CES 2025 updates: Live coverage of all the biggest tech, AI and gadget news from Las Vegas

That's a wrap on CES 2025!

That's all of our winners at CES 2025, and as a reminder you can read the full details on our Best of CES 2025 announcement post. We've enjoyed bringing you all the news from Las Vegas this week, and are still working hard to crank out more hands-ons, features, analyses and roundups of our favorite trends and things. While this may the the final liveblog post of the week, we will continue to publish more from the show, so keep looking at Engadget.com to stay on top of it all. If people ask you what the biggest news from CES 2025 was, we have plenty of articles for you to draw from. We can't wait to do this all over again next year (no, we can)!

CES Best in Show: WeWalk Smart Cane 2

WeWalk

Engadget Best of CES awards – WeWalk Smart Cane 2

It truly warms my heart to see that the Engadget team's votes resulted in the WeWalk Smart Cane 2 taking the prize for Best in Show at CES 2025. It's clear we agreed that this was a meaningful application of AI, and a thoughtful, well-designed product that could actually improve lives. The fact that it would still work as a conventional cane if it ran out of battery is a bonus, but an important one.

According to Cheyenne Macdonald:

"The smart cane takes an existing tool that people are already familiar with and enhances it. Importantly, it also seems like the company heard the feedback of users who had the first version of the cane and improved the design to better meet their needs. It has a slimmer handle than the first model and tactile buttons, and weighs about the same as a traditional white cane."

Read more about why the WeWalk Smart Cane 2 is Engadget's pick for best of the Best at CES 2025.

Best of CES 2025: Yukai Engineering Mirumi

Yukai Engineering

Engadget Best of CES awards – Yukai Engineering Mirumi

Everyone on the Engadget CES team wants to buy a Mirumi for themselves, and that alone should tell you how appealing this robot is. The Mirumi is a tiny, fluffy robot made by Yukai Engineering that, per our Cheyenne Macdonald, literally just stares at people and looks around like a baby discovering the outside world. It's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It also has long arms that you can wrap around objects for it to hang off of. If you put it on your bag strap, it will stare down everyone you encounter, and better yet, it may even become a little shy when they return the attention.

Mirumi has no purpose other than to spread joy, and we all love it for that.

Read more about why the Yukai Engineering Mirumi robot earned a Best of CES 2025 award.

Best of CES 2025: WeWalk Smart Cane 2

WeWalk

Engadget Best of CES awards – WeWalk Smart Cane 2

Of all the products at CES 2025 that had AI stuffed into them, WeWalk's Smart Cane 2 stood out. The smart cane for people with visual impairments got an update this year that not only adds AI, but also addresses the original's shortcomings. It brings more advanced sensors, and best of all, still works as a conventional folding cane when these technological features aren't engaged. The Smart Cane 2 can detect obstacles and offer turn-by-turn navigation, and it has a chatGPT-powered assistant that can provide answers to questions while someone is walking, without the need to reach for a smartphone. WeWalk also refined the actual cane by making its handle slimmer, replacing the original's touchpad with tactile buttons and shaving a bit of weight off.

Read more about why the WeWalk Smart Cane 2 is a winner of our Best of CES 2025 awards.

Best of CES 2025: Urtopia Titanium Zero

Urtopia

Engadget Best of CES awards – Urtopia Titanium Zero

Of all the holographic winshield technology and in-vehicle heads up displays we saw at CES 2025, the thing that impressed us most in the transportation category is a motor for an e-bike. In fact, it's e-bikes, not electric cars, that have been increasing rapidly in popularity since the pandemic. According to Igor Bonifacic, it's easy to see why. They're more affordable, and are friendlier for our environment. Urtopia's concept e-bike with a novel motor design was exciting, as it is small enough to fit inside a bottom bracket and weighs just 2.6 pounds. In fact, the Quark DMI.1 mid-drive motor is so intriguing that Igor says "it's easy to see a scenario where the design of the Quark DMI.2 inspires other bike makers and pushes the industry forward."

Read more about why the Urtopia Titanium Zero is a winner of our Best of CES 2025 awards.

Best of CES 2025: Technics EAH-AZ100

Technics

Engadget Best of CES awards – Technics EAH-AZ100

Sometimes the best tech is in the tiniest devices. Technics, a sub-brand of Panasonic, managed to miniaturize the Magnetic Fluid drivers from its in-ear monitors to bring truly high-quality audio to its latest earbuds.

According to our audio guru Billy Steele:

"Technics revised its earbud shape for the AZ100 in the name of comfort and fit, while also making the buds smaller and lighter. Features like touch controls, multipoint connectivity for three devices, spatial Dolby Atmos audio and LDAC support are here as well."

Read more about why the Technics EAH-AZ100 is a winner of our Best of CES 2025 awards.

Best of CES 2025: Roborock Saros Z70

Roborock

Engadget Best of CES awards – Roborock Saros Z70

For some reason, robot vacuums with extendable arms were all the rage this year. But according to our Karissa Bell, none made a bigger impression than Roborock's Saros Z70, which comes with a mechanical arm that can pick up socks, lift cords and grab other objects. Its OmniGrip arm can pick up objects up to 300 grams (a little more than half a pound) in order to clean under them or deposit them in the location of your choice. We saw it in action here in Las Vegas, too, and were satisfied that it performs as touted.

Karissa also added:

"The vacuum will automatically recognize 108 different objects — yes, like seemingly every other gadget we saw at CES, it uses AI — but you can also teach it to detect up to 50 additional items so it will know how to handle obstacles it's most likely to encounter in your home."

Read more about why the Roborock Saros Z70 is a winner of our Best of CES 2025 awards.

Best of CES 2025: OhSnap MCON

Moonbird

Engadget Best of CES awards – OhSnap MCON

Gaming controllers aren't exactly a mainstay at CES, but the MCON by OhSnap impressed us this year by delivering an accessory so good that it might impact the whole industry. It basically transforms any smartphone into a modern Xperia Play handheld gaming machine, and adds modern conveniences like Hall effect analog sticks, silent buttons, flip-out grips, and a full bumper and trigger layout.

Per Jessica Conditt:

"It's a mobile gamepad that can slide into your pocket without the sticks or handles getting caught on anything, and it works with pretty much every smartphone on the market today. The MCON uses MagSafe to snap onto the back of any iPhone and it comes with an adapter for Android devices to join in on the fun. It even works with the Galaxy Z Fold, and its creator, Josh King, is working on a solution for the Z Flip, too."

Read more on why the OhSnap MCON is a winner for our Best of CES 2025 awards.

Best of CES 2025: Moonbird Moonbuddy

Moonbird

Engadget Best of CES awards – Moonbird Moonbuddy

If something is designed to help you relax, it shouldn't be complicated. The Moonbird Moonbuddy is simple. It is here to to make guided breathwork accessible and appealing to children.

From Cheyenne Macdonald:

"Moonbuddy is an egg-shaped device with a soft area that expands and contracts in set rhythms, so kids can follow along and sync up their own breathing. It fits into an animal themed sleeve, so it looks like a toy. There are four different breathing modes, each lasting a few minutes and designed to promote a state of calmness."

Read more on why Moonbuddy is a winner for Best of CES 2025.

Best of CES 2025: LG OLED evo M5

LG

Engadget Best of CES awards – LG OLED evo M5

LG nabs yet another Best of CES win, this time with its OLED evo M5 TV. The company is consistently at the top of the best TVs we see each year in Las Vegas, and this year managed to further improve its most premium displays, adding the latest α (Alpha) 11 AI processor Gen2 to improve the look of lower-resolution content and power advanced features. There's even high refresh rates and NVIDIA G-SYNC and AMD FreeSync Premium support for gamers.

Read more on why the LG OLED evo M5 is a winner for our Best of CES 2025.

Best of CES 2025: Lenovo Legion Go S

Lenovo

Engadget Best of CES awards – Lenovo Legion Go S

Lenovo has made the first third-party handheld gaming console that runs SteamOS, finally offering gamers an alternative to Valve's Steam Deck. The Lenovo Legion Go S is available in a Windows version and a SteamOS model, with beefy processors, ample RAM and storage as well as a bright, smooth screen. The Windows-based variant will be available this month, while SteamOS fans will have to wait till May.

Read more on why the Legion Go S is a winner for Best of CES 2025.

Best of CES 2025: Jackery Solar Roof

Jackery

Engadget Best of CES awards – Jackery Solar Roof

Jackery's curved solar roof shingles mimic some of the most common house styles in America and come in terrocotta or obsidian colorways to please even the pickiest of HOA boards. These can withstand extreme weather conditions, feature a modular setup that allow for flexible maintenance and deliver a cell conversion efficiency of more than 25 percent, making them accessible and attractive for whole-home sustainability.

Read more on why Jackery's Solar Roof is a Best of CES 2025 winner.

Best of CES 2025: BioLite Backup

Biolite

Engadget Best of CES awards – Biolite Backup

Not everything has to be a brand new concept or AI. Sometimes, an effective reinterpretation of existing tech can genuinely and meaningfully contribute to the industry and, more importantly, our lives. BioLite's Backup battery is one such example, and its approach to combining universal power supply with a whole-home backup battery actually improves on both. According to our smart home reporter Amy Skorheim, "The thin, 40-pound 1.5 kWh battery lives between a wall outlet and your fridge (or any other plug-in device) and keeps those things running in the event of a power outage."

Read more about why the BioLite Backup is a winner of our Best of CES 2025 awards.

Best of CES 2025: ASUS Zenbook A14

ASUS

Engadget Best of CES awards – ASUS Zenbook A14

First up, the ASUS Zenbook A14. According to our PC reviewer Devindra Hardawar, the ASUS Zenbook A14 feels impossibly light, weighing between 2.2 and 2.4 pounds, and it has a gorgeous 14-inch OLED screen and a decent array of ports (USB-C, USB-A and HDMI)! We liked its simplicity and unique Ceraluminum case, as well as its generous estimated battery life and overall lack of gimmicks.

More from Devindra on why the ASUS Zenbook A14 is a winner of CES 2025.

Announcing Engadget's best of CES 2025

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Best of CES

After weeks of research, days of showfloor coverage, hours of discussion and rounds of voting, the Engadget team has finalized our list of winners for Best of CES 2025. Our picks span a diverse range of categories, including sustainability and accessibility, as well as the more typical home entertainment, smart home and transportation groups. After our team shortlisted nominees and voted on the best for various categories, we conducted another round of voting to decide which of the 12 winners deserves to be the best product of the show.

Coming up: The winners of our Best of CES 2025 awards.

This Eufy is the Nintendo Switch of vacuums

Robot vacuums have their place, but you still need a human-powered stick vac for those impromptu cleanups. But what if there was a combo solution that could handle both sides of that equation? That's the pitch for the new E20 system from Eufy. There's a single vacuum "engine" that can live in either the robot cradle or the handheld model — not unlike Nintendo's Switch can be a portable or TV-connected game console.

Eufy

The vacuum in its many forms.

Best of all, this is no vaporware prototype. The Eufy E20 will be released on February 10 for $550. Look for an Engadget review in the near future!

Read more: Eufy's new robot vacuum can transform into a stick vac

The Lenovo rollable screen laptop is finally a reality

It's the road warrior's lament: You want a thin and light laptop for easy travel, but you miss the dual-monitor screen real estate of your home office. (Yes, there are portable monitors — but now your bag is overloaded again.) Enter the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. This concept laptop is now real, and said to be coming later this year for a $3,500. As the name suggests, the screen rolls up at the touch of a button (or wave of the hand) to greatly expand the usable screen by almost 50 percent (albeit with a towering aspect ratio). Check out Sam Rutherford's hands-on video:

Personally, I'd like to see how durable it remains for the long haul. But as a die-hard dual monitor user, I have to say I'm intrigued.

Read more: The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is a crazy concept made real

A worthwhile gaming tablet? Yes, really

For better or worse, "tablet gaming" has become synonymous with "casual gaming" for a lot of people. That's largely because — iPad notwithstanding — Windows tablets are generally underpowered (and the less said about Android tablets, the better). But ASUS may finally be turning that around with its ROG Flow Z13. As Sam Rutherford notes, the company has amped up the specs by going all-in on AMD components for the tablet itself, but the real secret sauce is the dock:

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

After a couple years without an update, ASUS has given the ROG Flow Z13 a major revamp including new internals, a vapor chamber and a much more powerful XG Mobile graphics dock.

"Of course, one of the coolest things about the Flow Z13's adaptability is that when you want even better performance, you can connect it to ASUS' ROG XG Mobile Dock, which has also gotten a major refresh for 2025. That's because while it retains a similar design, it now supports up to an NVIDIA RTX 5090 for a massive boost in graphics power. The other big change is that instead of relying on ASUS' proprietary XG Mobile port to connect the two devices together, this time the dock uses Thunderbolt 5. The dock also has a wealth of connectivity options including both HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 jacks, so you can use it as a hub when stationed at a desk."

Read more: The ASUS ROG Flow Z13 is starting to make more sense as a gaming tablet

This coffee meta-grinder will outrage java purists

Are you the type of person who mixed your Cap'n Crunch and Apple Jacks in the morning? If so, the Flavor Craft AI from Japan's Mihatma may be just your thing. It mixes up to five types of beans to a customized blend. As Daniel Cooper explains:

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

Image of Mihatama's Flavor Craft AI coffee bean blending machine.

"Essentially, you fire up the app and select preferences based on your preferred flavor, selecting for strength, acidity, bitterness, astringency and richness. Once you've done so, the AI will direct the machine to churn out a blend of different beans sufficient quantities to match the flavor you've requested. Said beans will be collected in the bottom tray, where you can then dump them into your grinder of choice and brew up your drink."

It's crowdsourcing on Indiegogo right now, but as Dan points out: Expect major pushback from your coffee snob friends.

Read more: This mean bean machine is bound to upset coffee fans

NVIDIA is bringing DLSS 4 to its older RTX graphics cards, too

I'm still catching up to all the NVIDIA news that dropped this week, and was pleasantly surprised to see this one. The chip giant is bringing some of the same AI smarts in its latest and greatest RTX 50-series GPUs to its older models, too. As per usual with graphics cards, its an alphabet soup of acronyms (DLSS stands for "Deep Learning Super Sampling," if that helps) but the takeaway seems to be this:

NVIDIA

NVIDIA DLSS4

"The GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs aren't getting Multi Frame Generation, but they are getting DLSS 4's enhanced frame generation, enhanced ray reconstruction, super resolution and deep leaning anti-aliasing capabilities. Meanwhile, GeForce RTX 30 series and RTX 20 series GPUs are getting the last three."

Hardcore PC gamers will still likely be prepping their credit cards for the new new 2025 models, but it's cool to see that NVIDIA is back-porting some of its latest tech to hardware that's as much as five years old.

