2023's laptops and wearables we may (or may not) see

The Verge’s Alex Cranz talks with senior reviewer Monica Chin about the laptops she saw at CES this year and what it means for 2023’s computer trends. Verge reviewer Victoria Song joins the show to discuss the FDA regulations behind health tech, and whether the stuff we saw at CES will ever be available in the United States. Further reading: The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3i is the CES 2023 gadget I’m most excited for Lenovo Yoga Book 9i hands-on: the dual-screen future OLED plus E Ink: Lenovo’s ThinkBook Twist is halfway to my dream laptop Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola hands-on: a ThinkPad’s best friend The new Asus ZenBook Pro 14 leads a line of impressively refreshed OLED laptops Acer’s new Predator Helios laptops can pack a bright 250Hz Mini LED screen The LG Gram Style might be the prettiest laptop of 2023 With PC sales down, laptop makers turn to services The HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook is neat, but what's with the RGB? The regulatory maze behind health tech vaporware Withings wants you to pee on its latest device How do you sell over-the-counter hearing aids when nobody knows who you are? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Alex Cranz?

  Hello, and you're listening to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of laptops with a ton of screens. I'm your friend Alex Cranz, and I am currently walking through the streets of New York to try to tire out my dog after he slept for the last three days on our drive back from Texas. Found a whole bunch of cool gadgets in my mom's house, really excited to play with them, but first I gotta get this dog worn out, and we gotta do a whole Vergecast episode about CES. I know, I know, we've done a ton of episodes about CES so far, but there's just a little bit more left to do. So we're gonna be talking to Monica Chen about all the laptops she saw, and when we're gonna actually see them in 2023, and what they mean for laptop trends this year. And then we're gonna talk to Victoria Song, because health technology was a really big

• 0:47Alex Cranz?

  deal at the show this year, and she's been looking into what the FDA is doing to make sure that when we use all these new health gadgets, we don't die. But first, I gotta go wear this dog out. I'll see you right after the break.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Colin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting, or wherever you

• 1:44Speaker 01

  get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Colin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting

• 2:28Speaker 01

  or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:33Alex Cranz?

  Okay, and we're back. So there was a ton of laptops announced at CES. I know we've talked about a bunch of them on the show already, but I had to talk to Monica Chen because she was actually there. She got to play with these laptops. And she wrote about almost every single one announced at the show, it seems like. So we're going to talk about the Lenovo's and the Razors and the LG's and the Soos's, all of them. And then we're going to talk about the state of the laptop business in 2023 and what you're going to see from all of these companies this year. It's a super fun conversation, very nerdy. Let's get into it.

• 3:11Alex Cranz?

  All right, Monica, have you recovered from CES yet? Did you get a funk?

• 3:17Speaker 02

  A funk?

• 3:18Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, the CES funk. Are you like snotty right now?

• 3:22Speaker 02

  No, actually, I was, I was so sure I was going to come back like deathly ill, but I'm like very fine right now. I'm raring to go, which I think might be the first time that has ever happened to me after CES where I haven't come back with like the flu. So knocking on wood, you never know what could happen. But this was a remarkably good recovery.

• 3:39Alex Cranz?

  Awesome. Well, that is great because I'm just going to be like grilling you today about CES. I'm very jealous that I didn't get to go. I didn't get to go to like that weird room that Lenovo always has. It's not weird, it's fine.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  We missed you in that room, Alex.

• 3:52Alex Cranz?

  I know, they were probably like, where was she?

• 3:54Speaker 02

  There were laptops with your name on them everywhere and you weren't there.

• 3:58Alex Cranz?

  It's so sad. It was, I was, oh my God, you're giving me a lot of FOMO right now. But you saw a bunch of stuff. I know there was the really, really kick ass Lenovo that I'm glad I didn't go because I would have been just playing with that the entire time. What like, what was your favorite thing that you saw at CES this year?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  I would have to say the Lenovo dual screen. Basically, what it is, is there's a 13.3-inch OLED screen on the top. There's a 13-inch OLED screen on the bottom. 2.8K, same size, same resolution. You can fold it in half. You can unfold it. So when you unfold it, it's just like this super tall thing. And then you like put it on a kickstand and it's just like this one massive long window with like a hinge in the middle, but whatever. And then you can fold it into a clamshell laptop mode where you have like one screen on the top and one screen on the bottom. You can put it sideways, so it's like a book. You can fold it backwards so that it's a tablet and but like the keyboard's not awkwardly on the back. There are a lot of ways you can use it. It's like a Surface Neo Re:Imagine, kind of like this sort of form factor isn't new. But it feels a little more similar to me to using like a foldable.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Like Lenovo's done a foldable before Asus has a foldable. Various people have foldables. This is like that, but like if it didn't suck. Because like foldables are like a lot of fun to fold, but like they're fun to use as a tablet. When you fold them into a clamshell form factor, the problem is that like cuts the screen size you have in half. And like makes it like really impractical to use often. Like even the 17-inchers, when you fold them, they still become like pretty small and pretty cramped because of like the bezel space on the side.

• 5:29Alex Cranz?

  Because you're talking about the foldables that are like one big display.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Like the ZenBook Fold, yeah, the ThinkPad X1 Fold, yeah. This is like that, except when you fold it, it actually, you can actually still use it. It's just like a regular 13-incher, which I really, I really like. And I think this is actually like really versatile and practical.

• 5:48Alex Cranz?

  I know you only got to spend a little time with it. You didn't get to spend days and days with it. But how was the typing?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  So there is a keyboard. There's like a keyboard that you can like snap on and off. That is what I would use most of the time, just because like that's a keyboard. I want to type on a keyboard most of the time. You can also type in it, plug in an external keyboard, which is what I assume some folks will do if they don't like the flat one. I liked the flat one. I thought it was fine. It did not feel like super, super flat. I would not say it was, I mean, it doesn't feel like using like a great keyboard from Asus or someone. But like I thought it was like acceptable. I would have been happy to like type on it. It had a nice click. You can also use a haptic. Feedback keyboard on the flat screen on the bottom if you fold it into clamshell mode.

• 6:30Alex Cranz?

  But is it good?

• 6:31Speaker 02

  So obviously, I think most people aren't going to prefer to like type on a flat screen because like it's typing on a flat screen. I much prefer it to typing on like an iPad. The haptic feedback is like very good. There's like a real click. The keys are really roomy because it is full size, like it is the size of that would be on a 13 inch laptop. So it wasn't like riddled with typos the way that like it often is when I'm typing on an iPad because it's so tiny.

• 6:54Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  And so it was like usable. It was probably the best onscreen keyboard I've ever tested, which again, the bar for that is on the floor. But it is, it is like, it is not difficult to meet that standard at all. But it is like a, it is a nice haptic keyboard that like you could use it in a pinch. You, you feel like you are clicking keys a little bit. Which again, is more than, for example, you get from the Windows onscreen keyboard most of the time.

• 7:16Alex Cranz?

  I like, I'm honestly not surprised by that because Lenovo's always been pretty good at keyboards. More so on the ThinkPad than the, than the Yoga lines, but like, I've always liked a Lenovo keyboard.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, ThinkPad keyboards are very, are legendary. Unfortunately, this one not being a ThinkPad does not have a, have a haptic little red thing in the middle.

• 7:36Alex Cranz?

  That would have been the best.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  But you know, you can't have everything in life. But it is really fun. And the other cool thing when you've, about clamshell mode is when you use that, that onscreen keyboard, regardless of whether you are using the haptic one or the physical one that you like plonk on, there is a touchpad that they put like on the bottom. Because like one of my big concerns when I first saw this announcement, I was like, where is the touchpad? There's no touchpad on this. Like, how do you navigate this? And the answer is that there are a number of different ways, but one of them is there is a haptic touchpad that they put on the bottom. It's, the buttons are actually like physical buttons. I mean, they're like virtual physical buttons. Like they're not like real buttons, but like they, they are outlined as buttons. When you click, they feel like you're clicking buttons.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Again, it doesn't feel like you're clicking like great buttons, but it is like, I, I would say it is better haptic feedback than like some other haptic touchpads out there.

