CES 2024 Live Blog: News, Gadgets, and Photos From Tech’s Big Show

Blood donations are down. Only 3 percent of the eligible population donates blood annually in the United States, and that donor pool is rapidly aging and becoming less diverse; in the last ten years, blood centers have lost 30 percent of donors under the age of 30. That’s because, honestly, the experience of donating is boring, slightly painful, and unpleasant. It’s six minutes of sitting there staring at a wall while someone pokes needles in your arms. Not that I’m recounting this from experience or anything.

To lure these younger donors in, the medical device company Abbott Laboratories has unrolled a mixed-reality experience at blood donation centers across the United States. (Interestingly, Abbott has had a mixed-reality team since 2020.)

The program is intended to help ease the anxiety and discomfort some people feel when giving blood. The experience centers on the use of the Microsoft HoloLens 2, a pricey mixed-reality headset that has two important advantages over, say, the PSVR2 or Meta Quest 3. The see-through visor allows phlebotomists to see the donor’s eyes and face so they know if they’re getting sick or going to pass out (or have passed out). You also can use eye tracking to play games and don’t need to move your hands.

We had an opportunity to try Abbott’s game and play a soothing game involving planting seeds. Why not let them play Animal Crossing, you ask? Well, you don’t want the donor to forget that they’re sitting there entirely and try to get up or jerk around or gasp. This is a use of mixed-reality that we can really get behind. Schedule your donation here.

A beauty company has never delivered a CES keynote address before. However, in light of the fact that the consumer tech industry has been driven forward by chemists and engineers for decades, it should probably be a little less surprising that L’Oreal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus is addressing the crowd here tomorrow morning.

We’ve long been fans of L’Oreal’s work around accessibility and sustainability. (Last year, we saw the Hapta, a motorized makeup applicator for those with hand-motion disorders or arthritis). This year, I spoke to Guive Balooch, L’Oreal’s president of augmented beauty and open innovation, about the company’s strategy of using technology to make products that are more inclusive instead of making flashy concepts that chase the trend du jour.

“You can’t start with the tech,” says Balooch. “You have to start with what people need.” From 2018’s UV sensor to detect skin cancer, to being one of the first companies to debut virtual makeup try-on with augmented reality, Balooch has spearheaded development that addresses the beauty consumer’s needs—which includes the desire for more efficient and sustainable products. “Some people ask, ‘Why would a beauty company work on water technology?’” says Galooch, referring to L’Oreal’s water saver showerhead, which the company developed in partnership with Swiss startup Gjosa and debuted at CES in 2021. “Our commitment to sustainability is not just something we talk about. We want to work on all adjacent areas to sustainability.”

As for this year’s buzzword? L’Oreal is incorporating AI, but more in its research and development teams to model what the next generation of cosmetics will look like and how they’ll be applied. “People want easier and faster ways to apply makeup mess-free, or not have their fingers be the barrier to what they want,” Balooch says. “All of those are opportunities for how AI can help us create services … One day, The Fifth Element idea of makeup where you put glasses on your face and it’s done, that’s not as far as we think, thanks to AI.”

L’Oreal will have some product news to share tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.

I’m officially declaring this CES as the CES of the Things That Are Also Other Things (CES, hire me as your copywriter!). If it’s not a stethoscope that’s also a thermometer or a car that’s your best friend or a robot vacuum that’s also a stick vacuum, it’s also a washer that has a robot vacuum stuck underneath. Eureka’s Dual Washing Bot is … well, it’s exactly what it says it is. A robot vacuum with AI stain detection lives in the bottom of a combo washer-dryer unit. It doesn’t have any particular special properties beyond the ability to save you tons of space, but who needs more than that? For those whom this may not thrill and delight, the 100-year-old company is also releasing a standard robot vacuum, the J20, and a standard stick vacuum, the Omniverse, at CES as well.

In 2020, Samsung made waves with its Ballie smart assistant. Not merely a voice-activated speaker, Ballie was a literal ball that could follow you around the house (unless you go upstairs). This year, Samsung brought Ballie back with an updated look, a built-in projector, and some new AI-powered tasks like coming to you when you call, or following you around the house. Its projector can be used to display media or show status info about other devices that don’t have screens. It can even project onto walls or floors, and adjust to find the ideal angle based on where you are and the ambient lighting conditions.

Korean car manufacturer Kia is back at CES for the first time in five years, and it has a new type of EV in production, as part of the company’s “Platform Beyond Vehicle” program that aims to put a fleet of autonomous vans to your city’s streets.