Read Mariella Moon's full story: NVIDIA DLSS 4 is coming to all RTX GPUs

The Target Darts Omni handles your dartboard scoring automatically

The more drinks consumed, the less accurate your barroom darts game score becomes. But technology is coming to rescue with Target Darts. The company's camera-studded Omni product surrounds your dartboard and uses computer vision to handle all the scoring automatically. Per Daniel Cooper:

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

Target Darts' new Omni Auto Scoring System.

"From there, the scores will be represented on a nearby computer or tablet, and can even be output to a big TV in the vicinity. Even better, is that you won't just have your score tracked, but you'll hear a pre-recorded voice telling you how many points you need to score on your next throw, just as you see in a professional match."

It's not cheap — £449.95 (around $556) — but we could see our local taproom investing in this sort of product.

These AC Future RVs are smart homes on wheels that generate their own power

Portable sustainable tiny homes are a thing at CES 2025 — and Amy Skorheim checked out quite a few in person. The trio of models from startup AC Future were particularly impressive. Think Hollywood star trailers, but designed to be fully eco-friendly. From Amy's tour:

Amy Skorheim / Engadget

The AC Future Ai-TH

"Thanks to pull-out sections at the rear and both sides, the bus-sized RV transforms into a 400-square-foot, one bed, one bath apartment, complete with a living room, kitchen with full-sized fridge, two burner induction range and microwave, along with an uncramped stall shower and washer/dryer in the bathroom. The full HVAC system, paired with high-efficiency insulation keeps the unit temperate."

The AC Future vehicles offer solar roofs and even "atmospheric water generation" to maximize their off-grid efficiency. I'd really like to see if that latter one can pull the 13 to 15 gallons the company claims, but in the meantime, Amy's photos have me wanting to take a cross-country road trip in one of these.

Read more: The AC Future drivable, self-sustaining home transforms to be larger than your first apartment

The AirStudio One aims to be an all-in-one portable recording studio

What if musical inspiration strikes while you're on vacation? That seems to be the thought behind the AirStudio One, a portable microphone that doubles as an instant recording studio. From Daniel Cooper, at CES:

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

The AirStudio One microphone with the body open, revealing the pair of TWS earphones inside.

"It's the creation of Hisong, a startup looking to build a more elegant alternative to toting around a microphone, mixer and headphones wherever you go. The AirStudio One is a wireless condenser microphone with a few secrets buried inside, like a professional audio interface, a wireless USB-C dongle and a pair of true wireless headphones. The idea being you can record a banging vocal when you're on the road without any additional hardware."

Read more: AirStudio One is a portable microphone that's full of surprises

Hyundai Mobis' holographic windshield at CES 2025

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

A demo of Hyundai Mobis' holographic windshield display viewed from the side and head on.

After teasing the world a ways before CES 2025 even began, Hyundai Mobis finally showed off what it's been calling "world's first full-windshield holographic display," and our Sam Rutherford was pretty impressed by it. The picture above shows how hard it is to see the holographic screen from a slight angle off from head on. When Sam saw it, he said it felt like he was "looking at a major evolution in-car infotainment."

More from Sam:

"Unlike traditional reflective HUDs, Hyundai Mobis' holographic windshield display (HWD) consists of two main components: a projector (or in this case multiple projectors) hidden beneath the dash and a special optical film with a carefully tuned wavelength sensitivity embedded inside the windshield itself. This combination allows the HWD to pump out brighter and more colorful images with much shallower viewing angles. Unless you're sitting in the right spot, you may not even see the HUD at all."

Read more: A holographic windshield from Hyundai Mobis is a big upgrade for in-car HUDs at CES 2025

There were some huge names that continued to make the news yesterday, though. Snap inc CEO Evan Spiegel pulled out of his scheduled appearance with Variety, which makes sense given the fires in LA. Meanwhile, you may have forgotten about EV maker Faraday Future, but the company hasn't forgotten about you. It brought a prototype minivan to CES 2025, pitching a "fresh start." We also finally got a chance to share what we saw of Hyundai Mobis' holographic windshield display, complete with side-by-side comparison picture courtesy of our Sam Rutherford.

The team leaves Vegas tomorrow, but today still isn't over yet. On Engadget today, you'll see us group together a lot of similar things and themes we saw at CES 2025 that will give you a better sense for what it was like here at the show. Why were there so many robovacs, and why did they all have random arms? How many companies that made promises at previous CESes actually delivered on them this year? What were our favorite and weirdest observations from the convention? All these stories are designed to give you a quick bird's eye view of the otherwise very crowded and dizzying conference.

Good morning everyone and welcome to day four of Engadget's liveblog of CES 2025. It'll be the last day we do this liveblog, and I'm pleased to report that so far, our team has (mostly) survived. We've had people fall sick, people miss flights, people get injured and all, but we're all alive and well. I think that is a win.

That about wraps up this liveblog for us today, it's been a blast saying hi to you every morning and goodbye at night. Join us again tomorrow at 8am ET for more from CES 2025. It'll be a good day, as we'll be announcing our Best of CES 2025 awards winners right here on this liveblog! If you have a favorite you want us to consider, send it our way via email to tips at engadget dot com. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading our work and see you tomorrow!

This mechanical keyboard is aimed at writers, not gamers

Mechanical keyboards are one of those "IYKYK" slices of tech: For every 99 PC users who gravitate to a $25 Logitech keyboard, there's that one who's obsessed with travel distance, removable keycaps and getting that perfect clickety-clack sound. While the category has classically been very gamer-centric, Detroit-based Astrohaus is targeting wordsmiths with its new Wordrunner model. As Nate Ingraham writes, it's got something you've never seen on a previous keyboard:

Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

Freewrite Wordrunner mechanical keyboard

"Probably the most visually striking thing about the Wordrunner are the two mechanical counters you'll see up top. One is a timer you can use for writing sprints or just staying focused for a bit. More intriguing is the Wordometer dead-center at the top of the keyboard. It'll track your words with its whopping eight-digit mechanical counter, and since it saves your word count as long as you want, you could try and max it out someday. Of course, you can also reset it at any time or pause it if you don't want it to advance while you're chatting with friends or sending emails."

Intrigued? Nate just updated the story with his hands-on impressions, so go check it out!

Read more: The latest Freewrite device is a fancy mechanical keyboard built with writers in mind

The LG PF600U is a triple threat: Project, wireless speaker and a lamp, too

I can't say the PF600U is the most compelling thing we've seen at CES 2025, but it does have a certain amount of practicality. The unit — which resembles a standing fan, in at least one configuration — is a three-in-one gadget. It's a full HD projector, a wireless Bluetooth speaker and an LED lamp. It's that final feature that, oddly, may be the most fully fleshed out. Per Billy Steele, who saw it in person:

Billy Steele for Engadget

In lamp mode, the LEDs can be set to various colors.

"When it comes to the lamp features, there are nine dimmable color LEDs to set the mood. The top, where all of the tech resides, tilts so the ring or lights on the bottom can be projected on a wall or other surface. And as you might expect, the whole thing is controlled by webOS. Plus, there are buttons for positioning, changing modes, power and more on the top panel, encircled by the speaker's grille."

Read more: LG's Swiss-army-knife projector hides in plain sight at CES 2025

Hi everyone! Dropping in during a quick break from running around canvassing the showfloor here to say hello. We've seen another cosplayer, tried out more niche gadgets from all around the world and also tasted robot-prepared food that was unsurprisingly underwhelming. I've spent some time hanging around the AgeTech booth hosted by the AARP and love to see products that are really designed to help improve lives.

Face-on with Shark's new $350 beautifying LED hockey mask

This product — or more specifically, Cherlynn's photo of herself using it — has been the star of the internal Engadget Slack channel for the past 24 hours. So it's with great pleasure that we can now share it to the world.

Engadget

Engadget's Cherlynn Low, wearing the Shark CryoGlow.

This is the CryoGlow LED light-therapy mask from Shark — the same company that makes air fryers and vacuum cleaners. But a few things set this apart from previous models in this fast-growing space. It's got tri-color LEDs (rather than single-color), allowing for more diverse therapy options. And it's larger than some competing models, to maximize usage for a wider variety of head sizes. Lastly, it'll be priced at $349 — not the cheapest model on the market, but considerably less than some other name brand competition.

How did it feel to wear? Read Cherlynn's full story — and don't be surprised if there's a Jason Voorhees-style mask coming to your own skincare regimen in the near future.

Read more: Shark joins the high-tech skincare mask war with an impressive CES 2025 opening shot

Eyes-on the new Samsung Frame Pro TV at CES 2025

Samsung invented the whole "TV that doubles as wall art" market years ago with its Frame TV line. In the past year, though, plenty of competitors have sprung up in the "art TV" space. In fact, a recent firmware upgrade added the art screensaver feature to most current Roku TVs and streamers. Pair that with the fact that earlier Frame models were never highly regarded by videophiles, and it's no surprise Samsung wanted to raise the bar. Thus, the Frame Pro at CES 2025. Per Billy Steele, who saw it in person earlier this week:

Billy Steele for Engadget

The new Neo QLED panel on Samsung's Frame Pro provides more detail and contract even to it's primary function.

"[I]n a side-by-side with a still image from a movie, The Frame Pro was brighter, with more detail and deeper blacks that the existing Frame. You can also tell a difference looking at the same art on the two TVs beside each other. Details like texture and strokes pop off the matte screen more on The Frame Pro, making the art TV even better at its primary function. Plus, Samsung says its boosted the refresh rate to 144Hz to improve the gaming experience, and the 2024 Frame also supports variable refresh rates for smoother gameplay. So, it stands to reason The Frame Pro would as well."

So, a fancier QLED screen and a state-of-the-art wireless breakout box to boot, so you need only worry about a power cable to the display itself. Too bad pricing is still T

Read more: Samsung The Frame Pro at CES 2025: A big upgrade for the art TV

All the laptops that piqued our interest at CES 2025

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Three laptops.

CES is filled with wild and wacky curios, to be sure, but there are also plenty of good old-fashioned laptops. Or... given the hottest trend in laptops is stuffing them to the gills with AI, perhaps good new-fangled laptops may be more appropriate. Either way, contributing editor Lawrence Bonk has broken down ten of the most interesting new laptops we've seen in Vegas this year.

Read more: All the laptops that piqued our interest at CES 2025

AI for good: The WeWalk Smart Cane for the visually impaired makes sensible use of CES's most overhyped feature

The problem with AI being in everything at CES is that it becomes wallpaper — you tune it out, especially when a lot of the uses being touted in Las Vegas are iffy at best. That's why it's refreshing to see the WeWalk Smart Cane 2. As Cheyenne MacDonald reports:

Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget

The WeWalk Smart Cane 2 is shown from the angle of the person holding it. Their hand can be seen gripping the handle and the cane is held out in front over a navy blue carpet

"It's positioned as an alternative to the traditional foldable white cane. Co-founder Kursat Ceylan, who has been blind since birth, says Smart Cane 2 can make mobility easier and safer, offering features like turn-by-turn navigation and obstacle detection, along with a ChatGPT-powered voice assistant that puts on-demand information in users' hands without the need for them to also juggle a smartphone."

Read more: The WeWalk Smart Cane 2 could be one of AI's few good use cases at CES 2025

We go hands-on with the Afeela 1 EV

Resident auto expert Tim Stevens has forgotten more about cars than I will ever know. Whether they're powered by internal combustion, electric motors or a hybrid powertrain, he's seen them all — which is why I took his disappointment at many of the details on the new Afeela 1 to heart. From Tim's hands-on at CES (where he saw it up close, but didn't get to drive it yet):

Tim Stevens for Engadget

The interior display is one of a few interesting aspects of the Afeela 1.

"To open the driver's door, you either tap a button in the app or press a small button embedded in the pillar. There are no door handles to pull, not even a token fin like on the Ford Mustang Mach-E. I couldn't help asking what do you do if you park in an ice storm and the door is frozen shut. I wasn't given much of an answer."

It's important to remember this is a floor show prototype, but many of the issues Tim raises here — including limited color options and so-so range — don't seem likely to change before launch day. Here's hoping Sony Honda Mobility takes these constructive criticisms to heart, though.

Read more: Sony's Afeela 1 feels like a PlayStation 4 in the PS5 era

This induction stove has a battery assist

For a lot of foodies — and eco-minded homeowners — induction ranges are the wave of the future. (As an aside, here's a pro tip: If a fridge magnet sticks to your pot, it'll work on an induction stove top. If not, you're out of luck.) But that issue of being unable to cook during a power outage nags at folks who are still cooking with gas. But that's where the Copper Charlie stove comes in. From Amy Skorheim:

Amy Skorheim / Engadget

The Copper Charlie is set up in a demo kitchen at CES

"Charlie is a full-sized oven and range that packs a ceramic glass cooktop, a 4.5 cubic-foot oven and an integrated 5 kWh battery. That battery allows the stove to run off a standard plug by storing up a charge that can bump up the power output when it's time to cook (it can also cook three to five meals during a power outage)."

Read more: Someone please buy me this battery-powered, plug-in induction range from CES

Can you really buy any of that stuff debuting at CES? Actually, yes

There are two big categories of stuff you'll see at CES: Vaporware and "coming soon." The former is the coolest stuff — basically, prototypes and concepts. You won't see them anytime soon, if ever, but they sometimes appear years later in a buyable form (see LG's transparent OLED TV and Samsung's Ballie robot). The "coming soon" products are those real-world TVs, laptops, graphics cards, appliances and other annual upgrades that are announced at CES, and later priced and released in the spring, summer or fall.

Photo by Daniel Cooper

Image of the Xreal One Pro smart glasses on a table.

But there's a thin sliver of a third category: Stuff you can actually buy or preorder right now. And we've pulled together a list of those buyable CES products for you to peruse, including smart glasses, headphones, power accessories and even the already infamous solar hat.

Read more: 15 CES gadgets you can actually buy right now

The Las Vegas Sphere is an amazing CES press conference venue, too

During my time covering CES in person, the press conferences have generally been in one of two places: At the Mandalay Bay convention center, or directly next to the respective company's show floor booth (Sony's traditional venue). But once in awhile, a company will attempt to wow attendees with a "destination" press conference. That was Delta's angle last night, when it took over the Sphere arena in Las Vegas for a CES event that doubled as a centennial celebration for the brand.

For the uninitiated, the Sphere is a 20,000-seat venue that's shaped like, well, a sphere, with high-resolution screens inside and out. Thanks to its wraparound immersive presentation, it's quickly becoming a go-to destination for concerts — and now, press conferences. According to our Billy Steele, Delta's event was something of a jaw-dropping experience:

Billy Steele for Engadget

At various times, immersive airplane footage was shown inside Sphere.

"Video of each speaker was projected on the interior of the venue set on various backdrops that transformed the hall into spaces ranging from a dome to an observation deck and an airplane cabin. Several times during CEO Ed Bastian's address there were interactions with planes where the seats rumbled and blown air provided a sense of flying, complete with directional, immersive audio. There was also a cameo by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi where an Uber Eats delivery arrived at the stage with a hazelnut-flavored coffee for Bastian and those aromas were wafted into the audience."

