CES 2022 has two obsessions, and they could not be more different: the metaverse and cars. Every other booth wants to sell you a virtual world, the buzzword is everywhere, and a lot of it is vague to the point of meaningless. Then there is the interesting stuff happening on four wheels.
Sony doubles down, BMW changes color
Sony surprises everyone again, announcing it is forming Sony Mobility to actually explore building cars, and rolls out the Vision-S 02, an SUV to sit beside last year’s sedan. BMW shows the iX Flow, a car wrapped in E Ink that can shift from black to white at the push of a button, which is the kind of pointless magic trick I adore. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 anchors the year’s Android flagships under a new naming scheme.
The trend for the year ahead
The metaverse is going to soak up an enormous amount of money and hype, and I am not convinced the substance is there yet. The car story, though, is real. Sony is now serious, and the software-defined vehicle is becoming the center of gravity at CES.
Most of the metaverse pitches here are a solution chasing a problem. The color-changing BMW is a gimmick and I do not care, it is delightful. Watch Sony: a phone-and-TV company forming a mobility division is not a hobby, it is a statement.
Part of 20 Years of CES Through My Lens, my year-by-year diary of the show.