Health/care is everywhere is the mantra on the back of my business card. And at #CES2025, that will indeed be the situation.

 

 

 

 

 

The 2025 convening of CES (once known as the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas officially kicks off on 7 January 2025. But I’ll be there beginning 3rd January, scheduling pre-show meetings with innovators, analysts, and my own clients who will be attending the meeting. This will be my 15th year participating in CES, and marking over a decade as a member of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). As someone who has tracked and worked with the digital health industry since the inception of the Internet in health care, my portfolio of advisory work has tracked with the S-curve of adoption of, broadly speaking, computers and connectivity in health care.

Increasingly, that connectivity has enabled people — as patients, consumers, caregivers, Chief Household-Health Officers, self-care proponents, and Quantified Self’ers tracking the most intimate of metrics — to use technology for health, medical, and well-being goals. CES is the biggest umbrella covering these devices and, increasingly, service providers and conveners — the latter exemplified by, for example, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA, think: over-the-counter medicines, digital health tech devices sold in retail, etc.) and AARP, which convenes a broad range of innovators focusing on healthy aging and supportive devices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At CES 2025, I’ll be updating my environmental analysis of consumer-facing health tech in the categories shown in my chart here: tracking food, weight, activity, sleep, safety, kitchens and cooking, heart functions, mental health, gait, home care, cars and mobility, and bathrooms.

While digital health, per se, will be re-located to the Venetian/Sands conference area, I’ll still find some health/care connections in other sites in Vegas, including the huge Las Vegas Convention Center (think: cars and TVs) and the C-Space, the home of media and content, among other nooks and crannies that come from serendipitous explorations (enabled through a lot of walking in very comfortable shoes–more on serendipity in the Hot Points below).

Speaking of shoes, we’ll see some innovations for healthy feet and personalized orthopedic applications on the convention floor — along with the categories noted above. More granularly, I’ll be looking into…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleep-tech: The square footage of CES convention floor space devoted to sleep has been significant and visible, with 2025 growing new products and sleep-tech “flavors.” In the sleep-health segment, beds and CPAP devices have been part of CES for many years. In 2025, we will see a proliferation of sleep sub-segments such as #EG-tracking tech for sleep and stimulation; audio-based sleep aids (taking, say, the Calm app’s bedtime stories complemented by novel sonic pulse technology); circadian rhythm regulation; and, of course, devices and applications to address sleep apnea and snoring. These, in addition to wearable devices such as Smart Rings and Smartwatches from Apple, Fitbit, Garmin, Oura, Whoop and others. Here’s an example from Embr Wave of sleep-tech innovation, in this instance temperature regulation for a good night’s sleep. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heart-tech: I’ll be meeting with folks from Withings and OMRON, among others focused on heart-health. Note that smartwatches have also added sensors and apps related to cardiovascular health, so we’ll add these into the heart-mix. And we’ll listen to innovation updates delivered on panels during the Digital Health Summit, as well. The graphic shows the recently FDA-cleared blood pressure monitor from Withings, the BPM Pro 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fitness tech: Connected fitness has been a key segment at CES for many years, and these products and programs are integrating AI and more personalization into their tracking and recommendations for users. Athletes are a particularly-engaged group of consumers in this category, with some product areas working their way into health/care, physical therapy, and more broad health consumer and enterprise markets. I’m particularly keen to check out one of the CES 2025 Innovation Award Honorees, G-Grip, an AI powered smart golf club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The connected home, from bathroom to bedroom to kitchen: I’ve had a long relationship with this category and companies that serve the growing Internet-of-Things for health at home. Think: connected refrigerators, smart lighting for good sleep, and smart mirrors and toilets to gauge mood and health along with blood glucose and gut health. A home-health oriented consumer will also have their pick from a growing array of home-care devices to deal with clean air and clean water, both of which have expanding concern among people. A CES 2025 Innovation Honoree in digital health I’m interested in exploring is a smart bed headboard that embeds health tracking sensors from Ceragem. Note how this particular product covers multiple health areas, notably sleep-tech along with digital health tracking for many metrics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earables and hearables: the FDA’s clearance of direct-to-consumer (DTC) hearing aids turbocharged the market for over-the-counter devices, raising awareness and empowerment among people seeking greater hearing clarity. With Apple receiving FDA clearance for the AirPods Pro hearing aid software, I expect this category to mainstream for masses in the next couple of years where music streaming is blurring into hearing-health.

 

 

 

 

 

Smart rings: This category spans several of these areas mentioned, such as activity, heart health, and sleep. This past year has seen a few new entrants and upgrades for more mature rings (such as Oura). We’ll update our category knowledge for these rings at CES 2025 and will devote an entire post to Smart Rings as they are fast-gaining consumer demand and purchased.

But wait! There are more! And you’ll hear more updates from me live from #CES2025.

Now for some context….as we journey through CES 2025 and health/care, it’s good to keep in your mind what’s driving the continued growth of digital health at #CES? Consider…

  • Consumers’ growing use of connected technologies, especially demanding updated smartphones which people use like Swiss Army knives in communication and media consumption
  • Peoples’ use of social media for news, information, and social connection
  • Growing demand for connected home applications for safety and energy consumption, with a segment of people attending to climate change impacts and sustainability, and,
  • Peoples’ taking on more DIY life- and work-flows for health care, medical management, athletics and exercise, and well-being, much of this related to
  • The patient-as-payer of medical bills, high deductibles, and greater out-of-pocket expenses for both general care and chronic condition management.

In another post for contextualizing #CES2025 for health, , I’ll detail some of the barriers, obstacles, and concerns on health consumers’ minds related to the adoption and ongoing use of digital health technologies — with Trust being an over-arching issue on peoples’ minds.

For further details on how to forecast the next couple of years for health and consumers, you can check out my post, the Health Populi TrendCast for 2025, here. It’s themed as the “Rough Guide to Health/Care Consumers in 2025” because people-as-patients and caregivers will feel very much on their/our own in the immediate to close-in future given uncertainties with health policy, health insurance plans (both commercial and public/Medicare/Medicaid), technologies and to be sure, trust between people and health care touch points.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health Populi’s Hot Points: I leave time in my frenetic schedule at CES for serendipity to kick in. Every year, keeping eyes and ears wide open, I spot something adjacent or somehow influential on health or well-being.

My favorite example of this discovery happened at CES in 2015: that would make it a decade ago. In looking up toward the ceiling from the convention floor, I spotted signage with the Whirlpool logo and the three words, “Every Day, Care,” with a comma between the words Every Day and then Care.

This spoke to me with my health/care everywhere lens on all the time, so I ventured into the Whirlpool booth to strike up a conversation about that mantra, and learn about the importance of washing machines on a student’s education.

Thus I connected dots for the most important driver of health — education — and Whirlpool’s product, the humble washing machine. You can read more at this link to my blog post discussing the company’s program to award washers to schools that help keep kids engaged in attending and engaging in learning.

Stay tuned to my daily Health Populi blog postings and LinkedIn messages for #CES2025 updates between 5 and 10 January 2025. If you’ll be in Vegas and want to connect, please let me know through a message on LinkedIn.

And in the meantime — we wish you a joyful, peaceful and healthy 2025!