• 8:27Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, I deeply enjoy Lenovo products. Thinkpads are like, if I had to own a Windows PC that wasn't one I built myself, it'd probably be a Thinkpad. But the bloatware can be kind of bad in Lenovo products. Did this feel like bloated at all? Like all this extra software? Because this isn't Windows stuff. This is like Lenovo made all of this stuff to make it work.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  So there is one, as far as I know, there is one Lenovo like Control Center where you sort of control everything. And other than that, it really is just, at least in my, what I was doing, it was Windows with like a bunch of extra gestures that they put in. So there were not like, as far as I know, it was not like an Acer experience where there's like Lenovo Experience Center and Lenovo Game Center and Lenovo Sound Center. Like I do, there might be those, but I didn't have to interact with them if they were there. I didn't have things popping up everywhere. Again, this was a pre-production unit, so that is somewhat difficult to extrapolate to like what's going to be on the shelf and like what you're going to get if you buy one of these. But this really felt very much like using Windows.

• 9:28Alex Cranz?

  And they actually planned to ship it?

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is, they are putting this out, is their claim. Like it's not Windows 10 X or it's not like the fancy Microsoft thing that they were going to ship. Like this is regular Windows. It feels like using Windows Lenovo has put a bunch of gestures in. And the Lenovo Control Center, which is where you can like play with the haptic touchpad and you can toggle with the keyboard and fool around with some of the dual screen stuff. That actually seemed pretty responsive. It didn't, again, I only had a little bit of time with it and it was supervised, but sometimes those things are like super glitchy when they first ship and like require you to restart the computer when you like do a single thing. This seemed pretty responsive and pretty like well-developed and like time was put into it and reasonably well-laid out. Like the part I think you're going to access the most, which is the please pull up the touchpad part was like really easy to get to and not buried. So that was great.

• 10:14Alex Cranz?

  That's very cool. And it comes out, what time this year?

• 10:17Speaker 02

  It's supposed to arrive in June.

• 10:18Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  And they gave me $2,000 price. So like somewhere in that range we're expecting.

• 10:23Alex Cranz?

  That's a similar price. What, did they talk about processor at all? Like what's the internals on this thing look like?

• 10:28Speaker 02

  So yeah, it has the 13th gen Intel Core i7 U15 processor. So that's a U-series processor. It's a thin, light processor. It's not going to be like, you know, your huge gaming laptop stuff. But I have had, I have had a lot of people ask, and even some of our video people asked, like, could you edit on this? And like, I think you could try. Like, I wouldn't, you know, and I think this will be obvious to most people who work in this space, but a U-series processor isn't going to give you like the best Premiere Pro experience, but I have had U-series machines where I've had to dive into Premiere and like do some quick things, or I've had to go do some photo stuff. And like, it's slow, it's kind of slow to load, but like will work. And that's like, again, without making any like strict pronouncements, not having used

• 11:10Speaker 02

  the thing for it, that's what I would like generally expect out of this kind of category processor.

• 11:16Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. No, I'm just excited because I feel like we've been seeing this form factor. How many times have you gone, I know I've done it a bunch, and you have too. You go to a place and they get really excited and they're like, okay, you can't, you can't share this with anyone. It's not ready yet. It's like three years away, but look, and it's, it's, it's what Lenovo is doing right now.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, they've had prototypes of this thing at their CES booth before in various years.

• 11:43Alex Cranz?

  And other people have too, right? Like, I feel like Intel was always showing, Intel's always like, the new way, Intel's so good that soon, this is going to be your computer.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think what that highlights is like, this is not like a new form factor. Like, that's like, people have done this before. This has been floating around. I see this really as a software announcement.

• 12:01Alex Cranz?

  Oh, interesting.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Lenovo has said that they've invested in putting real gesture control on this thing. They've ingested in an ecosystem where this is easy to use. They have put in the work to make, to address the question of where is the touchpad, for example? And like, the fact that everyone hates on-screen keyboards and doesn't, and virtual touchpads are kind of hit or miss when other companies try them. They really, I think, have put thought into that stuff and effort into that stuff. How it's going to pay off, you know, we're going to have to see, but that to me is the significant thing here, less so the, the fact that you can like open and close it and there's a screen on the bottom. Although that is cool.

• 12:41Alex Cranz?

  It is cool. And it's also just $2,000. I say just, that is a lot of money for something that is not actually tested with lots of people using it yet. But that feels kind of cheap to me.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that $2,000 is more than a lot of people are going to want to pay. Compared to foldables, it's a bargain. Like, the Asus ZenBook 17 Fold started at like over $4,000, I think. Like, it was like some ridiculous amount of money. So this is like not that. It is, you know, it's still a premium product in the premium space. We hope to see that drop. Lenovo prices often do drop very quickly. Lenovo often sets their MSRP is like much higher than things tend to sell for. So I'm hopeful that we'll see it, we'll see it go for lower.

• 13:20Alex Cranz?

  Did at any point you flip it around and pretend like you were in Star Trek?

• 13:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 13:27Alex Cranz?

  Just shut me down.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  I haven't seen Star Trek, so I don't know what you're talking about, unfortunately.

• 13:32Alex Cranz?

  All right. We're not going to take a break yet, but that made me want to take a break real bad. I'll survive, I'll survive. What other cool stuff did you see at CES?

• 13:40Speaker 02

  So also in the Lenovo booth, one of the things I thought was really cool was they had the Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola. And this is essentially if a ThinkPad, like, made a wish on a star to become a smartphone, then that wish came true. Like, it's this little smartphone that like is designed to look like a ThinkPad. It has, like, if you've used a ThinkPad, you'll, and you see this phone, you'll, you'll sort of get what I'm talking about. Like, it has the textured back that it's all black. It has like the little logo with the red dot on it. There is a little red button on the side, which is not a keyboard nub, but like, that's probably the best you can do on a literal smartphone, is like a little red button on the side. You can remap it, which, if you're a ThinkPad user, you may have experience remapping some of their keyboard keys. I certainly do. So

• 14:25Speaker 02

  it's, it's made to sort of seamlessly interact with the ThinkPad in some similar ways that the iPhone interacts with like Mac computers. So there's like, one of the most obvious sort of glaring examples there is that they have a similar feature to the continuity camera, where it can use a ThinkPhone as like your webcam when you're videoconversing on a ThinkPad. And that's like, super easy to set up. I got to try that. There's a number of other connectivity features. There's one called the, I think it's the United clipboard, where you can like, take a photo with your phone and then like, press Ctrl+V on the ThinkPad, and it like automatically paste that photo like right into whatever's open on the ThinkPad.

• 15:03Alex Cranz?

  So kind of like what you can do with an iPhone and a Mac.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  So sort of, yeah. And there's, um, there's a lot of other sharing, like to find each other really easily over wifi. There's like tethering stuff happening. It was a lot of fun to use and I think it's like, like if I had a ThinkPad, I think it would be like a really, I think it would make my life easier in a lot of ways. So that was a lot of fun to try.

• 15:23Alex Cranz?

  Who is the audience, though? Like?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  ThinkPad lovers. Like ThinkPads are like one of the most beloved lines of all time.

• 15:30Alex Cranz?

  I mean, I know they're beloved, but like, are there enough people out there who are like, I'm going to get rid of my iPhone? Or like my fancy Samsung foldable or whatever and be like, I'm going to fully embrace ThinkPad.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  I mean, I think the audience is fairly specific in that like it's, it's really for hardcore ThinkPad people who like only use ThinkPads and really want something that will complement their ThinkPad use. I think that like those people definitely exist, though. And I think it'll certainly be interesting to see how many people actually buy this. I mean, it's been like how many years in the making since Lenovo, Lenovo bought Motorola. So I, I'm not the phone reviewer. So I, I didn't spend a ton of time testing like the dustproof ratings or any, any of that like phone stuff. That wasn't what I was there to do. But I did, from the laptop side, get a chance to see like how well it interacted with the ThinkPad. Um, and it was pretty well.

• 16:25Alex Cranz?

