7 Most Exciting Tech Trends From CES 2016

1. Everyone Can Have A Smart Home

With the idea of the "robot butler" finally, mercifully, falling by the wayside (a certain Facebook CEO excepted), it looks like our homes are simply going to have to look after themselves in the future.

The Internet of Things is the hot topic at the moment and everything from your fridge to your pot plants are getting an upgrade.

Samsung have revealed their new refrigerator featuring a full 21.5-inch touchscreen on the front that will allow you to control its settings, order internet shopping and even take a look inside with the internal cameras. Oh, and you can also access it from your smartphone, meaning you'll never again have to make a wild guess as to how much milk you have left.

Smart gadgets are all very well, but it's when you begin linking it all up that the magic happens. Everyone from Google to ASUS are putting together their own smart home bridges, hubs from which you can control everything centrally. There's even a whole new kind of WiFi being developed, HaLow, designed to link up all the smart gadgets in your life.

Appliance giants, Whirlpool, have teamed up with Nest to create a home that not only looks after itself, but programmes itself around your schedule. Nest, the central hub, will tell your various appliances when you're not home, so things like the dishwasher will do their noisy thing whilst you're out so that you can come home to a quiet house and clean dishes.

As for how we can add to these systems in the future, the only limit is our imaginations. In just a matter of years everything from your security system to your waste disposal to a team of cleaner swarm robots could all be chatting away to each other to keep the house ticking over.

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