CES 2025: AI-Powered Robots and Smart Home Innovations Take Center Stage

The Best Robots of CES 2025

The robots at CES 2025 looked cuter than ever, and were packing more AI than we may be comfortable with. They can scoot, flip, grab a candy bar, and lethargically leverage it into your awaiting palm. The best robots of CES 2025 didn’t show off any revolution in the mobility department, at least compared to 2024. Instead, the robotics at this year’s CESâ€"whether they were the best or weirdestâ€"seemed focused on acting cute for the camera. Last year’s best bots of CES brought us humanoid models like Unitree’s H1 without a face and Enchanted Tool’s Mirokai with probably too much face. Those same robotics companies made an appearance at this year’s show with slightly improved models andâ€"of courseâ€"the addition of AI chatbots. The smaller players weren’t alone in adding AI to bots. Samsung and TCL drew crowds with their home robots full to the brim with vision and textual AI models. Why would you want a robot in your life? Well, because it’s so damn cute, that’s why. Yukai Engineering’s Mirumi is a tiny, hairy robot that sits in your pocketbook and stares at people around it. It doesn’t do anything else but stare, and the only sensors involved help it recognize when people are around it. You pose its arms whichever way you want for a real surprise Elf of a Shelf moment when people walk into your bedroom. With all the bots on this list proposing you need an AI-powered machine in your home to ask questions, Mirumi wants to look cute. In that way, it succeeds. People are still going gaga over Tombot’s Jennie labrador robot and similar fuzzy bots. Fair enough, though, why shouldn’t we have more robotic animals to scurry around our homes? Metapet showed off its Noono AI robotic pet hamster at CES 2025. Ignore the large glowing light streaming out of their noses. When you pet it, it reacts by arching its back. When it needs to recharge, you stick it in its own baby carrier-type basket. Ballie was one of the stars of CES 2024, but for 2025, it received a few upgrades. With an improved AI model, the ball-shaped bot can now provide more specific answers to users’ questions. The bot should also offer faster response times, which was important for a demo where Samsung reps asked Ballie to recommend some wine choices. The rolling robot still has its projector screen that allows users to interact with it, although it may still be too slow for most users who expect instant gratification. Before you ask, Samsung has not revealed anything about a potential release date nor any more information about possible pricing. TCL’s concept robot was much like Samsung’s Ballie except with a cute, animal-like baby head. AiMe includes three “cores†that are full of different AI models. The drive core lets it roll around, including speakers for sound. The “Baby Core†includes more AI functionality, allowing it to use AI vision and speech to interact with users. There’s a final “Mini Core†that can detach and act as an on-the-go AI connection. The demos TCL used to showcase AiMe at CES didn’t offer us a great sense of its full capabilities. Instead, we watched a baby bot roll around, blinking and offering us a taste of a future where cute bots take over. Nvidia’s showcase at CES included a slew of demos for its new GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards. Still, the company also offered Galbot some space, using the chipmaker’s dataset for hand robotics. To show off these capabilities, Galbot had their humanoid roll over to a shelf full of candy and drinks, clamp it with its prong-shaped claws, and then ever-so-slowly drop the treat into the person’s hand. Did they get to keep their free snack? No, of course not. Unitree strutted out its two-legged G1 model at CES, though the robot kept motionless while we visited the robotics company’s booth. Other reporters mentioned that G1 was prone to sprint at full speed at attendees only because the control person pressed the wrong button at the wrong time. Instead, Unitree had its quadrupedal dog bot, the Go 2, perform tricks for us. The dog bot could walk on two legs, walk on its hind legs, and perform flips with a simple command. The Go 2 has an ultra-wide 4D LiDAR sensor for monitoring its environment. Even better, you can buy the little robot dog starting at $1,600. Compare that to Boston Dynamics’ similar robot dog Spot, which can cost around $74,500, and the Go2 seems much more manageable. Imagine if the Pixar lamp mascot grew spider legs and shuffled toward you on wobbly limbs. Jzai’s Mi-Mo is a six-legged table with an attached lamp, but despite any initial fear, the bot is polite enough to wave its arm at surrounding CES-goers. Mi-Mo uses multiple AI vision models to try to interact with its environment, though it’s still relatively limited in what it can do. Its current design isn’t as speedy as other crab tables like last year’s Carpentopod design, though maybe if these tables stay polite, I could entertain having one strut around my home. Robovacs don’t normally draw as much excitement from the robotics crowd as they used to, but you add an arm to one, and suddenly, a device like the Roborock Saros Z70 seems novel. The Z70’s “Omnigrip†arm component is supposed to track and pick up any rogue socks on your carpet. It’s not fast, but if you or your kids are too lazy to bend over and extricate junk from your floor, Saros Z70 will do it for you.

