Gadgetory

welcome back to the CNET live stage I'm Jason Heiner and he's bill Detweiler who's about to crack open a smart suitcase now bill we've cracked open a lot of things over the years on the CNET stage why are we doing a suitcase this year well you know suitcases are really interesting you know is we have smart technology it's being put into more and more gadgets so you wouldn't necessarily think that they're gonna be computer chips and batteries and everything like that putting into a suitcase but there are so we've got a smart suitcase here this is a blue smart one of their brand-new series two smart suitcases that does really cool things right so it'll tell you how much the suitcase weighs it has a Bluetooth device in a Bluetooth chip in it that lets you unlock the suitcase remotely it has cellular connectivity through 3G it'll actually tell you where the suitcase is GPS connectivity right so you lose your suitcase on a flight you can find out where it went before the airline knows rise up in Pittsburgh that's right and so but all of those cool features take tech and we're gonna crack this open I'm going to show you the tech inside that enables all those great features also yeah to power all those all that great tech it requires a battery and so there's been a little bit of controversy lately some of the airlines have started to ban smart suitcases yes on some flights especially checking them because they're afraid of the lithium-ion batteries inside and so I thought it would be a good idea to show everybody where those batteries are excellent so in the past we've done some things with batteries here on the stage and the problem with batteries is well they can catch fire if the batteries are damaged they can overheat they can catch fire if they're punctured and so you definitely don't want fire on an airplane yes all right so where do we find the batteries in this guy okay so in the blue smart bag right here the batteries out actually all the electronics where most electronics are all right up here at the top so if we zip unzip here the inside lining now normally you would never really do this at home what you can see if we can get it over the camera shot is this piece of plastic and I've already pre removed to speed things along a few of the screw yeah using a little Phillips screwdriver here I'm gonna put it in here we're going to take move off some of the screws it's got like a cooking show right where they pre make everything we're going to pull the screws off here and we're going to remove one more left to do we're going to remove the cover and with that if you'll hold that Jason yep we'll get to see some of the tech inside now all right there we go so we can make mother board right we can see the circuit boards we can see the cellular modules we can see the SIM card for the cellular modules we can see all the connectors a lot of the contacts for the weight bear to determine the weight are in the handle here and then behind all this we can see the power module right here so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna adjust to detach some of these cables you're from the motherboard great like this you can see some of the chip makers when you crack these things open on TechRepublic lots of different tech that you crack open a lot of times you make note of who the chip makers are because those are things that we learn and you know there's sometimes things that we know about those chip makers as well as the fact that it has an impact on those companies as well right and you know if you watched a little earlier I was here with iFixit and they showed us how to replace the battery in an iPhone 6s yeah so that's one of the reasons we take these things apart because we want to know how they work but also we want to know how to repair them if they break and so it's important to see how these things are put together all right so here is the module that contains the battery and the circuit board and all the chips I'm gonna use a screwdriver here I'm gonna remove the circuit board so we can get to the battery that's underneath right and this is the part that some of the airlines are concerned about being dangerous now blue smart says that their bags conform to all the FAA standards for safety so they're trying to work with the airlines and it's not all airlines it's not something the government said is a mandatory to ban these bags yet and there are other manufacturers of smart bags and that some of them do have removable batteries okay actually come out and those are the bags that the airlines are sort of allowing through they just don't like the bags some of the airlines don't our concern about the batteries that can't because the FAA hasn't banned all smart bags oh and they have AI hasn't done really anything it's the airlines that are doing this right now oh he's out of an abundance of caution okay they don't want to have the risk of that battery catching on fire in the cargo hold of their plane right and so what we're also going to do is we're going to remove the two little connectors here from the power switch that's area we can see the circuit board right here we've got a lot of the like I said we've got the cellular modem here we've got the SIM card we've got some of the other chips are here protected by these little metal cages those are to protect from electromagnetic interference RF interference on the other side I'll flip this over real quick on the other side there's not much to say sure it's just the underside of a circuit board so kind of like the backside of water oh all right so Disney that's my my Disney gamer all right so we're gonna remove these screws here