Visually, the concept PV series is competing with the autonomous vehicles like Zoox for that boxy toaster look. The vehicles come in three flavors, the smaller PV1, the slightly larger P5 meant for ride hailing or shorter delivery services, and the large PV7 which has more interior space and a longer driving range. For further confusion, there are three versions of the PV5—one basic, one with a high roof, and one more van shaped. So five total options, though none of those subcategories have names quite yet.

Kia says it has some big future plans for the vehicles, though it’s not clear when exactly they’ll take place. (CES announcements tend to lean a bit on the make-believe.) The first phase, Kia says it plans to focus the vehicles on ridesharing and delivery services in cities, much like rival companies like Waymo, Cruise, and Zoox. From there, it wants to evolve its services to incorporate AI features. Yes, these vehicles will someday likely include some generative AI voice assistants.

I already loved the 240 Hz IPS display on the Razer Blade 14 and now Razer is upping the ante with the newest Razer Blade 16. It comes with a 16-inch 2560×1600 resolution OLED panel—meaning it will likely have even better black levels than the already impressive screen on the Blade 14—with an ultra-smooth 240 Hz refresh rate. The Blade 14 is also getting a refresh with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor option, and up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU upgrades.

Much like Bosch, which is working on a hydrogen car engine, Hyundai has announced that it too is doubling down on hydrogen, presenting what it calls a blueprint for a hydrogen energy ecosystem. Hyundai has the world’s highest market share in hydrogen-powered vehicle sales, though that isn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds, of course. Hyundai’s future hydrogen solutions will supposedly go beyond passenger cars, trucks, and buses to include things such as trams, ships, power generators, and planes.

At its press conference today, the group announced it is working on tech that aims to transform pollutants into clean hydrogen. Hyundai has two approaches for this: Waste-to-Hydrogen (W2H) and Plastic-to-Hydrogen (P2H). W2H involves the fermentation of organic waste (food waste, livestock manure, etc) to generate biogas. This biogas is then treated to capture carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen. P2H involves melting waste plastics that cannot be recycled, gasifying the molten plastics, and then producing hydrogen from this by removing “unnecessary elements”.

The other main focus of Hyundai’s CES announcements was on software, continuing the auto trend we’re seeing this year where new hardware is taking something of a back seat. A new Software-Defined Everything’ (SDX) strategy will focus on, of course, AI.

The SDX strategy inevitably includes software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Apparently, the idea is to “decouple hardware and software” in its cars, leading to better, faster, and wider updates. Such a scheme leaves you wondering if this wasn’t done already, then why wasn’t it? Indeed, the sharing of tech between Hyundai and sister-brand Kia is already extensive, so it is unclear how this new initiative moves things further, though “software-defined fleets for businesses” were mentioned.

Hyundai also said it intends to transform its vehicles into “AI machines” so it can personalize user experiences and deliver “added-value”. But we’ve heard this before many times from other manufacturers. All of them want to do this, but few seem clear on exactly how to do it successfully. Part of the group’s efforts to achieve this involves writing its own software for its user interface and developing a new infotainment system complete with the obligatory app marketplace. And, unlike Volkswagen, which has opted to integrate ChatGPT into its coming cars, Hyundai group is now developing its own LLM to put in its vehicles. All this is going to take time, though, so don’t expect the first software from this initiative to drop until 2026.

With so much focus at CES on TVs and high-end audio, more consumer-friendly audio gear can sometimes go overlooked. Sennheiser is bucking that trend this year with three shiny new headphone models, including the latest iteration of its popular Momentum earbuds, the Momentum True Wireless 4 ($300), the new Accentum Plus over-ears ($230), and a new workout-ready model, the Momentum Sports ($330).

It’s the last of those three that really draws the eye thanks to a rugged design that’s loaded with tech, including built-in sensors to track both your body temperature and heart rate. True wireless earbuds have always been an ideal vehicle for biosensor technology, but manufacturers have largely been moving away from it in recent years, opting instead for more audio-centric features like 3D spatial audio and ever-improving noise canceling.

Sennheiser claims the Momentum Sport “seamlessly” integrates with health apps from devices like the Apple Watch, Garmin Watch, and Peloton. The company also claims the buds are the first third-party product to work with Polar’s biosensing and data analytics. Other features include IP55 dust and water resistance, shock resistance, adaptive noise canceling, and more. We’ll be interested to try all three models, but we’re especially excited to put these pricey new sports buds to the test.

Celestron, one of our favorite telescope makers, is diving into the world of screen-based scopes with the new Celestron Origin. The new startgazer is built around the company’s Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (RASA) optical system. Celestron has developed this imaging system specifically for astrophotography, trying to eliminate the need for complex setups with equatorial mounts and autoguiding for folks who want to take detailed photos of the night sky.