  Awesome. Alison's just furious right now. She's like, didn't take any notes on this?

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was funny. And I was, I was sort of talking to Alison about it and she was like, oh yeah, it has, this, this is such a cool phone. It has like this like military grade durability feature and like this number of, this number of years under warranty. And I was like, oh, cool. I just like that you could like take a photo with it, paste it out with ThinkPad. I thought that was cool.

• 16:48Alex Cranz?

  Alison, she's just like, mm. Well, she'll be very excited. She's going to have so much fun reviewing it. We're going to learn all about Alison's secret love of ThinkPads. It's going to be great. You're going to have to be like looking over her shoulder. It's going to be wonderful.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm like, hey, do that, do that.

• 17:02Alex Cranz?

  You saw a bunch of stuff at the Lenovo booth. What other brands were doing interesting stuff?

• 17:07Speaker 02

  So Razer has its biggest blade ever, the Razer Blade 18. The Razer Blade 16 has a, it's a big boy. The mini LED display on the Razer Blade 16 is really cool. These both just look like Razer blades. I mean, they all, they all look the same, they're Razer blades.

• 17:21Alex Cranz?

  So it's still like just absorbing your fingerprints?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Yep, absorb fingerprints, RGB keyboards. They got the little Razer logo on the back that everyone knows and loves. Blade 16 has a mini LED display, which looks really cool. We sort of, we're in like a dimly lit hotel room, which is where they had all this stuff laid out. They had their Razer Edge, which is like their gaming handheld. This wasn't announced here, but this was the first time that, that I got hands on time with it.

• 17:48Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  It's an Android tablet with like little controllers attached to it. It runs stuff from like, I was like, what services does it have? They, they gave me like 20 services. Like GeForce Now is on there and Steam, Steam links on there. Like all, yeah, all that stuff is on there and they were playing some different games with it. It's, it's fun. There, it's going to come like with 5G and cellular connectivity and without it. So like, if that's something you're interested in, you want to just be out doing Android tablet stuff with it. And you want to pay more, that's an option for you.

• 18:21Alex Cranz?

  So I have a question for you about this. This is, I remember, I think Cameron wrote about it for the site. He is a, he's a giant cloud gaming nerd. He's probably softly weeping that Stadia is dead, but not as much as Tom Warren. There's a lot of bereft people here about Stadia.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 18:36Alex Cranz?

  But it kind of reminded me, it mainly, to me, it looked more like they have these little controllers that you can attach to your phone, the Kishi, I think is how you say it.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it looks a little like that.

• 18:46Alex Cranz?

  And it felt kind of like that, but you're buying a tablet from Razer to stick in it instead of just your phone.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, their pitch for this, I sort of asked them, I was like, so like, is this just an Android tablet with controllers? And their pitch is like, no, because of the, the high refresh rate screen. It's like much higher than you'll get on like most like Android tablets. It's like specifically for gaming. It looks very smooth and because of the, the extra, like all the gaming services that are like, come natively on it.

• 19:16Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  So those are like the two main different things that you're paying for. But like at minimum, it is like an Android tablet. Like you could just buy this and like use it as a very expensive, high refresh rate Android tablet with controllers if you wanted to. Like that option would be open to you.

• 19:31Alex Cranz?

  And they have this mini LED laptop. I know we've seen like Apple's, I think, has done some mini LED laptops. Is this the first we're seeing from like a Windows maker?

• 19:39Speaker 02

  No, so it's sort of been a trend that is like slowly and gradually been picking up speed over the past couple of years. This is a big year for it. We had a number of mini LED displays come out and this one had like, I think they said a thousand local dimming zones, which is higher than we heard from other laptops. And it looks, it looks very cool. These will not be cheap laptops, but razor blades are not cheap. But it's cool to look at and they had a little demo like on the side where they were showing. They had a little panel that had all the local dimming zones like arranged in a grid. And it would like show each little dimming zone lighting up when the dimming zone on the blade was lighting up or dim concurrently. So that was really cool to just see like how tiny these things actually are, how many than

• 20:24Speaker 02

  there are and like how hard they're working, basically like while this device is displaying an image.

• 20:29Alex Cranz?

  This is technology we've seen from TV makers for years now. Like they've been doing this a very long time and it's taken a super long time, it feels like, to laptops to catch up. I mean, you said you saw a lot of them this year. Is this going to be kind of one of those things they're hoping will drive upgrade cycles and they're hoping people will see that display and be like, yeah, that's my reason to go get a new laptop. I just bought one two years ago.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I suspect so. I mean, I think display was definitely a focus of many gaming manufacturers this year. You know, in the past couple of years, it's really been like you could get an OLED or you can get a high refresh rate screen, but like you couldn't get both. Or you could get QHD or you could get like 240 Hz, but you couldn't get both of them. And you're starting to see those converge a little more so that it's the expect, it's not as much the expectation that you'll have to give up like a ton of premium features in order to get one.

• 21:22Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  So we saw a lot, for example, we saw a number of glasses free 3D displays. And one of the big pitches for those is like, you don't have to give up other stuff to get this glasses free 3D. It's also OLED, it's also high refresh rate. So like you can still game on it. We're seeing high refresh rate OLED, we're seeing high refresh rate QHD. That's definitely a space where like the arms race is picking up.

• 21:46Alex Cranz?

  Do you think we're going to see a moment where laptop makers stop shipping laptops with absolute garbage displays? I mean, they're always going to do that in the sub thousand dollar category, right? Like, they're never going to put a good display in something like there.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was gonna say.

• 22:00Alex Cranz?

  But in those more expensive ones, you think we're going to see a moment where they're just like, you know what? We're done with garbage displays. We're going all in on LED. We're going all in on micro LED. And from now on, if you want a Dell XPS 13, it's going to be a really kick-ass display. You're not going to have to, like, look at your wallet and decide what's worth it.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  What I do think is we will definitely see this stuff start to come to lower-priced devices. Whether that will completely eliminate the need to have, like, 1920 by 1200 on lower-priced devices, I don't entirely know, but I do think that, like, while this stuff is in the premium space right now, it will... I would expect that, like, in the next couple of years, like, getting a 240 Hz QHD display, like, will get significantly less expensive. And often, when you see this kind of, like, fancy stuff debut on fancy laptops, that is an important announcement, not just because it's going to be on those fancy laptops, but because that sort of starts the clock for when we're going to see it on stuff in the sub 1,000 range. Because that is where most people are shopping.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Like, stuff like the G14, stuff like the Acer Nitro, like, that is better selling stuff than, like, the fanciest Acer Predator, Triton, and Helios.

• 23:10Alex Cranz?

  I feel like laptops are in this unique space where you have a whole bunch of different model types, right? Like, a TV manufacturer is going to be like, okay, you get your 55, or your 65, or your 75, that's it. Laptop makers are like, okay, you can get your 13-inch. Now, would you like it with a 1980 by 1200, or a 1980 by 1080? You know, like, they're asking for... They just ask you for tons of different things to choose, and you're inevitably, like, that laptop that's advertised for $1,000 and seems like a great deal, the one that actually makes sense is $3,000, and now you have no money. I'm just curious if we're going to see that condensing in the...

• 23:50Alex Cranz?

  at least in the monitors element of laptops as these OLEDs and mini LEDs become more popular.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, like I think gamers like in general, what I hear from companies is that they like to have choice and that part of the reason that many of these models are like so like that they're like a dizzying number of models compared to like the four options that there are for the XPS 13 or whatever is that like just gamers are really, really picky about about the kind of stuff that they want. So I wouldn't necessarily think that we'll see models condensing, but like if the question of like whether we'll see displays get better and better in the sub 1000 space, I think is like absolutely true.

• 24:29Alex Cranz?

  So we're seeing the trickle down. It's happening. All right. Well, we're going to take a break and when we come back, we're going to talk about why this is all happening because you have been writing a bunch about how the laptop space is in a difficult spot right at the moment. So we're going to take a break and we'll be right back.

• 25:00Speaker 03

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• 25:30Nilay Patel?