and if we do that we'll be able to take the battery pack out and now this this version of the bag actually has a longer lasting battery than the previous version and it's not just to power the device itself one of the really cool features about these bags that you can recharge your cell phone so you know how when you go on a trip and you don't have you know you run out of juice you can't find a plug just plug your uh smartphone directly into the bag and boom you've got power again so yes there's a really handy feature it's a big this this bag is a big step up from the first generation bag I tested the first generation bag blue smart bag for tech Republic and I found it was not super useful because it was just bluetooth it would alert you if you're getting far away away from your bag but typically if you have a carry-on you're not getting that far away but this one like you said it added the GPS to cellular technology and the the ergonomics that the layout of the bag is a little more practical that one took up a lot of space for all of the electronics and and that so this bag this one's bigger right so you have more space to put stuff into like the things you want to take with you your clothes and whatnot and but it is still compliant with Rhian standards on all the US airlines and most international ones as well so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do one thing again if you watched the iFixit segment with me Chris was very careful in removing the battery and I'm gonna do the same thing I don't want to damage this lithium-ion battery so all right that's where the prop too much right that's right it's right here it's this battery pack it's made up of several different lithium-ion cells and you're all put together and so you don't want to puncture this bin this and you know I don't know about you but airlines don't seem to be the most delicate with your luggage right they tend to throw it around and so not at all even though this is protected by pretty strong plastic and again meets FAA standards they're just worried a little bit about this could get damaged this could get punctured this could get bent and that could cause problems right could start a fire so we definitely don't want that okay but that's the smart technology inside these smart bags so it definitely I hope it shows people kind of the tech that it actually takes to make these devices smart very good so this is a fairly small set of wires motherboard battery that that are in this bag how much does this bag cost and how much does that add I want it I believe we're talking four to five hundred dollars typically for it's a bag four to five hundred dollars on a bag like this but then again what would you spend for a really good quality regular bag right you'd probably use 300 two or $300 hundred dollars so having a bag that's about four or five maybe $100 extra so 150 extras if you're a frequent traveler you like all those features that's pretty cool especially for business travels like you and I yeah so it's gonna in addition to being a nice high-quality bag it's going to you know if we recap it's gonna let you charge your phone from it it's with the battery it's gonna let you track it in GPS and cellular and then it's going to also alert you if you get if it gets too far far away if somebody thinks walking off with your bag yeah so that's pretty cool now you know it's not just bags that all this smart stuff goes into it's toasters it's ovens it's refrigerators you know CNET shows all this stuff off at the smart home and we've got another really kind of cool little device that you may not think that a lot of smart technology would go into a coffee mug excellent let's see it so we've got little bit of time left in the segment and we've got a this is an ember a ceramic coffee mug now ember came out a couple years ago they showed it off kind of at last CES with a travel mug just late last year they came out with a ceramic version of that for people that don't want a travel mug all the time and this is really cool it keeps your coffee warm there's a smartphone app that goes along with it that determines the temperature lets you set the perfect temperature it's coffee warm for about an hour it'll let you set it for different people for different users if you want that I really like this hot coffee tastes a little better you can see the coils on the bottom are our viewers can that's right so so how does that all work and yeah is it gonna communicate with your smartphone it's gonna have power well it's got similar kind of technology in the plastic base and I'm gonna show you why blue smart says don't put this in a microwave don't push it put this in the dishwasher right this this or I'm sorry amber says Cobras in the microwave don't put this in the dishwasher we're going to call her hand-washing all hand washing so we're gonna cut this open as quickly as I can without trying to hit the batter right this is gonna require a dremel here and some safety goggles we've got some safety for Jason if we're gonna throw these on real quick if you hit the battery keep in mind if you hit the battery it will start smoking so we're gonna try to avoid that I've cracked one of these open before you you'll actually able to see this in the upcoming issue of CNET magazine and I know where the battery is so we're gonna do our best not to do that and I should mention you know Bill's been doing this for a long time since 2006 and so I like to say that you know Bill has the patience of a saint in the hands of a surgeon to do these kinds of things we've had other people do some cracking opens for technical public at different times and when we