The Origin allows you to explore the stars via the 6.4-megapixel Sony IMX178 color CMOS sensor, which can send images to your smartphone, tablet, or television. A built-in battery means you can run the Origin wherever you are for 6 hours. Yes this means, you can set up the Origin outside and then go relax on the couch, projecting the heavens onto your TV.

Weighing 40 pounds assembled, the Origin is 24 inches long, 26 wide, and 48 inches tall; not huge by telescope standards, but definitely bigger than some. The Origin is $3,999 and is available for purchase now.

One of the major stumbling blocks to EV adoption is how inconvenient it is to charge your electric car. This year, the mobility company Bosch is experimenting with automated valet charging with Volkswagen subsidiary Cariad. In the parking garages where Cariad and Bosch are testing the system, you can indicate to the valet that your car needs charging. The automated valet guides your driverless car to a charging robot that automatically opens the flap and plugs in, topping off the battery while you run errands.

The charging system was shown off during Bosch’s press conference at CES this morning. The company also showed a new IDS heat pump, which is optimized for use in colder climates and should encourage an uptick in energy-efficient heat pump usage.

Bosch also revealed that it’s working on developing a hydrogen engine for later release this year, which converts fuel directly into energy without turning it into electricity first and which Bosch claims will be virtually carbon neutral. The U.S. government has invested heavily in hydrogen infrastructure; you can also take a ride in a hydrogen-powered truck here at CES.

Am I heavily invested in the idea of a carbon-neutral future? Yes. Is the Hindenburg my only reference for a hydrogen-powered vehicle? Also yes.

Just as we were marveling at TCL’s searing new QM8 TVs that claim a peak brightness at an eye-boiling 5,000 nits, the company’s compatriot Hisense upped the ante significantly. At its press conference Monday morning, Hisense showed off the 110UX, an insanely powerful new version of its luxury UX TV that claims to offer a mind-bending 10,000 nits of peak brightness. Yep, you read that correctly, 10,000 nits—doubling TCL’s QM8 and boasting four to five times the peak brightness of most top TVs currently on the market. The television adds other notable specs, including over 40,000 dimming zones for powerful contrast and an advanced color gamut that covers an impressive 95 percent of the highest TV color range standard, BT.2020.

As noted in my post about TCL, a TV’s peak brightness generally refers to only very tiny spectral highlights that appear in quick flashes while watching select content. Still, we’ve only ever encountered this kind of pixel furnace in prototypes of TVs past, which is what makes unveiling a market-ready TV with this much power so intriguing. What will this kind of brightness mean for regular content? Will we be forced to turn the backlighting all the way down just to tame it?

This all remains to be seen, but today marks a significant development for LED display tech as manufacturers continue to push the limits in an attempt to literally outshine rival OLED TVs that trade on their perfect black levels foremost. Hisense’s 110UX is only available in one massive (and expensive) screen size, making TCL’s QM8 a much easier way for most of us to experience next-gen brightness. In either case, it’s going to be exciting when these new TVs begin to arrive this spring – sunglasses required.

My favorite tech category involves cats. Neakasa, known for its pet-grooming vacuums (and regular floor vacuums!), is releasing an automatic litter box. The M1 is more open-top than the globe designs of the other automatic boxes we love, like the Litter-Robot 4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) and Leo’s Loo Too (8/10, WIRED Recommends). That may appeal to cats that are too large or too skittish in a closed design.

All of the best automatic boxes have safety features that stop cleaning cycles if a cat jumps in—and in some cases even get close to it. The M1 has that too but here, the entire shell spins backwards which should cut down on the chance of a cat jumping in at all. The brand says it also cycles slowly to more efficiently get every bit of waste into the drawer. Like the others, it connects to an app for tracking weight and bathroom habits.

Perhaps the most exciting thing should appeal to noses everywhere. Automatic litter boxes make daily life easier, but when you open the drawer after a week or two, the smell is nauseating, worse than anything that comes from regular scooping. Here, pull the drawer open a little bit first, exposing a hook holding the pull tabs of the garbage bag inside. Pull it through, tightening the bag before fully opening the drawer. You’ll likely still smell some—it is literal shit after all—but it should cut down on how intensely it hits you in the face.

The M1 is listed at $499 MSRP on its Indiegogo page. That’s not cheap, but it is less than the $650 and $700 price tags of the aforementioned leaders in the category. It’s set to start shipping to backers around the end of February.