I've been smart home hunting at CES 2025, and these are the coolest gadgets I found

It wouldn't be far-reaching to call the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the nexus of modern smart home technology. While early attempts were made before the turn of the century, the halls of CES have progressively welcomed more and more connected devices into the fold since the early 2000s, and CES 2025 is no different. This year, I've been trawling the show floor to find the best of the best smart home devices, from the weird and wonderful to the more practical inventions that will shape the next few years of connected home technology. Keen to make your home start working for you? Here's my pick of CES 2025's best smart home offerings so far. Some of the biggest smart home news at CES so far has surrounded robot vacuums, with fierce competition across the board from some of the biggest names in robot-assisted living. This year, things are hotting up; finally, some major disruption happening in the space that might actually come to market. This year, it's in the form of often-bizarre but exciting hardware adaptations like Roborock's robot vacuum with its sock-collecting arm, but more exciting than that is Dreame's new robovac that can climb over obstacles up to 4.2cm in a single step, or 6cm tall in two steps, using what Dreame is calling its 'ProLeap System'. It's one small step for Dreame, one giant leap for robovac kind. Elsewhere, software once more takes the fore with robot vacuums like the Eureka J15 Max Ultra, which uses AI to detect even hard-to-spot clear spillages. Beauty tech is on the rise, and CES 2025 is ready to deliver some of the coolest new frontiers in skincare technology. Easily my favorite thus far has been Samsung's AI-powered micro-LED mirror, which scans your face to assess your pores, pigmentation, wrinkles, and any redness and recommends a skincare regimen off the back of it. Samsung claims in the future, SmartThings-enabled beauty gadgets may also be compatible with the mirror, allowing for even greater insights and recommendations. However, there's an honorable mention to L'Oreal's new tabletop skin analyzer too, which the brand claims will tell you everything about the past, present and future of your skin with a simple five-minute scan process. Wild. Smart lighting seems set to get a whole lot smarter, judging by some of the biggest announcements from this year's CES. In particular, I was drawn to one of Govee's newest smart lights; a pixel panel (suitably named Govee Pixel Light) that can use generative AI within the Govee app to create illuminated images. That's not all, though; you can also connect it to Govee's sync boxes for enhanced immersive gaming. With compatible games, the Pixel Light will display game-related imagery, as demonstrated at CES with Mario Kart 8. While it wasn't a CES announcement, Philips Hue's new generative AI assistant has also made waves in the news cycle this week, though details remain scant; and Nanoleaf unveiled its subscription service, Nanoleaf Premium, which features its new Orchestrator tool and Scenescapes. Smart locks haven't quite had the landmark developments we've seen in some years prior, but that's not to say it's been a boring year. I particularly enjoy SwitchBot's newest renter-friendly retrofit smart lock solutions, which improves upon the first-generation smart lock I reviewed a few years ago. The newer model is a lot more slick in design, and its more streamlined design means you don't sacrifice style for smart security. Elsewhere, Phillips has announced its first smart lock compatible with Matter and Ultraloq's new smart lock was revealed to take advantage of iOS 18's UWB, showing continued focus on creating solutions that work for a wider variety of consumers. Odd robots are a mainstay at CES, but this year we've actually had a glimpse at some devices that will be commercially available. Chief among these exciting developments is Samsung's Ballie, which, after years of wishy-washy details and slight adjustments to hardware and software, is set to come to market in 2025. It'll be armed with a Full HD triple-laser switchable lens projector, a 2K camera on the rear and a 4K camera on the front, as well as LiDAR and Time of Flight (ToF) sensors. Another frequent face at CES deserving of an honorable mention is Yukai Engineering, with its bizarre array of robot companions like the Mirumi bag bot and Nekojita FuFu, the latter of which delighted my laryngitis-infected self with its ability to cool down my tea.

