Off-grid solar energy system, avoids $42,000 utility bills every 10 years.

 I just installed an off-grid/pure-solar (no gas or wood heat) energy system for a couple that lives out in the country, north of Sacramento, where there is no grid power and no cost-effective way to get any. And the entire system cost just $14,000, for a self-powered, fully autonomous, pure-electric, solar-powered energy system for their 360sf $100,000 “tiny home”, which used 28kwhrs/day last winter, when they had it on a different nearby ranch, on grid power, and so had a year’s worth of energy use data to calculate with to help us design an adequate sized system.

$14,000 may seem like a lot, but they were spending $260/month on the ‘equalizer plan’ (same dollars per mo even though some months were obviously higher usage). And when you calculate how much they would’ve spent to stay on the grid (aside from the crazy money they’d have to spend to get the line to them), the total dollars in monthly utility payments would reach $14,000 in just 4yrs and 2 months!

yr 1: $260 x 12mo = $3,120

yr 2: with traditional 7% annual rate raise: $3,384

yr 3: “ $3,571

yr 4: “ $3,713…….total $13,788

yr 5: “ $3,972

yr 6: “ $4,250

yr 7: “ $4,547

yr 8: “ $4,865

yr 9: “ $5,205

yr 10: “$5,569

…….which equals a total of $42,196, ...just for the first ten years!

They are in their early 40’s and so would’ve been paying $42,000 every 10years, for the next four or five decades! But now they will be energy-free in four yrs, and never pay another dime for electricity, until about 3 or 4 decades, when some of the components may need replacing (and will be extremely cheap and commonplace by then)

The system only took a few days to install, and I am not highly experienced at this and had to go slow in many parts of it. But I believe that anyone can learn how to do this and avoid the high labor cost, just like we did. I showed them every detail of the work so that they will be able to know the system intimately and add-on to it if they want to (like if they buy an EV, etc.)

The system consisted of:

20 570w panels which cost $2,100 yielding an 11.4 rated kw array.

~$3,000 for unistrut racking with cement posts for the ground array.

A pair of these 6.5kw inverters for $1,600 (tot) in parallel which provides 13kw of power, and includes four 4,000watt capacity MPPT Solar Charge Controllers built in.

https://maximumsolar.online/product/lv6548v500v2/

64 of these 310ah lifepo4 cells cost $3,892 (inc shipping and tax):

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801808306940.html

…along with four of these Battery Management Systems for $145(tot)

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806657317707.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAdapt

….provides four 16kwhr, 48volt, 16 cell series string, batt packs, in parallel, costing just $4,037, for a total of 64kwhrs of storage for cloudy days. ($63/kwhr)

Then another $800 or so for cabling, circuit breakers, bus bars, etc.

Which, with tax and some shipping and some incidentals, came to about $14,000.


The way the system works, ….the way all off-grid/pure-solar systems work… is to calculate how much energy is needed in mid-winter, because on those shortest/coldest days, the sun is lowest in the sky and only up for 3 good sun-hours,…and it is coldest, which requires heating the home the most, which uses the most power (more than a/c on even the hottest days). And then you build the racking and array large enough, and face it due-south and tilt it all up at a high slant of about 60 degrees for north america (58 degrees was optimum for their particular latitude). And that will make the most possible power on Dec 21st (winter solstice). If you can make it work on those days, then it will easily be able to provide ALL the power you could ever use, all thru the rest of the year, due to the array being large, and the sun being out SO much longer each day (12 hrs on June 21st, summer solstice!) even with the array then tilted "wrong" for summer.

As we said, they needed ~28kwhrs/day to run their 18kbtu mini split heat pump and everything else in their home, in mid-winter. And so the 11.4kw array will produce a real-word net of ~10,200watts of usable power on a sunny winter day (with the lower temps helping boost production), which, over 3hrs, is a total of 30.6kwhrs. Then we must factor in the inverter loss of 7%, and so their net need of 28kwhrs becomes 29.96kwhrs/day when running thru an inverter. - Just barely provided for, by the 30.6kwhrs of solar production. IF sunny, …which it often is in Sacramento area even in winter, but on cloudy days they have the 64kwhrs of storage to pull from, and can mitigate energy by doing less laundry those days, or even less showers (every hot shower uses about 2.5kwhrs per shower for the heating of water in a conventional electric water heater! Though they plan to replace their water heater soon with a heat-pump style one, which uses one-fourth the energy).

Now, their home is only 360sf., and they needed 531sf of panels to do this, so obviously the array would not fit on their roof. Fortunately they had plenty of land for a ground array, and yet most ppl in suburbs would not have that luxury. But a better insulated home with more efficient appliances (their heat pump is only an EER12.5) like the EER19 heat pumps, and heat-pump style water heaters and dryers that are coming out now, WOULD be able to achieve feasibility with just roof-mounted solar (equaling the square footage of the interior needed to heat), as long as the home was built with solar in mind from the get-go.

