CES showed us smart displays will be the new normal
Before the start of CES 2018, the only real smart speakers with a display were the Amazon Echo Show and the Echo Spot . But now that Google has partnered with several manufacturers to make a whole line of Echo Show rivals, a bona fide new device category has been born: the smart display. And based on the devices revealed this week, I believe the smart display will slowly start to outnumber smart speakers and will likely be the norm going forward. The simple reason for this argument is that the display makes such devices much more useful. Sure, you could have Alexa or Google Assistant tell you there's a Starbucks 1.5 miles away from you. But wouldn't it be nice to actually see where it is on a map? Or if you wanted to know the time, you could just, you know, look at the screen. Or if you wanted to know who the artist of the song is but couldn't be bothered to interrupt the track, you could do the same. That extra visual layer is really useful, especially for quick, gla...