The Wildest CES 2025 Robots: Lamp With Legs, Blade-Wielding Lawnmowers and More

Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand. If there's one thing I knew I'd find at CES 2025, it's robots. Other tech trends come and go, but robots are a staple here at one of the world's largest tech shows. Some are cute, some are practical and some promise the world but never quite deliver. Regardless, I have a deep, abiding affection for them for injecting next-level excitement into the world of tech -- and I know you do, too. Robots have always been physical, active pieces of tech, but developments in AI are raising the game for robots in terms of their intelligence, which both makes them smarter as well as easier for us to interact with. As we scour the show floor this week, we're keeping an eye out for all the new robots -- and some older ones such as Samsung's Ballie, which made its debut back in 2020 and just this week got a release date. I'll continue to update our robot list as more droids make themselves known to us, but here's what we've seen so far. The Roborock Saros Z70 vacuum robot is the household helper the messy among us have been waiting for. We all know how robot vacuums work by now, but this one can also scoot around picking up your dirty socks and putting them in the laundry bin for you, thanks to its mechanical arm. It unfortunately isn't on sale yet -- and will likely be more expensive than other robot vacs when it is -- but can you really put a price on a bedroom floor consistently clear of discarded underwear? R2D3 may not be as cute as everyone's favorite Star Wars droid, but it's on the way to being just as useful. This super helper from California-based company OpenDroids currently costs $40,000 and with its wheeled base, two mechanical arms and ability to rise up and down to reach different heights, there's not much it can't do. Admittedly, it won't fly your X-Wing, but it will do your laundry, put your dishes away, make you a cocktail, scoop you ice cream or dispense your medication. Basically, if you need a manual task doing, R2D3's your guy. You can mow, but can you mulch? The Lymow One robot mower can. Featuring satellite navigation, tracked treads to handle large and complex yards and dual mulching blades, this mower is the first of its kind. That doesn't come cheap -- it's priced at a whopping $3,000. But for that, it can macerate fallen leaves, branches and other pesky debris and turn it into lawn fuel, and just imagine how helpful it will be when fall season rolls around. Whether Mi-Mo, a home robot from Jizai is actually helpful or useful in any particular way is yet to be determined. But it sure is stylish. This Pixar lamp with wooden legs is a "general-purpose robot" that can scamper around your house and read visual or audio cues with the help of its sensors. Right now, it seems more like an independently mobile design piece than a home helper, but Jizai does have plans for mechanical attachments that could introduce more capabilities. Does Mi-Mo currently justify its $30,000 price tag? We'll leave that up to you to decide. Mirumi is a heart-melting baby sloth robot that is somehow also a bag charm. The little robot from Japanese company Yukai Engineering will cling to your purse strap and scan for passersby to make eye contact with, moving its head inquisitively, and sometimes looking away bashfully. It serves no other purpose than to spark joy, and that's OK. Just like fashion, robots are supposed to be fun -- they don't always have to be terrifying cyborgs. Another invention from Yukai Engineering is Nékojita FuFu, a little cat that clings to your coffee cup or soup bowl and blows until your food or drink has reached the perfect temperature. It's designed for people who struggle with sensitivity to hot food, which is also known as cat's tongue (or néko jita) in Japanese. The little fan inside expels air in a randomized rhythm through the cat's mouth and is designed to mimic human breathing, although in a demo we noticed the air was a lot cooler than warm human breath -- which we hope would make it even more effective. The best thing though? When Nékojita FuFu goes on sale, it will cost just $25. As its name suggests, Ropet is a robot pet and it loves nothing more than you stroking its fuzzy outer coat. Ropet's appearance can differ based on the color of its fur and face (which are both interchangeable), as well its accessories. But if I had to commit to a description, I'd say it's a sort of lamb-seal-owl hybrid. It's not just a pretty face either; there's some smarts going on behind those eyes. Using the camera in its nose (where else?) it can recognize different food types and if you show it, say, an orange, oranges will then appear in its eyes. It will dance to nearby music, and even chat with you using AI when it's connected to Wi-Fi, which is more than my cat can do. It's not Miroka's first rodeo at CES, but the social robot from French company Enchanted Tools hit an important milestone in the last 12 months: It finally went on sale and people have been buying it. In terms of character design, Miroka is one of the most sophisticated robots we've met, and it's got an impressive array of capabilities, too. It's agile thanks to its roller base, it has opposable thumbs for picking things up and carrying them, and it can also converse with people. Want one? It will set you back a whopping 100,000 euros.