They did not pull permits for this, and just did it under the radar. They live miles in, down a canyon road where no one else passes thru, and so they are just going to play dumb if anyone ever says anything to them, and then pay the fees and show that it was all done to code, etc. So that is another reason why this system is somewhat cheaper than it would be for others. Personally I feel it is absolutely ludicrous that they have "impact fees" for solar energy systems!!??!?!?!? When there is absolutely NO IMPACT on the grid, the land, the resources, the town, the county, or anything else at all. In fact, it LESSENS the impact to the grid and allows them to better serve the growing population with what limited expansion they are doing, and with all the blackouts and brownouts that they have constantly. The county should PAY THEM for doing an off-grid solar setup, IMHO.

The point here is that solar IS already feasible. Systems like this one prove it. They now power their entire home from the sun, with no natural gas, propane, wood, or wood pellets. And by the way, this eliminates the 7 tons of Co2 greenhouse gasses that the average American home emits every single year. We just have to focus on it and begin to seriously implement it, in order to make it a reality,…at least for residential energy uses. I realize many other energy needs are still requiring fossil fuels, like air travel, etc. All the more reason to replace as many things as possible (like residential) with solar,…to leave some fossil fuels available for some of the trickier, energy-intensive needs (as well as all the vital pharmaceuticals and other things we get from fossil fuels).

So the anti-renewables factions can declare that solar panels are just not powerful enough yet, and battery storage is not cheap enough yet, ….but if I can throw together a system for a home with an ROI of just four years, without hardly working at it, then I’d say that they are all wrong, and that solar is here, now, and fully feasible in many circumstances. And so we should all be working toward doing it anytime we can, and doing all we can to enhance the performance and further lower costs and most of all promote legislation which will make it easier and not harder to use solar energy if we want to. The global oil cartel is doing everything in its power to keep solar and wind from becoming more feasible. Spreading their propaganda lies does not help the renewables effort, nor does it help the planet or the working poor that could benefit from solar if it were just made more available.   

(note, you'll notice in the pic that they have not built the racking yet, and are going to do that themselves. I just did the electronics/batts in the shed for them and then we wired up the panels and laid them against a hill to test them all out and get them power asap to run their a/c and the rest of the house, and not have to run the blasted genny anymore)(it was already very unseasonably hot there in late June. It's almost as if the climate is changing).

"Best deal on a used jalopy! 'Come on down!"

I know you all get tired of me talking about how great electric cars are, for the last 20 years or so. Especially when we owned a Nissan Leaf from 2011 to 2016, and often posted additional great things we realized about driving electric. But then we had to sell our favorite car ever, when we moved 80 miles away from Phx, and realized that the 90 mile range car would not be usable for our drives “down to the valley”. We considered buying a 300 mile range Tesla, but only for a second, because they were $100,000 for a new one, and $80,000 for a used one! But now five years have gone by since they started making 300mi range models, and as with any car, you can buy a 5 yr old car for about half of what it sold for new. Except, …unlike buying a 5 year old internal combustion engine car, an EV has over 300 less moving parts to wear/break/need replacing, and so, buying a used EV is much less risky. The only part of the drive train that has moving parts is the AC motor, and they have proven to be extremely durable, many lasting over 100 years, invented 150 years ago by a guy named Tesla. The battery of an EV is the shortest longevity major component, and even it is estimated to last 500,000 miles. Even the brakes on an EV last five times as long due to regenerative braking. EV’s consistently rank at the top of reliability charts. So EV’s are the best cars to buy used, and now we are, for the first time, seeing used 300 mile range Tesla Model S’s at well under $50,000!

These were high priced luxury cars, and as such, they were driven less, and taken care of better, than any other car category. They also tend to have had more upgrades added at the time of ordering, due to the typical wealthy buyer. So you can now find these fully loaded, well-cared-for, low-miles gems on the market for reasonable prices. Quite reasonable, when you consider their low cost of ownership, due to extremely low maintenance and fuel costs. They have an equivalent-to-gasoline-expense MPG rating of 98MPGe! - And that’s only when you pay for the electricity to charge them,…there are used Tesla Model S’s on their site that include ‘free unlimited supercharging’! So you can 'fuel up' at any of their 2,000+, "300mph" (re-fills the 300 mi range capacity in 1 hr) stations for free as you travel around the country, or pay a little (and charge a little slower) at any of the other 22,000 EV charge ports around the U.S. Or just charge at home. It doesn't cost much. Even at the full retail national average price of 11cents/kw, it only costs $9.90 to 'fill the tank' and charge the 300mile range car completely from empty. 'Try doing that in a gas car. And if you have solar on your home, you’re literally driving for free, for life.

Other than being cheaper and more reliable in the long run, the Tesla Model S also happens to be one of the most sought after luxury sedans available, at any price, and including all gas cars. When you look into detailed ratings and specs, you’ll see that the Model S is the number one best over-all car for highest safety, best reliability, smoothest, quietest, most aerodynamic, most luxury features, most cargo room, highest horsepower, highest torque, quickest acceleration, highest top speed, lowest center of gravity, and best handling cars on the market. And if you get one with “D” after their trim-level name, like “85D”, or “90D”, those are ‘dual motor’, and are very capable all-wheel-drive models as well. And those are also available used for under $50k.