Read more: Delta changed the game for CES press conferences

Volvo keynote at CES 2025: Watch CEO Martin Lundstedt live from Las Vegas

As we've mentioned before, CES 2025 continues the show's recent tradition of being heavy on car tech. And the latest evidence of that is today's Volvo keynote. Volvo President and CEO Martin Lundstedt will take to the CES stage at the Venetian in what's billed to be a very eco-focused address: "Volvo Group will highlight its vision for a 100% safe, 100% fossil-free, and 100% more productive transportation and infrastructure," per the description on the CES YouTube link, below.

Watch it live here at noon ET (9AM PT).

We got a closer look at the new Honda 0 EVs at CES 2025

Honda had a twofer at CES 2025. The Afeela 1, the debut vehicle from the Sony Honda Mobility joint venture, was officially priced and confirmed for 2026. But at Honda proper, we're getting two additional 2026 EVs, too. The Honda 0 vehicles — as in zero-emission — returned to CES this year, and our Sam Rutherford got an in-person look at them:

"The 0 SUV's overall proportions almost make it look like a tall, lifted wagon, especially when sat next to the 0 saloon. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Inside, Honda continues with the clean lines, though I wouldn't necessarily read much into the general placement and look of its screens and dash. Like a lot of pre-production cars, those details are very much subject to change before its design is properly finalized. Same goes for those side-view cameras, which due to US laws, still don't comply with regulations. However, Honda's streamlined cabin does line up with the company's "Thin, Light and Wise" design philosophy, which includes the move to a steer-by-wire driving system instead of relying on more traditional physical linkages."

But enough text, check out the pics. Here's the 0 SUV:

Photo by Sam Rutherford

The Honda 0 SUV prototype at CES 2025.

And here is Sam getting up close and personal with the Saloon (I'm getting Lambo vibes):

Photo by Sam Rutherford

The Honda 0 Saloon prototype at CES 2025

See all the photos here: A closer look at the slick Honda 0 SUV and Saloon prototypes at CES 2025

This $800 swivel chair and head-tracker moves with you as you look around in VR

It "somehow didn't make me feel like throwing up" may sound like faint praise, but for Cheyenne MacDonald — who's prone to VR motion sickness — that counts as a big win. She demoed the Roto VR Explorer, an $800 motorized swivel chair that syncs to your real-world VR headset movements using a head-mounted tracker. Her initial experience:

Jessica Conditt for Engadget

Engadget editor Cheyenne MacDonald sits in the Roto VR explorer chair using a Meta Quest 3 headset

"After the Roto team gave me the rundown and got me set up in the chair with a Quest 3, I selected my VR experience — the 2018 interactive documentary about the universe, Spheres — and got going. It was, without a doubt, a little weird at first when I turned my head to follow the path of rippling auroras and felt my body rotate as if I were a spice jar on a lazy Susan. But for the most part, it didn't have that disorienting feeling of the ground shifting underneath you. (It was definitely lagging a bit on the congested show floor, which did lead to some out-of-sync, jerky movements). It only took a minute or so for me to stop focusing on the fact that I was in motion and just go with it."

Read more: This spinning VR chair at CES 2025 somehow didn't make me feel like throwing up

What it's like inside Sony's immersive The Last of Us experience at CES

With the exception of talking up its Afeela 1 electric car, Sony spent the bulk of its CES press conference focusing on movies and TV — especially the programming the company is adapting from its PlayStation line. And to celebrate the return of its popular The Last of Us show to HBO this April, Sony has a "location-based experience exhibit" on the CES show floor that's designed to put participants inside a subway tunnel populated by zombies (sorry, "Infected. And as Engadget's [self-proclaimed] chief The Last of Us correspondent, Nathan Ingraham was the perfect candidate to take point:

The Last of Us immersive experience at CES 2025

"I entered the experience with three other participants after a quick run-down of the gear we'd use: two of us got shotguns, and two got flashlights (sadly I was stuck with a flashlight). Both have a bunch of small sensors attached to the front so that they could interact with the environment we entered; the flashlight felt like a real flashlight with some sensors on the end, but the guns were crude tubes with a handle and trigger; the trigger felt pretty good from my quick test of it before we got started. There are also sensors on the barrel of the gun that detect a "pump" motion to reload it."

Alas, Sony's "no cameras or video" policy means you need to read Nate's story the old-fashioned way. (Just envision him telling it to you around a campfire in a spooky backwoods setting.)

Read more: Sony's immersive The Last of Us experience at CES 2025 dropped me into a subway filled with zombies

RollAway makes the case for glamping in a luxury electric RV

I'm guessing "EV RV" is redundant, but that's what came to mind when I saw Jessica Conditt's report on RollAway. It's a "luxury camper-van as a service," meaning the end-user price is targeted to be a mere $400 per night — not much more than I paid for my last Manhattan hotel room, honestly. And because it's an EV, this glamping road trip is largely free from carbon guilt. From Jessica's walkthrough:

Engadget

RollAway EV camper van at CES 2025.

"The van has a seating area that transforms into a queen bed, a kitchen with a sink and dual-burner stovetop, a shower, toilet, lots of storage, and a panoramic roof. When the van's rear rolling door is pulled down, it acts as a screen for the included projector. [...] RollAway also comes with a lineup of top-tier amenities, including Yeti coolers and cups, Starlink satellite Wi-Fi, locally sourced breakfast packages, Malin+Goetz toiletries, fresh linens, and a tablet loaded with hospitality services. The tablet gives you access to a live virtual concierge and the Hospitality On-Demand app, which houses your itinerary, room service and housekeeping requests. In the future, RollAway will offer a full housekeeping service, but that feature isn't live quite yet."

Read more: RollAway is a rentable EV camper van with a concierge service and luxury amenities

CEO of X praises Mark Zuckerberg for ending third-party fact-checking

CES

Linda Yaccarino praised Mark Zuckerberg.

CEO of X (Twitter) Linda Yaccarino was making ripples here at CES 2025 during a keynote address, and our senior reporter Karissa Bell was in attendance. Yaccarino talked ad nauseum about how advertisers are returning to the platform and that she believes X is and remains a place where things trend. Amid all that, Yaccarino gave Meta's Mark Zuckerberg a quick shoutout.

Per Karissa:

"Yaccarino described Meta's decision to end its longtime fact checking program and implement community notes as "exciting" and "validating."... "I think it's really exciting when you think about community notes being good for the world ... and it couldn't be more validating than to see that Mark and Meta realize that," Yaccarino said. "Mark, Meta, welcome to the party.""

Read more about Linda Yaccarino's CES 2025 keynote in our full story.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang: "Machines are machines"

NVIDIA

CEO Jensen Huang takes the stage.

NVIDIA held a long keynote on Monday, sharing a large amount of news around AI, GPUs and more. Yesterday, though, CEO Jensen Huang found time to meet with reporters and our Devindra Hardawar was one of them. At the question and answer session with media and analysts, Huang was asked if he thought intelligent robots would side with or against humans, among other things.

Read more in Devindra's article about Jensen Huang's perspective on robots.

More than one company brought a robot vacuum with a mechanical arm to CES 2025

Karissa Bell for Engadget

Dreame's robo arm.

It's kind of funny the things that will capture everyone's imagination each CES. This year, a robovac with an arm that can pick up your filthy socks is the hot topic of the week. After Roborock got plenty of attention for the videos of its Saros Z70 vacuum picking up a sock and putting it away, other companies have suspiciously coincidentally showed off similar capabilities in their new or upcoming products. Dreame, for instance, was mostly touting its X50 robovac's stair-climbing abilities. However, after repeated attempts to see a working demo at Dreame's booths were met with uncooperative robots, our Karissa Bell finally saw one in action.

Here's what she thought:

"The device is still a prototype, according to the company, but the as yet unnamed robo vac was on full display at Dreame's CES booth. Considering it's still a prototype, the actual arm looked far more substantial compared to the one on Roborock's Saros Z70. It was much thicker and had a bigger "claw" that looked like it might be able to pick up slightly heavier objects."

Read more about the Dreame X50 and other robovacs with arms in our full story.

For now, before we get into today's CES 2025 coverage proper, here's a quick recap of things we published after yesterday's liveblog ended.

Now that we're in the second day of the CES 2025 showfloor being officially open, things are starting to slow down a tad. But that doesn't mean there isn't anything left to see. We're getting the chance and some time to go to farther flung reaches of the convention centers, where the truly unique and, shall we say, wacky products are found. Plus, we'll have time to digest and ponder the things we've seen, analyze the trends and make sense of what 2025 is going to look like based on this week's offerings. Not to forget, we will be deliberating on our picks for the best things at CES 2025 as well.

Hello everyone and good morning! Thank you once again for joining us today on day 3 of Engadget's liveblog of CES 2025. Previously on... this liveblog, we had left you right after the Delta keynote had wrapped, and the on-site team had left our CES conference room for dinner. I have two pertinent updates to share from both those situations. The first is that Lenny Kravitz was the third celebrity to show up at the Delta keynote (though he only appeared at the end). The second is that I was unable to get budae jigae (army stew) at dinner as the restaurant had run out of kimchi. I know. High-priority, on-topic stuff.

Anyway, it's time to close this liveblog for today. Thank you all very much for joining us again, we do appreciate you spending time with us (even if it's digitally). Come back to this same page tomorrow, where the liveblog will resume at 8am ET. Till then, there are plenty of posts that will be published on our homepage around the clock, so keep refreshing Engadget.com if you can't get enough of CES 2025. Take care, everyone!

Billy Steele for Engadget

A backdrop of a plane landing on a runway with a sunset on the horizon. In the bottom middle of the picture is a small stage that says Delta.

Delta's press conference is also wrapping up, and Billy reports that the plane that we saw on the screens at The Sphere "landed." Complete with seat rumbles. And a beautiful sunset as the backdrop. It's a nice departure from the typical tech keynote, I guess. Get it? Departure? (Hope no one sees this and gets me in trouble for that sick joke.)

Team Engadget is about ready to wrap up here in Las Vegas and finish writing up more posts before heading out to dinner. We'll have the details on Delta's AI concierge on the site shortly, followed by more hands-on articles of the most intriguing things we saw at CES 2025. If you've seen anything you'd like us to check out, please let us know via email (tips at engadget dot com).

Viola Davis was also at Delta's press conference just now. How many celebrity appearances does it take before you can call something a star-studded event?

Tom Brady at Delta at The Sphere at CES 2025

Billy Steele for Engadget

Tom Brady standing next to Delta CEO Ed Bastian, who is looking up at the former athlete with his hands up as if in the middle of raising the roof.

As we knew was going to happen, Tom Brady has shown up at Delta's press conference. I wonder if he is a Silver Medallion member.

In case anyone was wondering, the Engadget CES 2025 team will be having Korean food for dinner. I'm personally looking forward to some budae jigae (don't judge). There may or may not be karaoke next door, and not powered by one of several karaoke machines I saw on the CES showfloor either.

Just a quick aside with some CES 2025 tidbits: We've already spied at least one person wearing the Apple Vision Pro at the show, plus two people in full cosplay. One of them was a samurai with light sticks attached to their person.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian has taken the stage and is addressing the audience. He's sharing details about an AI concierge, because everything has to have AI now. The details will be coming from Billy very soon on Engadget.com.

Billy Steele for Engadget

A floating window on a blue sky background, featuring Delta CEO Ed Bastian on a stage addressing an audience.

Billy Steele for Engadget

A large Delta airplane is the background of an event space with a relatively small stage in the middle and the word Delta emblazoned on it.

Billy has sent along this photo from his seat at the Delta press conference at The Sphere and I'm impressed. It looks huge, high-quality and immersive. I can almost smell the jet fuel! But it's not a real airplane, to be clear. According to Billy, this was just the screens inside The Sphere. There were some additional elements to the experience, though. Per Billy:

"When they brought the plane out there was air blowing and the seats rumbled."

A nice long quote, I know. Billy is a man of few words, but they are effective words.

Like a tech CEO, I'm here to re-address our audience near the end of our liveblog. Day 2 of this ongoing coverage is almost done, with our senior editor Billy Steele currently staking out a spot at the Delta press conference at The Sphere.

Jensen Huang welcomes the rise of superintelligent AI

Earlier today, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang held a more intimate gathering than last night's bombastic CEO press conference. Engadget's Devindra Hardawar was in attendance and wrote up a story about how Huang is bullish on the rise of AI:

Surprising no one, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang isn't too worried about a future filled with robots and superintelligent AI. In fact, he welcomes it. During a CES Q&A session with media and analysts, Huang was asked if he thought intelligent robots would ultimately side with humans, or against them. "With the humans, because we're going to build them that way," he replied confidently.

"The idea of superintelligence is not unusual," Huang continued. "I have a company with many many people who are superintelligent in their field of work. I'm surrounded by superintelligence. And I prefer to be surrounded by superintelligence than the alternative."

Read more: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang welcomes the rise of superintelligent AI at CES 2025

The Pebble Flow all-electric RV trailer will ship this year

Pebble

Pebble Flow CES 2025

One of our surprise finds from CES 2024 is back for CES 2025 with some news: It's almost ready! Our own Sam Rutherford took a mini tour of the trailer last year, which you can see in the video below.

Prices start at $109,500, and go way, way up from there.

Read more: Pebble Flow all-electric RV trailer will begin deliveries this spring

Jackery's curved solar roof tiles are so normie even your HOA might like them

Engadget

Jackery Solar Roof

Longstanding solar generator company Jackery is leveling up the US' roof game with the introduction of XBC curved solar shingles. Debuting at CES 2025, Jackery's curved solar roof tiles come in terracotta or obsidian, designed to match some of the most common house styles in the country. While solar shingles definitely already exist in the US, these are the first with a wavy aesthetic. It sounds like HOA presidents everywhere just lost one more excuse for preventing your rooftop solar installation.

Read more: Jackery's curved solar roof tiles are so normie even your HOA might like them

X CEO tells Zuckerberg 'Welcome to the party' on not fact-checking

CES

Linda Yaccarino praised Mark Zuckerberg.

You probably didn't have X CEO Linda Yaccarino praising Meta and Mark Zuckerberg on your CES 2025 bingo card, yet here we are. Speaking during a keynote address in Las Vegas, Yaccarino described Meta's decision to end its longtime fact checking program and implement community notes as "exciting" and "validating."

Yaccarino and and X owner Elon Musk have both championed the crowd-sourced fact-checking feature that Meta now plans to emulate on its own services. "I think it's really exciting when you think about community notes being good for the world ... and it couldn't be more validating than to see that Mark and Meta realize that," Yaccarino said. "Mark, Meta, welcome to the party."