The Wildest CES 2025 Robots: Blade-Wielding Lawnmowers, Lamp With Legs and More

Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand. If there's one thing I knew I'd find at CES 2025, it's robots. Other tech trends come and go, but robots are a staple here at one of the world's largest tech shows. Some are cute, some are creepy, others practical and some promise the world but never quite deliver. Regardless, I have a deep, abiding affection for them for injecting next-level excitement into the world of tech -- and I know you do too. Robots have always been physical, active pieces of tech, but developments in AI are raising the game for robots in terms of their intelligence, which both makes them smarter as well as easier for us to interact with. As we scour the show floor this week, we're keeping an eye out for all the new robots -- and some older ones such as Samsung's Ballie, which made its debut back in 2020 and just this week got a release date. I'll keep updating this robot list as more droids make themselves known to us, but here are the most noteworthy so far. The Dreame X50 Ultra robot vacuum can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, but it can lift itself above a 4-centimeter ledge, which is a pretty big step for a robovac. The vacuum has two little legs that can prop it up to get over an obstacle. It's not ready to climb stairs, but it's not daunted by an uneven surface. It's expected to cost $1,699 when it launches in February. The Roborock Saros Z70 vacuum robot is the household helper the messy among us have been waiting for. We all know how robot vacuums work by now, but this one can also scoot around picking up your dirty socks and putting them in the laundry bin for you, thanks to its mechanical arm. It unfortunately isn't on sale yet -- and will likely be more expensive than other robot vacs when it is -- but can you really put a price on a bedroom floor consistently clear of discarded underwear? R2D3 may not be as cute as everyone's favorite Star Wars droid, but it's on the way to being just as useful. This super helper from California-based company OpenDroids currently costs $40,000, and with its wheeled base, two mechanical arms and ability to rise up and down to reach different heights, there's not much it can't do. Admittedly, it won't fly your X-Wing, but it will do your laundry, put your dishes away, make you a cocktail, scoop your ice cream or dispense your medication. Basically, if you need a manual task done, R2D3's your guy. You can mow, but can you mulch? The Lymow One robot mower can. Featuring satellite navigation, tracked treads to handle large and complex yards and dual mulching blades, this mower is the first of its kind. That doesn't come cheap -- it's priced at a whopping $3,000. But for that, it can macerate fallen leaves, branches and other pesky debris and turn it into lawn fuel, and just imagine how helpful it will be when fall season rolls around. Whether Mi-Mo, a home robot from Jizai, is actually helpful or useful in any particular way is yet to be determined. But it sure is stylish. This Pixar lamp with wooden legs is a "general-purpose robot" that can scamper around your house and read visual or audio cues with the help of its sensors. Right now, it seems more like an independently mobile design piece than a home helper, but Jizai does have plans for mechanical attachments that could introduce more capabilities. Does Mi-Mo currently justify its $30,000 price tag? We'll leave that up to you to decide. Mirumi is a heart-melting baby sloth robot that is somehow also a bag charm. The little robot from Japanese company Yukai Engineering will cling to your purse strap and scan for passersby to make eye contact with, moving its head inquisitively, and sometimes looking away bashfully. It serves no other purpose than to spark joy, and that's OK. Just like fashion, robots are supposed to be fun -- they don't always have to be terrifying cyborgs. Another invention from Yukai Engineering is Nékojita FuFu, a little cat that clings to your coffee cup or soup bowl and blows until your food or drink has reached the perfect temperature. It's designed for people who struggle with sensitivity to hot food, which is also known as cat's tongue (or néko jita) in Japanese. The little fan inside expels air in a randomized rhythm through the cat's mouth and is designed to mimic human breathing, although in a demo we noticed the air was a lot cooler than warm human breath -- which we hope would make it even more effective. The best thing though? When Nékojita FuFu goes on sale, it will cost just $25. As its name suggests, Ropet is a robot pet and it loves nothing more than you stroking its fuzzy outer coat. Ropet's appearance can differ based on the color of its fur and face (which are both interchangeable), as well its accessories. But if I had to commit to a description, I'd say it's a sort of lamb-seal-owl hybrid. It's not just a pretty face either; there's some smarts going on behind those eyes. Using the camera in its nose (where else?) it can recognize different food types and if you show it, say, an orange, oranges will then appear in its eyes. It will dance to nearby music, and even chat with you using AI when it's connected to Wi-Fi, which is more than my cat can do. It's not Miroka's first rodeo at CES, but the social robot from French company Enchanted Tools hit an important milestone in the last 12 months: It finally went on sale and people have been buying it. In terms of character design, Miroka is one of the most sophisticated robots we've met, and it's got an impressive array of capabilities, too. It's agile thanks to its roller base, it has opposable thumbs for picking things up and carrying them, and it can also converse with people. Want one? It will set you back a whopping 100,000 euros.