So, while you’re waiting for the full realization of the electric car revolution to take place, where EV’s are mainstream, and represent the majority of car models manufactured (which may take another ten years), …and even if you don’t usually buy used cars, due to their lower reliability, you might want to consider finding one of these terrific, used Model S’s, and help promote the revolution. Stats show that every one of these cars was traded in on a new Tesla, because once you drive electrically,…you’ll never go back to oil and transmissions again!

https://www.tesla.com/inventory/used/ms

http://fredbellows.blogspot.com/2013/05/do-you-like-tesla-model-s-would-you_16.html

Annual CES Summary 2019

Well, I made it to my 40th consecutive CES attendance! I thought they’d have a big ceremony for me, but,… nothin!? It was just like every other time I had gone, bright lights, big booths, full of wildly high tech, useful gadgets, all trying to re-invent the wheel, more or less. Cuz if you think about it, we’ve pretty much already invented everything we need for a comfy life on this rock. But maybe if “it just went a little faster, a little smoother, a little easier”. So that’s pretty much the mantra at one of these things. 
And, oh,… of course,

everything has to be ‘smart’ now. And ‘connected’.  
As long as we can ‘connect’ it, and watch how ‘smart’ it is from our phones, then there’s a reason to make, sell, and buy a new one of something. Of EVERYTHING, actually. It’s hard to think of an item we use that doesn’t have a new, ’smart’ and ‘connected’ version of it coming out for us to buy and replace our old one with. I’m actually fine with most of this. I mean, our old speakers used to just play whatever we plugged into them, but now they play anything we ‘ask’ them to, tell us the weather, turn our lights on, and even tell us a joke, if we’re bored! I heard a statistic that there were over 100 million Alexa enabled products sold in the last year. ! And that’s not to mention google and Siri enabled! Google was visibly trying hard

to not be outdone this year at CES. They were everywhere it seemed, with little products and brochures and even spokespersons in so many booths of other exhibitors, co-promoting the google assistant built into hundreds, if not thousands of products,….and then,… they had built the biggest booth ever, right out front of the show, with the first ever amusement park-style ride at CES! Yes, you sat in a little train and it took you on an “It’s a Small World” type of journey into the googlesphere of the wonderful world of google connected devices and services! They even handed out free snacks after the ride! Free snacks! They sold me! People can sell me with free snacks. I’m easy that way. 

My son, Ethan, drove and met me there this year, as he is LA based now. We also saw my friend Sean, who lives there now and works the shows, and we all had a great time finding all the most wiz-bang tech. (And of course, free snacks)(did I mention free snacks?). There was a company there sending power over infrared light waves! (see the model train video below) And there was another company there converting heat into cool using sound waves, and not using any additional electricity! ‘Very freaky!

Although I guess I should say very “cool”! (I’m so proud my generation invented that, ‘coolest’ adjective). You know, CES has branched out now, and there are various kinds of companies that feel it’s an important big first place to shout-out to the world about stuff they’ve created. Like how the big auto companies have begun to have huge booths there lately, etc. And this year, one of the all-time biggest talked-about booths was a new… hamburger! Yes, they’ve re-invented the hamburger! And apparently it’s delicious, without any meat!  So in televisions, the OLED TV’s are back in production from more companies, due to their infinite contrast and super thin screens. LG even showed one (that IS going to ship) that rolls up and disappears into a little box when you turn it off! HDR is a growing format making our home theater movies and shows look a lot better. And Dolby Atmos, the “object-based” audio format with more accurate surround, as well as height, is getting very popular. Also, more TV’s are mastering the art of being good

speakers as well, where the surface of the screen produces GOOD sound! 4k (“UHD”) Bluray is steadily growing in popularity, but still a little pricey with players starting at $100 and discs at $15. True wireless earbuds are awfully popular. The Jabra 65t one’s seem to win a lot of the ratings contests. I prefer the Jabra 45e’s because they ‘dock’ easily when you’re waiting to listen or phone some more. I got Wendy a pair, and she loves them.

This was the year of VR (virtual reality). And some AR (augmented reality. -that’s where you see thru the glasses, but there’s all kinds of information over-layed on top of what you’re seeing as well). There musta’ been over a hundred booths showin’ VR this year! Imagine a world where half of everybody is wearing a headset, they can’t see or hear you, and they’re wiggling’ all around interacting with their ‘world’, and if you tap them on the shoulder to ask them something, they TOTALLY freak out!? -It’s ‘comin! Yamaha debuted a 3-wheeled motorcycle they say is more fun to ride, and safer. 

