Cannabis storage device with facial recognition wins award at CES 2020 – but is unable to exhibit because organisers have banned any mention of pot on showroom floor
- CES orginally honoured Keep Labs’ smart cannabis storage device with award
- It then told the company not to have any mention of cannabis at CES 2020
- Keep Labs declined to exhibit at the tradeshow due to its sole focus on cannabis
- The episode is reminiscent of last year’s cock-up when it banned smart sex toys
CES 2020 has had an embarrassing change of heart for the second year in a row after honouring a cannabis-storing keepsafe product with an innovation award and then banning it from the tradeshow floor.
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which hosts the annual tradeshow in Las Vegas, awarded Canadian company Keep Labs with an innovation award in the run-up to the tech showcase event, which runs this week.
Keep Labs, which uses facial recognition for the secure storage of cannabis in people’s homes, was awarded for its ‘discreet’ Smart Storage cannabis box.
However, as reported by Tech Crunch, CTA told the company it could only exhibit if the company’s signage, marketing materials and product was free from cannabis and associated paraphernalia.
Keep is the first smart storage device designed to keep cannabis secure and discreet at home
This was slightly difficult to accommodate, as the product is dedicated solely to cannabis storage, so Keep Labs therefore decided not to exhibit at CES 2020.
‘There are no cannabis or e-cigarette products on the exhibit floor at CES, as the show does not have a category pertaining to that market,’ CTA said to TechCrunch.
‘Given cannabis is not a category at CES, the company was able to exhibit under the terms they’d showcase their product as a storage device.’
Keep Smart Storage is the first smart storage device designed to keep cannabis ‘secure and discreet’ at home.
The company is conducting its own fundraising programme to bring the storage box to market.
It is currently available to pre-order with a price tag of CA$199 (about £115).
The product is essentially an innocuous-looking white box that from the outside could easily be mistaken for an alarm clock, thanks to LED lights displaying the time.
But this device features a biometric locking device that unlocks when it recognises the user’s face or touch, revealing plastic storage containers and a dedicated ‘rolling’ tray.
The device is supposed to give cannabis smokers peace of mind in the family home by ensuring the user’s supply doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
The smart storage box provides temperature and humidity updates to the user’s smartphone
Keep looks like a fairly innocent box from the outside with an LED display showing the time
‘Not only does Keep make you a better parent to your kid, it makes you a better parent to your cannabis,’ Keep Labs says.
The box also sends notifications to the user’s phone when moved ‘by a child or dead-beat roommate trying to pinch your product’.
Meanwhile, a ‘climate monitoring system’ keeps cannabis fresh and displays temperature and room humidity at the front of the box.
The box also has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, a hermetic seal to keep odours in and built-in scales to gauge how long before smokers need to stock up.
The product isn’t being exhibited at CES 2020 because the tradeshow banned any association with drugs
The device, which ‘combines streamlined functionality with tasteful modern elegance’, was selected as a 2020 CES Innovation Honouree.
The CES Innovation Awards celebrates outstanding consumer technology in two categories – ‘Honouree’ and ‘Best of Innovation’ – and are usually exhibited at the event.
The CTA suffered a similar backlash at last year’s awards ceremony, when it rescinded an Innovation Award given to a sex toy in the robotics category.
The Onda and Baci, personal pleasure devices, are displayed at the Lora DiCarlo booth during a press event for CES 2020
Despite originally honouring the Ose hands-free ‘robotic massager’, created by startup company Lora DiCarlo, the CTA took back the award on the grounds that it was ‘immoral’ and ‘obscene’ and banned it from the exhibition.
CTA later reinstated the award and has allowed sex toys to be on show at CES 2020.
Two new products from Lora DiCarlo that are being exhibited this year have also won Honouree awards – the Baci-baci, which simulates a human mouth, and the Ondata for ‘therapeutic’ stimulation.
PAX INTRODUCES SMART CANNABIS VAPORISER
The Era Pro cannabis vaporizer aims to take the guesswork out of vaping cannabis oils
Electronic vaping company Pax Labs has revealed its new Era Pro cannabis vaporizer.
Billed as the world’s smartest vape, the device lets users access information about vaping liquid.
The vape works with pods that contain unique near-field-communications enabled tabs.
The tags let users access information about the vape juice inside of each pod, including oil content, strain information and potency, flavour profiles and state-regulated test results.
Another temperature control feature adjusts each pod to the optimal temperature for each cannabis oil inside, all the while relaying information to the Pax mobile app.
‘Our customers want a premium cannabis experience, so we’ve reimagined the Era from the inside out to offer a first-of-its-kind device that really delivers on that,” said Jesse Silver, Pax’s senior vice president of Product.
‘We have taken an obsessive eye to even the smallest of details — like dual pressure sensors or heating coils custom smelted in Sweden — to provide increased safety, access to information and an intuitive, smart experience that elevates the entire cannabis vape category.’
Pax mobile app is available on Android; Apple, meanwhile, has a ban on vaping apps.
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