The 7 best smart home gadgets of CES 2025

There's a lot to keep track of at CES: TVs, cars and AI (so much AI), but the latest innovations in smart home devices are always a huge draw. Homes are becoming increasingly complex places with a myriad of different products and platforms handling cleaning, entertainment, climate control and security. Sure, there's the obvious hardware that makes an appearance in Vegas each year, like the 7 best robot vacuums we've seen, but there's also been a plethora of new products to serve those aforementioned sectors. The Tom's Guide team has been walking the show floor for the last week and has been documenting their findings on our rolling live blog. So here are my seven picks of the most intriguing smart home gadgets we've seen at this year's show. This smart lock is the obvious first pick for the best smart home innovation as we awarded it the best smart home device in this year's Tom's Guide CES Awards. Although we'll have to test it ourselves to see if it merits a place on the list of best smart locks, it's certainly one of the best-looking we've ever seen on first inspection. The smart lock uses several different mechanisms for unlocking: A 2K security camera at the top, a doorbell button, a keypad with numbers that change position to deter thieves, an RFID reader and a fingerprint reader inside the handle (your index finger naturally touches it when taking hold) and a standard key lock. The price is likely to be the most off-putting feature of this device, as it will cost a hefty $699 when it goes on sale. But as you'd guess from the name, this is a fantastic-looking device, and the elongated bar form factor will look great on a sleek, modern front door. There are a lot of robot vacuums to choose from at CES, but one of the most interesting from a smart home perspective is the SwitchBot K20+ Pro. Why? This little robovac can dock with many accessories -- a fan, an air purifier, a security camera, and an iPad holder, for example. This gives it enormous potential to be something of a smart home jack-of-all-trades. For example, you could use it as a standard robot vacuum but then have it serve double duty as a patrolling sentry by attaching the security camera while you're out of town on a trip. What's more, because SwitchBot is opening up the underlying ecosystem, FusionPlatform, to third parties, we could have a whole family of attachments and automations to make this product even more useful in the future. Pricing for the vacuum or the various modules has not been announced, but the company hopes to release some or all of the kit in May or June 2025. Artificial intelligence had to make an appearance on this list at some point, and Samsung's announcement of Vision AI at CES 2025 had the company proclaiming it would create "adaptive, intelligent companions to simplify and enrich daily living." While the primary usage seems to be putting it into the company's TV sets, it's also being used in more conventional smart home tech. Samsung is putting Vision AI into the Samsung Bespoke Smart Fridge from last year. The result is a refrigerator that can scan its own contents and analyze what's there to figure out what you're running low on. Helpfully, Samsung also announced a new partnership with Instacart, allowing said fridge to prompt you to easily order more groceries if it thinks you're running low. All the information is displayed on the 9-inch screen on the front of the fridge. Vision AI lets the fridge recognize "up to 37" different kinds of food, including fresh fruit and vegetables. So, you'll soon have no excuse for not eating your recommended daily veggies. Want to know the kinds of insects that are making themselves at home in your yard? You'll want to check out the new Petal camera from Wonder -- the company known for the Bird Buddy smart bird feeder. The Petal uses a 4K, 12MP camera atop a flexible "stem" that will identify the insects that land nearby thanks to an AI the company calls Nature Intelligence. You'll get a notification on your phone when the camera spots something interesting, and you can interact with a chatbot to learn more about it, for example, whether you've got carpenter bees in your yard. One neat feature is that you can accessorize the camera with a solar "leaf" that keeps its battery charged while interchangeable lenses will give you different views of these little botanical visitors. According to Wonder, the Petal will be available in spring but pricing is yet to be announced. One of the most significant uses of your home is sleep. There's been a whole heap of sleep-related tech on show at CES 2025, but the AI Motion Pillow will interest anyone who has to deal with snoring in the bedroom. The device uses high-quality memory foam and AI to try and position your head to prevent or stop snoring. There are a lot of anti-snoring solutions out there but this is interesting because it's a non-invasive design. The smarts are in a small white box called the AI Motion System, which records sleep time and snoring to build a pattern. From there, it starts to learn when you start snoring and activate airbags inside the pillow to gently alter head position to stop it from happening. Take a look at the best smart thermostats you can buy and you'll see the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium tops our list. However, the