  Hi, I'm Neelai Patel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. This week is part of our special series on the future of business. I talked with Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare about how AI bots and agents are remaking the business model of the web and how CloudFlare is trying to build a new economy around websites getting paid every time an AI crawler shows up.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  We polled all of that data and looked at it and said that, you know, it would be the second half of 2027, automated traffic will become larger than human traffic. I was stunned when just a few months later in May, a team came to me and said, you won't believe it, but automated traffic is now past human traffic online. And that's just expanding like crazy. And if you extrapolate that out, five years from now, we think that automated traffic will be a thousand times human traffic online.

• 26:16Nilay Patel?

  This was a fascinating conversation, not just about the future of the web, but also about how one of the world's most important software companies is deciding which of its employees it can replace with AI. Listen to Decoder wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:29Speaker 06

  This series is presented by EY.

• 26:34Alex Cranz?

  And we're back. Monica, you wrote this great piece that should be up by the time people are listening to this episode. We're editing it right now and having a great time. That's all about how laptops are in kind of a bad place at the moment. People aren't buying them. Nobody wants to buy them. And the technology, the hardware, maybe isn't always keeping up. So laptops are starting to pivot. Is that right?

• 26:58Speaker 02

  So I wouldn't, I don't know if I would call it a pivot, but one of the big things that sort of hung over this year's CES going into it was the fact that the PC market is like way, way down. You know, 2020 and 2021 were like huge, huge years for the PC. And there's been a lot of decline year over year throughout 2022.

• 27:21Alex Cranz?

  Because everybody bought their laptops.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Every manufacturer besides Apple had declining sales and laptops in particular saw a lot of decline. And there's a lot of, you know, there's stuff about refresh cycles. And there's the fact that Apple is like eating everyone's lunch in like the portable laptop space.

• 27:38Alex Cranz?

  And in the processor space.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  And in the processor space, some in for, for the thin and light in particular. So one of the big questions going into the show was like, how are, how are manufacturers going to deal with this? Not only like, how are they actually going to deal with it? But how are they going to try to convince me that it's not a problem? And like, what angle are they going to take when I ask them?

• 27:58Alex Cranz?

  Did they convince you?

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there are a couple of different tacts that companies took. In general, you know, they, the, the task they have is to like, you know, they have to get people to buy, to keep buying laptops, even if they may have laptops that they bought in 2020 that still work pretty well. And how do they keep the market exciting so that people will be like, oh, I need that, even though this MacBook Air works fine. And so there are some directions that involve like, how cool the laptop looks. And like, Lenovo is like kind of an example of that with like, the fancy dual screen. There are companies like LG that released like, really like, beautiful color changing. Laptops. Wait, what part of them is changing colors? So the LG Gram Style. What a name.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Is covered in an irid- it's stylish. It's covered in an iridescent finish. So like, when you hold it up to the light, it can look like silver or purple or like orange sometimes, depending on like the angle and like where the sun is. It's very, so like, there's like cool stuff like that that some companies are trying to do that's like eye popping. And just sort of like, it's something that could jump out at you if you were shopping around. Yeah. Another tact that some companies are taking is like going hard on services. On like AI stuff and on features. So when I spoke to Alex Cho, HP's president of personal systems, who is great. His pitch was really hard on like, we're not a PC manufacturer.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Like, don't think of us as just PCs. We're building an ecosystem. And like, we, this year, our big pitch is like services. And HP has like, their booth that they, their, their sort of showcase that they had here in New York before CES. The big front and center thing was like webcam features. And so they had, there's like a dual webcam thing that some of their laptops support now, where you can have like two webcams plugged into one laptop and it'll like switch between the feeds, depending on like where you're looking, because it's tracking your eyes. Fancy. They had, yeah, they have like this present, this new presence software that a bunch of stuff is built on, that tracks where your head is and tracks where your eyes are. They have just a lot of different webcam stuff. And that's sort of something you're seeing across the line, like Razer, I mentioned earlier.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  They have this like soundbar that tracks like where your head is. And based on that, it like adjusts like what the audio sounds like to make it still sound like it's moving with you, essentially. There's, as I mentioned earlier, there's like 3D displays that rely on knowing where you're looking to be able to show you the two different images in order to create the 3D. So yeah, HP has this new like concierge service that provides like 24/7 live support. There's a lot of emphasis on cloud gaming this year. I mentioned Razer's new like cloud gaming handheld. HP has like integrated GeForce now with its HP Omen software client thing.

• 30:54Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, there was, and there was all that work we talked about in the first segment about Lenovo and, and the stuff they were doing with the phone and the stuff they were doing to make this, this dual screen laptop work. So.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:05Alex Cranz?

  But these companies aren't known for their software. Like, anyone who's used an HP printer is familiar with HP's software. Anybody who's first opened an HP laptop knows that software. Why should I be inspired or like want to more regularly engage with them, especially when Samsung, who's actually pretty good at software, and Apple, who's made it their deal for a long time now, also kind of struggle with services sometimes.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  So on the commercial side, they're really pushing it for like the hybrid worker and the freelancer.

• 31:44Alex Cranz?

  Oh.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  And that's the pitch they have for their concierge service, which I don't entirely buy. But their claim is like, you know, if you're a, if you're someone who like is running your own business from your laptop and you just don't have an IT department, but you really want to be able to quickly access service, you can press this button and pull up an HP concierge to service your laptop.

• 32:05Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  I'm not convinced that that's the target audience as much as like my parents who like, might like buy this laptop and like have no idea why it like won't turn on or something. But the pitch they're making is that it's more for like people who, who are a small business or who don't have a huge IT department and want like their Zoom calls to look really professional and want to have access to all these cool features, but like don't have a company doing it for them. Again, I don't know, when I look at this stuff, I sort of, the question I always ask is like, is this new fancy thing addressing a need that is actually there? Or is it creating a need that I am not sure people actually have right now? What I think is addressing a need that's already there is the Lenovo dual screen.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Like I think there are like a ton of times in my life when I'm like doing some work and I'm like, wow, I'd really love to have like a second screen here right now.

• 32:58Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  I'm not sure if all this like present sensing fancy webcam, fancy sound, 3D screen stuff is quite, I am more on the fence about that kind of stuff.

• 33:08Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, I think like that makes sense if you're a recruiter and you want to look just like tip top for all of your remote interviews that you're doing throughout the day. It makes less sense if you're just like using your laptop for QuickBooks and sending emails to vendors, which is I assume what small businesses do. And freelancers.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Just email, yeah.

• 33:31Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, well, you also, I know you saw a lot of processor stuff at the show and you, you did like that scathing takedown of the Intel P series last year, which was tip top. Loved it. Absolutely wild that they're like, what if we just made a processor that was the exact same as our super fast processor?

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:49Alex Cranz?

  But kind of tweaked it to go a little slower and use a little less energy and that sucked.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:55Alex Cranz?

  But were things a little more exciting this year? Do you feel like AMD and Intel and these companies are finally going to be catching up to Apple in that laptop space? Because Apple's just kicking everybody's ass.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  It's really hard to know from the, the charts we have right now. They definitely both made a splash. AMD released this like absolutely massive 16 core chip. Intel released a 24 core chip, but that is like eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, whereas the AMD chip is like 16, like full firings and four cores. So I think that's, that's going to be very competitive. These are, but like, I remember I saw in Tom and Sean and we were like looking at these like AMD, like the chart that AMD sent us that had all the chips and we were just like, what? How is AMD putting that in a laptop? Like, that is wild. There definitely is exciting stuff coming out of these processor

• 34:50Speaker 02

  announcements. Will these be laptops that have like any kind of battery life at all? Is really the question we're going to have to wait and see. Will this last longer than 30 minutes on battery? We really don't know. The target audience for these chips doesn't necessarily care about having laptops that last eight hours, but that doesn't mean that they'll be happy necessarily with the battery that only lasts like five minutes.

• 35:12Alex Cranz?

  Who, who, who is okay? Who is okay? Who is the person buying a laptop that is okay with having five minutes of battery life?

