By Richard M. Sherwin

(Parts simulcast on Sirius-XM)

Las Vegas, Nevada: The key word this year is Smart. Every new product, or old one for that matter, is called smart (whether or not it actually is).

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show, aka the Circus of Circuits, was, for the most part, a family and kids new product extravaganza. It also had its usual repertoire of new TVs, audio products, computers, tablets and phones that all talk to each other.

 LG, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba and Samsung Smart TVs make TV viewing easier and the new remotes that can be programmed by voice or gesture are almost fun to use (when they work). The new TV applications, which help families manage content from movies to music and makes it easy for families to choose what kind of program to watch, offer a full selection of computer applications and TV enabled websites.

Ultra HD TVs, from nearly all the manufacturers, sport an ultra-high price ($5,000 to $30,000) and most are not any smarter than the standard smart TVs. My guess is that, for now, they will scare off most consumers the way 3D TV has done. But Ultra TVs do deliver four times the usual pixels on screen, and they do look great, so eventually, if the price comes down, they could re-energize the still slumping TV business.

RCA introduced an ultra-thin advanced-featured LED LCD TV, a worthy successor to its first generation portable TV. This 8” mobile TV and Android tablet can bring back-seat fun for kids, and also provides fully ready Android applications for the entire family.

Another way families are getting together is through the next generation of laptops and their new designs. Recently I visited several homes in which the teenagers were playing separately on their Smart Phones, Dad was watching the game on his TV in the den and Mom was playing Words for Friends. What’s wrong with this picture? According to the mom, “we need to do something together”.

Now Lenovo has a way the family can play together. The new Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Tablet computer can be placed flat on the dining room table. Is 27 inch screen is pretty sturdy as it has to withstand, guess what? everything from Knock Hockey and other simulated but still exercise-related games for the entire family.

Sony, Asus and Dell have experimented with oversized Tablets and Microsoft tried this at some west coast colleges but only Lenovo has mastered this type of oversized product. But from the look of the lines of reporters, industry analysts and other dignitaries playing with the Lenovo, they may have a hit on their hands. Maybe it will help families do more things together. The Lenovo unit is almost ready for release and will be priced at about $1300, but Acer, Dell and Asus models are expected to be much less.

But taking the price down a bit, many Moms have been worried that their pre-teens, tweens and teenagers’ ears are exploding from the high level of sounds coming from their IPhones and tablets. At least a dozen companies are marketing headphones which limit the decibel level of the music coming from their devices. These these units go for under $20 and can save on doctor bills later or shrink bills much later. And Craig, Monster and others make ear buds and headphones that are unbreakable.

Smart kitchens and laundry rooms, still even more overpriced than Smart TVs, do bring a new dimension to refrigerators, washers and dryers, and dish washers, as these new machines from LG and Samsung use tablet like Android screens to offer everything from scanning your food for expiration dates to reminding family members to do chores and to notify each other of important family emergencies or news.

 In addition, like some of the new Smart TVs, these Smart Appliances can share all this data with your Smart phone or Tablet.

They will notify you when the roast is done or to turn on the dish washer using just the right amount of water or to self-clean the oven when it knows it needs it.  The new Frigs can even determine who stole the cupcake. But what really earns these appliances the Smart label is that many of the machines are very, very efficient in their energy saving capabilities.

Other game changers were the amount of fitness, health and exercise devices shown in Vegas.

And while your smart phone now connects and runs your TV and TVs have apps like a smart phone and your computer is your TV and your TV is your PC, there are several standalone products for kids of all ages that use the latest smart circuitry to make learning more fun and exciting or make life better and healthier.

The Omron® 7 Series Upper Arm Blood Pressure Monitor (BP792IT) provides you with comfortable, accurate readings by ensuring you are using a cuff correctly sized for you. The 7 Series also comes with Blue Tooth which can wirelessly send results to your PC, Tablet or Smart Phone. Other wireless blood pressure and heart rate monitors can even send the test results directly to your doctor or, if you forget to save the results, the device automatically stores it.

In a similar health and well-being category, a new company called Beam sends tooth-brushing data to your smart phone. The Beam Brush is the world’s first smart toothbrush, a manual brush that monitors your oral hygiene habits and reports them to a smartphone app. The next generation will supposedly remind you that you are not brushing correctly or long enough.

The Polar Bluetooth Smart device (Polar H7) allows you to quickly connect to any Bluetooth Smart Ready device, such as a tablet or smartphone, to store and display heart rate data and other workout statistics. Polar makes a wide variety of heart rate sensors and fitness watches with sophisticated training features.

Think out of the box with the award-winning Dane-Elec my-Ditto network storage solution: A hybrid network connected hard drive and cloud platform that is a complete backup, storage and streaming solution, and unleashes a user’s digital assets for work, collaboration and play. Priced from $199 to $399, depending on capacity. Dane Elec will also soon be introducing a $39 adapter that allows you to stream your video, picture and music content to almost any device in the house without a PC. Its self-contained network becomes the hub for all your family digital content. Even more impressive is that it also can charge any Smart phone, digital camera or MP3 player.

As Skype gets pricier for non-members’ video calls, ooVoo social video chat connects 62 million registered users via its free, fun and easy to use app for PC, Mac, Android, iPhone and tablets. New from ooVoo at CES is a “watch together” group video feature.  8 out of 10 Skype users prefer ooVoo’s quality and features.

Magellan, a leader of innovative GPS devices for vehicles, fitness, outdoor and mobile navigation, is trying to revitalize the slumping mobile GPS category, which has been affected by cellular phones that are GPS enabled. Magellan’s SmartGPS, is a GPS device designed to completely redefine personal navigation by integrating social, local and mobile content, including Yelp and Foursquare, through their revolutionary cloud-enabled Smart Ecosystem. The Magellan SmartGPS is the first, total-solution navigation device to wirelessly sync the user’s navigation data, such as favorite places and contacts, with a smartphone or personal computer, and to intelligently deliver stored and dynamic location-based information to the GPS display that is personalized to the driver’s locale.

One of my favorite products, demonstrated off site from the convention center, is Jumboards’ Webee (pronounced WEBEE). It’s a wonderful technology that can keep your toddler on up to a six or seven year old busy for hours. It’s a simple overlay that sits on your PC or laptop keyboard. It has a really simple, easy to use 4-button keyboard and the programs include math, reading, story-telling and other basic learning skills and games to manage and grow   development skills using nice and easy characters to entertain. Since some in  this age group are not yet totally capable of using a real keyboard and mouse,  the Jumboard keyboard comes with online programs that makes the computer interface more kid-friendly. At Digital Family Advisor, we ran a clinic with this device and it scored an almost perfect 10 with our two to seven year old trainees.

Developed by an Israeli scientist named Rachel Van Buren, it’s available at Jumboard.com, but should also be on sale in North America in a month.

LeapFrog Enterprises announced its latest kid tablet, the LeapPad2, geared toward children ages 3 to 9, available as a stand alone or as a Disney Princess bundle. The latter adds a specially designed frame, carrying case and seven Disney Princess wallpapers.

Features include 5-inch screen, 4GB of internal memory, 550MHz processor, headphones jack, USB port, and  cameras in the front and back of the tablet, with the ability to take still images and record video. The LeapPad2 uses four AA batteries, with battery life listed at nine hours, and it can also use an AC adapter.

Arch-rival V-tech is almost ready to launch their third generation kids Tablet, promising even more features.