Three CNN Underscored Innovation Award winners (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Thousands of products claim to be innovative. Most aren't.

[00:00:04] Speaker 2: They're either gimmicky, overpriced, or lacking in true innovation.

[00:00:08] Speaker 1: We searched for products that actually make a difference, improving how you live, work, eat, or sleep, in ways existing products haven't solved. Here are three that earned one of CNN Underscored's Innovation Awards.

[00:00:19] Speaker 3: For the awards, our editors tested products across home, tech, beauty, travel, outdoors, and wellness, all looking for one thing.

[00:00:27] Speaker 2: Does this solve a real problem better than what came before?

[00:00:30] Speaker 3: No hype. No buzzwords. Just real-world testing that makes everyday life better, easier, and more convenient.

[00:00:37] Speaker 1: The Cumulus machine is the first machine exclusively made to brew cold brew, nitro cold brew, and cold espresso with the touch of a button in under 60 seconds. So we've tried a lot of coffee machines. This is unlike any other that we've seen, which is why we chose it as our Kitchen Innovation of the Year. If you exclusively drink cold coffee, this machine is for you. You don't have to remember to steep cold brew bags overnight. You don't have to brew hot coffee and then put ice in it, which dilutes the flavor, and no one wants that. So what's innovative about the Cumulus is that it doesn't require cartridges like a lot of other nitro cold brew machines require. Instead, the Cumulus actually takes nitrogen from the air to produce the delicious microfoam in the nitro cold brew. To dispense a drink, you will choose from either the still, nitro, or espresso setting. Take out the old aluminum pod, swap in a new one, switch it over to nitro. Just press the button and you'll see the magic happen. And there you have it, a lush, creamy nitro cold brew under 60 seconds. Tastes just like a very pricey nitro cold brew that you would buy at a coffee shop. It has a really, really bold flavor in a good way. I appreciate that this machine is really nice to look at. It's not an eyesore like some of those keg-style nitro cold brew machines. There's nothing else out there like it, and it's truly setting a standard for cold at-home coffee machines.

[00:02:10] Speaker 2: The laptops and tablets of the last couple years have gotten sort of predictable and samey to a point where the word innovation doesn't really apply to most of them. For my money, the Remarkable Paper Pro Move was one of the most exciting products that crossed my table, and my lab first came the Remarkable Paper Pro, an e-ink tablet with a really natural writing sensation. If you've ever used an iPad with an Apple Pencil, you know that writing on glass is not really, it's slippery, it's distracting, you don't really love doing it. This is a joyful experience that's the exact opposite. It feels like you're writing with pencil and paper. This felt like a giant step forward. So Remarkable Paper Pro was the perfect digital notebook that we had been waiting for. And then Remarkable took the big Remarkable Paper Pro and shrank it down to the much more portable Paper Pro Move. And it has the same features as the bigger one, color, front lighting, the same writing experience in a much more compact and portable design. Why is it better? Well, to start, the writing experience is just superior. Like it just feels like you're writing with a pencil and paper. And having tested a ton of these digital notebooks, most other competitors get something wrong along the way. Secondly, Remarkable learned that less is actually more. A lot of other e-ink tablets are slower and a little bit more annoying because they try to do too much and it's frustrating to use. These it's actually joyful. You want to use this. This is replacing the paper notebook and it's light. It's like a paperback. I'm excited to see what other companies pull off in the future. Amazon's keep trying to innovate with its Scribe tablets, but nothing feels quite perfect as this. Remarkable finally perfected their digital e-ink tablets.

[00:03:51] Speaker 3: Plutopod Travel Pillow won an innovation award because it levels up the travel pillow game. The design is modeled after that of a neck brace, so it offers legitimate stability and support for your head and neck while you're sleeping. It also comes with a hood to pull over your ears and the top of your head to create a quieter, more ambient space. And it includes this handy sleep mask, which is a feature we hadn't seen before. This will help you relax and unwind throughout your flight and create a fairly effective sleeping environment that's comparable to what you might find at home as much as you can get it on a plane. When you're not using the Plutopod pillow, you can roll it up into a pretty reasonable, roughly football-sized ball. And it does come with a carabiner so that you can attach it to your personal item or your rolling luggage. And when you're ready to use it, you just unsnap the hood from the bottom of the neck brace and it velcros open and closed. If you didn't want to use it with the hood, you can fold it up and it will create just a nice support for the back of your head against the headrest. Once you wrap it around, you're good to go. If you're someone who does like to wear headphones while you're on the plane or you're just looking to block out extra noise, there is enough room for over-ear headphones or earbuds. Whichever you wear, you'll be able to make work. It's compatible and spacious and it'll still be comfortable. The last feature that really made this product stand out among the rest is the eye mask that's built into the hood. So you can pull it over your eyes and truly block out the world around you. Most of the travel pillows that our team tests have a U or a horseshoe-shaped design where they wrap around the sides of your neck, don't offer much support in the front, and don't offer additional features besides minimal storage or easy collapsing for travel and packing. This product does all of those things, supports the front of your head as well, and has additional features that really create an overall sleeping environment rather than just solving one problem of where to rest your head.

[00:05:59] Speaker 1: And those were just three of CNN Underscore's 23 Innovation Award winners.

[00:06:05] Speaker 2: From clever tech to standout home and wellness products, our editors found winners that set new standards in their categories.

[00:06:11] Speaker 1: Visit our site to see every CNN Underscore Innovation Award winner.