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I will say, whenever I write a review, like, and I say, like, I don't like that this didn't last very long on battery for me, without fail, there are people in the comments saying, "Well, I don't care about battery life. Oh, my laptop, so, yeah, your review's wrong." There are certainly, there are certainly groups of people who don't need very long battery life on their laptops. However, I do think that, like, there is some amount of battery power a laptop should have in order to justify its existence as, like, a laptop, rather than, like, a PC, like a desktop.

• 35:51Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, a PC that you can just pick up and go with.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Right. Part of the appeal is that you could, like, move it around your house, or potentially, like, use it at a friend's house, or like, you know, that you don't necessarily need to be plugged in and out all the time. So, that is like a big question mark that we'll have to see, but of course, it's not the most important thing about these chips.

• 36:10Alex Cranz?

  Okay. So, they seemed really focused not on battery life, where Apple is just crushing them, but more on power.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Oh, definitely. And they had, I mean, they very much hedged that, like, when I was talking to Jason Banta from AMD, he very much hedged, like, "These are not going to have good battery life," basically. Like, he was like, "You know, we're really targeting an audience that doesn't care about battery life as much as they care about, you know, X and Y and Z," which, you know, is a fair audience to target.

• 36:40Alex Cranz?

  Are they planning to ever target audiences that like battery life?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Well, not with this particular, the 16-core chip. I mean, there are other chips, I think, are.

• 36:50Alex Cranz?

  But this was where they were announcing their high-power laptop chips. So, like, the H-series for Intel, and I don't know, what is the series called for AMD?

• 37:01Speaker 02

  So, the 7045 series is Zen4.

• 37:05Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  That goes up to 16 cores and 30 huge threads. There's the 740 series.

• 37:10Alex Cranz?

  Oh, wow.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Which is going to be, that's the Phoenix. That's going to be for, like, thinner gaming laptops.

• 37:15Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  There's the 735 series, which is Rembrandt R. That's for, like, the premium, thin and light space.

• 37:24Alex Cranz?

  Monica, what are these names?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  These names make no sense. There's the Ryzen 7030 series, which is for mainstream, thin, light.

• 37:31Alex Cranz?

  Is it called the Picasso?

• 37:33Speaker 02

  No, that's called the Barcello R.

• 37:35Alex Cranz?

  What does that mean?

• 37:37Speaker 02

  I have no idea. And that goes up to eight cores, 16 threads, as do the previous two that I mentioned. And then there's the Ryzen 720, which is like your Athlon. So that's going to be for like very low power budget devices. And that goes up to four cores. So there's a whole, there's a whole range of stuff on here.

• 37:54Alex Cranz?

  Well, I'm very excited for your one minute long battery test for all these HX series. It's going to be a lot of fun. Was there anything else that like you saw at CES? Any kind of trends that you feel are coming for the laptop space? What do we need to brace ourselves for this year?

• 38:08Speaker 02

  For, for brands we didn't get to, like I said, LG has the Style, which is that really cool color changing one. It has the Ultra Slim, which is, I think it's, it's like thinnest and lightest LG Gram ever. It's either the thinnest or the lightest, but it is so light. Like you pick that up and it's like, it, it feels like you're holding like a dummy chassis. It's like absurdly light. I have no idea who's going to like want that, but it like it's, it's, that thing is remarkable. HP has a new, it's called the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook. It has an RGB keyboard because you know, why not put that on a Chromebook that's not for gaming?

• 38:44Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, I think Neil is planning to get that for his parents.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Go for it, Neil. I'm the godspeed. I'm very happy for you. They have the Dragonfly Pro, which is not the elite Dragonfly. That remains, that also had a refresh. There's the Dragonfly G4 now, but that is for businesses. That's a business laptop. The Dragonfly Pro, despite having Pro in its name, is for consumers. So, you know, very simple name that makes sense to everyone. But that is sort of a push from them to target, who I mentioned earlier, like the freelancer or like the mobile professional.

• 39:17Alex Cranz?

  The contractors.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Right, the contractor. Yeah, in terms of trends, this is definitely going to be a big display year, especially on the gaming side. We're seeing like a lot of convergence of, you know, buzzwords like OLED and mini LED and refresh rate and resolution. And, and I can't believe I'm saying this in 2022 or 2023. 3D glasses free 3D is a thing now that is coming to some laptops.

• 39:43Alex Cranz?

  I refuse to be excited about it. I refuse to be excited about 3D.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Acer had one last year, but it's like, it like updated it this year. Dell has like a 3D thing. We're seeing all that sort of come together and that we're able to get more of those features on displays than where previously you had to sacrifice some of them togethers. So displays are definitely getting better. I think there was a big focus on video conferencing this year, as there was last year, and AI role in that was a huge part of it. AMD and Intel both are planning to have AI architecture on the dies of some of their processors, which is at the moment, the most relevant application of that to like most people is going to be stuff like Windows Studio Effects. And AMD had Panos Panay on stage to talk about that.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  But it's going to be like more webcam presence sensing stuff for now. And then the pitch is that later on, we're going to see people come up with more heavy duty AI use cases for that stuff. But that's, that's really other big thing. And there's definitely, as there has been for the past few years, a focus on like how laptops will respond to changing work patterns. So like last year, I think there was a lot of focus on work from home and remote work. I think this year it's shifted a little more towards hybrid and people who like want a laptop that they can use both in the office and at home.

• 41:08Alex Cranz?

  Isn't that just every laptop?

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Some companies are trying to pitch it more as like, here, you only need one cord to plug this into this monitor.

• 41:16Alex Cranz?

  Oh, okay.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Where before it was more complicated.

• 41:18Alex Cranz?

  They're embracing the dock again.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  It's that and it's a lot more of a focus on, and there's always kind of focus on like laptops getting thinner, but this year, I think a lot of it's really being pitched as like, this is thin so that you can bring it to the office or like so that you can bring it to Starbucks and focus on the quote unquote mobile professional or mobile freelancer.

• 41:38Alex Cranz?

  Do you think, so one of the best laptops ever made was the Apple PowerBook Pismo G3.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 41:46Alex Cranz?

  This thing came out and like, yeah, you sound so enthusiastic and excited about this question. This thing came out in like 1998, 1999, I think.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Please tell me more.

• 41:56Alex Cranz?

  It had a dock and all, and all of the ports were on the back. So whenever you wanted to plug in, you just went thump and you just shoved it into the dock and it looked pretty and it worked so nice. And every dock sense has been like, it's a dongle. And you plug it in. Do you think we're going to get back to that point where you're like, thump? Because the satisfaction was wonderful.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  There definitely is a focus, I think, on making monitors simpler to use, which is great for me because the current monitor I have, like, I have to plug like four computers into it a week. And like, it is difficult right now to figure out how to how to plug them all in. So that is definitely, I think, a trend you'll see more in in peripherals this year is is simplifying their moving them between use cases and making those more versatile to connect.

• 42:45Alex Cranz?

  So we're not quite to thump yet, but we may be.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  I'm not sure if we're to that yet.

• 42:50Alex Cranz?

  Well, Monica, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. We're going to take a break. When we're back, I'm going to be talking with Victoria Song all about all the health stuff that came out of CES, what's going on with the FDA there and how long it'll take for this health stuff to actually get into our homes. It's gonna be great. Thanks again, Monica.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 43:09Alex Cranz?

  Back to the break.

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• 44:42Alex Cranz?

  Okay, and we're back. And as I teased at the beginning of the show, there was a lot of health tech at CES this year. There were the smartwatches and the makeup tools and the pee sensors and a ton of hearing aids. A lot of this stuff is very cool. It's super exciting, but it almost never reaches the United States, mostly because of FDA regulations around medical technology. It's a tricky issue. So I wanted to talk to our reviewer, Victoria Song, who just wrote a really fantastic piece explaining this regulatory maze behind all that health tech. Victoria, are you recovered from your CES funk that you got without actually being at CES?

• 45:21Speaker 08

  That's how powerful CES is. I got the CES flu without going and like, you know, I'm still a little sniffly and I don't know if my voice is 100% back to normal, but I don't sound like Marge Simpson anymore. So, good stuff.

• 45:33Alex Cranz?