downfall of the product is its $250 price tag -- which was just addressed at CES 2025 with the introduction of the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Essential. At $129 it's nearly half the price of the Premium model with only a few small trade-offs -- like being made of plastic rather than nickel. Despite this, it retains one of the company's best features: compatibility with Ecobee's remote sensors so you can monitor the temperature and occupancy in multiple rooms to better manage how hot or cold you want your house. This gives Nest a run for its money and is scheduled to go on sale in March at all major retailers. It'll also come with a 3-year warranty and is Energy Star certified. Ring is synonymous with smart home tech, but while it made its name in video doorbells, it's now branching out into smoke alarms. Announced at CES as part of a partnership with Kidde, the company's first smoke alarm will notify users in the event of a fire in their home. If it picks up smoke, the detector will blast out a siren and send an alert to the Ring app. For additional safety, customers can sign up for a 24/7 Smoke & CO Monitoring service, where an agent will contact any emergency contacts you have in your Ring app, as well as the local police and fire departments. The Ring Smart Smoke Alarm will be available in April exclusively through The Home Depot and will retail for $54.97. If you want to sign up for the monitoring service, that will be available on April 2 for an additional $5 per month.

The best smart home tech of CES 2025

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is the place to be if you want to learn about new smart home devices. While many of the devices showcased at CES are years away from reaching the market, 2025 has delivered some of the best smart home tech actually coming to physical and virtual store shelves this year. Also: CES 2025: The 13 most impressive products so far As ZDNET's smart home reviewer, I've been walking the trade show floors in search of the best products released this year. But dozens of outstanding smart home devices have made this the hardest year to narrow down the list. Read on to find my picks for the best smart home tech at CES 2025. The Roborock Saros Z70 is one of the most groundbreaking devices in its category in years. It's a robot vacuum and mop combination with a five-axis mechanical arm tucked into the robot's body. The arm deploys when a temporary obstacle is detected, like a sock or tissue on the floor, to grab the small item and move it to a predetermined spot in your home, like a basket. Also: Roborock's new 'mechanical arm' robot vacuum is unlike anything I've ever seen This robot vacuum first cleans your floors while spotting obstacles in its path. Then, it makes a second pass to pick up these obstacles, place them elsewhere, and clean the spot where the obstacle was. The Roborock Saros Z70 is launching in the first half of 2025, though no price is available yet. The new Ultraloq Bolt Mission supports ultra-wideband technology to unlock your door when you approach it with an authorized device, like the phone in your pocket. It then detects when you're inside the home, so it doesn't unlock without you being on the outside approaching the door. You don't have to enter a passcode or use a physical key to unlock it, though you can if you want to. It also supports NFC for added convenience. You can sign up to be notified when the Ultraloq Bolt Mission UWB + NFC smart lock is available. It will retail for $400. Govee is normalizing fun and smart home lighting by bringing color and whimsy to what is normally a white light in your home. In addition to smart bulbs, permanent outdoor lights, and various gaming lights, Govee is launching a smart Table Lamp 2 with a built-in speaker from JBL. With 210 independently controlled LED beads, the Govee Table Lamp 2 Pro x Sound by JBL can display millions of colors and a full range of whites. It's also rechargeable and portable, so you can unplug it and take it wherever you go. The Govee Table Lamp 2 Pro x Sound by JBL and the Gaming Pixel Light will be available in the spring of 2025. There are many robot lawnmowers at CES each year, but the brand-new Segway Navimow X3 Series addresses many issues with most of the ones on the market. The Navimow X3 Series features a built-in trimmer on the side to maintain lawn edges and accelerated mowing speeds, allowing it to mow up to 1.5 acres in 24 hours. As a robot mower user, the biggest drawback is the missed edges. The Navimow X3 Series takes care of edges as it goes with a side-mounted trimmer, promising to leave behind a crisp and thoroughly trimmed lawn. The X3 Series will be available this spring, though no pricing info has yet been released. EcoFlow did a major upgrade to its energy management platform this CES, introducing Oasis. This advanced, artificial intelligence-powered home energy management system is designed to simplify your home's energy storage and management. Using your voice, you can ask Oasis to analyze your energy use over the past week and suggest opportunities to save on your utility bills or how upcoming weather could affect your home's energy system. This AI technology solves a big problem when scheduling load shifting in our home, as you can ask it to suggest a schedule instead of doing it manually.

