What surprised us most at CES 2026

But CES always manages to sneak in some surprises, be that as it may He has What was announced? He didn’t do that Trends emerged that no one expected. We’ve rounded up the biggest curveballs at CES 2026 so far.

Motorola has really gotten into a groove with its clamshell-style phones over the past few years. They fit naturally into the Razr heritage, and Moto has done some really fun things with them. Years passed and it seemed like the company was content to focus on foldable phones, but that turned out not to be the case. Almost surprisingly, the book-style fold has Razr branding as well. I think Motorola is ready to move past the nostalgia factor with its brand and embrace the future. — Allison Johnson

Although Asus, Broadcom, and MediaTek Announcing Wi-Fi 8 routers and chipsets At CES 2026, the IEEE 802.11bn successor to Wi-Fi 7 was not fully certified and won’t be until late 2028. However, they plan to start selling devices built on the draft specifications later this year. This is going to be really cutting-edge stuff, and will likely require a firmware upgrade to be compatible with the eventual 2028 standard. We hope it won’t be a repeat “Project-N” failed. It suffered from 2007 to 2009, when 802.11n Wi-Fi specifications changed dramatically over the same two-year time frame, leaving some devices orphaned. — Thomas Ricker

Robot vacuums with arms? You don’t even need to remind me that these things came out in the year 2025. We’re now in the year 2026, and we’re living in the future, a future where robotic vacuum cleaners have legs. The new Saros Rover prototype from Roborock Appendages have been swapped, and the ability to pick up socks has been replaced by some very convincing action. He can climb stairs! This alleviates my biggest worry about releasing my little robot vacuum near stairs covered in cat hair: that it will fall to its death (which, ironically, I’ll have to clean up with a different vacuum). Like my colleague Jennifer Pattison Toohey, I’m also looking forward to when Roborock can get its arms and legs on the robot vacuum. — Cameron Faulkner

CES is always a showcase for big TVs, but it was also a way to see the more reasonable TVs we should expect in the following year. In 2025, TCL came out of the gate with the QM6K — the least expensive of the QM line — teased the QM7K, and LG showed off a G5 with all-new OLED panel technology (even if we… Panasonic needed to confirm what it was), Samsung and Hisense both showcased a range of reasonably sized TVs. There was a lot for ordinary consumers to look forward to. But this year was almost exclusively dedicated to big, expensive TVs. Sure, Amazon is showing off the affordable Ember Artline, LG has the C6 and G6 on the ground, and a bunch of people will be buying the Wallpaper TV. But companies don’t focus on collections that people can actually afford. We have no info from Hisense, TCL put the QM8L on the floor with no info, Sony TVs are absent (as usual) from CES, and Samsung focused on larger RGB LEDs instead of smaller sizes. It’s fun to be ambitious, but it’s also good to know your options for a new, more reasonable TV. — John Huggins

I expected this to come at some point, but not at CES this year. Samsung had a demo of Foldable width without creasingWhich means we may be getting closer to foldable phones that ordinary consumers will actually buy. Why this matters: Samsung provides displays for Apple devices, and Bloomberg reported in November Apple’s foldable iPhone is scheduled to launch sometime in the fall. said Samsung, which pulled the demo from its booth at CES Edge The screen at CES was an R&D concept with no current timeline or plan for commercialization. However, I think Apple will not release a foldable phone until the crease becomes invisible. So, this was probably our first look at that screen. – Todd Haselton

CES was one of the largest auto shows in the world. But this year, cars have been replaced by chatbots and humanoid robots. Hyundai, one of the largest sellers of electric vehicles, has introduced a production version of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot. BMW has announced that it will integrate Alexa Plus. Mercedes has unveiled its new Nvidia-powered driver assistance system. The only concept car to appear on stage was Sony and Honda’s Afeela SUV – and this one was from a company that hadn’t sold any cars yet. CES was a showcase for weird animatronic machines, but there it was Noticeable absence this year. Blame it on the EV slump, business anxiety, or something else. Let’s hope next year we can get back to cars. — Andrew J. Hawkins