15 future tech innovations that are here today: the weird and wonderful best of CES 2025

The future is… now!

Did you blink? Did you miss the future? Don’t worry. The future is NOW… again!

The ever-onward march of technological progress is no better characterized than in the floodlit halls of the annual CES (Consumer Electronics Show) conference, which sees the greatest minds in consumer tech descend upon Las Vegas to reveal its latest and greatest gear.

Over the years it was the debut stage for the VCR, the Commodore 64, Tetris, HD TVs and dozens of other groundbreaking innovations. It’s been a little more quiet in recent years thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but, after a few warm-up years following digital-only events, it's back in full force for 2025.

While TVs, laptops and smart home tech as ever dominates the show, CES 2025 has also overflowed with robotics and artificial intelligence features in, well, pretty much anything that’s got an ‘On’ button. With our tech-savvy buddies at TechRadar, T3, Tom’s Guide and What Hi-Fi?, we’ve been keeping an eye on all the biggest (and strangest) announcements to come from the show, and have cherry picked the best of the bunch we think you should have your eye trained on.

Heading straight from the deserts of Vegas to your living room at some potential, indeterminate point in the future, here’s 15 amazing, weird and wonderful new tech innovations — we’ll leave you to decide which is which…

1. LG StanbyME 2 TV is a giant portable TV you can take anywhere

No, not an homage to the incredible Stephen King novella and subsequent ‘80s coming-of-age movie classic, but a TV that is on rollers that can be moved around a room at ease. StanbyME is battery operated, hence the reason it is wire-free and portable. In theory, you can drag the thing around Fitzcarraldo style, watching movies and shows while on the go. Okay, so we already know you have a tablet, smartphone, laptop, VR headset that are portable and can stream TV but are they rollable? No, they bloody well are not. Oh, and this also doubles as a digital display that you can hang around the house. This is because the battery is now within the display, making the screen detachable from its stand.

2. Roborock Saros Z70 will pick up your socks AND clean your floor

Robot vacuum cleaners are nothing new — their space-age autonomous cleaning routines have been making us lazier for years now. But any world-ending ambitions our enslaved robotic helpers may have had have always been foiled by a simple obstacle — they just can’t handle socks and other obstacles left in their path. The robo-apocalypse comes one step closer with the reveal of the Roborock Saros Z70 then, which not only has class-leading suction power of 22,000Pa, but also comes equipped with a robotic arm for moving obstacles out of its way.

If that’s not enough, rival robovac maker Dreame has tackled robovacuums’ other mortal enemies — stairs — with its X50 Ultra, which has tank-tread-like ‘legs’ to get it up and over steps. If these two ever have a baby, it’s ‘hasta la vista, baby’ to us all…

3. L’Oréal Cell BioPrint station will make you a personal skin care routine

… and it’ll do it in just five minutes! Partnering with a Korean startup called NanoEntek, the device requires you to pop a facial strip on your cheek, and then put it in a buffer solution. The strip is then put in a cartridge and inserted in the Cell BioPrint station for analysis. While that happens, a tablet-like device takes photos of your skin, and asks you questions about your current routine and skin concerns, such as the dreaded, inevitable aging that’s coming for us all. At the end, it’ll pop out a personalised routine based on what its systems think will be good for your skin, and suggest products to go along with it — all L’Oréal branded, no doubt!

4. Tapo PalmKey turns your palm print into your door key

Fingerprint security scanners are so passè. In a post-covid era where we’d rather not touch anything, thank you very much, the Tapo PalmKey will let you unlock doors it is attached to with a wave of your hand, at a distance of 4-10 inches away from its sensors. It does so using AI to spot unique vein patterns in your palm — though it'll also accept a good old pin or fingerprint scan if you’d prefer, too. The catch? That’ll come when the locksmiths of the future have to drag a bag of severed hands around with them…

5. Mi-Mo robot is part butler, part table, part Pixar lamp

If you’ve ever looked over at your desk lamp and thought “if only it could nip to the fridge and grab me a bottle of coke”, then you may want to take a look at the Mi-Mo robot concept from Japanese robotics company Jizai. Somewhere between an IKEA coffee table and the Pixar lamp, it’ll wander around your home on its six spider-like legs, nodding its head to where its bulb-equipped head is needed. It’s early stages, or baby-steps if you prefer, for the potential its creators see for Mi-Mo in the future, but using AI models to autonomously react to visual, audio and movement cues, they envision it one day doing odd-jobs around the house for its owners.

6. Samsung The Frame Pro TV doubles as an art gallery

Love big-screen action, but hate the black void that consumes your living room when your telly is switched off (we’re talking about the TV screen, not your soul, btw)? Then you’re going to be a sucker for Samsung's new The Frame Pro TV. A mega upgrade over its previous The Frame models, this Pro edition still turns into beautiful hung artworks when in a low-powered state, but now offers greater screen specs, including local dimming, a 144Hz refresh rate for gamers, and onscreen AI detection that can do everything from spot your favourite actors to displaying approximate recipes for food onscreen. It even comes with a new Wireless One Connect box that houses all the brains and connections, wirelessly streaming connected content to the screen, meaning that you only have to hide a power cable to the display itself.

7. Current Backyard Model P Smart Pizza Oven makes perfect pizza in two minutes

Sorry, pizza delivery folks, the new Current Backyard pizza oven may have put you out of a job, thanks to the sheer speed that it can cook up a pie. Current Backyard says the Model P can reach temperatures of up to 850 degrees Fahrenheit, or 454 degrees centigrade — this means that you could well be cooking up a pizza in just two minutes.

