CES 2026 is over – and a weary TechRadar team is now back home recovering with their AI emotional support pets.
It was another monster of a tech show, and we’ve already picked the 25 best gadgets we saw at this year’s CES. But what about the bigger picture stuff? What tech trends did we see that give us a taste of what we’ll see over the next twelve months?
1. Foldables will go creaseless
BREAKING！Samsung showcased a foldable display with no visible crease at CES 2026.The panel looks excellent in terms of overall quality and also adopts under-display camera technology. Most importantly, there is no crease at all.This display technology is expected to be used… pic.twitter.com/BuL1gke9AZJanuary 6, 2026
Phones don’t traditionally have a big presence at CES these days, but Samsung bucked that trend this year by showing off its creaseless folding OLED display.
While it was only a tech demo, it was still a big deal. A folding screen that’s completely smooth and blemish-free when unfolded has been a holy grail for foldables for the past seven years. Ironically, the rumored iPhone Fold could be the main beneficiary.
The rumors suggest Apple could be the first to use this new OLED screen later this year because the panel has been made by Samsung Display (a separate entity from Samsung). Unfortunately, it’s likely to be very expensive, which is why we’ve argued that, for Android foldable fans, seeing it debut on the iPhone Fold could still be a blessing in disguise.
2. It will be the year of RGB LED TVs
At CES 2025 last year, it became clear that RGB LED backlighting was the next big thing in TVs – and at this year’s show, we got a good glimpse of the sets that are actually going to hit the market.
What exactly is this new tech? The tech giants all have their own names for it, with Samsung and LG both calling the tech ‘Micro RGB’, and Hisense and TCL going for RGB MiniLED. But the big benefits across the board are a wider range of colors plus improved brightness (or the same brightness as today with lower energy use).
You can read our in-depth guide to RGB TVs for the full low-down, but the standout at CES 2026 was Samsung’s 130-inch Micro RGB TV. After encountering one at the show, we described it as a beautiful beast of a TV, with the only downside being that it’s just a showpiece right now. Still, it features the same tech as you’ll find in Samsung’s Micro RGB TV lineup, which will arrive in 55- to 115-inch screen sizes, so start saving.
3. We’ll all get AI emotional support pets
From SwitchBot’s KATA Friends to Ecovacs’ LilMilo, AI-powered pets were all over CES this year. Most can respond to gestures and petting, follow you about with lifelike eyes, recognize your voice, and some can even tell what kind of mood you’re in.
AI gives them a personality and enables them to learn as you play with them. While they can definitely be seen as toys – most have the option to purchase natty outfits and accessories, like a souped-up Build-A-Bear – many brands stress that they can have real value as emotional support companions, providing company and comfort for those who perhaps can’t have a real pet.
We certainly found them surprisingly easy to form a bond with. And while some have Funzo from The Simpsons vibes, we reckon a large number of people will welcome a furry, AI-powered pet into their lives this year.
4. AI wearables will become your second brain
AI hardware has been something of a flop so far – remember the Rabbit R1 from CES 2024, or the poor Humane AI Pin? But that didn’t stop tech giants from cooking up more contenders at this year’s CES, and they all had one thing in common.
The big theme was AI wearables that want to be your second brain. For example, the Pebble Index O1, a smart ring that lets you add notes to your calendar, transcribe notes and more. Or the Switchbot AI Mindclip, a little lapel pin (yes, another one) that records and summarizes conversations.
This is clearly the direction of travel for AI gadgets in 2026. There were dozens of other examples – from the Lenovo‘s pendant-housed Qira assistant to Anker‘s Soundcore Work – and we’ve separately heard that OpenAI’s mysterious ChatGPT gadget could take the form of an AI-powered pen. Will we actually buy these things? That’s harder to say, but we certainly won’t be short of options this year.
5. Lawnbots will get LiDAR eyes
Robot lawn mower navigation capabilities have come a long way in the past few years, and the new hot tech making its way to your yard in 2026 is LiDAR.
It works by bouncing beams of light off static objects to create a 3D map of a space, and is already the standard in the best robot vacuums. In smaller yards with plenty of objects to bounce off, it’s a great way of delivering accurate navigation without the need to rely on good satellite signal.
Pretty much every lawnbot brand we saw at CES 2026 – from Segway Navimow to Mammotion and Roborock – was showcasing at least one LiDAR-based model, so expect the tech to become the norm this year.
6. ‘Longevity’ will be the new health-tracking buzzword
‘Longevity’ may not sound like the most inspiring fitness aim, but it was biggest health tech buzzword at CES 2026.
