Kicking off this week, the Las Vegas-based CES (Consumer Electronics Show) event is among the most important tech events of the year.
The platform for big and small tech firms alike was host to over 100,000 industry attendees last year and more than 4,000 exhibiting companies.
This year, 66 of UK’s most varied and exciting brands have made the journey to show off their inventions at the tech event.
Among them is British FemTech firm Elvie, which was last year named a CES 2019 Innovation Honoree for its second product, a silent breast pump.
Founded in 2013, the British brand is developing smart tech for women. It entered the market with a pelvic floor trainer called Elvie Trainer before receiving recognition from TechCityUK, WIRED Magazine, and BusinessCloud’s London Tech 50 ranking.
Last year it secured $42m in funding, the largest round secured by a FemTech firm.
This year it will demonstrate a free app which connects to its existing breast pump device, providing data and insight into milk volume and flow, alongside session time.
Also based in London, Humanising Autonomy will demonstrate its tech which helps self-driving cars to identify and predict the actions of pedestrians.
Already working with Transport for London and Airbus, its technology goes beyond person detection and accounts for factors including culture and context to predict if a pedestrian is about to walk into the road.
Bristol-based smart audio firm Audiogum will demonstrate its sound-based platform which allows firms to integrate voice control and music services into apps.
The firm, which has worked with Sony and Napster, celebrates its second year at CES, having also exhibited at the Mobile World Congress conference since its last visit.
London-based Audoo will also exhibit its music royalties IoT device.
The firm was created in 2018 by Ryan Edwards, after he discovered his top 10 hit single was being played in a London department store, but he was never paid for it.
Its plug-in audio meter tracks actual played music in public spaces to help Performance Rights Organisations (PROs) digitise and streamline their processes.
Last year the firm made some heavyweight acquisitions including music manager and Spice Girls creator Chris Herbert and PRS music chairman Nigel Elderton and joined music technology incubator, Abbey Road Red.
Staying on sound, Southampton-based Audiocenic has taken its immersive ‘3D’ sound system to the expo.
An often overlooked element of the VR and AR experience, the firm claims to have created an alternative to traditional headphones or loudspeakers.
Combining a small arrays of speakers with head tracking technologies, it hopes its technology can further increase the authenticity of immersive gaming, VR experiences and even movies.
London-based Teslasuit also hopes to enhance existing VR experiences with its ‘Ready Player One’ inspired suit. Originally designed for gaming, it is now hoping the suit, which allows users to interact to VR environments with their whole body, will be used in training environments.
Cambridge-based East of England Tech 50 winner VividQ will tout its holographic display technology, which it hopes has a commercial mass appeal in AR and VR, smartglasses, car HUDs, and consumer electronics.
Founded in 2017 by an expert team from Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and St Andrews, it claims to have cracked 3D holography, allowing users to see virtual elements from any angle.
In 2018 VividQ’s co-founder Aleksandra Pedraszewska told BusinessCloud holographic displays will be available within two years.
London-based start-up Hero Labs will demonstrate AI-powered tech which it hopes can save people from destructive leaks in their homes.
It last year received £2.5m in funding, which it is using to accelerate development of what it claims to be the UK’s first smart leak defence system ‘Sonic’.
Paired with an app, users get an alert when a leak is detected, and can automatically shut off the water supply.
Hull-based HealthTech start-up Moodbeam will demonstrate its wearable device that monitors emotional wellbeing.
The device, which won Best Emerging Technology at the 2017 Hull Digital Awards, tracks user’s mood with a connected bracelet.
Alongside the firms, with a looming Brexit deadline approaching, the UK tech firms will be accompanied at the conference by the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilion, supported by the Department for International Trade (DIT).
It hopes to help UK-based businesses to ensure their success in international markets through exports.