The Audi booth was my favorite. Huge, 
multi-story, spiral design, showcasing their latest tech with great interactive displays and personable, knowledgable people. (see pic Ethan took of me looking at the ‘sensory-smart external-aware morphing grid display, where future cars will accurately assess pedestrians’ intentions in city travel).  I really liked this home elderly-care support service, that uses regular cameras but super-smart algorithms to watch your grandmother in her own home, and can alert you of any unusual behavior. This little foldable bluetooth keyboard caught my eye, for times when you just need to do a lot of typing, like some long emails or something, and you’re out and about, with just your phone, at a coffee shop, no laptop, ….this is all you need! 

This has got to be the best pepper spray ever. It has a snap-flip lid that keeps it from firing prematurely in your pocket/purse/backpack, and when you do use it, it flashes a strobe, a siren, and it tells your phone to send a text to any designated contacts of yours with your location,…and then calls them! For that “last mile transportation” category, I liked this entry, it’s sorta half way between a scooter and a bike, I talked with the developer/designer for a long time. Here’s a cool camera tripod mount that will pan and tilt and follow you all around the room or the yard, or anywhere, like you hired a cameraman, and you don’t even need to wear a pendant or anything. Once you’ve told it what to follow, it just recognizes it and stays on it!  Sony’s Robot Dog AIBO is back! He’s $2,900 this time, and smarter than ever! More motors, more life-like movements, more dog, …less robot! (still no accidents on the carpet!) If someone comes in while you’re at work that he doesn’t recognize, he’ll take a photo and text it to you! This Dell Windows Laptop is the highest rated of all! They’re raving about it! They say is has a beautiful screen, great battery life, and is thin and light! In other words, it’s about as good as the MacBook has been for years!?! (costs as much, too!)  

So, I stupidly took this high-mountain state road (hwy 3/209 Lake Mary Rd.) from Payson to Flagstaff to go to CES this year, when I knew it had snowed just a week before, but didn’t think about much, because it had all melted in Payson, of course. Anyway, it looks iffy, but feels ok,…it’s clearly been plowed a lot, but has a thin, white layer of snow, but I know there’s probably ice under there. Some tracks from some traffic, but not hardly any traffic I see, and I figure the tracks were no doubt from 4 wheel drive’s,…you know,…smarter people than me. I’m in a two wheel drive, rear wheel drive, Sprinter van, with hardly any weight in it because it’s only half converted to a camper yet! But, like I say, it feels ok, although I’m not touching the brakes, that’s for sure, ‘fortunately there’s nuthin’ to really have to stop for, I’m just takin it easy, ‘bout 40mph, praying the road will get better soon, ‘course, I’m an atheist, so, how much good is THAT gonna do? And as I look up ahead, I see some huge black monolith-looking thing on the side of the road. I slow down, just deceleration, “don’t touch the brakes” “don’t touch the brakes”,… and as I drive by, I see it’s a big SUV,…on it’s side, just the bottom facing me,…and two guys walking around it, on their cell phones,… in t-shirts, and they just look at me sailing by, no frantic waving or anything, sorta surreal,…and I think “Hmm, ‘look’s like they’re fine,…got it under control,…on the phone,….ok, well, I’m not a good one to help…” But then I think “I don’t KNOW they have a signal, MY phone ain’t showin’ much signal,…they’re in t-shirts,….’could be awhile til anybody else comes along…..” So, I continue to stay off the gas pedal, but the road is now going slightly down hill, and takes for ever to fully slow,…and then I touch the brakes to fully stop,…and I slide, about 30’! ‘Fortunately straight. And put it in reverse,… it spins a little, but then I back up, up the slight incline, for a long, long time. It was maybe a mile by now. And I reach them, staying in the middle of the road, roll down my window, “Anybody hurt?” “No?, ‘Good” And just then we see a state plow truck making it’s way toward us, from the direction I’m goin, and he gets out and says he can help them, and I’m on my way. To Hell,… as far as I know. So now I’m goin even slower, and the road seemed to take forever, but it finally started getting more black and less white, and I realized what happened is that they were on the dryer part of the road first, and were used to going faster with good traction with only slowly increasing patches of white, and then they didn’t slow way down progressively. Anyway, I had snow chain cables with me the whole time, but was too lazy to stop and put them on thinking it was not too bad/starting to get better. When really, I should’ve stopped early on and just gone thru the motions for safety. I just didn’t know how bad it could be until I saw them, and tried to stop myself. The good news is the van does ok on snow and ice, the bad news is that I’m still about as stupid as I was when I was younger. But I guess still as lucky! - So when I was at the show, I saw this terrific thing! You know how we all need a good, high power (3.1 amp) dual USB charge port in our cars? Well this one is also an emergency belt cutter and glass breaker, so you always know where it is, and within reach! Would make a great gift for someone you care about, because we won’t spend the extra 10 bucks for these features on ourselves.