CES 2025: Robot bartenders, flying cars, automaton cats and dogs lead...

CES, the yearly confab for tech heads in Las Vegas, has always been a must-attend for gadget geeks -- and 2024 is no exception. There are robo-vacuums and robo-lawn mowers. There are superfast phone chargers that look like toasters. And of course, there are robot dogs -- some of them furry and cuddly, and some with scary, rotating radar faces. Here's a rundown of this week's latest hits. ADAM, a robot bartender with a striking resemblance to Baymax from Disney's "Big Hero 6," has been creating a stir this week as it uses squiggly-shaped arms to sling highballs to CES patrons. Among ADAM's customers this week have been Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang - who had fun mimicking the robot's arm gestures in his trademark black leather jacket - and Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money." Cramer got served an unspecified electric-green concoction over ice, took a sip and responded with an approving, "Cheers! Thank you, ADAM!" Debuted at CES 2024 by Richtech Robotics, ADAM can also brew coffee and even chat with customers - although at this stage its banter appears to be a bit stiffer than its arms. "I'm ADAM, your friendly robot barista. Let's caffeinate!" the robot greeted one patron. "Did you know I can make over 50 types of drinks?" "Feeling adventurous? I can whip up something special for you," ADAM told another. "Let me get that perfect brew for you." It's time to load up the kids in the van and head out of the city - for a weekend in the family flying car. China-based Xpeng AeroHT debuted a six-wheel minivan that acts as a "Land Aircraft Carrier" for a modular flying car that rolls out the back and can be loaded up and brought back home for recharging. The three-axle vehicle, whose sharp-angled body looks like a boxier version of a Tesla Cybertruck - carries an electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, or eVTOL - basically a massive, six-propeller drone that can carry a human passenger. The 21st Century take on the Winnebago is set to retail at a cool $280,000. Since its first prototype flight in 2024, the company has received more than 2,000 pre-orders. The Aptera - an eye-catching, three-wheeled electric vehicle outfitted with Lamborghini-style scissor doors - uses the sun to provide a full charge with an advertised range of up to 40 miles. With solar panels embedded across its teardrop-shaped body, the makers of the Aptera claim it can deliver 11,000 miles per year of free driving without the need to wait at a gas station or charging station - or worry about your environmental footprint, for that matter. Nevertheless, the company was vague about commutes on cloudy days or on cutthroat expressways. Did we mention it looks really cool? Tombot Inc.'s hyper-realistic dog robots can manage an impressive puppy dog look - complete with a tilted head and perked-up ears. Designed to provide comfort for older adults with dementia while "reducing the need for psychotropic medications," the Labrador Retriever lookalikes can wag their tails, pant, and make assorted cute puppy sounds, from whimpering to barking. Still, the Tombots, which cost around $300, are truly lapdogs - as in, they can't walk, jump or climb. So owners will have to pick them up and move them from the sofa to the couch to the bed and back. Work! On the other end of the spectrum, Unitree's Go2 robot dog can run, jump, climb the stairs and even do handstands and dance various jigs. The tricks are impressive, even for a dog bot with a suggested retail price of $1,600. However, the AI-powered, shiny aluminum quadruped is anything but cuddy. While the Go2 seems to be pitched as a companion, its face is occupied by a rotating Lidar sensor that - in addition to helping the Go2 navigate a path through the woods - also looks like a sinister, rotating meat grinder. LG's AeroCatTower is for owners of fuzzy felines who insist on impeccable air quality - and who also prefer not to have a big, otherwise useless air-purifying tower in their living room. In short, it's an air purifier that doubles as a cat tree, with a heated seat at the top and attachable steps that can help older felines climb up. The cleaner releases clean air at a lower rate when a pet climbs into the seat to avoid disturbing any cat naps. While that's nice, it also might raise questions about how thorough the device really is. Still, the AeroCatTower can clean pet dander and measure your pet's weight at the same time - actually making it a 3-in-1 device. There is no price or release date yet. Even more hiss-terical is Yukai Engineering's Nékojita FuFu - a mini cat-shaped robot that latches onto the edge of hot tea cups and soup bowls - and blows on them to cool them down. The portable, rechargeable device has an internal fan that pushes cool air through a tiny mouth to cool a steaming cup of joe down 30 degrees in three minutes - about six times faster than letting it sit out. It's expected to launch sometime in mid-2025 and cost about $25 - a bargain versus heat-reducing coffee mugs that cost $70. Swippitt unveiled a fast, cable-free charging system that swaps your phone's depleted battery for a fully charged one in a staggering two seconds. There are a few catches. 1) The thing is the size of a toaster, and looks like one, too. 2) It requires you to insert your phone inside a battery holster that amounts to a bulky-looking case that stays on the phone. 3) The "recharging" amounts to the machine switching out the case. Still, with the ability to store five spare cases, there's a certain appeal to dropping your phone into the toaster on the way out the door in the morning and grabbing it with a new change of clothes. The toaster is $450 and the cases are $120. Vacuum robots are more advanced than ever, but the latest iterations have some notable limits to the fresh tricks they're advertising. Roborock's Saros Z70 is the first mass-produced robovacuum with a foldable five-axis mechanical arm that can move obstacles out of the way, clean previously hard-to-reach spots, toss tissues in the trash and move socks back to the closet. But the bot is irritatingly slow - taking about one minute just to pick up a single sock. The price is not yet known, but they are expected to ship by June. Dreame's x50 Ultra robovacuum boasts that it can climb stairs - that is, if the steps are two inches tall. It is selling for $1,300 by pre-order - putting it at the very top of the robovacuum price range with a fairly useless perk as its tagline. Meanwhile, the Segway Navimow X3 Series is a small, flat, circular bot on wheels. But instead of vacuuming your floor, it mows your lawn outside, using artificial intelligence to create a 3D map of it. Customers can mark off-limit areas in the Navimow app. It will likely cost upwards of $3,000 - the cost of earlier models, and about the price of a riding lawn mower. Unlike traditional mowers, the latest Navimow is whisper-quiet - so no more headaches. Unless, of course, someone tries to walk off with the portable. It comes with theft alarms and a GPS tracker just in case.

