From sex toys to creepy AI talking heads, the CES tech show never fails to disappoint in terms of novel gadgets.
This year, electronics giants like LG and Samsung focused a lot on their transparent TV screens and their futuristic tech for cars, but out on the show floor, there was a heavy focus on home cooking, health, and pets.
DailyMail.com looked for all the gadgets that claimed to be the world’s first – a claim that seemed to be plastered across every other booth at the consumer electronics show.
Here are the 13 most interesting and surprisingly useful ‘world’s firsts’ that we saw:
A TV and streaming service made especially for dogs
Dogsplay is a TV made specifically for dogs. The top-tier monthly subscription includes content personalized for your dog, using cameras embedded in the unit to determine what the dog pays most attention to
‘Dogs are lonely when they’re home alone,’ a representative for the company Dogsplay told DailyMail.com. Many dog owners switch on the TV for their animal to watch while they’re gone.
Dogsplay has made a TV just for dogs that plays content with adjusted color to compensate for dogs’ red-green colorblindness, and adjusted sound to account for the higher-frequencies they can hear.
It’s already available in Korea, and it will be available in the US in January. The unit costs about $800.
Because dogs can also see a higher framerate than people can, the company upped the framerate so the display won’t look like it is flickering.
Dogsplay also creates its own content, videos of dogs playing and other stimulating videos, on the platform the company calls DogFlix. Thirty videos are included for free with the device, and for $5 a month owners can stream unlimited videos.
For 10$, you can get AI-powered recommendations based on what your dog pays the most attention to.
Trippy ‘drug-free’ microdosing headband
The Vizr is like a ‘brain massage,’ the company said. It uses pulses of light to trick your brain into seeing patterns and colors that aren’t there
As I approached the booth for Vizr, a CES attendee was already there testing the company’s product.
He was lying back on a patio lounger, covered in a blanket, with big noise-canceling headphones on and a headband device that flickered lights over his closed eyes.
A sign at the booth read, ‘World’s first drug free microdosing technology.’
I had to try it.
Soon I was lying back and closing my eyes, and a Vizr employee was placing a blanket over me as nine LED lights played over my eyes.
My brain began to fill in the blanks and imagine that these lights were colors.
Not long into the seven-minute experience, I was seeing pulsing spirals and tunnels of colors and shapes. Gentle music played all the while. It was a psychedelic experience without drugs.
As the test session ended, nature sounds brought me back to reality. I felt relaxed, like I had been meditating for 20 minutes or so.
Part of how it works, according to a Vizr employee, is that your brain doesn’t know what to do with the light data coming through your closed eyelids. In an attempt to make sense of it, your brain starts to perceive colors and shapes that aren’t there.
‘We’re taking you on a brainwave journey,’ he told DailyMail.com. And it all happens just through the nine flickering lights, flashing all at once or in patterns.
The device will cost $440 when it’s available in late January. An associated app controls the lights and plays the accompanying music.
Real-time auto-translating headphones
The Mymanu Clik Pro earbuds can display translations for about 50 different languages on the charging case, and play them into your ears in real time
For anyone who’s dreamed of having a personal interpreter, Mymanu’s Clik Pro earbuds will translate for you in real time.
They’ll even work without an internet connection, a company representative told DailyMail.com.
‘You can store up to 10 languages on the device, but you have access to 50-plus languages,’ she said.
Let’s say you arrive in a foreign country on a trip, and you lose wifi as soon as you leave the airport. You don’t speak the local language, but you need to tell a taxi driver how to get to your hotel.
When someone speaks to you while you’re wearing the earbuds, a translation appears on a screen on the side of the charging case, and their message plays through the earbuds in your language.
And when you speak back to them, your message will appear on the screen in their language and play through a speaker – no phone required.
They are the company’s newest earbuds. They sell only on the company’s website and cost $399.
A wireless TV (and yes, it’s REALLY wireless)
The Displace uses an active vacuum pump to keep it attached to the wall. It can run for 180 hours on a single charge, the company claimed
Displace is a TV that is actually truly wireless – unlike LG’s ‘wireless’ TVs that have to be plugged in to an electrical outlet. You can mount it on the wall with the integrated vacuum suction cups, prop it against a tree outside, whatever you want.
Using four hot-swappable lithium-ion batteries, it can run for 180 hours on full brightness, about 6 hours a day for a month.
Active vacuum pumps hold the 20-pound Displace TV on the wall. If the TV loses power, the mounting plate will adhere itself to the wall and gently lower the TV to the ground on a bungee cord
When the batteries die, users can pop them out the side of the screen one by one, and each battery will charge in 5 hours.