  You know, there’s this thing, where people often get the dreaded, famous, killer CES cold, because of so much hand shaking and international visitors, etc. But I have not had it in many years! (hand shaking is actually down quite a bit, at the show) So the last day of the show closes 2 hrs early at 4:00, and Ethan and I rush over to my nephew AJ’s and his wife Jessie. Where we hear that they are moving into their new first home, from an apt. across town. And we help them unload their last big uhaul truck load, along with my sister and her husband (Carol and Bill) who have been at it all day and are all pooped. So, we unload, …unload, …take heavy stuff upstairs, then we mount tv’s on walls and stuff while Carol gets (wonderful Olive Garden) take out. We eat, we laugh, we visit,…and I

seem to be getting very tired and kinda chilled by 11 ish. So I say, let’s go Ethan, and he’s like “I’m gonna hang here tonight, do some serious gaming with AJ, you take my car, and AJ will run me back to the (CircusCircus) RV park in the AM. “Cool”, I say, and I’m outta there. “Hmm,… ‘never noticed it being this very cold earlier,…is this heat on?” I get to the RV, and it’s like all I can do to drag my but into bed. Wake up with all the starter symptoms, but have to drive my ass back home to Payson, ‘bout 6 hrs,…’better get moving fast. Ethan shows up, we pack up, say goodbye, ‘get goin. ‘Drive about an hour to Kingman, stop at Wendys,…chili will help me,…yeah, all I need is chili,…still sitting in the driver’s seat, haven’t moved,….kinda half a sleep. ‘Better just lay down a bit. (It’s an RV! no problem) Laid down, pulled every cover over me, blinked awake,…4 hours had gone by! Shivers. Headache. “Chili!” - “That’ll fix me!” Go in. Eat chili…with 3 spicy seasoning packets. Go to van sit in drivers seat,….shiver,…doze,….shiver, ….doze. ‘Prolly not good for driving. Especially since it’s all high country and forecast says below freezing all night all along the way, so If I do stop, I have no heat (camp heater not installed yet) and not all that many blankets. So I get some Nyquil and stay at an RV park in Kingman so that I can run the portable space heater I brought, and I sleep another 15 hrs before then feeling ok enough to drive home. And then sleep most of the week, which is why this Summary is so late this year and you’ve probably already heard all about the show last week! Well tough! This is MY Summary, …it’s my thing I do! So, there it is. OK, so, I know you’re wondering, so go ahead and say it. “Are you going to keep going to ces now that you hit your goal of 40 times, and you’re old and decrepit, and it’s more of a ‘young man’s game, easy to get sick there,….and yada yada?” ‘Answer is, I don’t know. I still enjoy it. But I may skip

some years (now that I have my 40-consecutive award badge)(my theoretical/virtual one, in my mind, anyway), especially if say, we happen to be on the other side of the country traveling at that time of year, or stuff like that. So, I may not go every year now, but one thing’s for sure, technology advancements aren’t slowing any, and so for an interesting measure of our evolution, continue to watch this space, and read some reviews after each annual CES to see what the next generation of innovators has planned for our future of useful gadgets.

   

   

AZ Hot Birds 2018 Memorial Day Weekend/Kaibab Lake/Williams, AZ coach rally

Sure enjoyed our mini rally. We had six coaches and a 50% participation in our annual bike ride to breakfast!(the rest drove) Nice new farmers' market and swap meet in Williams, and the big farmers market in Flag on Sunday. Great 2 mile hike around the lake and saw a lot of wildlife including eagle and eaglets in nest. Terrific potlucks and desserts! The only bonfire in the whole campground due to fire restrictions and our propane fire ring. And the best game of 'High Denstity Badminton' that I have ever played! 

Annual CES Summary 2018

 So, they’ve had this big steel arch thingy at CES for as long as I can remember, 

and the structure was 3 dimensional and three-sided. In the early days it was open, uncovered, and sort of ‘framework’ or ‘ industrial’ looking, and it had neon lights in it on some of the struts. Then, about a decade ago, I guess the lights broke, so they started covering it with thin black fabric, gave it a new look, and still said “CES” on it, and it spanned the walkway just inside the main entrance in the Central Hall. And what was really cool about it is that it was fatter on the ends, and thinner in the middle. A little harder to build, but very ‘artsey’. You can see it here in my 2014 CES Summary. Well, I don’t know what happened, but this year it was replaced with a new one that is just as long, still 3 sided, in the same place at the show, but it is linear in it’s thickness, the same triangular dimension all the way across, and it looks like crap compared to the old one. No styling to it at all, just a boring half-circle arch, like a child would draw or something. (see pic at right) Now, I’m glad that if the old one got accidentally destroyed or something, that they bothered to make a new one to retain the tradition, but why couldn’t they make it stylish like the first one? Have we lost the skill or technology or artistry or desire to produce it properly as it was many decades ago? I don’t think so. It’s fairly obvious that they just wanted to save a few bucks and just 'do the minimum’. And it really pisses me off. Not just this arch sign, but almost everything you see done nowadays is subjected to this ‘oh, it’s good enough’ mentality. And my theory is that it rubs off on everyone, subconsciously, and makes everyone else feel like just doing the minimum as well. Anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean to start off on such a whiny note. But it just torques my manifold, like a short fuse on a cheese curd. If you know what I mean. I hope so. Although I might be mixing metaphors there.