Read more: Linda Yaccarino on Meta ending fact-checking: 'Welcome to the party'

The Rictor Skyrider X1 sounds too good to be true

It's a moped. It's a quadcopter. It'll be available before the end of next year for $60,000. Yes, our Daniel Cooper was skeptical, too. But he did share the pitch:

Photo by Daniel Cooper

Image of Rictor's Skyrider X1 on the floor at CES 2025

"[It's] an electric moped with an enclosed cabin that, when things get too congested, will transform into a quadcopter. All you'll need to do is pop out the four arms, each with two fanblades, and you'll be able to ascend up to a maximum of 200 meters above the ground. Rictor says safety is its top priority, including plenty of redundant systems and, should all else fail, a built-in parachute. Plus, the Skyrider X1 is capable of automatically taking off and landing, and can plan its optimal route when it's up in the air. And on the company's website, it says the X1 SL, with a 10.5kWh battery will have a flight time of 25 minutes, while the X1 SX, with its 21kWh battery, will stay in the air for 40 minutes."

Alrighty then. Let's see where this one stands at CES 2026.

Rictor's Skyrider X1 is equal parts moped, quadcopter and fantasy

Lenovo tees up a real Steam Deck alternative: The Legion Go S

Valve's Steam Deck ushered in a fleet of competitors and wannabes in the portable gaming PC space, but many of them run Windows, for good or ill. That's what makes the Lenovo Legion Go S so intriguing: It can run Windows 11 or SteamOS. Sam Rutherford got some time with the both versions and had this to say about the Steam model:

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Lenovo Legion Go S will be the first third-party gaming handheld to come with support for SteamOS.

"I found it remarkable how similar it felt to the Steam Deck despite not being made by Valve. The UI is almost identical, the only differences are some subtle tweaks Lenovo added to support things like the handheld's RGB lighting and higher 30-watt TDP. In person, the SteamOS models' casing looks more like a dark purple than pure black, which is a nice subtle touch. However my biggest takeaways is that Valve's OS felt slightly more responsive that it does on the Steam Deck, which I'm attributing to the Legion's newer APU."

Read more: CES 2025: The Lenovo Legion Go S is the first third-party SteamOS handheld

The EcoFlow Solar Hat will charge your gadgets but challenge your style

You sometimes hear folks ask why EVs don't have solar panels on their roofs. My understanding is that it wouldn't generate nearly enough juice to keep a car's battery topped off. But if you find that fantasy appealing, the EcoFlow Solar Hat may be just up your alley. As Daniel Cooper explains:

Photo by Daniel Cooper

Close up of the solar panels on an EcoFlow Power Hat

"As the name implies, the EcoFlow Power Hat has small solar panels embedded in the brim that, when you're out and about, will help charge your portable devices. The brim is segmented, and each section has a little set of Monocrystalline Silicon cells with a rated efficiency of 24 percent.

On the underside of the brim, there's a little plastic box with an LED light showing you the hat is generating a charge. Pull back the attached rubber tabs and you'll find a USB-A and USB-C port, letting you charge one or two devices at a time."

So, yes: That should be enough to charge your phone or wireless headphones on a sunny day. Just hope there's not a mirror nearby.

Read more: EcoFlow's Solar hat is better for the planet than your style

Forget Frame TVs. InkPoster uses e-paper for live wall art instead

Samsung's Frame TVs were a trailblazer in the creation of so-called art TVs — full-on TVs that double as changeable framed art displays when they're not being used for watching video. But now there's a new game in town: InkPoster. Daniel Cooper explains:

Photo by Daniel Cooper

Image of three InkPoster models, two smaller ones flanking the middle-sized one, on a wall.

"InkPoster is a series of color e-paper displays equipped with battery packs that can be hung in your home for up to a year on a single charge. There's no power cable, and it can be mounted in portrait or landscape orientation, depending on your taste. You'll be able to access a library of curated art, put together by a team of "professional art consultants" and select what you want to see inside the InkPoster companion app. You'll also be able to use it as a regular old digital photo frame, ideal for when you want to pull a masterpiece from online and display that instead."

Read more: InkPoster uses an e-paper display to bring art to your home

CES 2025 keynote: Watch X CEO Linda Yaccarino speak live

The social network formerly known as Twitter remains at the center of online conversations — and controversy — thanks to its owner and top poster, Elon Musk. But he's not the CEO — Linda Yaccarino, the former NBC executive, is. And she's next on deck on the CES 2025 keynote roster. Watch it live here at 4:30PM ET.

Yaccarino's appearance comes the same day as Mark Zuckerberg announced sweeping changes at Meta that will make Facebook and Instagram moderation a lot more like X's community notes system.

The X9 is a ThinkPad, despite its appearance

From the IBM days straight through the brand's transition to Lenovo, there was always a constant with ThinkPad laptops: Durable jet black bodies, no-frills design and that classic eraser-like Trackpoint pointer nestled into the center of the keyboard. But for Lenovo's 2025 X9 model, with the exception of retaining the military-grade durability, the old design cues go out the window. It may shock longtime ThinkPad fanboys, but Sam Rutherford likes what he sees so far:

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Featuring a new aluminum chassis and no Trackpoint nub, Lenovo's new ThinkPad X9 family is meant to entice a younger generation of laptop fans.

"So even though I'm an elder millennial who has some fondness for old-school ThinkPads, I must admit that I find Lenovo's break from tradition rather appealing. I never understood the Trackpoint nub, especially on modern notebooks with super responsive touchpads. Getting rid of it not only reduces distractions, but makes the keyboard easier to use. And even with its tweaked keycaps, there's still plenty of travel to deliver a very comfortable typing experience."

Read more: Lenovo's new ThinkPad X9 is the least ThinkPad ever

Panoramic iDrive, a wraparound infotainment system, will soon be the baseline dashboard for new BMW models

A lot of the automobile cabin tech one sees at CES is too good to be true — the sort of concept car eye candy that never quite seems to make its way into new vehicles. But that's not the case with BMW's newly announced Panoramic iDrive system. The immersive wraparound infotainment and dashboard system will first be seen in the upcoming Neue Klasse SUV — but will then follow to all new BMW models soon after. From Tim Stevens, who was at the CES 2025 press conference:

BMW

BMW Panoramic iDrive

"It all starts with that central touchscreen, but even that is different. Rather than being square or curved like in other BMWs, the new panel is rhomboid-shaped, a slanted polygon whose leaning posture doesn't seem to really augment the experience but does at least look distinctive.

The panel is also tilted slightly towards the driver and is running software that is at least familiar to anyone who's used the current iDrive interface. A static bar along the bottom provides quick access to the most important things, like controls for the heating system. Above that, a stylized, 3D view of the world makes sure you're always situated."

Read more (and watch the video): CES 2025: BMW's vision-spanning Panoramic iDrive will make sure you never miss another navigation prompt

Honda's new EVs get closer to reality at CES 2025

Veteran CES watchers will remember that Honda unveiled two impressive EV concept cars at CES 2024. This year, the Japanese automaker has fleshed out the details on both vehicles. From Mariella Moon:

Honda

Honda's newest EVs are one step closer to your garage.

"Honda has unveiled prototype versions of the 0 Series Saloon sedan and the 0 Series SUV at CES 2025. It also revealed that it will launch their production models next year in North America followed by Japan and Europe. The Honda 0 SUV will be introduced in the first half of 2026 and will be the first model in the lineup to enter production. It's a mid-size SUV that was originally presented as the Space-Hub concept and will be based company's newly developed dedicated EV architecture."

Both models should be launching in North America next year.

Read more: The Honda Saloon and Space-Hub EV concepts are now prototypes

This is the Windows laptop for anyone with MacBook Air envy

Windows fans often look at the svelte lines of the MacBook Air with a major case of FOMO. And it's exactly that group that should check out the new ASUS Zenbook A14. Devindra Hardawar got a chance to check it out at a pre-CES preview event and came away impressed:

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

The ASUS Zenbook A14 weighs less than 2.2 pounds.

"It weighs less than 2.2 pounds (or 1kg), half a pound lighter than Apple's smallest MacBook Air. In almost every respect, the ZenBook A14 outclasses Apple's ultraportable, with specs like a 14-inch OLED screen and up to 32 hours of battery life. The only downside is that it's running Qualcomm's Snapdragon X and X Elite chips, which limits compatibility with older Windows apps (along with some devices)."

All that and a starting price of $900? Yes, please.

Read more: The ASUS Zenbook A14 is the MacBook Air competitor I've been dreaming of

Moonbuddy will help prep your kids for bedtime

I'm not a parent, but I'm familiar with the problem of getting kids to "wind down" at the end of the day. That's where the Moonbuddy comes in. The egg-shaped "calming companion" helps kids calm down and literally breathe easier. Cheyenne MacDonald explains:

Moonbird

The Moonbuddy guided breathwork device shown wearing the Bear sleeve

"[T]here's no accompanying app, so the activity is entirely screen-free. Moonbuddy is activated by a button on the back, and there are four different breathing modes that range from 6 breaths per minute to 10.5 breaths per minute. Once you've selected an exercise, the device's squishy belly will begin to expand and contract slowly to match the desired breathing rhythm."

Read more: Moonbuddy is an adorable guided breathing device that'll help your kid wind down

Hands-on with the RayNEO AR glasses

If you're scrolling all the way down on this liveblog, this isn't the first pair of AR glasses you're seeing from CES 2025 — nor will it be the last. Like many of the other ones we're seeing this year, the RayNEO X3 Pro is lightweight and includes a rudimentary display. From Karissa Bell (who's tried on more than these than I can count):

Karissa Bell for Engadget

The RayNeo X3 pro AR glasses.

"Like AR glasses from Meta and Snap, RayNeo use microLED projectors and waveguides to produce a full-color AR display. The field of view is just 25 degrees — notably smaller than what Snap or Meta have in their products — but it's impressively bright. Even under the fairly bright lights of a Las Vegas casino ballroom, I had no problem seeing the menus or even reading text (the display outputs 2,500 nits, according to the company)."

Read more: RayNeo AR glasses hands-on at CES 2025: Surprisingly light and bright

Have a new Mac Mini M4? This accessory is just what you're looking for

There was a lot to love about the redesigned M4 Mac Mini, but the curiously placed power button — on the underside — was an annoyance for some. That's why the Satechi M4 Stand & Hub is already a welcome accessory. As Amy Skorheim notes:

Amy Skorheim / Engadget

The Mac Mini M4 Stand & Hub has a notch cutout allowing access to the power button.

"Probably the most compelling feature is the notch that makes accessing the petite PC's power button easier. The stand elevates the Mac Mini off your desk, but leaves a concave space so that you can reach the power button on the bottom of its rear side."

That's not all, of course. The hub also adds more ports, an SD reader and an SSD enclosure, to boot. All for $100

Read more: The latest Satechi hub fixes an irritating M4 Mac Mini flaw — and looks good doing it

The new Xreal One Pro AR glasses may be the virtual monitor you're looking for

A lot of people say the Apple Vision Pro's virtual display — a wall-sized virtual screen for your Mac . That's why Daniel Cooper's hands-on demo of the Xreal One Pro AR glasses is so intriguing. These new specs seem to deliver that sort of giant augmented reality monitor experience for a mere $600. From Dan's hands-on:

Photo by Daniel Cooper

Image of a handsome man (Daniel Cooper) wearing Xreal One Pro AR Glasses while playing a Nintendo Switch.

"The point of the new X1 chip is to ensure the glasses can do all the spatial brainwork without needing to rely on whatever device you're hooked up to. That enables you to have ultra-wide displays that could be used to give yourself a mega desktop if you need to get some serious work done. Or, if you want to pin a games console in one place in your virtual environment, you can now do that even if you're wired up to something low power. Speaking of, I got to try two different demos, the first playing Super Mario Odyssey on a Switch, and then one with an ultra-wide desktop display on a laptop."

Read more: Xreal's new One Pro AR glasses are surprisingly good

Backup by Biolite: A ginormous (but thin) home battery for those prone to power failures

A lot of people in my neighborhood have backup generators tethered to their homes. I understand the thought, but the 5-figure price tag has always been a no-go for me. That's why the Biolite Backup is intriguing. It's a thin backup battery specifically designed for your fridge. As Amy Skorheim explains:

Amy Skorheim / Engadget

Backup by Biolite

"The concept will be familiar to anyone who's ever used an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) — something gamers have been using for years to ensure uninterrupted play. In essence, it's a large battery plus inverter that plugs into your wall. You then plug in any appliance or device you don't want to ever lose power — a fridge is a good example. When the power inevitably goes out, the battery senses the lack and flips the output to feed from the stored charge. When power is restored, the cells refill themselves, ready for next time."

Read more: Backup by Biolite is a giant (but sleek!) battery that keeps your fridge running during outages

The Swippit Hub: For those who can't be bothered to change their own phone batteries

There's lazy, and then there's lazy. Personally, I don't think it's a big deal to swap snap-on MagSafe batteries on my iPhone. But if you do, the Swippit Hub is for you. As Nathan Ingraham explains:

Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

Swippitt Hub

"It's a breadbox-sized hub that contains five battery packs that can fit into a a custom-made iPhone case. When the battery is in the case, it works like similar product, keeping your phone juiced up. The trick is that when the battery is empty, you pop your phone into the top of the box and it automatically removes the battery from the case and drops in a fresh one."

That's it — that's the product

Read more: The Swippit Hub keeps your iPhone loaded up with fresh batteries

The Even Realities G1 smart glasses aim to one-up Meta Ray-Bans

Photo by Daniel Cooper

Image of a handsome man (Dan Cooper) wearing a pair of Even Realities smart glasses in a crowded casino ballroom.

While true augmented reality glasses are still many years away, the Meta Ray-Bans have gained a lot of fans over the past year by doing a few things very well, and delivering a lot of value for their $300-ish price tag. And the new Even Realities G1 smart glasses that Daniel Cooper tried out at CES appear to be building on that model. The G1 uses a rudimentary display to add low-res graphics prompts, but it still likes like a regular pair of glasses. From Dan's hands-on:

"The company opted not to throw too many features at the G1, focusing instead on where it could make a real impact while respecting the battery. For instance, activate your phone's navigation and you'll get turn by turn directions showing up in your field of vision. Similarly, you should be able to use the glasses as a prompter, with the system's built-in microphone following along as you speak. That microphone can also be used for real time translation in a number of foreign languages, as well as transcribing your dictations. Plus, you'll get the option to have your smartphone notifications dropping in front of your eyes, sparing you the indignity of looking at your phone or watch."

Read more: Even Realities' G1 smart glasses are useful and elegant

Everything you missed on Day One of CES 2025

For a more comprehensive recap, check out our summary of the biggest highlights from yesterday to learn more about what you might have missed from Day 1 of CES 2025. Hint: It's a lot of TVs, robots and saliva.