It’s smart, too, offering Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and “full digital monitoring” so you can make sure the oven is at a perfect temperature to cook your pizza on the included 12-inch Cordierite pizza stone. As for the pizzas you can make: Neapolitan, New York, thin crust and frozen — all of these are catered for thanks to the oven’s 5-in-1 cooking mode.

8. ePaper InkPoster is an eco-friendly wall art jukebox

On (e)paper, the ePaper InkPoster sounds incredible. It is the ‘world’s first ePaper digital color InkPoster’ which has been created in collaboration between PocketBook, E Ink and Sharp. It’s wireless, using a battery that’ll will last for up to a year on a single charge and the idea is that this new way to display posters is “an eco-conscious alternative to LCD displays”.

Users can can access thousands of curated artworks through the InkPoster app or display their own photographs on it and these images will be displayed on an E Ink Spectra 6 screen, which offers, according to its maker, “the authentic feel of ink-on-paper with vibrant colors and detailed, bright images — all without harmful backlighting”.

9. Your LG TV is now an Xbox, thanks to streaming tech

Is the end of the games console nigh? Not quite yet but innovations such as Microsoft adding Xbox streaming to select LG TVs certainly points to a world without a box under the telly. That’s right, Microsoft has revealed that Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to a number of LG TVs (models TBC) “later this year”. This means if you have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, then you’ll be able to stream games from the Xbox Game Pass library. Not only that, you’ll also be able to stream a number of titles from the LG Gaming Portal.

10. AI chatbots just got upgraded to ‘online gaming teammate’ status

We’ve long had bots and computer controlled characters running around our digital gaming battlefields, but in the past they’ve been little more than polygonal cannon fodder. But Nvidia’s AI department wants to take that one step further — it’s putting AI-powered teammates in battle royale shooter PUBG, powered by its ACE generative AI language model. They’ll be to “perceive, plan, and act like human players,” according to an accompanying blog post, and “will enable living, dynamic game worlds with companions that comprehend and support player goals, and enemies that adapt dynamically to player tactics.” An AI model that understands the tactics of human warfare — what can possibly go wrong…?

11. A sun-screening and ray-harvesting parasol

Here’s a green-friendly innovation so strikingly obvious, it made us wonder why we’ve not seen more of them in the past — Anker’s new Solix Solar Beach Umbrella replaces the fabric panels of a traditional parasol with solar-energy-harvesting cells instead. Using the most efficient solar cell currently available — perovskite — it’s able to draw in 30-percent more energy than old school solar arrays, and can output a total of 100W to its onboard XT-60 and USB-C connections. An IP67 rating means it’s defended against rain and sand, while its shadow is cast from a seven-foot height and six-foot diameter shade.

12. Make virtual worlds, don’t just visit them, with this VR headset

Sony’s Xyn headset isn’t exactly new, if we’re being honest — it debuted this time last year at CES 2024. But we’ve got a much better idea of how this content creation focused “extended reality” headset works after a fresh look at this year’s show. With 4K OLED displays, video passthrough and a flip-up visor, it’s designed to make the design of 3D items easier in digital spaces. One feature, using a Sony algorithm that can turn real world objects and spaces into photo-real computer generated assets, could massively speed up how game worlds and CGI video is created. In addition Sony’s also looking to pair the Xyn headset with Xyn Motion Studio software for Windows, which uses a wireless tracking system to allow V-Tubers — influencers who perform as digital avatars — finer control over their creations.

13. A Bug’s Life in your back garden

Here’s a cute one for the green-fingered among you — if not the entomophobic out there. From the makers of the Bird Buddy smart feeder — the camera equipped seed dispenser that lets you check in on the avian visitors to your garden — comes this Honey I Shrunk The Kids version. The Wonder Petal camera is like a security cam for your flower beds, keeping track of the tiny bugs and butterflies that call your garden home. Like many items on this list it has AI powered features, alerting you not only if it sees a creature in its view, but what they are and what they’re doing too, letting you jump to the accompanying footage it has captured. It’s optionally solar powered, and can even be paired with a bespoke ‘bug hotel’ to attract more shy creatures into the limelight, too.

14. From hot butts to chilled cheeks with this gaming chair

Finally! Validating that we’re not alone as sweaty-arsed gamers, here comes Razer with a concept gaming chair called Project Arielle that promises to cool (or warm!) our posteriors (and backs, naturally) while we play. With a bunch of fans squeezed into its frame, it has three adjustable fan speeds that can feel as if the temperature is dropping by as much as 5-degrees Celsius around you, or pump out warm air at 30 degrees. If the ambient temperature wasn’t enough to go by, LED lighting will help you figure out what heat setting you’ve got it tuned to.

15. A tea-cooling, air-blowing cat robot, because… why not?

We’ve got smart kettles that let you boil your brew to the exact right temperature, and mugs and flasks to keep that temperature stable once it's poured. But damn it, Houston, why did no-one think to have a contingency for the horror that is a cup of coffee that’s too darned hot to drink? Thank heavens for Nékojita and its FuFu then — a cup-hugging robo-kitty that’ll use an algorithm to determine one of seven levels of air-blown cooling power directed from the cat's mouth to the contents of your cup. Science in action!

Additional reporting: Marc Chacksfield