 Now, the rest of the show was pretty damned good. ‘Bout 180,000 people all pumped up, to see over 1500 booths showing all kinds a new stuff, some of it downright spooky and magical how it can do some crazy shit. There was some rain the first day. 1.3 inches in one day, which is over a quarter of that city’s total annual rainfall. Streets flooded, traffic apocalypse. Then the power went out partially for over two hours, leaving some of the booths dark. It’s kinda hard to have an electronics show without electrons. ’Never ’seen the power even glitch in all my 38 years of attendance there. So that was new. Let’s see, what else,…. This year’s show was all about how cars are gonna drive themselves…they even had a motorcycle that drove itself?!?!?!?!? Now what’s the point of that? And also this years’ show was really big on being able to talk to your house or car or speaker or whatever, and have it tell you what the weather is like, or if there’s a traffic jam ahead, or stuff like that. Which, I don’t know about you, but I can look out the window and see the weather, or look out the windshield and see the traffic!? But anyway, that was the biggest gadget in every booth. Somethin’ to talk to,… and have it talk back to you. Big business. I mean, really. It’s like we’re running outta things to invent or something? 

 There was a JetPack there. Remember how they told us in the 60’s that we’d all be flying’ jetpacks by the 80’s? - 90’s tops.? By the time they perfect it, they’ll be self-driving jetpacks, and we won’t ever get to go! I saw a chess game board that was playing itself. ‘Saves you a lot of time, I guess. I saw a robot vacuuming the floor - a full size robot,…using a full size vacuum! That’ll sure free up some time! Sony had their new improved robot dog Aibo back again. This time he’s hundred’s of times smarter and learns things about you the more you play with him. $1,700, one time. That’s a lot cheaper than a real dog. And you don’t have to take him for a walk to do his business. That’ll save time. I just wonder what we’re saving all this time for? I guess we can watch more TV. They have TV’s that look so real it’s like you’re looking out a window. A clean window! Oh, they have window-cleaning robots now too. A few years ago they showed OLED TV’s in every booth. A little tiny LED for each pixel. No LCD (liquid crystal display). No backlighting. Just individual LED’s that turn off completely for black, which makes for infinite contrast. But then, they decided it would cost too much and so all of the TV brands except LG never came out with them. And the LG OLED TV’s were like, five times more expensive than the same size regular LCD/LED backlit sets, so sales were very slow. But they stuck with them, and found enough customers that wanted that much contrast to pay that much money. And eventually,...three years later (as in, now), they all found a way to bring the manufacturing costs down a bit, and LG had shown that there was a big enough chunk of TV buyers that wouldn’t mind spending maybe three times as much for a TV again, if it meant they could have “inky blacks” and phenomenal picture quality. And so, the LED TV’s are back! And in every booth. And shipping immediately! 

 So, there’s that. TV’s suddenly got a lot better looking. They’re also doing a lot with built-in fast computers that process every frame of video as it’s displayed, which makes them look even better. And, of course, slowly but surely, there’s more 4K content to view, which really makes these new machines shine! 4K BluRay is growing as well. Speaking of 4K, computer monitors with 4K resolutions (3840x2160) are finally below $300 and are popping up on people’s work stations with greater frequency. If you’re on your computer much each day, they’re a joy to look at, and can help reduce eye fatigue. Some are 21:9 ultra widescreen ratio and allow for three documents to be displayed simultaneously. And THIS is where a curved screen actually makes sense, unlike in a TV room, because you’re in a single, fixed position, and it maintains your focal distance.

Sony is still capitalizing on it’s high performance low light sensor that is in all of their cameras. Kodak is really pushing their 360 degree dual fish eye lens camera for posting video online and allowing people to move their curser around and see literally ALL around where your filming. Ping Pong fans can now play against a robot and really improve their game. Ritetech makes those cool outlets that disappear into furniture, in case you’re building a new desk or task area. An automatic cat liter box that really works (save $50 with code CES2018 thru 1/21/18). Electric scooters were everywhere for that ‘last mile’ type personal transportation. But Ford showed some that were too big, too expensive, didn’t fold up, and were too heavy. I don’t think they understand (still) what people want in that 20mph legal-on-any-street/sidewalk/path category. I still think EcoReco has the best machine for the money.

 Cosmo is a brake light for any scooter/bike/motorcycle, and uses an accelerometer to indicate that you’re slowing. This is the best folding e-bike I know of. A cool little projector for Nintendo Switch game console owners. USB-C is growing and getting faster, and Hyperdrive has the best hubs. Monitor-io will track the performance of your internet service and tell you all kinds of things you didn’t know you wanted to know. Source is an amazing system that mounts on the roof of your home like a solar panel, actually there is a solar panel in it too so it doesn’t need any power at all, and it extracts perfectly pure water out of the air for you to drink. Makes a few liters a day for life and costs $2,500 one time. Here’s a sensor that helps prevent accidentally leaving a child or pet sleeping in a hot car. And this is a whole new way to input text on your phone. Takes a week or so to learn and then it’s lightening fast! 