As a quick recap, yesterday's biggest news spanned many product categories, but AI was the main area of focus. NVIDIA's two-hour-long keynote last night saw the company's CEO Jensen Huang go over announcements in AI, automotive, more AI (in the form of language models), RTX 50-series graphics processors and more. Here's a quick pair of articles we published to help you catch up:

• NVIDIA's RTX 5090 graphics card costs $2,000

• NVIDIA DLSS 4 is coming to all RTX GPUs

Unlike yesterday, which was full of press conferences every hour, we don't expect to be covering many individual keynotes. In fact, the show floor officially opens today, meaning we can somehow get through the construction outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and see the massive booths that await us inside.

Good morning and welcome to day 2 of Engadget's CES 2025 liveblog! Thanks for joining us today as we bring you updates directly from Las Vegas, where the world's largest annual tech conference is taking place. Our on-the-ground team has already been here for two days (though it feels like a year) and collectively our entire team has covered multiple press conferences and pretty much all the biggest news we expect to see from this year's CES. From now till this evening (Vegas time), we will highlight the most important and interesting products and announcements as we roam the staticky, carpeted floors of the convention center and various hotels. Stick around, there may be surprises in store!

We're going to wrap this liveblog up for the day, but join us tomorrow bright and early at 8am ET, where we will continue to share more from CES 2025. For now, keep checking our home page for any news that our team will publish round the clock.

Thanks very much to Devindra for liveblogging us through that long, roughly two-hour keynote. Most of the Engadget CES 2025 team is currently at Pepcom, where we're taking a look at more gadgets that companies around the world have brought here to Las Vegas. Already, there's a set of headphones that caught my attention. They'll squirt water in your ears, then heat them to dry them. Wild.

Looks like we're wrapping up, thanks for joining us folks! Hopefully we'll have some hands-on time with the RTX 5000 GPUs this week!

Huang says he expect Project Digits to be available around May. It can work as a small workstation, or alongside your existing PC.

NVIDIA

Huang unveils the Project Digits box.

It's powered by GB110, the smallest Grace Blackwell chip NVIDIA has made.

Huang is now holding NVIDIA's latest AI supercomputer, Project Digits .

Huang is now discussing the history of NVIDIA DGX, basically supercomputers in a box. He delivered the first one to OpenAI in 2016.

NVIDIA

The next AI frontier? Robots.

This is the third time Huang has explained the same basic concept of robot AI training. We get it!

Huang is joined by visions of humanoid robots on stage. All I want is a robot to clean my kitchen and do dishes, darn it!

"We take thousands of drives and turn them into billions of miles [of training data]," Huang says.

We're watching how NVIDIA Omniverse and Cosmos could be used together to train autonomous vehicles, especially when it comes to edge-case driving scenarios.

NVIDIA Drive OS has been certified up to ASIL B and D, the first time a software-based engine has reached that level of safety

NVIDIA

NVIDIA's next-gen car computer is Thor, shown here.

NVIDIA's next-gen computer for the car is called Thor, and it's in fully production. It's twenty times the computation power of its last gen car hardware.

NVIDIA

Physical AI is pulling in quite a few automotive partners.

Toyota and NVIDA will partner to produce their next-gen autonomous vehicles.

"With Waymo's success and Tesla's success it's very clear autonomous vehicles have arrived," he says. Are

"In the future every factory will have a digital twin, and every digital twin will operate exactly like a real factory," Huang says.

Now we're watching how Kion and Accenture are using these physical AI tools.

"Instead of a three body problem you have an NVIDIA three computer solution." Applause for the nerdery.

Omniverse plus Cosmos represents the third computer robot makers will need, Huang says.

Cosmos will be open licensed on Github, and Huang says he hope sit will be as influential as Llama 3 has been.

Developers can use omniverse to create three dimensional scenarios, which are translated into photorealistic scenarios using Cosmos. They could then generate several models at once to help a robot figure out the best way to accomplish a task.

NVIDIA

NVIDIA Cosmos is a "world foundation model."

He's announced NVIDIA Cosmos, a world foundation model meant to understand the physical world.

"What if, instead of a PDF, it's your surroundings," he says. That's one way future robots could use transformer models to learn about their environments, as well as accomplish basic tasks.

"Let's talk about physical AI," he says. Not a single woo or clap in the house.

Dead silence in the crowd.

A concept artist could start with simple 3D assets and use NVIDIA NIM to generate images with a specific framing or angle.

"Our focus is to turn Windows WSL2 into a target, first-class platform we will support," he says. And now we're talking about GenAI images.

In the future, he wants AI to move beyond the boundaries of operating systems like Windows. Okay??? "If we could figure out a way to make a Windows PC a world-class AI PC, it would be awesome." And it turns out the answer is... Windows, along with the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

"I just felt that none of you were impressed!" Huang says to the audience, clearly bored out of their minds.

Agents could be trained on research documents and lessons to recompile information in different ways, like podcasts. It would be cool if these ideas actually work, but right now they're still just fantasy.

Now we're watching a video about AI agents.... Which are not nearly as cool as they sound.

He predicts that software coding will be the next major AI market in the future.

I'm pretty sure everyone here would rather hear more about the new GeForce GPUs. I missed that the desktop cards will be available this month! New GeForce laptops will be coming in March. Busy testing times ahead

NVIDIA

Huang explains NVIDIA Llama Nemotron Language Foundation Models.

NVIDIA is announcing a family of models bassed off of Llama, including Llama Nemotron Nano, Super and Ultra. They span everything from PCs and edge devices to huge data centers.

"In a lot of ways, the IT department of every company will be like the HR department for AI agents in the future!" Please, no.

NVIDIA NeMo, another product most people will never see, are like virtualized workers that can be deployed across companies to perform specific tasks.

This is well beyond consumer territory, now Huang is discussing how NVIDIA wants to provide AI libraries to potential large-scale customers.

He's discussing how newer AI models from OpenAI are "reflecting," or rethinking their own data. I know many researchers who don't like framing AI processing in human terms, though.

Jensen needs a chair. The jacket is weighing on him! He rushes to the side of the stage to get a drink of water. (But he really wanted a Michelob Ultra.)

He's holding a wafer showing 72 Blackwell GPUs, 1.4 ExaFLOPS worth of AI floating point performance. "The entire world's internet traffic is being processed across these chips," he says. This is the Grace Blackwell NVLink72.

NVIDIA

Huang is going deep into details on the datacenter version of his Blackwell chips.

I think this presentation could have used more AI. (Our stream just died.)

NVIDIA

Huang confirms that Blackwell chips are finally at full production, after some reported snags in 2024.

Scaling laws are driving enormous demand for NVIDIA computer, as well as for its Blackwell GPU.

He's also talking about how "reasoning," or prolonged computation times, helps AI to produce better answers.

AI would ultimately learn how to improve itself, Huang says. He's going over how many models are trained already today.

He's also discussing how models can be trained in specific directors, sort of like having a coach that helps you get better at a single task.

"The industry is chasing and racing to scale artificial intelligence," Huang says. The scaling laws claim tha the more data you have, the larger model you have. And the more compute you apply to it, the more effective your model becomes.

NVIDIA

Here are the laptop versions and pricing.

The RTX 5090 will fit into a laptop that's very thin and will cost $2,899. We're just breezing through all of this.

NVIDIA

A full range of GPUs.

The RTX 5090 is $1,999! $999 for the 5080. He's also showing off an RTX 5070 laptop selling for $1,299.

How does it compare? The RTX 4090 was $1,599 (which he jokes was meant for $10,000 gaming rigs). RTX 5070 will offer RTX 4090 performance for $549."Impossible without artificial intelligence," Huang says.

It's the RTX 5090, confirmed. Wish he said that louder though!

NVIDIA

Huang is doing a deep dive on the RTX Blackwell card.

The programmable shader is also able to carry neural networks, which allowed NVIDIA to create neural texture tools.

He's holding an RTX 50-series card... Which looks exactly like the old GPUs. It has 4,000 AI TOPs, 92 billion transistors, 380 RT TFLOPs and G7 memory offering 1.8 TB/s bandwidth. That's a mighty card!

NVIDIA

The rumors were true: The RTX 50-series is here.

Now he's announcing the RTX Blackwell family, new GPUs finally!

"Out of that 33 million pixels, we computed only two [million]," he said. Everyhing else was predicted by AI, including entire frames.

"No computer graphics researcher, no computer scientist, would have told you it was possible to ray trace every single pixel at this point," he said. "It would have been impossible without artificial intelligence." That includes programmable shading and ray tracing acceleration.

NVIDIA

Huang is showing off "real-time computer graphics" generated on an AI-powered Blackwell GPU.

We're seeing how "Neural Material" could make textures look more realistic. Neural faces should do the same for models.

Now we're looking at footage from an RTX Blackwell GPU. It looks like the most realisitc Assassin's Creed game we've ever seen.

"All of this, with AI, is the house that GeForce built," Huang says. Now, AI is coming home to GeForce.

"Machine learning has changed how every application will be built, how computing will be done, and the possibilities beyond."

"We can now understand information of just about every modality," Huang says, including images, videos and audio.

"We recognized properly that AI was not just a new application with a new business opportunity," he said. Instead NVIDIA recognized how AI and the transformer model would change the world. =

NVIDIA

Huang is recounting the history of AI as seen through NVIDIA's hardware.

Huang says this will all lead to agentic AI, or AI agents, as well as physical AI. Robots

NVIDIA invented CUDA in 2006 to explain the programmability of their GPUs. "It was difficult to explain," Huang says. Somehow, six years later in 2012, CUDA was used to process Alexnet, the pioneering neural network.

Now we're looking at a preview of the new Virtua Fighter project, which looks absolutely cinematic.

NVIDIA

Virtua Fighter on the first NVIDIA video card.

Sega's Virtua Fighter was the first application of UDA, NVIDIA's GPU language. That's news to me actually

We're inside NVIDIA's digital twin, Huang says, as a delayed demonstration lights up behind him. He's going over NVIDIA's story, starting with the NV1 video card for PCs.

NVIDIA

CEO Jensen Huang takes the stage.

"Do you like my jacket?!" He asks. No. No, Jensen. Bring back the leather.

"Here is where it all begins." The CES main stage, of course! Jensen Huang enters with a very shiny jacket.

Tokens will predict the dangers around us they say, "and find cures for the threats within us." Let's definitely trust the company that has the most to gain from the proliferation of AI.

We're watching an AI generated person talk about the wonders of tokens. "Tokens teach robots to move like the masters. Inspire new ways to celebrate our victories. And give us peace of mind when we need it most."

And we're back to the NVIDIA wallpaper, just jamming out. A pox upon anyone that says nuh-vidia.

It occurs to me that Tim Robinson would play a killer Gary Shapiro.

CTA

CTA CEO Gary Shapiro is introducing NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.

Gary Shapiro says nuh-vidia. Come on Gary.

And here's Gary Shapiro, welcoming us to CES 2025. Be sure to buy his latest book, whatever it's called.

Get on with it.gif.

"Tech isn't just advancing, it's uniting." Uh....

And just like that, we're off. Time for the inspirational CES opening video! It's about what's possible, they say!

We've got a song change but no video feed change. Not unusual for these things to start a few minutes late, but it's still not a great look for the most anticipated CES keynote.

NVIDIA

The video feed wallpaper is a stylized version of the NVIDIA logo.

NVIDIA is really being brave tonight with its 4K 60fps stream! Intel would never.

I would post a photo of our liveblog setup, which involves a MacBook Pro connected to a giant TV in a sad conference room. But you don't need to see how we live.

What's up everyone, we're minutes away from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's CES 2025 keynote. Expect to hear a lot about AI, robots and the company's self-driving efforts. Oh yah, hopefully we'll hear about a video card or two.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang CES 2025 keynote: Watch it live here

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is having a pretty good day. The company's stock closed at a record high, putting its market cap within spitting distance of Apple's. But right now, he's about to take center stage with his CES 2025 keynote. Watch it live here, alongside our liveblog commentary.

Sony opens Afeela 1 EV reservations at CES 2025

Sony Honda Mobility

Afeela 1

Five years. Five years is how long Sony has been talking about its possible EV, showing us concepts and demos at its CES press conferences during that time. At its CES 2025 conference that just ended, the company finally shared details on how people can buy the car, although the earliest deliveries are still only slated for 2026. Named the Afeela 1, the EV is available in Origin and Signature models, costing $89,900 and $109,900 respectively. If you want to reserve one, you'll have to make a $200 deposit and sign up on the Sony Honda Mobility website.

Read more about how to order the Sony Afeela 1 in our full story.

At this point, we're just about 40 minutes away from NVIDIA's keynote, so hang tight!

Druckmann also discussed a Last of Us-themed activation that puts people in the tunnels of Seattle from the second game (and season). It went by very fast; trying to find more info. But, that's a wrap for now!

Basically, a Horizon Zero Dawn movie and Last of Us season two is my best of CES.

Fingers crossed for a release date...

Oh damn, we're getting another teaser for The Last of Us season 2

Oh hell yeah, we're talking The Last of Us.

Wow, Sony is tailoring this presentation to me. First a Horizon film and now Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog is out talking about the game Intergalactic that was announced last week.

Sony

Sony is prepping a movie based on Horizon Zero Dawn, too.

Yup, there's one more Horizon project in the works. Columbia Pictures is working on a Horizon Zero Dawn film!

First, though, a recap on the delightful Lego Horizon Adventures and details from musician Mxmtoon on how she wrote the song for the game.

Oh snap, now we're talking about the Horizon series. Gimmie a great adaptation please!!

Sony

The PlayStation Helldivers 2 game is getting a movie tie-in.

And an Until Dawn adaptation as well, but we already knew about that.

Going over previous big ones including Uncharted, Twisted Metal, Gran Turismo and The Last of Us. And now we're getting news that a film adapatation of Helldivers 2 is in the works!

Head of PlayStation Productions Asad Qizilbash and Ashley Brucks from Screen Gems are out now. Maybe we'll hear about a new PlayStation property?

Oh and I completely missed that there's an anime based on the PlayStation game Ghost of Tsushima. Intriguing!

Moving on now to talk with Ravi Ahuja, the new CEO of Sony Pictures.

Sony

Look for an anime based on the PlayStation's Ghosts of Tsushima series soon.

Correction: it's a trilogy of movies!

Getting a trailer for a new Demon Slayer movie here, which should get people pretty hyped up.

Sony

Sony's XR headset prototype, being used here with the XYN animation system.

XYN is software that captures a real-life object via a mirrorless camera and then converts it to a 3D object. Pretty cool.

Post-Afeela, this Sony presser is giving off major NAB show vibes.

Now we're talking about XR, Thaisa Yamamura from Sony's TV Business Development team is out.

Sony

The PXO Clara "vehicle visualization system."

In the meantime, we're hearing about some impressive software for animating vehicles. I am happy for the filmmakers out there who will find this useful!

Sony opens Afeela 1 EV reservations at CES 2025

Sony YouTube

Afeela 1 is Sony's near-final EV.