  Level up, level up. I mean, that would have been great. We would have been like, we have Marge Simpson on the Vergecast today. Tell us about health tech.

• 45:42Alex Cranz?

  It would have been nice.

• 45:43Speaker 08

  Yeah. I mean, it was cool. It was, it was interesting at CES this year because a lot of it is very, it's kind of a mix between what's conceptual and what's actually real and everything that's in the gray area in between. So, you know, like, that's always CES, right? There's always a degree of vaporware at CES.

• 46:02Alex Cranz?

  Big degree. Lot of vaporware.

• 46:04Speaker 08

  Lot of vaporware, but particularly in the health sector where you're just like, wow, this concept is going to change the medical industry as we know it. Five years later, the product comes out and it's nerfed and it's not, nowhere near as cool as what they, what they said it was going to be. And I think the coolest, I don't know about coolest, but the most interesting thing I saw this year was why things you scan?

• 46:29Alex Cranz?

  That was the pee sensor.

• 46:30Speaker 08

  Yes, it is a little sensor that you stick in your toilet and to pee on. And it's got all these, it's got all these things in it, like a thermal sensor and a radar sensor. So it can like identify your individual urine stream, which is just like, wow, what amazing technology for your, for your toilet.

• 46:51Alex Cranz?

  He's a radar. It's like, are pee streams different?

• 46:55Speaker 08

  Yes. Well, it claims that it can differentiate people by their pee streams. So like it's one user per pee scanner.

• 47:04Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 47:04Speaker 08

  So you know, like, let's say you have multiple people in your house and you don't want your roommate's urinary test results, you want yours.

• 47:12Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 08

  So it can identify you by how you pee. And it also can tell the difference between like your pee and the water due to temperature sensors. So it's just really amazing thoughtful like technology that's gone into this thing that sounds absurd, but is actually like medically very cool. Especially like, I think the most relatable use case would be for diabetics, right? Like, they have to take urine tests all the time to, you know, make sure they're not in ketoacidosis. So this would make things easier for them because first of all, if you've ever had to take a urine sample, I really hope you know what your aim is, cuz that could be real messy.

• 47:55Speaker 08

  And this is just you peeing anyway. Oh, my God, the number of like pee facts that I had to learn while writing.

• 48:01Alex Cranz?

  You learned a lot.

• 48:02Speaker 08

  I learned so much. Did you know there's 3,000 metabolites in your pee? You do now.

• 48:07Alex Cranz?

  I didn't even know what a metabolite was until you just said that.

• 48:11Speaker 08

  It's just stuff that tells you about your metabolism, like ketones, which are a byproduct of breaking down fat.

• 48:17Alex Cranz?

  This actually seemed like a cool thing because we're starting to see more of these tests in people's homes instead of just going to the doctors. Like, I feel like COVID really changed things for us.

• 48:30Speaker 08

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:30Alex Cranz?

  And so now it's much more acceptable and people feel okay doing, taking this test at home.

• 48:36Speaker 08

  Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, you know, I'm sure everyone's really familiar with the rapid antigen test, but there were actually molecular tests that you could have at home. Like, Google sent out the Q Health test and like, of course, these were really expensive.

• 48:49Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 08

  But, you know, I had a bunch. I was testing them cuz I was writing about them a few months ago. And it's amazing. It's just like this little machine that is there and it uploads your results wirelessly to your phone. And so it really makes things easy because you don't have to send things out to a lab. And that kind of instantaneous knowledge can be really helpful for remote patient monitoring, which a lot of the health tech like that we saw this year was kind of around the idea of remote patient monitoring, which is, you know, it's a big foundational gap.

• 49:19Alex Cranz?

  But at the same time, isn't there like a lot of approval thing we have to do? Because right now, we do it in the lab because the lab is controlled setting. You're not as likely to screw up your results because you pick your nose before you handle something. Don't do that. Just don't do that in general. Wash your hands. But, but like, but there's a lot of opportunity to screw up those tests at home. And, and so there is there a lot of, is there regulation oversight? Like, you wrote a big story this last week, I believe, on this stuff? Is it happening? Are we getting oversight?

• 49:49Speaker 08

  So I actually think that the FDA is going to play a lot bigger role in CES going forward. Just because, you know, the FDA exists for a very important reason, and that is to protect public health. And that's so that when you get a health tech gadget, it doesn't kill you. It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't put your life in danger in any like shape or form. So like the Y things, P-scanner, it has to go through the FDA clearance process before it can ever be sold, which is why it's not going to be sold in the US, even though it's slated for European release sometime this year.

• 50:21Alex Cranz?

  European release.

• 50:23Speaker 08

  Yeah, you're a P.

• 50:24Alex Cranz?

  Yes!

• 50:26Speaker 08

  Yeah, so like, it was really funny because I was writing this story and I was just like, oh my god. Here I am again, talking about my arch nemesis, the FDA. And they're not actually my arch nemesis. They're like, I'm very appreciative of the work that they do. But, you know, when you're a health tech writer, when you cover wearables, you just kind of learn a lot of jargon and, you know, FDA clearance is not the same thing as FDA approval. So if you ever see like, a report that's like, the FDA approved this product, or if you're ever shopping for something that says FDA approved, that's the number one tell that they are lying through their pants. Because the FDA does not approve products. It clears them.

• 51:08Speaker 08

  It's just like, we've cleared that this has gone through the appropriate testing so that you won't likely die, is basically what it is. So it, it leaves a really big, wide range of things that makes everything really confusing in my beat.

• 51:27Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 51:28Speaker 08

  Especially like, I see products all the time, especially in wearables, where they're like clinically validated. No, it's not. You're not an FDA-regulated device. How are you clinically validated? And then if, you know, you click on things and you're like, oh. You wrote a white paper that's funded by you. Of course, you're getting positive results on XYZ.

• 51:48Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, shocking.

• 51:50Speaker 08

  Shocking, very, very not shocking, really. But like, the whole reason why you would want FDA clearance is that, you know, you can buy it and you can be confident that it's safe for you, that it's going to work in the way that it's supposed to work. And we're seeing that right now with over the counter hearing aids and hearables, which I'm telling you, that's going to be a really big thing coming out of wearables this year.

• 52:15Alex Cranz?

  Well, let's, let's talk about that because we talked about the P sensor and it is, doesn't have FDA clearance yet.

• 52:19Speaker 08

  Nope.

• 52:20Alex Cranz?

  But it's hoping to have it at some point this year.

• 52:23Speaker 08

  You know, it's really funny. Every single time I'm like, hey, are you going through the FDA clearance process? These companies, like the heads of them, they're always just like, ugh, yes. I can't tell you when it's coming out because who knows when the FDA is going to approve everything. And, you know, Wydings is a really good example because they're constantly coming to CES with these really cool health tech products.

• 52:43Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 52:43Speaker 08

  That never make it to the US because it takes like two, three years.

• 52:48Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 52:48Speaker 08

  Or like, it'll take two, three years before it ever gets to the US. So I think there's like one smartwatch that I saw at CES 2018 that's still not out here. It's, it's really funny.

• 52:58Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, it, there was like a watch that was like a blood pressure monitor cuff that I feel just never got approval. Or did that one finally get approval?

• 53:05Speaker 08

  There was the Omron Blood Pressure Monitor Cuff and that got approval like two years later. But it's, it's not like a really fun device for normal people to wear. It's if you have hypertension, you're going to wear that. I reviewed it many moons ago for Gizmodo.

• 53:20Alex Cranz?

  There you go. I vaguely remember that product. But let's talk about, let's talk about the hearables and, and the hearing aid place because I think last year kind of set the stage for that, right? Like, was it last year that they said we're going to do over the counter hearing aids? You won't have to go to an audiologist. You won't have to go to it. Just go buy it.

• 53:38Speaker 08

  Yeah, no. This has actually been in the works for five years.

• 53:41Alex Cranz?

  Wow.

• 53:42Speaker 08

  I'm telling you, tech moves fast, medicine moves slow. So health tech moves at the speed of a snail. Like, it's just like inching along all the time. But so this, this has been in the process for over five years. It took, like, I think Trump was the first president to be like, yeah, we're gonna do this. And then, I mean, he's gone now, right?