did it didn't go well usually we can it came back in a pile of parts so this one gives us an opportunity to show you the deafness that you know bill has in doing these things this is the most challenging part when we have to crack something open when we actually have to cut it open with something like a dremel I'm gonna put my glasses back on because there's some stuff lying around as you can see so if you're doing these at home one of the reasons that we do them on TechRepublic is so that you can get a guide to what to do if you want to you know open up some technology that you have if you want to repair something like your your suitcase or you want to either experiment with opening something up that you've got or repair a product that you have that has malfunction so you can find lots of cracking open galleries and articles that bill is done on TechRepublic you can also find cracking open videos that we do on CNET of many of the same products so again right bill we crack it open so that you don't have to or that if you so that if you are you've got a guide you know what to do so we're getting through this a little bit can see the crack in here what the problem is it's a battery I go slow because I know that the lithium ion battery is right behind this okay the smoke that's coming out isn't from the battery it's just from the plastics it's nothing here yeah and it does take a little bit of time I don't know what will the weather will get through the whole thing during this segment we're gonna give it the old college try okay so we've cracked open all kinds of things over here we've cracked open every iPhone all the big Android phones in many cases we've cracked open Xboxes robots all kinds of things so again you can find those some of them we do for a little bit of entertainment but mostly we're also trying to learn about the technology every time we do one of these cracking opens so you can also find some of bills cracking opens in CNET magazines where we'll take the photos and lay them out and tell the story of cracking these open as well glasses off since I'm a little further away now but you see things flying off of there and so you know this can be a little bit of a dangerous gig with that you can see bill taking all the safety precautions that he does all right we're almost real quick I don't know if we'll be able to do it I'm rushing okay but with safety in mind you know we always want to be careful now obviously you know one of the things we've always done Jason is you and I have always taken things apart because we do we don't believe in wasting these things we try not to damage them - yep but we've always tried to put them back together again sometimes you just can't do this obviously you know if you were here on the stage couple years ago you saw me take off take apart the bb-8 yeah and there's just no way to put this back together again kinda like Humpty Dumpty right once we use the Dremel that's not going back together but you know every iPhone that you've taken apart has gone back together and we've used it for for app testing and product testing afterwards you take it apart a lot of laptops tablets many other technologies and I can count when it when you didn't have to take out the Dremel you know I can count on one hand the number of things that didn't go back together because we are trying to learn from the technology and they don't just destroy it not just destroy it we can hear all right all right show you guys we just got a few minutes left I was able to cut through it all all right here we go there we are so it's gonna crack here normally I'd be a little bit more delicate with this but I'm gonna show you the battery inside of it see this big protective case right there this is the battery that actually powers all the smarts inside and so you don't want to put this obviously in your microwave it's filled with metal and circuit boards if you were to heat that up in the microwave that's a bad idea same thing with water you don't want to get water inside of this in the wash dishwasher so all hand washing only yes so where's the motherboard and that is that in the piece right actually no it's actually right underneath the battery is it a circular circuit board found underneath the battery there's interesting these cables right here they connect to temperature sensors inside the mug and there's also a heating element under here obviously you would have to keep the liquid warm right your coffee your tea whatever it is you have and so there's a heating element under there there's a little bit of insulation as well and if you kind of want to see everything that's in here definitely check out next month's issue or the next issue of CNET magazine there's a full photo spread of me taking this apart in there nice so how much does this cost Val so the this mug is about 80 bucks now you say that's a lot for a coffee mug but you know I'll tell you what I like my coffee I drink it every day I like my hot you're gonna keep it at 80 dollars is just fine for me yeah what else does it do other sensors what does it tell does it tell you does it know you know what your preference is to drink it does you set the PERT you set the temperature it'll keep the liquid at that temperature it'll also detect whether or not there's liquid in it or not so the commode is always on it's only gonna heat when you've got liquid in it very good all right thanks so much bill interesting to see what's inside the smart suitcase and the smart mug okay we got to take a break next we've got Brian Tong and the TV team to talk about the best TVs of CES 2018 stay 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