IFA 2015: 6 lessons learned from day two in Berlin

3 months ago

The final day before IFA opens its doors to the public was dominated by Samsung who held two separate events and covered a lot of topics along the way.

Here’s a round-up of the best bits, and the other things we noticed on the floor in Berlin today.

1. SmartThings can build a smart home

Samsung are big advocates of the internet of things, and the SmartThings products confirmed to be on the way to UK confirm that. A range of sensors to monitor and control your home from a smartphone: including watching for moisture, creating daily routines that synchronise with your day, and even telling you when your children get home from school.

The smartphone giant said it expects most devices to be IoT-compatible by 2020, and this is their biggest step towards that goal so far.

2. Sleepsense makes sense

Another of the smart home devices that got a lot of air time today was the Sleepsense. At one point there was even a doctor from Harvard Medical School on-stage at Berlin’s CityCube venue telling us how important metabolism is to health, and how that is affected by sleep.

Enter this device, says Samsung. Place under your bedding, the Sleepsense monitors heart rate and sleep quality. Hook it up with other smart home products and the device can even tell your TV to turn off as you fall asleep watching it.

3. We love washing machines

Samsung and big tech shows can only mean one thing. No, not a new phone or wearable. Washing machines.

Now, while they’re not perhaps the sexiest piece of technology you’re likely to encounter at a show such as IFA, the AddWash features Samsung discussed today did draw some admiring looks from the audience.

We love seeing an everyday problem solved, and this feature enables users to add extra items to a wash after it’s started via a new watertight mini-door. No more odd socks having to wait at the bottom of the wash bin.

4. Gear 2 is all it was cracked up to be

Not much of big, surprise announcement considering we had a trailer two weeks ago, and then a press release confirming it last week, but nonetheless, the Gear S2 does look very, very good.

And from the first impressions we got in our hands-on, this could be a real winner in the smartwatch market.

5. The WiFi is not

But despite all those goodies, it isn’t all plain sailing in Berlin. The WiFi in many areas of the gigantic site is patchy at best. The issues in the Samsung arena ahead of their live show reached such a point that one practical joker created a personal hotspot that was labelled ‘not working’ in Russian.

Even those in the press centre were sweating as they tried to upload hundreds of photos and hours of video footage.

So be warned, if you want to upload that selfie you managed to grab with the chief technology officer of the Kickstarter start-up you funded, you better be prepared to use your data.

6. Berlin is great

But you can’t stay too mad when you have a city like Berlin around you. One trip between hotel and new device briefing took us past the Brandenburg Gate and segments of the Berlin Wall, as well as throwing in a great sunset.

It’s enough to convince you to come back next year.