Read more about Sony's Afeela one here!

It's all quite vague. Sony has songwriting camps! Sony has a program for aspiring filmmakers!

We're pivoting back to talking about creators, along with some footage from one of the Spider-Verse films.

That's it for Afeela, but price and reservations definitely count as news.

Only California residents can reserve Afeela 1 for starters, but Sony says it'll expand to more states over time.

Sony

Here are the starting prices for the Afeela 1.

Oooh, pricing: $89,900 for the "origin" trim and $102,900 for the "signature" trim. And Sony is accepting reservations starting today via a $200 reservation fee!

Naturally, there's an Afeela agent, which sounds like yet another voice-activated assistant to navigate the car's interface.

Sony

A closer look at the Afeela 1's driving experience.

Hey we're 13 minutes in and we just heard "AI" for the first time, as Sony discusses the sensors and software it's using to power Afeela's driver-assist features (I'm reluctant to call anything autonomous at this point).

OK, it does sound like we're getting some real detail here, including the initial reservation process

Sony

Here comes the latest version of the Afeela 1, the EV from Sony Honda Mobility.

We've seen this trick before, though. Anything new to share, Sony?

Here comes the "near final" version of Afeela, which will supposedly be available in "less than two years."

Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of Sony / Honda mobility is out to talk cars.

Switching to mobility with the long-teased Afeela car. Will we get any concrete news this year?

Oooh, a prototype of a new coach headset made by Sony. Noise-cancelling and 5G. Will debut during the 2025 season. Can't imagine coaches are too concerned about who makes their headsets.

They're also talking about the weird NFL / Disney Toy Story-style football game, an "altcast" where it was shot live and automatically translated into the world of Toy Story. Another thing I'm not sure who is asking for, but hey.

Sony

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell joins the Sony execs on the stage.

They're talking about how Sony's cameras are used for broadcasts like the Super Bowl as well as Sony cameras being used by the AP for still photography.

Looks like we're up for a slightly awkward conversation here!

OK, now the president of Sony Electronics Neal Manowitz is out along with the commissioner of the NFL Roger Goodell.

While the PS5 Pro got a quick shout-out, there's nothing about hardware here.

Instead, we're now talking about Sony tech as it relates to sports, with some clips from the Paris Olympics accompanying i

As has been the case for Sony's CES press conferences lately, this is all about entertainment — film, music, PlayStation, creators and so forth.

Sony

Sony head honcho Hiroki Totoki kicks off the CES 2025 presentation.

Sony's purpose is to fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology, Totoki says.

Sony's going to share some updates to show how it continues to "push boundaries." No AI yet!

OK, here we go with the typical sizzle reel showing off Sony's position in gaming, cameras, entertainment (The Last of Us!) and a handful of other areas. And now Hiroki Totoki is out to kick things off.

As you'll often find prior to press conferences, Sony has some certified chill jams

Sony CES 2025 press conference: Watch it live

The Sony CES presser is about to start. Click that link or just check below for the livestream.

Why hello everyone, and thank you Cherlynn for that kind intro! We're about 5 minutes away from Sony kicking it off. I recognize it's late on the east coast, so bear with us. We'll try and keep it light.

In about 10 minutes at 5pm PT, Sony will be hosting its press conference, and this liveblog will be handed off to the safe, gentle and expert hands of our deputy editor Nate Ingraham. We expect Sony to talk about the same car it's talked about at CES for the last few years, and maybe surprise us with news from across its very diverse product portfolio that spans gaming, audio and home entertainment. Stick around, it'll be absolutely riveting, I'm sure.

A preview of Gemini in Google Home products

In case you missed it, Google also shared how it plans to integrate Gemini AI into its smart home platform, which encompasses devices like the Nest Audio, Nest Hub and Nest Cameras. Specifically, Gemini will be woven into the Assistant for those devices, so that speaking with the digital helper will feel more natural. Our reporter Amy Skorheim got a preview of what this will look like at Google's booth today, and here's her quick takeaway:

"Possibly the most impressive trick I saw was the case of the missing cookies. The rep asked the Nest Hub the question, "Hey Google, what happened to the cookies on the counter?" Pulling footage from a connected Nest Cam, the Hub displayed a dog walking into a kitchen, swiping a cookie and scampering off. The Assistant meanwhile narrated the context of the video saying, "A dog jumped on the counter and looked at the cookies on December 12th at 1:29PM." Of course, this was a pre-recorded clip, as there was sadly no dog in the demonstration kitchen."

Read more about Gemini AI on the Google Assistant in smart home products in our full story.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye pinball by Stern

Stern Pinball has been a mainstay of CES for years, as well as multiple other conventions across the industry, bringing a new themed machine each year. For CES 2025, the Engadget team was stoked to learn that the company's offering was a loving tribute to Dungeons and Dragons to celebrate the franchise's 50th birthday. This machine in particular focuses on Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye, and Nathan Ingraham explains what caught his eye:

"The thing that caught my eye was the fact that you can pick a character and level them up over time, provided you use Stern's Insider Connected app. That app already lets you create a profile and keep track of achievements, games in your area, your top scores and other features (you "log in" by scanning a QR code from the app). But with Dungeons & Dragons, you can actually improve your character over time and save your progress through the game's many modes. When you first start, you choose a character and location, and those choices will affect the goals you need to achieve. Stern specifically say that its new "PinSave" system will let you save character experience points, inventory items and game campaign progress across multiple games."

Read more about the Dungeons and Dragon Stern Pinball machine in our full story.

Roborock's latest robot vacuum can pick up your dirty socks

We were already intrigued by the description of Roborock's CES 2025 offering, but seeing the video that Karissa Bell took really adds to the experience. The Saros Z70 robovac has a built-in arm that folds out and picks up items on your floor, and can even put them away. Will this save domestic relationships and keep people happy? Based on what Karissa saw, the robot arm at least seems to work, so you will just have to work on communication.

Roborock's new robo vac can pick up your dirty socks. #CES2025 pic.twitter.com/6TumFV6OJD

— Engadget (@engadget) January 6, 2025

Karissa adds:

"Before you can use it, you will have to activate the arm through the Roborock app, where you can also set what kind of objects it can interact with and where they should be placed. While not quite Rosey the Robot, Saros Z70 has the potential to make tidying up a lot easier. And it's not just a prototype — Roborock is planning to make it available for purchase this year."

Read more about the Roborock Saros Z70 robovac in our full story.

will.i.am continues to haunt CES

Billy Steele for Engadget

LG's xboom Grab is the most compact option in the new lineup.

It wouldn't be CES without celebrity-endorsed launches, and those of us who have covered this event for awhile are all too familiar with will.i.am's efforts to develop a successful tech product. Who can forget the PULS bracelet, which launched as smartwatch and wearable fever was just taking off? Anyway, will.i.am continues to make his presence known here at the conference, but this time via a collaboration with LG. In fact, right before CES 2025 began, the company appointed the musician as its "Experiential Architect," working together on the xboom line of audio products.

This week, Billy Steele got to check out the LG xboom in person, which includes a trio of speakers. The Grab is the smallest of these, and here's what Billy thought:

"I was pleasantly surprised by how much bass the xboom Grab mustered during my demo, with punchy highs and solid mids holding the details. That low-end tone seemed slightly muffled to me, but I only got a quick listen, so a full review would confirm if that's actually the case. The other surprising thing is how loud the xboom Grab can be. At only 50 percent volume, the compact unit produced an almost uncomfortable level of sound for the room."

Read more about the LG xboom speakers in our hands-on.

By the way, there were things we saw at CES Unveiled last night that we might have wanted to try but avoided due to hygiene and personal comfort reasons. For example, a mass of people crowded around the booth of a company called Kirin, with a product called Salt Spoon that was supposed to use electricity to deliver the flavor of umami. It had disposable versions of its spoon ready for people to use, and though I waited in line multiple times to try it out, I never got to taste it. Based on what I heard from various people at the booth though, the salty flavor did seem to come through. I plan on hunting down Kirin this week to get myself some salty spoon time.

While CES has been raging on, there has been some interesting news happening outside of Las Vegas too. For instance, Apple has announced that it plans to release an update "in the coming weeks" that will make it clearer that notification summaries are generated by AI. In case of future incidents where Apple Intelligence has misrepresented an alert by a news organization's app, for example, people will be able to see more easily that it was Apple Intelligence (as opposed to, say, the BBC) that crafts the sentences in those summaries.

Now that Samsung is wrapped, next up on our list of notable press conferences today is Sony, which is taking place at 5PM PT (aka in about 2 hours, if I've done my math right). Of course, there are other companies with events in between, like Zeekr. CES is a great place to learn of companies you might not have heard of before.

Samsung (screenshot)

A slide with the words Galaxy Unpacked in the middle and the date "Jan. 22 2025" below it. To the right of the date are the words "Live on samsung.com"

But not before he teed up the date of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event by showing the details on a slide. It'll take place on January 22, 2025.

We're getting a summary of how Samsung has discussed the assistance AI will provide in the home. And that's it, he offered best wishes and closed the press conference.

JH Han is back, which means we're probably about done.

We're getting a rundown on various competitions and youth programs that help develop life skills for the workforce and more.

Samsung AI now knows how to separate the volume of dialog, but not background noise, when performing translations in real time.

Settings will sync to new appliances, including your preferences for Bixby. Voice guides will be available for customers with low vision on appliances with touch screens later this year.

VP of the corporate sustainability center Inhee Chung is now on stage. Accessibility is the next topic on the agenda.

We're getting a rehash of the Harman automotive announcements from last year, as well as upcoming avatars that will serve as travel companions.

Samsung (screenshot)

Samsung SmartThings is coming to Hyundai EVs.

SmartThings will also lend a hand with Hyundai EVs in the near future. It will help with everything from charging to locating your care in a full parking lot.

Samsung (screenshot)

Samsung is aiming to add smart tech to... oceangoing vessels.

SmartThings is even coming to ships, he says. Lots of response from the crowd on that one. Here's to you, Boaty McBoatface.

Samsung

Samsung's Galaxy Book5 Pro and Book5 360 have a feature similar to Google's Circle to Search.

From earlier, here's the details on Samsung's Galaxy Book Pro5 lineup that the company talked about onstage a few minutes ago.

He's talking about all the ways the platform can use AI to manage multiple stores or entire hotels.

A SmartThings Pro enterprise solution is up first. This is a review of previous announcements.

Sean Michael from display product marketing is now on stage. I'm guessing AI on TVs is next?

Samsung (screenshot)

The Ballie robot will be available in the first half of 2025, per Samsung.

Ballie, Samsung's AI home companion that we've heard about for years, will finally be available in the first half for 2025.

There's a new washer/dryer combo that's tinged with AI, if you're into consolidated appliances.

Samsung (screenshot)

Samsung's Art Store is coming to more TVs this year.

There's a Generative Wallpaper feature too, that will use AI to make art for your TVs based on your cues. Samsung's Art Store is coming to more TVs as well, after debuting on The Frame.

There's a click to search feature on Samsung TVs that will give you info on whoever is on screen. And the AI mode will automatically optimize the sound for your preferences or viewing environment.

For instance, she could check in remotely with the Jet Bot vacuum and

It's another "here's how your week could be better optimized by AI" story.

Now Samsung's Alana Gomez-Solis from Samsung Corporate Comms is taking the stage.

The AI could also monitor diet and nutrition, utilizing data from a Samsung connected

Pak is noting that data from Galaxy Ring or Galaxy Watch can be used by Samsung's AI to better optimize sleeping conditions — such as by adjusting the thermostat.

After the PC focus, Hon Pak, the SVP and of Digital Health Team has taken the stage.

Samsung (screenshot)

The latest Galaxy Books laptops will also leverage AI, according to Samsung.

Galaxy Book5 360 and Galaxy Book5 Pro are the latest AI PCs from Samsung, and you can read our coverage here.

Home insight will give you a picture of your energy use from SmartThings devices, with the goal of helping you lower your electricity bill.

Speaker recognition powered by Bixby will adapt to which family member is asking for things, and the system will know which devices to employ to complete the requests.

We're back to Home AI, powered by SmartThings devices. Samsung wants all of your devices to work together though One UI, which first debuted on mobile devices. Now, the platform works across TVs and appliances.

Samsung (screenshot)

Samsung is expanding its Knox Vault security layer into more products.

Edge AI will collect data from your connected devices, but keeps it on your local network, he explains.

Data can only be encrypted and decrypted on the user's device, so only users can see it, according to Gabrio. Knox Vault will expand to home appliances, moving beyond mobile devices and TVs.

Once again, Samsung is telling us how safe and secure your data will be in regards to its AI tech. Starting to sense a theme...

Samsung (screenshot)

Samsung Electronics America's Head of Connected Experience Center takes the stage.

Head of connected experiences Jonathan Gabrio is up next.

According to Han, Samsung's AI journey will continue for the next century. Seems ambitious!

Samsung is working on Home AI to help you save time and keep your home safe. Han says it will also offer recommendations and understand your needs, and "infuse more comfort and joy in your life."

Samsung (screenshot)

Han is talking up Samsung's approach to "Home AI."

SmartThings devices are a key part of bringing AI to everyone, he says. And once again, he reiterates that the priority is safety and security. That effort has Knox at the center

Samsung (screenshot)

Samsung kicks off its CES 2025 presser.

Han is reviewing what Samsung announced at CES 2024, with its vision for "AI for All." He says it's a journey that began in 2014.

CEO JH Han is up first

First up is a sizzle reel of Samsung's AI work in the years prior. The company is getting us caught up, focusing on safety and security in regards to artificial intelligence.

Hello hello! Let's settle in for more AI chat, this time with some Samsung flavor.

Alright, Samsung's press conference is about to begin, and Billy Steele will be taking over this liveblog to liveblog Samsung. Liveblog. How many times can I say liveblog? Anyway, all hail Billy, our Samsung liveblog king, as he brings you Samsung's news here as it breaks.

With the Samsung press conference just 10 minutes away, the Engadget team is getting our meeting room ready to tune in. We've lowered the music, which has for the past half an hour been Justice's excellent album. Before that we had some NewJeans, Sabrina Carpenter and assorted soft pop. Send us your music recommendations for us to work to!

HP at CES 2025: The latest Elitebooks are Copilot+ PCs powered by Intel's new AI chips

HP

HP's EliteBook Ultra G1i has what sounds like an impressive screen and camera to go along with a haptic trackpad.

As usual, there are a lot of new laptops at CES this year, and basically all of them feature AI in some way, shape or form. Take these HP Elitebooks, for example. Even though Microsoft's Copilot+ features are a headlining feature, there are some other flashy hardware specs here as well. The Elitebook Ultra G1i features an 3K OLED screen and a 9MP webcam — we haven't seen this yet but I'm definitely interested in seeing how that screen looks. We'll have to wait for price or availability info, though.

You can check out all the details on HP's newest Ultrabooks here.

