My favorite gizmos of CES 2025
I’m usually only tangentially interested in the Consumer Electronics Show. It seems like so much of the stuff there will never reach customers and exists only to raise hype to woo investors. The year, however, I found myself getting excited for a number of cool gizmos and gadgets that don’t seem too outlandish to be brought to market. A bunch are in the smart home category, but there’s other neat stuff too. Here’s what stuck out to me each day.
Monday
Nvidia’s Project Digits. This tiny personal supercomputer packs in a lot of power at $3000, and looks good doing it. [Link]
Satechi’s Mac Mini M4 Stand & Hub. This continues to be a smart, streamlined solution for more ports and external storage. And provides easier access to the power bottom. [Link]
Dell 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED. Dell put beamforming speakers in its new monitor so you get the best audio no matter where you position your head. [Link]
Belkin’s Stage PowerGrip. This magnetic grip for your phone provides a big battery bank and a camera-like form factor with a physical shutter butter in your hand. [Link]
Brisk It’s Zelos 450. This smart wood pellet grill will supposedly provide AI cooking assistance in a $400 package. [Link]
Schlage’s Sense Pro Smart Deadbolt. This smart lock packs in ultra-wideband, NFC, Thread, and a keypad into a svelte package — but no physical key slot. [Link]
Lutron’s Caséta Smart Shades. These automatic window shades are Caséta-compatible and look great, but come in at $400 each. [Link]
Samsung’s Frame Pro TV. It makes some notable improvements in color accuracy and brightness over the non-Pro, and ditches the display cable. All video signal is sent wirelessly. [Link]
Aqara’s Doorbell Camera Hub G410. Our house has no doorbell at all, and our dog barks at any outside noise, which means I get up from the couch to check for front door visitors a surprising amount. So this battery-powered, HomeKit Secure Video-compatible, and Matter-enabled video doorbell really catches my eye. [Link]
Aquara’s Touchscreen Dial V1. We’re finally getting to see what I think is the holy grail of smart home switches. Ones that integrate a small touchscreen to easily select the device to control, plus physical controls — in this case, a dial with haptic feedback. Its only downside is that it doesn’t work with Matter. The Touchscreen Switch S100 US with buttons does though, so I might give that a shot this year. [Link]
Aquara’s Presence Multi-Sensor FP300. I bought a HomeKit motion sensor a little while back, but haven’t set it up yet. Now I’m hearing that these presence sensors are far more accurate, and they’re packing in other sensor like temperature and humidity. Now that there’s a battery-powered option, I’m intrigued to see what automations I could cook up with all those triggers. [Link]
Tuesday
Jackery’s Solar Roof & HomePower Energy System. I’m keeping my eye on this home backup battery solution. It looks like a solid alternative to Tesla’s Solar Roof and Powerwall batteries. Love Jackery’s orange accent, too. [Link]
Audio-Technica’s ATH-CKS50TW2 Earbuds. Although it wouldn’t be so helpful for me because I’m not a monster who puts loose earbuds in my pocket, it’ll help a bunch of you people that they magnetize together to turn off, save battery life, and make the earbuds harder to lose. [Link]
Nanoleaf’s Matter Smart Multicolor Floor Lamp. There’s something mystical about this minimal floor lamp. I don’t know that I’d care to set up its gradients all the time, but it sure looks cool. Fairly affordable at $100, too. [Link]
Anker’s SOLIX Solar Umbrella. I certainly don’t need 80 watts of power at the beach, but I commend them for the idea and execution for people who do. [Link]
E Ink’s InkPoster. I could be into this large digital e-ink poster thing. It’ll let you swap in thousands of designs, or your own photos. And it only needs to be charged once a year. As someone who despises the act of hanging things on the wall, it’s appealing to think I could do it once and reap the benefits of ever-changing designs for years to come. [Link]
Wednesday
Bosch’s 100 Series Matter-enabled Fridge. Its not imminent, but I’m on the lookout for what could be our next fridge. We don’t need a bunch of fancy features, but having it part of the smart home for open door notifications would be nice. [Link]
MOFT’s Find My-Enabled Stand & Wallet. I’ve been using a MOFT MagSafe wallet for years, and I love it. It’s all but eliminated my (historically frequent) habit of losing my wallet. But you know what would be even better? If I did leave my wallet around, having Find My in it to track it back down. MOFT’s managed to keep its great design with the built-in kickstand and add in a thin battery for Find My. That it can be recharged wirelessly is super cool too. This’ll be an insta-buy for me. [Link]
Ohsnap’s MCON MagSafe Game Controller. I’m not much of a gamer, but I have to admit that this pop-out game controller that attaches to your phone via MagSafe looks pretty sick. [Link]
Godox’s MA5R MagSafe Light Up Power Bank. I’m a big fan of MagSafe battery packs that double as other things. This one is also a lighting rig. Ostensibly for photography, it could also be nice as a back up flashlight and battery pack on hikes. [Link]
Some solid recap videos
Reading about all these gadgets is nice, but seeing them in action is even better. Here are a couple videos that I liked which showed off our technological future.
The solar-powered, über-aerodynamic car sounds like incredible engineering. “Our whole vehicle has better aerodynamics than the side mirrors on most pickup trucks.” Wow!
I expect 2025 will be the year of the smart glasses as other companies catch up to the Meta Ray-Bans. The ones Victoria Song demoed with a discreet screen looked quite appealing.
I liked a couple display things in this video. The VR-without-a-headset display was surprising, and I expect we’ll see that tech advance further in the next few years, but it doesn’t look like anything someone would be taking home soon. The rise-up projector TV looks so sleek and unobtrusive for a living room. I love how it can descend to show a short projected fireplace when not watching a show or movie.
What got you excited from CES this year?
P.S. If you’re interested, here’s the shortcut I used to build this post throughout the week, as well as the one to make a YouTube embed without cookie tracking.