Medicine cabinet and personal health products go digital at CES

You know the rule: It’s rude to peek inside someone’s medicine cabinet. Now, it’s rude to peek at the smartphone apps wirelessly connecting to those products, too.

Got that addendum, Emily Post? Yes, thermometers, pill dispensers—now even pregnancy tests—can be connected to a smartphone and in some cases to the cloud. I call it the Internet of Bodily Things.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week won’t just feature tech giants. Health and personal care companies, including First Response and L’Oréal, also have descended on the annual gadget show. They’re hoping to wow customers with new sensor-equipped products coming soon to a drugstore near you.

Not that this show hasn’t yielded odd connected health products in the past. There was a laughable connected fork, and a parade of Bluetooth toothbrushes. All heavily hyped, their smartphone connectivity failed to provide substantial perks.

The new crop of products benefit from better technology, including improvements to low-energy Bluetooth that will make them more capable and power efficient. Still, they face the same inherent challenge: They need to prove why we should pay extra for added technology in our personal health products.