Dell killing the XPS name is an unforced error

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

At a CES 2025 preview in early December, Dell leadership including CEO Michael Dell and President Sam Burd shared news of the company's big PC rebranding.

Our PC reporters and reviewers Devindra and Sam both had strong feelings about Dell's rebranding news and they tag-teamed on a rant about it. Not only do they think the blatant Apple mimicry is silly, but, and I agree with them on this, they rightfully criticize the confusing sub-labels under each high-level Pro or Pro Max name. That's right, there are Premium and Plus tags in addition to Pro and Pro Max, so instead of things like Dell XPS 13, you'll be seeing Dell Pro 14 Plus.

Here's Sam with a bit more detail:

"But it doesn't stop there, because within each family will be three tiers of products. Base models across the Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max lines will be entry-level machines and won't get any special monikers. Meanwhile, systems featuring the Plus tag (e.g. the Dell Pro 14 Plus laptop) will serve as mid-range options. And then sitting on top are systems with a Premium label, which denotes Dell's most powerful and luxurious machines within a given family."

Read Devindra and Sam's opinions on Dell's new name change in our full article.

The Acer Nitro Blaze 11 is an absolutely massive handheld gaming PC

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

If you thought the 8.8-inch Lenovo Legion Go was big, then Acer's 11-inch Nitro Blaze 11 is absolutely monstrous,

Speaking of Acer, in addition to some new laptops, the company had a gigantic gaming handheld to unveil at CES 2025. With a name like the Nitro Blaze 11, it's hard for this device to be anything but monstrous, right? Here's what Sam thinks of the Nitro Blaze 11 after some hands-on time with it:

"In some ways, it's almost like holding a steering wheel with a tablet-sized screen slammed in the middle along with your typical assortment of joysticks, face buttons and shoulder triggers on either side."

Read more about the Acer Nitro Blaze 11 in our full story.

Toyota CES 2025 press conference: Watch the livestream here

The Detroit Auto Show starts the day CES ends (this Friday), but many automobile giants show off their tech bona fides in Las Vegas first. That includes Toyota, which is next up on the CES press conference bandwagon. Watch the company's event here at 4PM ET/1PM PT.

In case anyone was wondering, team Engadget is about to get sandwiches for lunch. From Cheba Hut.

With all the processor news that's already been announced by Intel and AMD today, lots of PC companies have also unveiled new models of their laptops. We saw Dell rebrand its entire lineup, but the company is also showing off a new 4K QD-OLED monitor with spatial audio. Samsung updated its Galaxy Book5 Pro series with new Intel Arrow Lake chips, while Acer also off new Aspire and Swift laptops. The Aspire Vero 16, in particular, is "committed to carbon neutrality throughout its lifecycle," according to the company, and was made to be easy to repair. Meanwhile, the Swift Go series now come with Intel's Core Ultra 200H series processors.

AMD unveils a cavalcade of CPU, graphics and AI news at CES

Maybe AMD wanted to stand out from the chip manufacturing crowd — it's sandwiched between Intel in the morning and NVIDIA in the evening — because the chip giant brought some serious headline firepower to its CES press conference. Check out all four of Devindra Hardawar's detailed stories on AMD's CPU, GPU and AI announcements:

AMD

AMD Ryzen AI Max

• AMD takes AI PCs to the max with Ryzen AI Max chips

• The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is another 16-core beast with 144MB of 3D V-cache

• The AMD Ryzen Z2 will power next-gen gaming handhelds... including a new Steam Deck

• AMD previews RDNA 4 graphics with AI upscaling, teases RX 9070 GPUs

What's it all mean? Per Devindra: "AMD is clearly trying to flex its AI chip muscles, in the wake of Intel's foundering financials. Its latest suite of AI chips covers everything from super-powered laptops to affordable mainstream PCs. At the same time, it's not letting NVIDIA hog all the limelight around video cards. The company's RDNA 4 graphics could be a compelling leap forward, especially with the addition of AI upscaling."

(This post has been updated from earlier with additional commentary.)

During that little lunchtime lull in the press conference schedule, we saw some huge news from Dell. The company is revamping its product portfolio, getting rid of the Latitude, Inspiron and XPS brands, choosing to "simplify" things with Pro and Pro Max labels instead. Sound a little familiar?

Current meeting room conversation is around beers in British restaurants. We just submitted a lunch order, the team is having yummy sandwiches again while we pound out posts and cover the press conferences. Up next is Samsung at 2pm PT, which is in just about an hour and 40 minutes!

TCL unveils mini LED TVs and new NXTPAPER tablets

TCL's press conference is still ongoing, but there are are already two new announcements to share: new TVs and new NXTPAPER devices. On the TV front, TCL is doubling down on mini LED technology. From Ian Carlos Campbell:

TCL

A thin TCL QM6K flatscreen TV on thin black legs.

The QM6K is the first of TCL's TVs to use the company's Halo Control Technology Suite, which is the catch-all name for the various tweaks it's made to the dimming and picture quality of its Mini LEDs. That includes things like a new "Super High Energy LED chip" that TCL claims increases brightness output and light efficiency, a new "Condensed Micro Lens" that allows for even more precise control over the light that comes from a TV's LEDs and updated "Quantum Dot Technology" that helps display up to 98 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

Read more: TCL's new Mini LED TVs aim for OLED's throne (again)

Meanwhile, TCL is also bowing a tablet that features the latest version of NXTPAPER, which is sort of a color alternative to E Ink. Per Amy Skorheim:

TCL

The TCL NXTPAPER 11 Plus tablet sits on an artistic background and displays realistic looking paint splotches.

Since 2021, TCL has been trying to craft a screen that's easier on the eyes with its NXTPAPER tech, and now it's throwing AI into the mix (perhaps unsurprisingly). The new AI-powered Smart Eye Comfort Mode on the 11 Plus tablet adjusts output based on different usage scenarios, and the Personalized Eye Comfort Modes let users adjust eye-comfort settings to their liking.

Read more: TCL announces the NXTPAPER 11 Plus tablet at CES 2025, featuring a new nano-etched display

In other significant standards news, the HDMI forum announced at CES 2025 a new version of its spec. HDMI 2.2 will support bandwidths of up to 96Gbps. The HDMI forum is also rolling out new Ultra96 cables that it hopes will help people better identify when they're buying compatible cords. Thankfully though, all of this will be backward compatible, meaning you won't have to go out and buy a buncha new cables to reconnect all your HDMI things. The shape of the port isn't changing, so you don't have to be forced to upgrade if you don't want the new speeds.

Speaking of hot news for tech fans: We finally got confirmation from Samsung that it will support Qi2 wireless charging this year. The updated standard brings magnetic connectivity a la Apple's MagSafe, but despite being announced in January 2023, no Android phone makers (barring HMD) have launched a compatible device in the two years since. That's surprising, considering Android users tend to be hungry for new standards like this, and our Sam Rutherford wrote a piece last month on how this is a failing on device manufacturers' parts in 2024.

Read more about Samsung pledging to bring Qi2 to its devices in 2025 in our full story.

Yes, per John's post below, TCL's press conference has just kicked off, alongside AMD's. And yes, that is exactly what it's like at CES, where multiple companies have individual conferences to share their news. It's a lot of news to stay on top of, not just for us covering it but for you readers who are, presumably fans of tech. Don't worry though, stay here and we'll keep you posted. With more photos of scariest things from CES 2025 to come, too.

TCL CES 2025 press conference: Watch the livestream

At CES 2024, TCL debuted new MiniLED TVs and devices utilizing its NXTPAPER technology (a color alternative to E-Ink). What's on deck for this year? Watch the company's CES livestream

A lot of trends have been forming at this CES. A quick personal observation is that there are a lot more robots this year, perhaps emboldened by the natural tie-in with AI fever. I also feel like there's a large uptick in the number of accessories and devices that help people use gestures to control their phones and laptops. That's promising for accessibility, but we'll have to see if many, if not any, of these things actually take off.

This morning, Google announced that it's bringing Gemini AI to Google TV devices this year to make them easier to "talk" to. There are also some small hardware upgrades, and our Amy Skorheim went to see Google today to check out some of the changes in person. Read more about the Google TV Gemini AI experience in our full story.

Ahead of AMD's press conference, now's a good time to quickly recap the news that Intel announced this morning. It mostly revolved around the company's Arrow Lake AI chips for gaming laptops, in the form of the Intel Core Ultra 200H and 200HX series.

We're already through most of this morning's press conferences, including those from LG, Hisense, Intel and Qualcomm. Next up is AMD at 2pm ET or 11am PT, which is in about 22 minutes. Find more info on how to watch the company's livestream here.

This fluffball robot stole my heart at CES 2025

Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget

A peach colored bird like robot with long arms is shown clinging onto a pink purse handle

More reports from last night's Unveiled event are getting published and a lot of what we've seen so far are cute and cuddly robots. Take this robot from Yukai Engineering called Mirumi. It has an adorably angry face and stares you down until you... are happy? Our reporter Cheyenne Macdonald with more:

"Mirumi is the latest bizarre-but-endearing robot from Japanese startup Yukai Engineering, the company responsible for the Qoobo cat-tailed pillow and the finger-nibbling kitty plush, Amagami Ham Ham. All it does is stare at you and move its head around a little until you've successfully been tricked into a few moments of happiness. The idea is to emulate that distinctly joyful experience of meeting eyes with a baby in public — a quick, random interaction that can turn your mood around. Mirumi looks like the combination of a fledgling bird and a shrunken-down yeti, and its long arms let it cling to objects like a purse handle so it can come along wherever you go, and stare down strangers."

Sensors inside Mirumi help it know if anyone's nearby and whether it's being touched. It'll then respond appropriately (or not), but it doesn't make any sounds.

Read more about the Mirumi robot in our full story.

Live thoughts from the Engadget meeting room in Las Vegas: There was a lot of spitting and licking at CES 2025, huh.

Samsung's Frame Pro TV features the company's high-end Neo QLED panel

Samsung

Samsung The Frame Pro

Samsung more or less pioneered the category of art TVs with its Frame series, and at this CES it's rolling out a new model in the Frame Pro. The main upgrade is the fact that these use the company's top-of-the-line Neo QLED panels. But here's Nathan Ingraham with more details:

"Besides the panel, the Frame Pro also uses Samsung's Wireless One Connect box, which lets you transmit content from consoles or set-top boxes to the TV without needing to plug things in directly. Instead, you plug into the Wireless One Connect and it'll beam things to the TV, which means you can make a much cleaner, cable-free setup that feels particularly useful with a set like the Frame."

Read more about Samsung's Frame Pro TV in our full story.

John Deere CES 2025 press conference: Watch the livestream

Next up on press day: John Deere. Watch it live here.

At the same time as CES Unveiled last night, Samsung hosted an event for media to preview its home entertainment devices. Our intrepid Billy Steele was there checking out all of the products for us, and frankly the thing that stood out most was Samsung's Frame Pro TV.

We've also already seen some pretty scary stuff here, like this baby? CPR? dummy? Weirdly with a stethoscope on and some foreign object in its mouth?

Cherlynn Low for Engadget

A baby dummy on a table, with a stethoscope in its ear and a foreign object in its mouth.

Hands-on with the LG xboom speakers (will.i.am-enhanced!)

He's back: Musician and entrepreneur will.i.am seems to always have a tech collaboration on deck, and CES 2025 is no exception. He's teamed with LG to tweak up the company's latest speakers, and Engadget's Billy Steele got an early listen:

Billy Steele for Engadget

LG's xboom Grab is the most compact option in the new lineup.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much bass the xboom Grab mustered during my demo, with punchy highs and solid mids holding the details. That low-end tone seemed slightly muffled to me, but I only got a quick listen, so a full review would confirm if that's actually the case. The other surprising thing is how loud the xboom Grab can be. At only 50 percent volume, the compact unit produced an almost uncomfortable level of sound for the room.

Read more: LG xboom speakers hands-on: Built with the help of will.i.am and a dash of AI

Good morning! The on-the-ground crew is gathered in our meeting room here in Las Vegas and getting ready for a long day of press conferences that we know is already in full swing.

Bosch CES 2025 press conference livestream

Germany's Bosch also has a CES press conference at noon ET/9AM PT. While there doesn't appear to be a YouTube stream, you can watch Bosch's presser here.

Hisense CES 2025 press conference livestream

Looking for the latest CES news from Hisense? You can watch the company's press conference live here at noon ET/9AM PT.

And, that's a wrap friends, thanks for going on this journey with me. I'm sure we'll see some examples of this stuff when the CES show floor opens tomorrow morning — we'll let you know what kinds of wild demos LG has to show off.

LG (screenshot)

These are the "three pillars" around which LG is now organizing its business.

LG (screenshot)

This stands for "Digital Out of Home" solution, but I'm guessing Homer Simpson came to mind for many of us.

"Personalized digital cave" is a phrase that was just used when referring to the new in-cabin car experiences LG is working on.

OK we're in the wrap-up phase. To sum up — rather than show off products, the vibe is showing how they can all theoretically work together to help you out all day long. Not a bad idea, but boy does it feel far from reality. Not to mention potentially invasive of your privacy!

I wish I had an AI that would recognize I'm out of coffee and fill it up.

LG (screenshot)

Of course, LG's Gram laptops are also AI-enabled. This is "Gram Chat."

Excellent, LG has its own AI system for its LG Gram laptops. The company announced all this goodness about a week ago, and Cherlynn got to check out one of the new models at an event last night.

We're moving on, and I'm not going to spend any more time trying to figure out what the hell that was. On to laptops!

LG (screenshot)

The musician is teaming up with LG.

The focus here appears to be on a new XBOOM speaker, as best I can tell from this word salad.

"Partnering with LG and being part of the LG family is beyond amazing!"

The CEO and founder of FYI.AI!

LG (screenshot)

LG is updating its Xboom audio line for 2025.

And here we go.

Oh NO. Will.i.am was just mentioned. It's not CES without Will.i.am.

LG's TVs will also work with Xbox Cloud Gaming for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, too. Cool!

LG announced this a few years ago, but they're rolling it out to a lot more TVs this year at more accessible prices.

LG (screenshot)

LG is touting the wireless breakout boxes on its latest TVs.

OK we've now pivoted a bit to the TVs that LG announced over the last few days, including more sets that can use their wireless box. I didn't quite get the point of this before, but you can plug all your consoles and set-top boxes etc into the wireless box, which then sends the signal to the TV. That makes cord management a lot cleaner and easier to deal with.

Intel CES 2025 press conference livestream

Here's a better link for the Intel presser, which is starting now.

Aha, Microsoft Copilot is being used here as an AI background to help people find what they're looking for. There's also something pretty cool going on with voice queries here. Assuming you have multiple user profiles, the voice remote can recognize who is talking to it and switch automatically to the appropriate profile.

"Show me the new animated movie with the emotions." Sure, he didn't remember the name of Inside Out 2.