I didn’t have anyone along this year, but next year I’ve heard that several will be joining me for my 40th CES. Wanna come along? I did see my friend Sean Connors there who was working the show. He finally had time on the last part of the last day to see some booths before he had to start to do tear-down all night. So I took him to see the highlights which included the LG booth’s “OLED Canyon”. A 20’ high, 100’ long, winding narrow set of angular walls full of individually uniquely curved 65” OLED displays showing fantastically high-def footage of various nature landscapes and accompanying sound. Probably the best art installation I have ever seen. And then to the Sony booth which was the best overall booth that made you feel welcome, entertained, educated, and excited all at the same time. One of my favorite things this year was their new TV’s which use the surface of the screen as the speakers for terrific sounding, invisible speakers that locate the sound right onto the screen for best possible imaging and soundstage.

 I got a delicious free waffle from Logitech. Well, it wasn't totally free. It turns out that they want you to post about it on social media. I said "sure", since I love all the stuff Logitech makes anyway. So they gave me the waffle and said "O.K. just post a pic of you on Twitter and/or Instagram" I said I didn't have either of those, and they looked at me like I was an alien or something. Then they said "How 'bout Facebook?" and I said "Oh, sure, I have the Facebook (I threw the 'the' because Betty White had made that "the twitter" joke a few years ago and gotten a big laugh). But I didn't get a laugh,... they just stared at me again like I was starting to morph into a green blob, and then they said "Oh, O.K., yeah, well, can you post that on The Facebook and just add these two hashtags (pointing to their sign)?" So I said "Hash...? You mean post these words,...and do you want me to put that little tic-tac-toe thingy in front of them like that?" (just to screw with them) - And sure enough, once again, they were speechless for a moment while they stared hard, turning their heads a little like dogs do. I just wanted to give them something to talk about after working a long hard trade show.

So progress marches on. No matter the state of the economy or the political climate, inventors’, now called ‘visionaries’, will continue to think up cool stuff and work hard to bring it to the world. Not just for the possibility of making bank, but to say to the world “isn’t that neat? it’s my gift to society!”

- Next year,….my 40th consecutive CES attendance! See you there!

Annual CES Summary 2017

Annual CES Summary 2017 

My son Ethan joined me again this year, as well as two of his friends, and we all had a great time. The first day it was just Ethan
and I and we push-scootered it over to the show, about a mile and a half, in about 15 minutes! Then the remaining three days, with four of us, we hiked about 1/4 mile to the MGM and rode their shuttle bus to the show - about 45 minutes! I wish I had four scooters! In addition to seeing most of the 2.5 million square feet of CES booths, we rode in a self driving car, drove the BMW i3 pure electric, rocked the after-show party in the Gibson booth, saw the Blue Man Group one nite, and went ‘downtown’ one nite for more reasonably priced food and gaming. I taught the young guys how to play craps the way Wally Nathan taught me, and they all walked away up considerably! Of course, the next nite they gave most of it back, but, that’s Vegas! 

yes, they're back!

The show broke turnstile records at over 176,000 attendees! This year was the 50th anniversary of the show, and so they did ‘years you’ve attended’ ribbons on our badges, and since it’s my 38th year, my “35+ Years” ribbon caused a lot of people to ask me what it was like way back when. My answer was “nothing at all like today”. I would say, about 95% of everything on the show floor today has some sort of smart chip in it, as a minimum. And several items, like smartphones and self-driving cars, have computers that are thousands of times more powerful than the Cray Supercomputer of the late 70’s when I first attended. But here’s the thing about CES. If you had heard people on that show floor, in 1978, predicting 30 years ahead, they’d have said “yeah, we’re gonna have supercomputers that fit in our pocket!” Because that’s what CES is all about, pushing the envelope, and being optimistic enough to expect the most from technology and how it can be applied to better humanity. You feel it all over the show, no matter what year it is. I still like going, just for the dose of optimism, let alone seeing the gadgets. And believe me, I need a dose of optimism this year more than any other. ‘Speaking of gadgets:

ROBOTS!

There were way more robots this year! I really think we’re all gonna have a little robot in our home soon. And not just a vacuum, but a robot to help fix dinner and do the dishes! Along with robots, smart home automation is finally becoming plug and play. Alexa is Amazon’s smart house technology that works in devices like Echo and Lenovo’s Smart Assistant Speaker, as well as Ford cars and hundreds of accessories. Google Home is pretty much the same thing, only different. These mini blind motors fit inside your 2” blinds and become automated with timers and lots of other features for just $100. 

