Sony has long been a major brand to enhance the entertainment value of our home, but their Xperia line of products is pushing them into the functional realm of smart home enjoyment. At this year’s CES, I got to test out a trio of Sony Xperia products that will certainly make our homes a bit more efficient.
The Sony Xperia Ear is a personal assistant that goes anywhere you go. Think of it as Siri, but instead of being on your phone, she lives in an earpiece. The Xperia Ear can run web searches, recite text messages, and deliver commands to other smart home devices. Unlike some other smart home tech, the Xperia Ear can go with you and because it’s built to be a functional ear piece, it has the tech to understand your voice commands with much more precision and clarity.
The Sony Xperia Agent brings Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons to a whole new level. Built to have more personality than your average smart home device, the Xperia Agent can connect to a multitude of smart home products and basically acts as a central command system for all your smart home tech. But does it in a way that’s much more reminiscent of Wall-E rather than Iron Man’s Jarvis.
The Sony Xperia Projector may be the coolest of the Sony smart home trio. It’s the size of a box of Keurig K-Cups and can turn any flat surface into a smart surface. Connect it to your smart phone and it can replicate the interface and even allow you to type on a virtual keyboard projected on the kitchen table or watch YouTube videos on a wall in your bedroom. Instead of huddling around a small tablet or phone, you can easily take that mobile experience and share it anywhere in your home.
All of the Sony Xperia products were in beta at CES, but I fully expect to see most of them rolled out in the second half of 2017. Check out some of our other favorite smart home tech at ces.coldwellbanker.com.