LG (screenshot)

LG's demo has moved from the car back to the living room.

Oh snap, beige sweater was told by "babe" that he has to make dinner tomorrow!

Voice queries on TV — "cooking show." I know when I'm looking for something to watch I ask for the most generic query imaginable rather than a specific show.

"Babe I'm home!" Beige sweater is back! And... I'm concerned that he was talking to LG AI and not his partner. Not sure yet though.

Hold meetings and review and edit documents... in the car. Is life so grim that we can't even just enjoy a drive without editing a Google doc?

LG's in-car AI literally follows your gaze and "brings back memories from your past" — like a photo slideshow of the mountains you went to last year.

LG (screenshot)

More details on LG's in-car experience.

AI-integrated vehicles provide personalized convenience, productivity and safety, so says LG. Sounds like this new in-car experience is just being unveiled today. We'll have to keep an eye out for that at the LG booth.

We're digging a bit more into the vehicle side of things now, beyond the demo.

Oh great, now our driver is late for his meeting so he's... dialing into a video conference in the car. Seems totally safe!

The car also detected a change in the driver's vitals, like an elevated heart rate. We learn that our poor driver is nervous about a meeting! Then, the car said no worries, let's put on your chill jams playlist to relax you. I dig it. (I don't really.)

LG (screenshot)

LG's AI demo continues, with the focus now on in-car experiences.

Oh damn, we're now looking at AI in the car — it recognized that the driver forgot his coffee tumbler and asked if he wanted to make a stop at his favorite cafe just 2 minutes away. Now that is something I can get behind.

LG rightly notes that it needs to work with other device makers to make this vision come to life, hence the Athom acquisition. And LG has open APIs for its ThinQ platform for other developer to tie into.

Intel's CES press conference starts soon

Just interrupting LG to note that Intel's press conference starts soon. You can watch the livestream here. Expect more news on the newly announced Arrow Lake AI chips.

That said, these sort of appliances with these features are wildly expensive and out of reach for most people. So, in that regard, we're getting a look at things that might be more commonplace a decade from now... maybe. I remember stuff like this I've seen at CES events a decade ago that never came to pass. But, here we are.

Zooming back out a bit — I mentioned earlier that CES is a TV show. It's also a massive showcase for home appliances, which we don't usually think of as "high tech" but are a huge part of business for LG and Samsung among others.

LG (screenshot)

LG pitches how it's tying together its full home ecosystem.

Wow, a "zero labor" home is what we're shooting for. Sounds great in theory! But I don't think that little Q9 robot can lug my laundry down 3 flights of stairs.

At least the demo is done. We're diving deeper into LG's AI ambitions here, with the note that millions of LG devices are collecting data in homes in real time. Great!

Tepid applause!

LG (screenshot)

LG's Pixar-style robot makes another CES appearance.

As usual, I just cannot imagine someone having this extensive of a conversation with a chat bot. It's not something anyone wants or is asking for.

Q9 complimented our host's beige sweater. Look how it can recognize color! (Or lack thereof.)

LG (screenshot)

A demo of the AI-enabled smart home.

It wouldn't be CES without a fake living room on stage showing off a bunch of smart home integrations that may or likely may not ever come to pass. But, there's LG's cute Q9 robot!

Now we're getting a demo of how LG's AI can work across the various devices you have in your spaces.

But as usual, we're light on details here. Almost all the big CES press conferences are big on grandiose plans without a lot of specifics.

LG (screenshot)

LG is linking up with Microsoft to enhance its AI offerings.

Oooh, LG is announcing a partnership with Microsoft, who Cho called the global leader in AI.

LG acquired a company Athom that has 170 global IoT brands, which I imagine will help it expand its need for all those connected devices.

LG (screenshot)

"Affectionate Intelligence" is LG's proprietary take on AI.

Three elements are necessary for this: connected devices, capable AI agents, and integrated AI servies, says Cho.

Cho says that LG is planning to seamlessly integrate AI into the spaces we live in — feels like the idea of having always-aware hardware throughout the home will enable these theoretically proactive and more useful assistants.

Alrighty, LG's CEO William Cho is up, and I think we've heard "AI" at least 3 times already. We're going to blow past 40 in the first 10 miutes.

Engadget

LG kicks off CES 2025.

How cute, affectionate intelligence realized... a couple was looking at a pregnancy test and started playing the "good times" playlist? Not weird or creepy at all.

OK, the press conference is kicking off in earnest here with a sizzle reel. Last question is whether we expect to see anything about AI. I'm going with yes. In fact, over/under on how many times someone says "AI" I'm setting at 40.5

Of course, LG is using its cutesy "affectionate intelligence" term. So we'll see if they actually say AI at all.

For the gamers out here, LG also announced a bunch of intriguing monitors — hoping we'll get a chance to see them in person this week.

LG has already made a host of announcements over the last few weeks, including a bunch of TVs... CES is nothing if not a TV event. Take, for example, this $60,000 transparent model!

Hello, and a sleepy good morning from Las Vegas! The Engadget CES crew is getting going here, and as usual LG is the first company doing its major press conference, starting in just a couple minutes.

LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 (2025) hands-on

As we prep for LG's CES press conference to start soon, here's another early item that was already unveiled: The latest LG Gram laptop. From Cherlynn Low:

Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget

LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 (2025)

Besides the fact that it has new Intel Arrow Lake processors and displays with variable refresh rates that go up to 144Hz, though that's reserved for the LCD panel option. For models with OLED, you can only go up to 120Hz. There's also improved treatment to deal with glare, which was surprisingly effective at mitigating the overhead fluorescent lights on the show floor. I could still see the floating glowing orbs reflected on the display, but for the most part I was able to view the YouTube video playing on the demo unit just fine.

Read more: LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 (2025) hands-on: Of course a thin and light laptop gets AI at CES 2025

"Stress spit" devices debut at CES

For better or worse, COVID-19 got millions of us more comfortable with administering home-based health tests. And now, at least two companies at CES are teeing up stress tests that utilize your saliva. From Cheyenne MacDonald:

Photo by Cheyenne MacDonald/Engadget

Nutrix AG's cortisol-reading device

Swiss startup Nutrix AG is hoping a quick, at-home spit test can help, by giving people a better idea of how stressed out they really are and the tools to manage it. At CES 2025, Nutrix showed off its cortiSense device, which measures levels of cortisol in saliva and can be used to track how this changes over time. The startup is planning to launch it by the end of the year, and it'll work with the gSense app and digital platform to offer things like personalized wellness coaching from a medical team.

Read more: Spit on this stick to see how burned out you are

CortiSense will apparently be going head-to-head with Eli Health's Hormometer, which adds ovulation monitoring to the mix. From Daniel Cooper:

Eli Health

Promotional image of the Hormometer

Here at CES 2025, startup Eli Health is launching Hormometer, an at-home kit that tests your cortisol and progesterone levels.

Hormometer is a wand with a collection tip at one end that you hold in your mouth for 60 seconds. Once it's absorbed your spit, you'll sit it down on a table for 20 minutes while the cartridge's network of built-in microfluidics gets to work. After that, the assay will start displaying lines in a specific color, which can be read and interpreted by your smartphone camera.

Read more: This saliva-testing wand knows how stressed you are

Intel introduces Arrow Lake AI chips

Intel's CES press conference doesn't officially start until 11:30AM ET, but the company has already announced its updated CPUs, as Devindra Hardawar reports:

Intel

Intel Core Ultra 200H family

Today, the company unveiled the Core Ultra 200H chips for "performance thin and light" notebooks, alongside the Core Ultra 200HX chips for mobile gamers who demand powerful discrete GPUs. There aren't any big surprises with these chips, but if you were eyeing the Core Ultra 200V AI chips, but wanted something with a bit more horsepower, the 200H and 200HX are exactly what you're looking for.

Read more: Intel unveils Arrow Lake AI chips for gaming laptops at CES 2025

A robot vacuum with a robot arm

We haven't seen this one in person yet, but the picture is worth a thousand words. As Mariella Moon reports:

Roborock

The Roborock Saros Z70 has a full-on arm.

Robot vacuums can remove the dust and dirt on your floor, but you still have to pick up stray socks and and any item strewn about your home. Now Roborock, a Chinese company that manufactures robot vacuums and other household cleaning appliances, has unveiled a new model that can pick up small objects so you don't have to. The Roborock Saros Z70 has a foldable robotic arms that the company calls the "OmniGrip." It has five axis and can lift objects under 300 grams like socks, light sandals and small dog toys to put them away.

Read more: Roborock's new flagship robot vacuum has an arm that can grab small objects

While today's press conferences are the de facto start of CES, there's already been a ton of news. Companies like LG and Samsung have pre-announced several products, and Sunday night's "CES Unveiled" event offered a peek at several new products from vendors large and small as well. We'll be sharing some highlights of those early announcements throughout the day, mixed in with breaking news.

CES Press Day preview: Watch LG, Samsung, Sony, NVIDIA and more

Just remind folks that we'll be sharing plenty of live video coverage here today. The big ones we're keeping our eyes on:

LG: 11AM ET / 8AM PT

Samsung: 5PM ET / 2PM PT

Sony: 8PM ET / 5PM PT

NVIDIA (keynote from CEO Jensen Huang): 9:30PM ET / 6:30PM PT

That list doesn't include a ton of others, such as Intel, Hisense, AMD, TCL and Toyota. But if there's a publicly accessible livestream, we'll be sharing it here. Stay tuned!

There's also plenty of construction happening around the main convention center, though the recently completed West Hall looks spiffy and bright. The usual parking lot and trailer area in front of the Central Hall is covered in construction this year, which might be why the typical Google and other massive booths aren't there.

A few thoughts from Vegas so far — we're having a lovely week weather-wise. Just sunny skies, with temperatures generally hovering around the 50 to 60 degree Fahrenheit range. It's perfect and completely wasted on days walking around inside massive hotels and casinos, of course, but hey, at least it's a welcome and refreshing break when we do step outside!

I'll take this chance to shout out our social media channels, where you'll get more immersive and detailed content on what we're experiencing. Head over to @Engadget on Instagram and YouTube for videos, Threads, BlueSky and Twitter (X) for text and videos and perhaps even TikTok! See you there!

Loreal's latest device promises to help find out how well your skin responds to ingredients like retinol

L'Oreal

L'Oreal says its Cell Bioprint device can tell you exactly which skin products to use

This isn't a hands-on, but I'm personally intrigued by Loreal's CES 2025 announcement. The company has partnered with a Korean tech company to make a device that can perform relatively quick, painless tests to see not only how healthy your skin is, but also whether you'd respond well to ingredients like retinol.

As someone who frequently mixes actives and guesses based on light research (and lots of time on Reddit) whether something is good for my complexion, the idea of an actual test (based on an actual sample from my skin) is highly alluring. Maybe I'm not meant to be a retinol girlie; maybe i'm a Bakuchiol baddie or a Niacinamide queen? Though Loreal's device isn't currently intended for at-home use, I could see myself walking into a store for a test once it's available near me. Or maybe I won't have to wait too long...

Read more about Loreal's Cell Bioprint device in our full story.

Taking a quick break from all the hands-on plugs to show you some of the Engadget CES 2025 team's hands. We took this before heading into Unveiled, which is the event where we saw the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1, the cortiSense and the Bosch bassinet. Now, I think our hands are a lot shakier and taking this picture will never be possible again.

Cherlynn Low for Engadget

Seven hands in a circle, each with a green-and-white band on it saying CES 2025 media partner.

Bosch's sensor-laden AI bassinet is an anxious parent's dream

Karissa Bell for Engadget

The Bosch Revol bassinet.

Bosch is doing the most this CES, not only by announcing a slew of new products spanning a wide range of categories, but by also tracking pretty much every imaginable metric with its latest AI bassinet. Karissa caught sight of this Snoo competitor, which doesn't rock side to side but moves up and down instead. Unlike Snoo, though, the Revol's baby monitor, which extends over the crib, is packed with all manner of sensors, allowing it to detect things like the baby's heart rate and respiration, as well as the temperature, humidity and air quality of the environment. And of course, there's AI.

Read more about the Bosch Revol smart bassinet in our full story.

Spit on this stick to see how burned out you are

Photo by Cheyenne MacDonald/Engadget

Nutrix AG's cortisol-reading device

I love how much more saliva-sensing tech we're seeing at CES. The cortiSense device that Cheyenne checked out last night is basically an at-home spit test that detects the level of cortisol in your sample to tell you how stressed you are. Coupled with a subscription program and an app, you're supposed to be able to use this to monitor your changes over time, hopefully in response to differences in your life.

The thing I wasn't able to get over was how the company's CEO said in a press release that it plans on focusing on "empowering enterprises" since employee burnout is "a significant challenge with a huge human and financial cost." I can see how it might just be an attempt to get companies with large budgets interested, but that feels borderline dystopian.

Read more about the cortiSense saliva test in our full story.

LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 (2025) hands-on: Of course a thin and light laptop gets more AI at CES 2025

Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget

LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 (2025)

It's become a bit of a tradition for me to check out the latest LG Gram laptop every first night of CES, and 2025 brought more of the same. So similar, in fact, that it felt like I might have written the very same hands-on before. Thankfully, it was just an identical product name and not an old product. Though the 2025 LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 bears a heavy resemblance to its predecessor, it does have some key differences. It'll pack Intel's Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors, use anti-glare screens with variable refresh rates and come with more of LG's Gram AI suite.

The Gram Pro felt premium, while being satisfyingly thin and light, especially for a 16-inch notebook. Sadly, no availability information was shared...

Read our full hands-on with the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 (2025) here.

In the meantime, here's some devices we've already seen in person here at CES 2025.

Seem like too much to stay on top of? Don't worry, we'll not only have coverage of the most important of all those events, but also liveblog the ones that are most interesting. That will all happen right here. On this page. You're already here, well done!

We'll post a recap of the most noteworthy news here in this liveblog, but also pictures directly from our on-the-ground reporters' phones so you can get the most intimate look at tech's biggest annual event. And speaking of, here's a quick rundown of today's highlights. Starting from 11am ET (8am PT), we'll kick things off with LG's keynote, followed by press conferences by Intel and Hisense at 1130am ET and 12pm ET respectively. Other companies will have theirs too, like Bosch, Qualcomm and John Deere. But the next few press conferences that stand out include Samsung's at 5pm ET, Sony's at 8pm ET and NVIDIA at 930pm ET.

You can keep this liveblog open to get regular updates throughout the next few days on all the news at the show, and the coverage will span announcements from big established companies like LG and NVIDIA to startups no one has heard of, with names that are hard to pronounce.

Hello everyone! Thanks for joining us on our liveblog of CES 2025. By the time you see these words, CES will already have more or less begun. If you have been paying attention to our website for the last 24 hours, you'll find a dizzying array of stories are already up. In fact, we've already published a few hands-on articles of things we saw on Sunday night at CES Unveiled.