While one battery is out, the TV still runs on the others. And the internal backup batteries still give 12 hours of viewing.
The 55-inch OLED 4K model weighs 20 pounds and costs $3,999, and the 27-inch model weighs 10 pounds and costs $1,999.
A new model, the Flex, charges wirelessly on a stand and costs $5,999. The company is taking pre-orders for this newest model and aims to ship in June or July, company representatives said.
The suction cup mount uses an active vacuum pump, but if it detects that the wall has cracked, or if the device runs out of power, it will deploy emergency adhesive pads to the wall and rappel safely to the floor on a bungee cord.
Self-refilling coffee machine that pulls water from air
The Kara Pod is a coffee machine and water dispenser that refills itself by pulling moisture from the air
Kara launched its new device at CES this year, boasting the world’s first coffee machine that doesn’t need to be refilled.
Using silica desiccant, the same material in the little packets in shoeboxes that say ‘DO NOT EAT,’ the machine pulls moisture from the air.
It then heats the silica to evaporate the water out and collect it. This process can generate 3.2 liters per day – seven bottles of water or 18 cups of coffee – a Kara representative told DailyMail.com.
It costs $299 and can dispense coffee, hot water, or room temperature water. It is compatible with Nespresso pods.
Smart multi-keg home tap
OnTap Eco is probably more for restaurants or serious home brewers, but for those who can use it, it saves lots of space
OnTap Eco is a smart tap.
This internet connected tap can dispense drinks from up to 16 different kegs, automatically cleaning itself in between to ensure no cross contamination, CEO Connor Kudirka told DailyMail.com
All the different kegs feed into a manifold inside the machine that switches between them like a telephone switchboard, cleaning out whichever ones aren’t in use with an internal supply of water.
The company will start out by selling kegs of cold brew coffee – about $20 a gallon – and water, which will be delivered to the door in some select California and Arizona markets.
But for restaurants, which seem to be its primary customer, the company advertises that it can be used for beer, kombucha, or anything else that can be served on tap.
The company is currently taking pre-orders for a $25 deposit.
Smart mosquito repellant diffuser
Reptik’s smart mosquito repellant diffuser will be available in the US by the end of the year and cost less than $150, the company’s CEO told DailyMail.com
Made with an undisclosed plant from Senegal, Reptik’s patent-pending mosquito repellant works to keep mosquitoes away for longer than DEET, the main ingredient in most mosquito repellants, the company claimed.
Its new product is a smart diffuser for the repellant, shaped like a dragon’s egg.
A miniature version of the diffuser connects to it wirelessly and measures the local humidity, temperature, and concentration of carbon dioxide – how hospitable the environment is to mosquitoes.
Based on these measurements, the device meters out the right amount of repellant, company representatives told DailyMail.com. One percent of mosquito repellant in the air is enough to keep them away, he said.
Headquartered in the south of France, Reptik is intended to address increased mosquito populations in that area and others.
The plant the repellant is based on had been traditionally used in Senegal to keep mosquitoes out of people’s homes, and insect pests away from crops, said Reptik CEO Doudou Tamba. But because the repellant formula is undergoing patent review, he would not disclose the its contents.
The European patent is expected to be secured by the summer, he said, and the product will be available in the US by the end of the year.
It will cost less than $150, Doudou said.
AI-powered grill that cooks a steak in under 2 minutes
The Seer grill is an AI grill powered by propane infrared burners. The company claims it can cook a steak in under two minutes
The Seer grill can cook a 1-inch-thick ribeye in a minute and 45 seconds, the company claims.
Inside the countertop device, two grills clamp your steak vertically while gas-powered infrared burners heat it from either side.
Select the type of meat and how done you want it on the screen, and the grill starts cooking.
It measures the thickness and weight of the meat, taking these dimensions into account.
An inserted meat probe measures the steak’s internal temperature and feeds it back into the algorithm that adjusts heat, cook time, and the distance between the burners and the meat.
It costs about $3,500, but the grill is not yet cleared for use in the US. So the company is offering $1,000 off for customers who pre-order with a $100 deposit.
They expect to have the grill on sale around October of 2024, a company representative told DailyMail.com
Magsafe earbuds with an ultra-thin case
The magsafe case for the Artronic airbuds can be charged with a standard USB-C. Future versions will include a larger battery pack
The magsafe case for Harmony Studios’ Artronic wireless ear buds is less than half an inch thick.