If you have ever wished your lock could see you coming and unlock for you, Lockly’s new Visage smart lock delivers on that dream. It really does see you coming – rather than using geofencing to alert itself that you’re home, the smart lock has a built-in camera that uses facial recognition infrared sensors to recognize your face when you walk up to the door. Lockly says it’s “not a true camera” and can’t take photos or recordings of any kind. (So you’ll still need a video doorbell if you want a live feed or recordings of your front door.) Instead, it uses its sensors to identify faces and “real skin” so that it couldn’t be fooled by a photo or 3D print. Those sensors also mean it should work just as well in low-light situations and won’t need bright floodlights to see who’s at your front door in the dead of night. If you’d rather not use your face to unlock a door, it’ll also be compatible with Apple HomeKey and the Home app, so you can use your iPhone or Apple Watch to tap to unlock it.

The Visage will also be Matter compatible, but it’s still waiting for certification. However, the rest of Lockly’s existing lineup won’t have to wait – instead, users can pair an existing Lockly with the company’s new Matter Link hub. The hub will be available later this year for $80, and work with models including Lockly Plus, Flex Touch, and Access Touch. The Visage will cost $350, and will be available this summer.

In recent years, TCL has gone from budget sideliner to a major player in TV tech, helping to push impressive advancements in brightness and overall picture quality. This year the indisputable star of the TCL show is the company’s latest flagship QM8 series TV, the QM851G, which is claimed to offer a sunbursting, eye-blistering 5,000 nits of peak brightness. For context, most of the brightest TVs available right now reside in the lower 2,000 nits range or just above it, even in the luxury class. TCL is doubling that in a TV that is highly accessible.

It’s important to understand that peak brightness differs from overall brightness, as the very brightest points are revealed only in tiny highlights with HDR content. Still, that’s a whole lotta nits to contend with. The TV matches its powerful backlighting with up to 5,000 dimming zones, for serious control between the darkest and brightest images, and expansive color vibrancy. If that weren’t enough, the company also has a gargantuan 115-inch QM8 model, the QM891, that offers similar brightness specs and up to 20,000 dimming zones. The result will no doubt be a dramatic viewing experience when the TVs arrive this spring from a display TCL is boldly calling the “best TV” of 2024, full stop.

Years after retiring its signature charging case for iPhone, Mophie’s Juice Pack is making a comeback. Available for the iPhone 15 lineup, the batteries range in size depending on the model. The standard iPhone 15 case packs a 2,400 mAh internal battery, while the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max pack a 2,600 mAh and 2,800 mAh internal battery, respectively.

The Juice Pack comes with its Priority+ pass-through charging feature, as with previous versions. So, when you plug your iPhone into a charger, it’ll always charge the phone first and the battery case second—that way, you never have to take your phone out of the case.

And, while battery cases are always super useful (especially for those whose iPhones are always running on low battery), they’re mostly bulky and somewhat unwieldy. According to Mophie, the low profile and soft-touch finish coupled with slightly raised corners, help to create an ergonomic and comfortable hold that will also protect your phone from damage.

The Juice Pack will be available for pre-order starting in late February through Mophie’s site for $100. If you’re looking for additional charging accessories, the company also announced the Snap+ 3-in-1 Stand (which charges your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods simultaneously) for $130 and the Snap+ Wireless Charging Vent Mount for $70 (which magnetically holds your iPhone while it charges in the car)—both of which come with Qi2 support. Both gadgets will be available for purchase in March via Mophie’s site.

Bird Buddy’s smart bird feeder is one of the cutest products we’ve tested and this year, the brand announced a smart perch add-on. The feeder uses AI to determine bird species, and this new perch identifies and tracks individual birds based on unique patterns on their feet, similar to scanning human fingerprints. Now you can name returning visitors, see how often they stop by, and even track their journeys if they happen to go to other Bird Buddy feeders. If you’re curious if the same birds do actually return, I noticed one particular bird with distinctly cute and messy feathers visited my feeder often. There’s no release date yet.

For years, car companies have been loading their vehicles’ cockpits with high-tech screens, automatic driving features, and voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa. Vehicles are just software now, and some of it is very useful, like backup cameras and assisted parking. But other features are mostly just flash. (See Tesla’s now partly recalled autopilot software.) Among the latter are voice assistants and AR features. In-vehicle voice assistants have proved about as useful as that Echo pod on your dresser—good at setting timers and calling people, but frustrating when trying to get an actual question answered or finding quick directions. And AR features bobbing around in your field of vision can prove more distracting and less helpful than just, you know, watching the actual road. Well, this CES, car companies are still revving their engines for this tech nonetheless, and this time, they swear it will be different.

