Although we love all the big names and huge launches, one of the best things about CES (the Consumer Electronics Show), which takes place annually in Las Vegas, is the opportunity to discover weird and wonderful tech.
Enter Nimble’s… device. That’s what it’s called: the Nimble Device.
The Nimble Device does one thing. It paints your nails, which it achieves with the help of a robot arm holding a little bottle of nail varnish. Does it do that job well? We haven’t seen it in person but given the strides in robotics over the last few years, nail technicians may want to start dusting off their CVs.
Why can’t we see what’s happening in the box?
What we do know is that, like almost everything being shouted about at CES 2024 this year, it uses ‘advanced AI’ (artificial intelligence), or at least machine learning termed as such. In this case, AI is used in combination with 2D and 3D scanning, to learn the size, shape and curve of your nails. Which it then paints, as we’ve made abundantly clear.
Nimble Beauty
According to Nimble’s website, it’ll give you “a rich, high-shine, effortless manicure” in either two or four coats and its “fully automated drying technology means ready-to-go nails as soon as you remove your hand”.
Why does the phrase “remove your hand” make us jumpy? Maybe because there’s something intrinsically disturbing about inserting your hand into an opaque box, which is what you’ll have to do here to enjoy the robotic nail painting service. And that just invites further questions.
Why can’t we see what’s happening in the box? Is the robot arm shy? Will a member of the Bene Gesserit appear behind you with a poisoned pin in case you flinch?
Warner Bros.
Dune similarities aside, this is not the first time we’ve seen this tech. Cast your mind back to 1997, or cast your browser across to IMDB if you weren’t born then. In the sci-fi film The Fifth Element, there’s a throwaway scene in which a PA answers a phone while also applying nail varnish using a remarkably similar albeit smaller bit of kit.
The people behind Nimble Beauty have not acknowledged the oeuvre of Luc Besson as inspiration for their invention, instead more prosaically crediting a dinner date that was disrupted thanks to a manicure mishap.
However, the instant nails device isn’t the only inspirational makeup tech to appear in the film. There’s also a scene in which the tangerine-headed heroine Leeloo uses a Chanel-branded eye makeup applicator.
While this seems mostly like an excuse for a bit of Chanel brand placement, YSL Beauty has come up with a tech-based instant makeup solution of its own. The Rouge Sur Mesure is a connected device that colour matches and mixes lipstick shades.
Take a photo of the shade you want on your phone camera and the device will create it by blending the pigments from three cartridges inside. You can buy it from Yves Saint Laurent Beauty for $350/ £260.
Yves Saint Laurent Beauty
Still, that’s small change when compared to the Nimble Device. It costs $599, down from $699, and you can pre-order it from Nimble Beauty with a $99 deposit. Orders will be shipped on 15 March.
The product dimensions aren’t mentioned on the site but it doesn’t look like the sort of thing you could pop in your bag and take to work like in The Fifth Element.