or an experienced yogi looking to refine your skills, the YoctoMat offers an interactive, data-driven approach to yoga that adapts to your individual needs. The YoctoMat is available for purchase through the company’s inquiry form here.

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9. Digital glasses for enhanced vision

ESight, renowned for its medical vision enhancement devices, is showcasing its latest innovation, eSight Go, at CES. These cutting-edge digital glasses are designed to assist individuals with central vision loss caused by conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. The eSight Go features a high-definition camera on the nosepiece that captures continuous video footage, which is then optimized and displayed on HD OLED screens for enhanced viewing.

Users can integrate their prescription lenses for further visual optimization. Engineered for all-day wear, these lightweight glasses come equipped with built-in controls and a neck-worn battery pack that provides up to three hours of continuous use. The eSight Go is priced at $4,950, and you can get a free consultation here.

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10. The contactless sleep-tracking solution

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The iSleePad is a contactless sleep-tracking solution designed to monitor vital health data without the discomfort of wearable devices. Utilizing advanced low-power microwave sensor technology, the lightweight and foldable pad can track essential sleep metrics, including heart rate, breathing and sleep position with remarkable precision.

Positioned conveniently under the shoulders and torso, the iSleePad offers a unique feature set that goes beyond traditional sleep tracking, including real-time alerts for bed exits and a Schumann wave mode that promotes deep, restful sleep. Its flexible pressure-sensitive antenna provides over 95% accuracy in monitoring sleep activities, making it especially beneficial for elderly users, medical care settings and families with infants. The device seamlessly integrates with a smartphone app, allowing users to access real-time data and long-term physiological records. No specific information is available regarding its price or availability.

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11. AI smart mirror reveals what’s beyond reflection

Withings has unveiled the Omnia, an innovative AI-powered smart mirror that provides comprehensive health screening through advanced sensor technology. The full-length mirror, equipped with a sophisticated base, can capture an extensive range of health metrics, including weight, heart health, metabolic data and body composition.

Using integrated AI, the Omnia not only displays health data but also offers personalized insights through a voice assistant that can provide recommendations and potentially connect users with health care professionals. The device seamlessly integrates data from multiple Withings devices and third-party health apps, creating a holistic health monitoring ecosystem. The Omnia is still a concept product and is not yet available for purchase. It is in development with no clear pricing details provided at this time.

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12. Sleep smarter and rest better with intelligent biosensing earbuds

NextSense has unveiled the Tone Buds, a groundbreaking biosensing smart earbud that goes far beyond traditional sleep technology by actively monitoring and improving sleep quality. These innovative earbuds use clinical-grade EEG technology to precisely assess sleep stages and depth, providing unprecedented insights into a user’s nocturnal experience.

When the Tone Buds detect stage N3 sleep, the deepest stage of non-rapid eye movement sleep, they emit subtle pink noise stimulation to enhance rest. The AI-powered, closed-loop audio system responds dynamically to the user’s brain waves, providing comforting audio for falling asleep and sound-neutralizing tracks to help users stay asleep.

With sleep disorders affecting approximately 70 million Americans and poor sleep linked to serious health risks like heart disease, stroke and cognitive decline, the Tone Buds represent a significant advancement in personal sleep technology. By continuously monitoring brain activity and actively improving sleep in real time, NextSense is offering a sophisticated solution for those struggling to achieve restful, high-quality sleep. Tone Buds are available for preorder and will retail for $349.

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13. Smart glasses with built-in hearing aids to help hear better

Nuance Audio glasses (EssilorLuxottica)

EssilorLuxottica’s Nuance Audio glasses feature six strategically placed microphones that capture sound with remarkable precision and directional accuracy. These innovative glasses offer users two distinct listening modes — a focused directional setting that amplifies the voice of the person directly in front of you and a 360-degree audio mode that enhances surrounding sounds for complete environmental awareness.

The embedded micro-speakers, positioned discreetly above the ears, deliver crystal-clear audio directly to the user, creating an invisible and stylish hearing solution for individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss. With a companion app and remote control, users can easily customize volume levels, switch between sound modes and fine-tune their listening experience in real time.

The glasses not only provide exceptional sound clarity but also eliminate the traditional stigma associated with hearing aids by seamlessly integrating advanced audio technology into a sleek, fashionable eyewear design. The launch timeline is pending FDA approval here in the U.S., but the glasses are expected to be available for purchase starting in Q1 2025

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14. Nutritional tracking just got easier

Amazfit has unveiled its V1tal device, a compact gadget designed to revolutionize nutritional tracking. The V1tal uses a built-in camera to record your meals, automatically logging food intake and providing detailed nutritional information without manual input.

This innovative device analyzes eating behavior, offering insights and tips to improve dietary habits. The V1tal integrates seamlessly with the Zepp app, creating a comprehensive health ecosystem when used alongside Amazfit’s smartwatches and fitness trackers. While in the prototype stage, Amazfit plans to launch the V1tal in the United States during the first or second quarter of 2025.

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15. Never miss a pill again with this smart pillbox

Smart Pillbox (HealthBuddy)

The Smart Pillbox HealthBuddy app, recently launched on both Apple and Google Play stores, will transform how users manage their medications. This innovative app offers features such as medication tracking, pill reminders and the ability to log missed or taken doses, making it an essential tool for medication adherence. The app can be used independently or in conjunction with the upcoming Smart Pillbox device, which is in its pilot program phase.

When paired with the device, the app will sync effortlessly, providing real-time tracking and automated logging of medication intake. The Smart Pillbox device, expected to be widely available in the coming months, will feature built-in sensors to detect when pill compartments are opened, as well as cellular connectivity to transmit adherence data securely to health care providers.

This comprehensive system aims to improve medication management for users and enable health care providers to monitor patient adherence remotely, potentially enhancing overall health outcomes. The Smart Pillbox HealthBuddy app is available for free on iOS and Android, with the companion device available for preorder and expected to be widely available in the coming months.

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The content of this article is intended solely for educational and informational purposes. It should not be considered a substitute for professional health or medical advice. We strongly recommend consulting a qualified health care provider or physician with any questions or concerns you may have regarding your medical conditions or health goals.

Kurt’s key takeaways

These health and fitness advancements not only highlight the increasing synergy between technology and wellness, but also empower individuals to take control of their well-being in transformative ways. As these products hit the market, they have the potential to change how we approach fitness, nutrition and overall health, marking a pivotal moment for personal wellness. Embracing these innovations can lead to more informed choices and enhanced quality of life, making it an opportune time to explore what these technologies have to offer.

Which of the innovative health and fitness technologies from CES 2025 are you most excited about and why? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Amazon Prime will shut down its clothing try-on program

Published

10 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

Amazon Prime will shut down its clothing try-on program

Given the combination of Try Before You Buy only scaling to a limited number of items and customers increasingly using our new AI-powered features like virtual try-on, personalized size recommendations, review highlights, and improved size charts to make sure they find the right fit, we’re phasing out the Try Before You Buy option, effective January 31, 2025. Of course, customers will continue to enjoy fast, free shipping, with easy, free returns on our full apparel selection.