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Buddy Technologies unveils new products at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas

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By George Tchetvertakov - 
Buddy Technologies ASX BUD LIFX Consumer Electronics Show Las Vegas CES 2020

Buddy Technologies has launched a swathe of new products at this years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

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IoT company Buddy Technologies (ASX: BUD) has unveiled a range of new products at the this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) taking place in Las Vegas this week – currently, the world’s largest consumer electronics show where the likes of Samsung and Apple present their cutting edge gadgets and devices.

Buddy announced a range of new and enhanced products at the show, including its LIFX Filament White smart light, the TV 360° Kit and LIFX 100mm downlight.

The LIFX Filament White smart light is a next-generation light bulb to be sold to consumers for around US$29.99. As a concept, the LIFX Filament range is aiming to monetise the growing trend towards vintage Edison-type smart lights.

According to the IoT company, Vintage Edison-type lights are increasingly found in both retail and hospitality venues, which means the launch of its Filament White product “opens up a large number of new commercial opportunities for LIFX,” the company said.

CES’ location means it attracts many hoteliers and other consumer-focused enterprises looking to provide services on a large scale.

Buddy confirmed it plans to debut a teardrop design as well as a globe shape with vertical hanging LEDs and a range of coloured glass versions.

The bulbs are a single warm white and built upon the same technology platform as the rest of the LIFX range, which means they support all voice assistants, cloud connectivity and remote functionality.

From CES to market

CES is considered to be an industry-leading event that comes packed with promotions, new product launches, games and entertainment.

The event is renowned for delivering highly anticipated products as part of elaborate presentations that allow potential customers to sample this year’s latest products from the world’s leading manufacturers.

CES is the global stage where next-generation products are introduced to the marketplace and is the single event each year where all the company’s customers, partners and potential customers and partners congregate.

Buddy’s commercial and consumer LIFX teams attended the event and created an immersive demonstration experience involving LIFX lights, LIFX feature lights, LIFX Switches, and integration with voice assistant products from Amazon and Google.

According to Buddy, its management team participated in more than 50 meetings with various companies attending CES over four days in addition to a media event including CNN, Consumer Reports, Gizmodo and other major industry outlets hosted in Buddy’s demo suite.

New products galore

In addition to the products on show, Buddy is also using CES to launch its LIFX Z TV 360° and the LIFX Z Gamer kits – two additional members of the growing “Z strip” family of products. The Z strip range is attached to the back of existing TVs and screens and allows greater customisation and lighting effects for users.

A further innovation unveiled at CES was the new LIFX Candle White to Warm, a similar product to the company’s existing LIFX Candle Color. The Candle White to Warm is a customisable white model that supplements the colour Candle range and is expected to hit store shelves within the next three-to-six months.

Buddy has developed a wide range of lighting products, which its customers can readily interact with via a dedicated app or by using voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa to adjust lighting conditions in their home or office.

As part of its CES attendance, Buddy is also unveiling its new mobile application – LIFX App 4 – which serves as a command and control centre for customers’ entire set of LIFX smart lights.

Buddy says its LIFX business unit has been successfully beta testing a new version of the app over the past several months with “overwhelmingly positive feedback” received so far during the “ground-up redesign”.

The new app is compatible with LIFX smart lights but is also designed to support control of other smart home products such as blinds and appliances.

With the app expected to be released to consumers later this month and Buddy’s new product range to be made available in the spring, Buddy said it expects the new range to contribute to LIFX growth in 2020.

Financial metrics

With several new products in the pipeline and a several more already in pre-sales, Buddy said the company is confident that its commercial performance would match its early aspirations.

It’s worth noting that the Christmas holiday period has just ended which is typically the busiest time for consumer sales in western countries.

Although holiday sales figures are not yet available, Buddy did provide some early insights into its potential performance later this year. In a statement to the market, Buddy confirmed that account growth on the LIFX cloud grew by 51% year-on-year while its device growth rate was 56%.

Other circumstantial figures also suggest a strong take-up of smart lighting management solutions. Buddy said it is experiencing growth in its customers using voice assistance partner devices and adopting voice commands to toggle their specific device installations.

“With such outsized growth in the usage of voice assistants by customers to access and control LIFX smart lighting, it is clear that the investments made by the LIFX engineering team in top-tier support for these products have paid dividends,” the company said.