Two automotive giants Volkswagen and BMW—are letting chatbots ride shotgun in new vehicles. Volkswagen announced today that it will soon incorporate the very popular ChatGPT software into its voice assistant into certain models of its all-electric ID series, as well as its new Passat, Golf, and Tiguan models. BMW is getting a voice assistant upgrade of its own in the form of Amazon’s Alexa Large Language Model. In both cases, by pressing a button on the steering wheel or saying a command phrase, drivers can use control settings inside the car, adjust the air conditioning, or answer questions on the fly. Sounds a lot like Alexa now, though the companies are eager to point to all the success generative AI has had over the past year to posit that this voice assistant might finally be different. (It’s unclear whether these programs will be smart enough to accurately decipher the question you’re shouting at them over the roar of the eighteen-wheeler downshifting beside you and the kids bickering in the backseat.)

To keep you even more jacked into the motoverse, BMW also showed off a new set of AR driving glasses at CES. Called the XREAL Air 2, these special spectacles can supposedly key into a vehicle’s sensor data to let drivers and passengers both see information about road hazards, visualize changing navigation instructions, and even watch TV, all in augmented reality while you’re driving. What could possibly go wrong?

The first day of CES is technically tomorrow (Tuesday) which is when the massive expo halls open to the public. But today, the news about new product releases is flowing out rapidly—as evidenced by all the updates we’ve been posting here on the live blog this morning. That’s because Monday, or CES-eve as we call it, is dedicated to press conferences, product demos, and all sorts of events just for the media. There are reporters and photographers here from all around the world to watch the big brands—Sony, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Samsung, LG—debut their latest hardware and lay out their plans for 2024.

Almost every press conference we’ve seen today so far has made mention of artificial intelligence, whether it’s large language models being built into cars, or computer vision being used to guide a robovac around the living room. We expected there to be a tsunami of AI at CES, and so far that prediction is playing out. However, when you see company after company on stage making a case for adding AI capability to its products, you have to stop and wonder why they are all doing this. Is there a real utility to adding machine intelligence to a grill? A dog collar? A Volkswagen? Based on what we’ve seen so far, a lot of the new AI features are underwhelming, and it looks like many of the examples hitting the market are just reactions to industry and investor excitement about AI in consumer tech. But as AI proponents are fond of pointing out, what may seem silly at the start quickly grows more powerful. As the software gets smarter, the hardware becomes more useful.

Maybe just wake me when the AI dog collar starts barking on its own.

Your home is filthy. Despite the fact that you already laid out a couple hundred for a robot vacuum, you probably also need to buy an additional handheld or stick vacuum for spontaneous messes or stray dust balls. If that prospect of adding to your kitchen closet that’s already full of brooms and Swiffers makes you feel ill, Ecovacs is debuting the Deebot X2 Combo, which is a combination robot vacuum, mop, auto-empty station, and handheld stick vacuum.

The X2 itself is an update on the recently released X2 Omni ($1500), which we are currently testing. It’s Ecovacs’ first robot vacuum to introduce square corners. Several other vacuums we’ve tested have had this design, which makes it easier to clean right angles; I’ve never understood why most robot vacuums are round. The base of the stick vacuum recharges right in the auto-empty station. Combining these two cleaning products in one is a fairly ingenious solution to the storage problem, especially in smaller kitchens. It also features a whopping 8000Pa of suction power that seems destined to instantly bald your carpets, along with the highly effective Ozmo Turbo mopping system. It’s also Matter-certified, so it should work with any of your smart home devices (theoretically).

Along with the X2 Combo, Ecovacs is also launching a new window cleaning robot, the Winbot W2 Omni, and a robot lawn mower called the Goat Gx-600. While the company’s naming system leaves something to be desired, we’ve found that Ecovacs makes mostly reliable (if expensive) cleaning robots. We should get our testing samples of the X2 Combo later this year and it will be available for purchase in late March.

Victrola has capitalized on the roaring vinyl trend of late, not only helping to stoke its resurgence but also bringing it into the 21st century with turntables that can stream your stacks of wax wirelessly over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The new Stream Sapphire turntable is the latest example, building off the Stream Carbon Sonos turntable to offer the ability to stream to Sonos speakers, as well as both UPnP and Roon music systems. The new additions should make it easier than ever to play your vinyl collection throughout your home, with no wires attached.

The Sapphire is well-appointed beyond its streaming skills, including the same Ortofon 2M Blue stylus cartridge found in some of our favorite turntables, a low-resonance MDF plinth, and a carbon-fiber tonearm. At $1,500, this turntable isn’t cheap, but its mix of old-school quality and new-school tech should make it a fun option for budding vinyl lovers ready to invest in a whole-home setup when it debuts this spring.