And if you have a magsafe phone case, it will snap into place and hold on tight.
The Artronic magsafe earbuds are the first of their category, a company representative told DailyMail.com.
They’re not yet for sale, but they will cost about $99 when they are available.
The company used CES as an opportunity to solicit feedback on its product, he said.
One thing future models may have is a larger battery pack to recharge the phone.
Dog food taste testing kit
SaladPet is a home test to determine which types of food your dog likes. It takes two sessions, and it costs about $25
The first year or two of owning a dog can be hard. It can’t tell you which foods it prefers, so many owners end up guessing.
To address this problem, Korean startup Limpid has launched the world’s first pet food taste testing kit called SaladPet
The kit includes seven different types of dog food developed by the company, each with unique characteristics.
‘One is chicken-based, one is beef-based, also variations in kibble sizes are included as well,’ CEO Sangbum Park told DailyMail.com.
An associated app, walks users through the taste testing process: Over the course of two feedings, they record which foods the dog eats, in which order, and how much they finish.
‘At the end you get to know which kind of meat source your dog likes, if it likes duck, beef, more than chicken and salmon,’ Park said. ‘Also, curiosity level and appetite level of your dog, and its preferred kibble size.’
The app recommends commercially available pet foods that fit the bill – including the company’s own brand.
It currently sells in Korea for about $25, and will launch this spring in the US for that price or slightly higher, Park said.
Computer monitor that helps dyslexic people read
The Lili monitor flickers to force dyslexic people’s eyes to focus, overcoming the problem of dual-dominance
At CES this year, French company Lili announced it is launching the world’s first computer monitor specifically for dyslexic people.
Most people have one dominant eye, which they unconsciously favor over the other. But research has shown that people with dyslexia actually have two dominant eyes, causing an overlap of images in the brain when they read.
This makes it difficult for them to read and understand letters.
In most people, one eye is dominant, but when dyslexic people view words on a page or screen, they may see a blurry or doubled image.
To address this, the Lili monitor flickers a little bit to force the user to refocus their vision.
This flicker rate is adjusted by slowing down the screen’s refresh rate below a normal 120 hertz, and it can be tweaked until the user starts to see words clearly. For most people, this is between 60 and 120 hertz of frequency, Lili’s managing director Bertrand Descours told DailyMail.com.
The 27-inch monitor costs about $428, and Lili is currently taking preorders through crowdfunding site KissKissBankBank. They plan to start shipping the monitors in June, Descours said.
Stackable portable chargeable batteries
The Yooatom Origin 800 is a powerstation that can be charged by your own solar panels, or by plugging it into your household outlet
For anyone who wants to generate their own power, or just have some juice on the go, the world’s first modular powerstation lets you charge batteries and carry an outlet with you.
The Yooatom Origin 800 powerstation has multiple battery cylinders in its power stack, which can be added, subtracted, and swapped out depending on how much power you need for a given day.
Company representatives said it’s meant for camping, flying drones, or even shooting movies – anything that requires mobile electricity.
With 200 watts of solar power from your own panels, or plugged into a regular home outlet, the setup charges in 1.9 hours. It can fully charge a laptop 1.4 times or an iPhone 6.4 times, and power a movie projector for 2.5 hours.
The Origin 800 starts at $519.
Fitness tracker that says how much to feed your dog
Ilume’s pet health system tracks how much exercise your dog gets and adjusts its feeding accordingly
For anyone who’s concerned about their dog’s health, Ilume has the world’s first ‘all-in-one pet health system.’
Its main function is to measure your dog’s activity and calculate how much food it needs at each meal.
Using an accelerometer tag that you place on the dog’s collar, it tracks their activity throughout the day.
Based on the dog’s breed and age, as well as what kind of food you use, an app calculates how much food the dog should need at each meal.
The smart bowl will signal with a light when you have put enough food in.
On a day when it ran around for hours, it will suggest more food. And on a day when the dog just lies around the house, it will suggest less.
Over time, it learns your dog’s habits and predicts when it needs to adjust, company representatives told DailyMail.com.
For example, it may learn that on weekends and sunny days your dog runs around a lot more than on weekdays or stormy days.
The device also tracks things like scratching, vomiting, and changes to how the dog walks or runs.
These aren’t for diagnosis, but just to raise a flag if you should get the dog checked out.
The device is about $300, and the subscription service costs $5 a month. It is currently sold direct to consumer from the Australian company, which was looking for US distributors at CES.