• 54:04Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 54:05Speaker 08

  It just got approved, the, the ruling got approved last year in the middle of the year. And then the products didn't start hitting shelves until mid-October.

• 54:15Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 54:16Speaker 08

  So we're still in the very, very, very, very early stages of over-the-counter hearing aids. But, you know, this is a whole minefield. Because if I tell you over-the-counter hearing aids versus over-the-counter self-fitting hearing aids versus hearing aids, these are all different things.

• 54:29Alex Cranz?

  They all fundamentally do the same thing, right? Like, they all go in your ear and they assist you in hearing better.

• 54:34Speaker 08

  Fundamentally, they go in your ear and you hear better.

• 54:37Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 54:38Speaker 08

  Yes. But they do different things. To different degrees. And it's very confusing. I have been like, I have been reporting on this for like, three months at this point, talking to a lot of different audiologists and it's, it's a nightmare.

• 54:52Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 54:53Speaker 08

  I, I just, it's, it's very confusing. And it's going to be confusing until like, the dust settles a little bit. But with regard to the FDA, it's great that they have over-the-counter hearing aids because now you can go into the store, they'll be at your Best Buy, they'll be at your local, like, I don't know, your Duane Reade or Walmart. Yeah, like those places.

• 55:13Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 55:14Speaker 08

  You can buy them and you can know that the FDA tested it. And you're not going to damage your hearing because they regulate the output levels of sound. There's gonna be a degree where you're able to kind of, um, self-fitting means you'll be able to like, have a little hearing test in, in an app and it'll be personalized to you.

• 55:31Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 55:32Speaker 08

  So, great, cool. There's already products out here that kind of do that, that are not hearing aids and that do not have FDA regulation.

• 55:40Alex Cranz?

  Like, I'm wearing AirPods.

• 55:41Speaker 08

  AirPods are one of the, the things that are like, really interesting, right? Because they have Conversation Boost, Conversation Boost. You know, it makes people's voices easier to hear in louder environments. That's what a hearing aid does. The AirPods are not a hearing aid because they have not been regulated for output levels. They don't necessarily do everything that a hearing aid needs to do. And I think what's going to be interesting going forward is you might see some consumer audio companies just like pull back their their features.

• 56:13Alex Cranz?

  Oh, interesting.

• 56:14Speaker 08

  Well, it's because like the question, and I get it, let's get into this in my piece, the question that they have to ask themselves is, well, do I want to be regulated by the FDA and go through everything that involves an FDA clearance process? There's, there's a lot. There's a lot that goes into that.

• 56:31Alex Cranz?

  Well, do they have to go into the FDA clearance process? Like, is Apple gonna have to get new generations of AirPods approved?

• 56:40Speaker 08

  That is unclear at the moment because this is so new and everything is shaking out. But say the FDA were to look at a feature, like, this is all hypothetical, but say the FDA were to look at a feature like AirPods Conversation Boost on the Pro. And they went, hey, that's really similar to hearing aids, and we think that that should be regulated.

• 56:59Alex Cranz?

  So that we don't bust eardrums with loud noises.

• 57:02Speaker 08

  Right. So let's say that they say that aspect is really similar to a hearing aid, an over-counter hearing aid. You now need to go through compliance. You need to show us that you are able to meet all of these factors. And, you know, that involves a lot. Like, I talked to Movano Health, and they're, they're a really fascinating company. They're making a smart ring that's for women, women first.

• 57:26Alex Cranz?

  Love this.

• 57:27Speaker 08

  That's going to be a fully FDA-cleared medical device, which is amazing because, you know, you have the Apple Watch, that's not an FDA-cleared device. It's a device that has an FDA-cleared feature. So now you see why I rip out my hair every single time I write about this stuff. It's very nuanced, very complicated. But, you know, I was talking to their CEO and he has like a wealth of knowledge because he spent like 30 years making products for people with diabetes.

• 57:54Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 57:54Speaker 08

  And those are all medical devices.

• 57:57Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 57:57Speaker 08

  So he was telling me that, you know, we focus on like accuracy a lot with FDA clearance. Accuracy is less than 1% of what goes into an FDA filing. They have to be HIPAA compliant. They have to show that, you know, your data is encrypted. They have to show out what the communication protocols are. They have to have that tested by an independent party. They have to have their devices manufactured at a medical device factory. They can't go to like consumer grade for that. That's like a whole nightmare. And even, even, even, even with the clinical accuracy testing, like he described the process to me and like the hypoxia trial, which is, you know, oxygen deficiency.

• 58:36Alex Cranz?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:37Speaker 08

  You basically have to take a person, both genders and all skin tones and lower their oxygen levels bit by bit and then blind check all, all the data. So it's, it's like incredibly intense, expensive and like the regulatory paperwork. I just, I don't want to be the person who handles that paperwork. It's a nightmare.

• 58:59Alex Cranz?

  But it also is good in the long run because then we don't, like people of various skin tones can go and get a device and know that it will work.

• 59:08Speaker 08

  I've actually been asking a lot of these wearable makers about skin tones because I think there was a thing that came out a while back that was saying that pulse oximeters were not equally good for people of darker skin. And all these companies will tell you like, yeah, that's true just because of the way the technology works. It works by reflecting light into your skin and people with more melanin will reflect less light back. That's just kind of a flaw of the, the actual technology itself.

• 59:35Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 59:36Speaker 08

  But, you know, I'm asking them about what their, their protocols for testing with people of different skin tones are. And if you're FDA regulated, you have to prove, you have to prove that you work just as well across all skin tones. If you're not FDA regulated, you don't really have to prove nothing, right?

• 59:51Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 59:52Speaker 08

  You can say that we're super accurate and we just have to trust that you've done the testing.

• 59:57Alex Cranz?

  And then you, Victoria, have to go find a bunch of people and test it for a wonderful video on theverge.com.

• 1:00:03Speaker 08

  I mean, yeah, it's gonna be super unscientific, but yeah. Like, it's, you know, and you know, I've been asking them recently about tattoos as well, because that's another thing where you see all these people online going like, oh, my god, my Apple Watch doesn't work.

• 1:00:18Alex Cranz?

  And it's because they have a tattoo.

• 1:00:19Speaker 08

  Because I have tattoos. And, and it's like, yeah, that's actually a real problem, again, because when you tattoo your skin, you're, you're putting ink there and making it really difficult for the light to reflect off. So, these are, these are problems where if you were FDA-regulated, they would be less of a problem, because before it could ever go to market, you'd have to prove that you are clinically, like, clinical-grade accurate. Whereas, you know, most of the consumer products out there that claim to do SPO2, they don't have to do that. I've tested a bunch of products, and you can read my reviews, where they say I have an SPO2 level of 83%. If you have an SPO2 level of 83%, you best be in an ambulance on your way to the hospital. That is below what the, what like, is acceptable for people with COPD.

• 1:01:04Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Speaker 08

  So, it's, it's just, like, this, this device.

• 1:01:08Alex Cranz?

  Call 911.

• 1:01:09Speaker 08

  And they get away with it because they say we're a wellness device, we're not a medical device. So, you just, I guess what I'm getting at is, you're gonna see the lines blurring between what is and what isn't a medical device, which means the FDA is gonna have to, you know, like, put on their big-boy pants, not that they aren't on already, but even bigger big-boy pants, and just go like, okay, we kinda have to sort out the mess that is the consumer health tech product world, because it's, it's a mess, it's a real mess, like, I gotta tell you.

• 1:01:37Alex Cranz?

  Do you think they're going to? I mean, they kinda have to with the hearing aids, because they opened this can of words. So, they're kinda stuck with hearing aids.

• 1:01:46Speaker 08

  They're stuck with hearing aids, they, they brought this upon themselves, they have to do that, but I think you're gonna start to see it more and more often. Like, Apple was a really good example when they brought out EKGs, right?