NOT REALLY REALITY:

VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) were this year’s top 'buzz-tech’. VR is basically the big fat eye-covering headsets you see people wearing as they move their heads all around to reveal a 360 degree alternate universe of computer generated visuals. These graphics and sometimes actual video footage allow you to visit, and even interact with, environments from the deep sea to outer space and everywhere in between. Of course, gaming is the first, killer app for this, but many predict huge expansion to even include regular movie viewing. AR typically uses see-thru glasses that let you see normally, but add extra information and images about your specific surroundings. Industries’ already utilizing AR include advertising, construction, healthcare, training, and the military.

3D PRINTING>:)

I haven't understood the hype about 3d printing all these years, until this year. I saw big leaps of improvement in materials like metalized plastics and carbon fiber-like super strong stuff that they're making bicycles and even whole cars out of! Even the little models and figurines were so much more impressive. One booth had an 10", full color figurine of a guy, sitting next to a few photos of him, and the likeness and detail was just amazing. So I said "but then you had to pay an artist to do all that detailed painting, right?" And he said "no paint, it comes right out of the printer like that"! Check out the photo of the full size concept car that was 3D printed.  

HEADPHONES -

These are the best headphones I’ve ever seen, or heard. They have every feature you’ve ever seen, or heard, in a headphone. They are wired or wireless, lightweight, closed air, talk-thru, 30hr batt, active noise canceling, muti-band EQ, touch panel, phone mic, collapsible, fantastic sound quality, and are made by the industries’ leading headphone maker.

These earbuds are custom molded to your ear and they say they stay in, and block out noise. They’re about $200

5G!?

5G - There’s some hype about 5G coming for our mobile devices, but they admit it’s years’ away so why even talk about it yet. Especially when 4G isn’t fully fleshed out yet. It’s supposed to be 100 megabytes/second, and it’s way more like 30 in reality still. Go to speedtest.net on you phone’s browser (or get the app) and run the test periodically to see what you’re really getting. Then tell your provider “ forget ‘5G’ until you can get your 4G up to speed”.

EVEN better SURROUND SOUND??

Dolby Atmos and DTS:X are new encode/decode surround sound formats that add height to the experience. You need to add speakers to your ceiling or ones that point up at, and bounce sound off of your ceiling. You also need a newer A/V receiver that has these decoders, and it is only on blu-ray discs and some streaming content, because it is too much data to fit on a regular DVD or broadcast television. But, wow, the dimension of height sure does add to the surround experience. Here’s a more detailed description if you’re interested.  

THE BEST TV’s…

All of the tv manufacturers debuted OLED tv’s a few years ago. And they looked so good, that we felt we had reached plateau, or even a ceiling in improving picture quality. No backlighting, just an led for every pixel, making contrast numbers infinite! However, only LG went into full production of them since they were so expensive to make, there wasn’t a big market for them. So, for the last few years, the price and quality of regular, 4k LCD with LED backlighting sets have dropped to where you can get a big tv that looks pretty terrific for under $1,000! But the LG OLED TV’s were 5 and 6 thousand dollars for their 55” and 65” sets, respectively. But they still sold a bunch to people wanting the (very noticeably) best picture quality available. Well, now, production costs are coming down, and you can buy the LG OLED sets for 3 and $4,000, and other’s are coming out with OLED tv’s as well. Sony showed a 65” and 77” set in their booth (no pricing details yet) that they say will ship this year. Interesting note: Sony made the tv’s screen be the speaker on these sets, something which has been bandied about for years in the business, but they’re the first to go full production with it (not that anyone would want to use a tv’s internal speakers). A small Chinese maker showed OLED tv’s as well. And LG doubled down with more models of OLED including a 77” and a 65” that has a 1/8” thick screen weighing 18 lbs. that you can hang on your wall with stick-on magnets! It has a ribbon cable that goes down to a remote tuner/power supply box. Oh,…it’s also flexible!! We recently bought one of the 65” LG OLED sets for $2,700 on Amazon (“used-like new”) and we are blown away daily at the contrast and vivid color. So,… the future of displays we’ve all dreamed about for years has arrived! Get ready to see even more ultra-hi-res displays in retail environments on every spare surface they have - even curves!  

StarTrek TRICORDER!  - No shit, this is big. A smartphone that can scan and identify different molecular compositions! 

The LAST MILE......

"Look, Ma, no hands!...in fact,...no driver!"

One of my favorite categories of consumer electronics is electric scooters and bikes. These "last mile" transportation vehicles are growing in importance as more and more people have moved to cities. Plus, the technology of electric motors with lithium batteries on lightweight alloy frames continue to reveal more viable personal transport solutions for neighborhood errands and fun recreation! Here’s my favorite e-scooter (I know I listed it in last year’s ces summary, but it’s still the best this year, and is right now, at a 50% off ces promo price!). We bought electric bikes this past year and really enjoy them greatly. There were many showings of e-bikes and e-scooters at this year’s CES (over 50 that I saw), which tells me that this way of gettin’ around is definitely gonna be in our future. You could probably hear people in the booth saying: "yeah, in 30 years we'll have real hoverboards".

- There. ...I succeeded in getting all the way through my CES summary without using the word drones. D'oh!