Firstly, there was the NuraLogix Longevity Mirror, which can pull a huge number of metrics – including your physiological age and more – just from looking at your poor, tired January face. Naturally, it does that through a combination of AI wizardry and a built-in camera.
Then there was the Withings Body Scan 2, a set of smart scales that promises to be your ‘longevity station’. To support that claim, it tracks over 60 biomarkers – from your hypertension risk to artery health and metabolic efficiency – to predict your long-term health.
Not everyone will want to see their health dissected in such ruthless detail, but if you do there’ll be an army of accessories willing to give you a glimpse into your fitness future.
7. Smart glasses will go truly mainstream
With only a couple of false starts along the way, CES 2026 is where smart glasses seemed to finally go mainstream – as everyone and their aunt had a pair of specs to debut. Expect them to truly take off this year.
We covered several in our best smart glasses of CES roundup – with highlights including the Asus ROG Xreal R1 AR with 240Hz refresh rate for gamers, and RayNeo’s Project eSIM teasing the first truly phoneless smart glasses.
What really made smart glasses feel like a major trend of the show, however, were all the other glasses we couldn’t squeeze into our round up, because it would otherwise have been a mile long. We even got a major Meta Ray-Ban Display update as part of CES, though it wasn’t all good news.
8. Intel will mount a major fightback
The past couple of years haven’t been great for Intel. While the company has long been the market leader when it comes to processors, its seen its dominance threatened by Apple ditching its products for its own Arm-based M-series chips, a resurgent AMD getting plenty of critical and commercial acclaim for its rival products, and Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon chips becoming ever more popular in laptops.
So, it was great to see the company come out swinging with its new Panther Lake mobile processors, also known as the Intel Core Ultra Series 3. From what we’ve seen it could be Intel’s best chance to fight back thanks to improved performance, better power efficiency (for longer battery lives) and integrated graphics.
To prove that point, CES saw the likes of Dell, Asus, Acer and Lenovo all launch laptops powered by Intel’s new chips. 2026 could be the year Intel fights back.
9. Solid-state batteries will be tantalizingly close
Another big buzzword you’ll hear a lot in 2026 will be ‘solid-state batteries’ – and while the next-gen battery tech is exciting, you can also expect to see a lot of smoke and mirrors.
The big announcement at CES 2026 was Verge Motorcycles announcing that it will become the first manufacturer to put an all solid-state battery into production “in the coming months”. If that’s true, it’d be a real game-changer – and promises to unlock electric motorcycle figures like 370 miles on a charge, with a 10-minute top up providing an extra 186 miles of range.
Exciting stuff in theory, but we’ll be waiting to see how this plays out before getting too excited. On a similar theme, we’ve also recently heard about semi-solid state battery packs (which use a gel-like electrolite substance) arriving for phones, promising improved safety and greater longevity. If you’re an early adopter of new battery tech, 2026 could be your year.
10. Retro tech will give us our attention back
If you think the golden age of tech was around CES 2012, then you’ll be heartened to know that retro tech was out in full force at this year’s show – and it wasn’t just about nostalgia.
Some of these throwbacks – the Blackberry-style Clicks Communicator (above), for example – are about wrestling your attention back from endless doomscrolling by offering a modern tech experience, but with the guardrails of simplicity.
The Clicks Communicator is all about productivity and hammering away on its physical keyboard, while the new Pebble Round 2 (which ships in May) is a smartwatch that isn’t too smart, thanks to its color e-paper display and seven days of battery life.
Naturally, there was tons of other nostalgia tech at CES 2026 – from Stern Pinball machines to My Arcade’s new mini Sega arcade machines (we’ll take the Streets of Rage one, thanks). But it’s the ‘anti-brain rot’ gadgets, like mini ereaders, that will be the real tech trend of 2026.
11. Humanoid robots will try (and fail) to enter our homes
Robots are a CES staple, but this year they were particularly keen to be center stage. Unfortunately, they only really managed to prove that they’re still not quite ready for prime-time in 2026.
On the first day of CES 2026 we watched LG’s CLOiD robot take what felt like hours to to put a single wet towel into a self-opening washing machine, while later we met the SwitchBot Onero H1 (below) and saw it attempt to do some laundry with very mixed results.
In many ways, this year’s CES was a helpful real-world antidote to the hype we’ve seen lately around humanoid robots like the 1X Neo. The latter costs $20,000 (or $499-a-month) and, for the many tasks it can’t manage autonomously, you have to let an X1 employee remotely guide it through the chore.
Robotics has made incredible strides in the last decade and will continue to do so in 2026 (expect to see a lot more humanoid hype). But the dream of a robot butler still seems a way off, and for now the smart money is on robot vacuums with legs and arms filling the gap.
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mark.wilson@futurenet.com (Mark Wilson)
