Healthtech’s innovative, quirky and cutting-edge tech display at CES 2018

As the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas fades away, here’s a glimpse of the digital healthcare innovations that turned the most heads.

Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Las Vegas concluded earlier this month, featuring a mammoth audience comprising anyone interested in anything tech. IT’s big players and major exhibitors were also in attendance, having their say on how 2017 was and what 2018 could bring to the industry.

As the digital health balloon inflates at a staggering pace, the need for greater innovation and creative solutions for diagnosis, monitoring and treatment goes up.

It, therefore, comes as no surprise that the healthcare and wellness market exhibits were causing quite the stir at the show.

Disruption in healthcare

Gone are the days when healthtech was associated with merely being limited to heart-rate trackers and workout monitors. At the 2018 exhibit of the world’s largest consumer electronics show, however, healthtech outdid itself. Creative, unusual and downright bizarre innovations in health, fitness, wellness and medical technology have cropped up in unprecedented ways. Better yet, the typical target market has been stretched – from being limited to runners and gym aficionados, new target markets in the digital health domain span from regular consumers to medical practitioners, and everyone in between.

The focus has been shifting from caregivers to consumers for awhile now – and this year was no different. IBM, Fitbit, Philips and a plethora of big names had their fair share of technology to showcase at the event too, among a wide array of fresh names and returning names in the market.

Here’s how the boundaries of conventional digital healthcare have been stretched far beyond anticipated limits:

Eye-candy healthtech innovations

Take the example of Nokia. The Finnish giant showcased its under-the-mattress sleep monitor, codenamed Nokia Sleep. Sleep adds the additional functionality of being able to control lighting and temperature, allowing you to snooze better over and above tracking sleeping patterns and sleep quality.

Although skin-scanner gadgets have been on the market for awhile now, Neutrogena’s skin scanner is in a league apart. The scanner attaches to your smartphone, takes magnified images of your skin, following which an AI-enabled app rates your skin from zero to 100, allowing you to identify what treatment you could opt for. Another skincare example came from L’Oreal’s UV sense, which when clipped onto fingernails (or any other part), effectively tracks UV exposure.

Willow’s ingenious portable breast pump, an award winner in its category, allows moms to collect breast milk while they’re away from their babies.

There wasn’t a lack of quirk either. American startup LifeFuels have invented a water bottle that, they claim, injects your water with vitamins based on what the bottle detects you need. Yet another company, Healbe from Russia, has developed a device that can allegedly track calorie intake through glucose readings in your skin cells.

The boundaries of health-tech have been stretched

This is an achievement, considering how initial strides in this area were limited to tiny wearables with limited functionality.

As the year progresses, we can expect to be dazzled by a fair share of extraordinary, astonishing and occasionally queer gadgetry and innovation in the domain.

While we look forward to what each player, big and small, has to offer, it’s clear that the boundaries of healthtech have been well and truly pushed in every aspect. Exciting times lie ahead for the domain of digital health, and we cannot wait for other great things to come.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)