• 1:01:58Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 1:01:58Speaker 08

  When they brought out EKGs on the Series 4, it had to go through the FDA de novo clearance process, and basically, they had to do that because they were having some sort of diagnostic capability. It's not really diagnosing, but it's saying, hey, you might have AFib, you should go see a doctor.

• 1:02:15Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, and it even says, when you go and run one, it's like, this is not the same thing as going to the doctors. If you feel bad, call 911, don't just check it on your watch.

• 1:02:25Speaker 08

  Yeah, like, there's a lot of, like, medical descriptions down there, but, you know, it does have some sort of a detection capability, right?

• 1:02:33Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Speaker 08

  So, the thing with SPO2 sensors, and why you see all these SPO2 sensors, even though functionally, they don't do jack, right now, at least, is, you know, Fitbit has been doing this for a really long time, but they're trying to detect sleep apnea.

• 1:02:47Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 08

  Using your blood oxygen. Now, if they were to say that they could detect sleep apnea, well, the FDA would have to get involved. And what they would like to do is for someone else to figure it out and go through the process, so then they can ride those coattails, basically.

• 1:03:02Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 1:03:02Speaker 08

  And then, you know, have this thing out there, so they have the sensors on there, just hoping that someone else is gonna do the dirty work. And I see a lot of that, of just these companies going around, putting the sensors in for future-proofing, and then hoping someone else does the dirty work to get the clearance. Because, once one, one person gets it cleared, the rest of them will follow. So, th- there's a lot of that going on, just the FDA just sits there, and it's, it's very, like, I wanna emphasize that it's very good that the FDA does this, because, you know, I think the next frontier of wearables is going to be non-invasive blood glucose monitoring.

• 1:03:37Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 1:03:38Speaker 08

  Which will be so great for diabetics, but that's life or death. You cannot F that up.

• 1:03:44Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:45Speaker 08

  You cannot screw up someone's blood sugar levels. You will, you will kill someone. You will kill someone, you will be sued, you need the FDA to regulate the hell out of that. And, and the same goes for blood pressure, which was another thing at CES with Valencel, which, you know, I love catching up with Valencel every year, cuz nobody knows.

• 1:04:03Alex Cranz?

  They, they did the finger one, right?

• 1:04:05Speaker 08

  Mm-hmm. Like, I've been talking to Valencel for the last five, six years, that every CES is just going, "Hey, guys, what's up?" Because they make optical sensor tech that goes into a lot of wearables that you may already have, like, Jabra's, uh, Bose, LG, like, their tech is in a lot of stuff.

• 1:04:21Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Speaker 08

  But, you've never heard of them, cuz they're a B2B company. But, you know, this year, they're like, "We're gonna make our own thing, because the gosh dang FDA won't approve our tech unless it's in a commercial product, and we tried to get other people to make it, and they wouldn't." So now we're here and we have to make this tech ourselves because this is just the state of things and it's it's really cool tech. It is a fingertip blood pressure monitor that looks like one of those fingertip pulse oximeters.

• 1:04:50Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 1:04:50Speaker 08

  And, you know, it supposedly will be able to take an accurate blood pressure reading without you having to use a cuff and without you having to calibrate anything. So that would be like, you know, that would be huge to have in like the consumer world. That would that would just change hypertension treatment. It's like mind staggeringly amazing what that could do if it gets FDA clearance.

• 1:05:13Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, I mean, as somebody who has blood pressure issues, I, you know, if I want to take my blood pressure, I have to like make sure my arm is bare because if you take it over a sweater, you'll look like you're dying and then you'll have panic and talk to your doctor who will say, no, take your shirt off or like reveal your your arm. It's a it seems like a really, really cool thing, but also it seemed like it was also still kind of not accurate just from the reports we were getting out of CES.

• 1:05:39Speaker 08

  I mean, you are on a show floor, so there's going to be a degree of whatevers, but if they pass FDA clearance, that's going to assure a degree of accuracy, you know? So like if they get FDA clearance, then you can be like, oh, well, maybe that was just because it was on the show floor. It was a prototype, you know? It's it's hard to really gauge what the accuracy is going to be in like a CES type setting. But, you know, it's it's like huge. It's innovative tech. It's stuff that we should be pursuing. But, you know, companies look at that and they go like, oh, Jesus Christ, I don't got the time. I don't got the time for this.

• 1:06:14Alex Cranz?

  The time, the money.

• 1:06:15Speaker 08

  Hopefully someone else will do it. It's expensive.

• 1:06:17Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:17Speaker 08

  It's so much paperwork involved. It's and, you know, you want that. You want to be safe. You want to not die. Like whenever Elon Musk, if he ever actually does Neuralink, I want the FDA involved.

• 1:06:29Alex Cranz?

  You don't want to put a chip in your brain without FDA approval that it won't kill you? Like, it's killed many, many monkeys? Shocking.

• 1:06:37Speaker 08

  I want documentation to be there that this is like safe for the marketplace. I don't want to have to like, like, and that's, that's the really frustrating thing about my beat because so much of it conceptually is really cool and we have the technology, but the willing, and this is capitalism, like the willingness of companies to invest in this technology versus the effort that's going to go into getting through the FDA regulation process is nil. It's just nothing. They would rather play in the wellness space because the FDA don't care. If you want to log every night of sleep from now until you die, they're cool with that because that's just for you. That's for your knowledge. That's not like substantially, if your sleep tracking is inaccurate to a degree, you're

• 1:07:22Speaker 08

  not going to die from that, reasonably speaking, you're not going to die from that. You're just going to be like, oh my God, it's inaccurate. Which, you know, it's all inaccurate anyway. So, yeah. Now, now you know why, like, when my editors come to the FDA articles, they're just like, oh God, okay.

• 1:07:37Alex Cranz?

  You have to brace yourself. Whenever, whenever I'm about to edit one of your stories and it's got FDA in it, I'm like, okay, I have to like put on my, like, I have to think really hard. It's like reading, it's like editing anything, anything legal, but those FDA ones are rough.

• 1:07:50Speaker 08

  They're, they're super rough.

• 1:07:51Alex Cranz?

  Wonderful copy, though. The copy is beautiful. Thinking about FDA regulations, terrible. Well, Victoria, thank you so much. This has been a fantastic, very interesting conversation. If you want to read more, the story is called "The Regulatory Maze Behind Health Tech Vaporware." It's super, super good. I highly recommend everybody go check it out. It's there on theverge.com. Uh, thank you so much.

• 1:08:14Speaker 08

  Thank you. And I swear the story is more articulate than me.

• 1:08:17Alex Cranz?

  You were wonderful.

• 1:08:20Alex Cranz?

  Okay, that's it for The Vergecast today. Thank you for listening. As always, there's a ton more coverage on everything we talked about on theverge.com. If you have thoughts, feedbacks, feelings, you can always email [email protected]. And if you have questions, call the hotline 866-VERGE11. Send us all your big thoughts and questions about all things tech. This show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James. Nori Donovan is our executive producer, and Brooke Minter is our editorial director of audio. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Neelai Anand will be back on Friday to chat with more of the Verge crew about whatever is happening this week. Until then, I'll see you later. Rock and roll.

• 1:09:06Nilay Patel?

  Hi, I'm Neelai Patel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. This week is part of our special series on the future of business. I talked with Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare, about how AI bots and agents are remaking the business model of the web, and how CloudFlare is trying to build a new economy around websites getting paid every time an AI crawler shows up.

• 1:09:28Speaker 05

  We polled all of that data and looked at it and said that, you know, it would be the second half of 2027, automated traffic will become larger than human traffic. I was stunned when, just a few months later in May, a team came to me and said, "You won't believe it, but automated traffic is now past human traffic online." And that's just expanding like crazy. And if you extrapolate that out, five years from now, we think that automated traffic will be 1,000 times human traffic online.

• 1:09:52Nilay Patel?

  This was a fascinating conversation, not just about the future of the web, but also about how one of the world's most important software companies is deciding which of its employees it can replace with AI. Listen to Decoder wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:10:05Speaker 06

  This series is presented by EY.

• 1:10:08Speaker 09

  Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run subagents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review. So you delegate the work and own the judgment. Trusted by more than 60% of the Am Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.ai.