Sock-Slinging Robots and Sci-Fi Planters: The Best Smart Home Devices of CES 2025

I'm PCMag's senior analyst covering smart home and wearable devices. I've been writing about tech professionally for nearly a decade and have been obsessing about it for much longer than that. Prior to joining PCMag, I made educational videos for an electronics store called Abt Electronics in Illinois, and before that I spent eight years covering the smart home market for CNET. CES has become a wonderful and wacky show for smart home devices, with ambitious products in every corner that promise to add convenience to our homes in ways we never thought possible. Not everything shown at the Las Vegas tech convention comes to fruition, but even prototypes can help us gauge what home tech of the future might look like. From AI-powered kitchen devices to smarter locks and pet doors, CES 2025 featured many promising innovations to level up your personal space. Moreover, some of the most exciting gadgets at the show weren't just concepts but tangible products slated for release this year. Check out our favorites below in no particular order. We include the price and release date where available so you can start building the wish list for your dream home today. Roborock Saros Z70 Constantly arguing with your partner about socks on the floor? The Roborock Saros Z70 is a high-end robot vacuum and mop with a five-axis retractable robot arm that can lift and move your junk. We've seen robots capable of picking up objects at CES in the past, but the Saros Z70 stands apart because it's actually due to hit the market this year. Roborock hasn't specified a price or release date yet, but we did get to see a functioning model in action at the show. At launch, the arm will recognize and pick up socks, sandals, tissues, and towels weighing less than 10.6 ounces, with support for more objects coming later via firmware updates. Aside from the robot arm, the Saros Z70 has the specs to be a standout robot floor cleaner with an industry-leading 22,000Pa of suction power, new Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors for navigation, and a dock that can wash, dry, and remove the robot's mop pads as well as empty its dustbin. The Saros Z70 can even climb over small thresholds like the excellent Roborock Qrevo Curv that we reviewed last year. Anker Solix Solar Umbrella If you're looking to bring the technological comforts of home to your next beach day, the Solix Solar Umbrella from Anker can help keep your gear charged. The lightweight foldable umbrella has an IP67 waterproof rating and sunshade fabric to keep your plot of sand nice and cool. The fabric has Perovskite solar cells built in, so as you lounge in the sun, the umbrella gathers power. You'll need to plug in a compatible Anker power station or device to harness that power; one of those supported gadgets is a high-tech cooler called the EverFrost 2 that will charge your devices while keeping your drinks cold. Both the cooler and umbrella are slated to go on sale this summer, but Anker hasn't announced pricing. Ultraloq Bolt Mission UWB + NFC Smart Deadbolt Ultraloq makes our current favorite smart lock, the Bolt Fingerprint, and its new Bolt Mission UWB + NFC model promises to make unlocking your door an even more seamless process. With built-in ultra-wideband technology, the smart deadbolt will be able to detect your phone's location with centimeter-level accuracy for a much more precise auto-unlocking experience compared with others that use Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi for geofencing. The ultra-wideband signal should also help the lock know which side of the door you're on so it will never unlock accidentally while you move about the inside of your home. The Ultraloq Bolt Mission will work with all major smart home platforms for interoperability, including Matter. As indicated by the name, it has integrated NFC to let you quickly unlock your door with a tap of your phone. Ultraloq is also updating the standard Bolt Fingerprint with Matter compatibility. The Ultraloq Bolt Mission UWB is expected to hit store shelves this spring for $399. TCL Smart Lock D1 Ultra For an even splashier option to lock your door, the TCL Smart Lock D1 Ultra adds a video doorbell and a screen to the mix. It's a smart deadbolt that visitors can ring like a doorbell. The camera on the front will show you their picture on your phone, and it'll pop up on an interior screen so you can have a quick chat right on the lock before deciding whether or not to open the door. TCL hasn't yet specified a price for the D1 Ultra. Lockly showed off a similar lock at CES called the Prestige, which will retail for $500. Kidde Smart Smoke Alarm Ring and Kidde announced a partnership at CES, so Kidde's alarms, including both its smoke and combination smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, will now have Ring technology built in. That means you'll be able to set up the alarms and get notified of any incidents through the Ring app. The alarms will connect to Wi-Fi on their own, so they won't require a separate Ring hub. For an extra $5 monthly, you can sign up for professional monitoring so company agents will notify emergency services of the alarm sounding in case you're unable to do so. Brisk It Zelos-450 Smart Grill Brisk It is bringing its Editors' Choice-winning grilling technology to a lower price range. The $399 Zelos-450 Smart Grill announced at CES features 450 square inches of cooking space, versus 940 square inches on the more expensive Origin 940. The Zelos-450 can cook low and slow at 180 degrees Fahrenheit or with high heat up to 500 degrees, but it's the grill's Vera 2.0 software that sets it apart. The AI now supports image recognition, so you can search for recipes based on photos of ingredients you have on hand or share a photo of a finished meal that looks appealing and Vera will create a recipe so you can make it yourself. Vera can also automate the grill's cooking process and responds to conditions in real time to change the recipe if you forget to spritz water on your smoked meats, for instance. The Zelos-450 will be in stores by the spring, so you can snag it in time for the first cookouts of the season. Hyve Smart Home Delivery Pod The Hyve Smart Home Delivery Pod aims to foil the efforts of would-be porch pirates. A large weatherproof container that sits on your porch, the Home Delivery Pod can be attached to your entryway with a carbon fiber cable tether. A built-in siren will sound if it's tampered with, and it connects to your phone via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi so you can easily access its contents. You can use the companion app to set up codes for friends and delivery companies, and the front of the box has a window so your Amazon driver can snap a photo of the package once it's safely inside. The Delivery Pod will go on sale this June for $299. We're excited to see how it stacks up against the Editors' Choice-winning Yale Smart Delivery Box, so stay tuned. Pawport Smart Pet Door The only thing better than one smart pet door is two. Pawport is upgrading its smart pet door, which was unveiled at last year's CES, with the option to have both an outer and inner door for added security and weatherproofing. The company will still offer its existing retrofit pet door, which you can add to an existing entryway. The option with the extra door is intended for new or remodeled installations. The Pawport Smart Pet Door is designed to be durable, with multiple deadbolts and powder-coated steel and aluminum construction. It connects to a waterproof collar so your pet can come and go, but you can also set curfews or tell the door not to open in inclement weather. It has a rechargeable battery and wired power options and works with popular voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. The Pawport starts at $499 for a medium-size standard door and an extra $199 for the outdoor pieces. Prices increase for both bigger sizes and different styles. Flic Duo Flic is a smart home company known for its programmable button that lets you control a compatible gadget without needing your phone. The Flic Duo takes the button a few steps further with six recognizable input types while maintaining a simple and intuitive design. You'll be able to push the button, push it twice, hold it, hold the button and push it, hold the button and twist, and hold the button while swiping. Each command can control a different smart home device or trigger scenes with multiple devices. The Flic Duo works with a wide range of smart home devices and platforms, including Matter. Flic also offers an optional hub so you can use the Duo remotely and completely independent of your phone. The Flic Duo is expected to launch this summer. The company hasn't yet specified a price. Plantaform Rounding out the list, the Plantaform looks like a gadget from a sci-fi flick. It's a smart indoor planter that automatically waters and fertilizes plants while offering you step-by-step guidance when you need to take action. It stands apart from many other such devices by using fog to deliver nutrients through an ultra-fine mist. This fog supposedly saves water and speeds up the growing process. You can order a Plantaform now for $499.99.