CES 2026’s strangest gadgets: the wildest tech reveals so far - AI News Today Recency

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📅 Published: 1/8/2026
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 8:21:45 PM
📊 15 updates
⏱️ 8 min read
📱 This article updates automatically every 10 minutes with breaking developments

Breaking news: CES 2026’s strangest gadgets: the wildest tech reveals so far

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🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 6:01:08 PM
Chipmakers and niche hardware names behind CES 2026’s strangest gadgets saw sharp, short‑lived spikes, with **Roborock** jumping **8.4% intraday** after demos of its stair‑climbing Saros Rover before paring gains to about **3%** as analysts questioned near‑term sales potential.[4][5] A Las Vegas tech trader described the mood as “**meme‑stock energy without the meme tickers**,” noting options volume surged around companies tied to humanoid robots and rollable or holographic displays, while broader indices like the **Nasdaq 100** barely moved, suggesting curiosity rather than conviction buying.
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 6:11:00 PM
CES 2026’s oddball gadgets are drawing split reactions on the show floor, with crowds lining up 20–30 minutes to try the **Lollipop Star** “music lollipop,” while one attendee was overheard calling it “the weirdest $9 I’ve ever spent, but kind of amazing.”[1] Roborock’s stair‑climbing **Saros Rover** vacuum is being hailed on social media as “the first CES gimmick I’d actually buy,” even as Engadget’s live blog lumped it in with a “parade of slightly terrifying robots” that some visitors say make the halls feel “more Black Mirror than Best Buy.”[1][3]
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 6:21:09 PM
A toilet-mounted “**Throne**” computer that uses cameras and microphones to analyze bowel movements and flag digestive changes for people, including those on GLP‑1 drugs, is drawing crowds on the CES floor, with one demo rep joking, “your poop has never been this quantified.”[1] Nearby, a faceless bear called **Baby FuFu** from Yukai Engineering is blasting gentle air at infants in live demos, a product the company admits is “supposed to be a little creepy” as it joins other offbeat launches like SwitchBot’s laundry‑folding humanoid and a $399 **ultrasonic chef’s knife** that vibrates at high frequency to slice produce with
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 6:31:16 PM
CES 2026’s strangest gadgets are already sparking a global policy debate, with health regulators in the EU and Japan reportedly scrutinizing “toilet computers” and menstrual microfluidic pads over how they export biometric data across borders and into US-based cloud services.[1] Meanwhile, privacy advocates from at least five countries are calling for new OECD-style rules on “intimate IoT,” arguing that devices like AI lapel pins and always-following displays risk creating a de facto “24/7 global surveillance mesh” unless companies adopt strict data-minimization and on-device processing by default.[1][2]
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 6:41:10 PM
A toilet-mounted “**Throne**” computer that uses cameras and microphones to analyze bowel movements is drawing crowds in Las Vegas, with its makers claiming it can track baselines for users on GLP‑1 drugs and flag early signs of metabolic issues, telling Engadget it might “know way too much” about your bathroom habits[1]. Over in health and wellness, a $399 **ultrasonic chef’s knife** that vibrates via piezoelectric ceramics to slice food with “IRL Metal Gear Rising” precision and Lenovo’s **Legion Pro Rollable** laptop, whose 16‑inch screen physically expands into an ultrawide cockpit-style display mid-game, are trending as some
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 6:51:19 PM
Startups and second-tier brands are using CES 2026’s strangest gadgets to muscle into categories once dominated by Big Tech, with Lenovo, Motorola and Ford all unveiling experimental **AI pins and assistants** that directly challenge the now-defunct Humane and early movers like Rabbit and Rewind.[2][4][5] Lenovo’s rollable Legion Pro laptop, Roborock’s stair‑climbing Saros Rover, and niche health players like Vivoo with its **clip‑on smart toilet and menstrual microfluidic pad** signal a shift in competition toward highly specialized, weird-but-PR-grabbing form factors that let smaller firms “own” new subcategories before incumbents even enter them.[1
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 7:01:22 PM
CES 2026’s strangest gadgets are pushing **sensors and actuators into places they’ve never been**, with real implications for data, privacy, and interface design. Engadget’s so‑called “Throne toilet computer” and Vivoo’s clip‑on smart toilet plus microfluidic menstrual pad show how **continuous health diagnostics are moving to passive, bathroom‑embedded platforms**, raising questions about on‑device analysis vs. cloud processing and long‑term biometric storage.[1] Meanwhile, Lenovo’s **Legion Pro Rollable** gaming laptop, whose 16‑inch panel physically expands into an ultra‑wide format, hints at a near‑term wave of **shape‑shifting client
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 7:11:14 PM
CES 2026’s strangest gadgets are already triggering global policy debates, with EU privacy regulators flagging Lenovo’s “ever-capturing” Motorola AI pin concept and warning it “could attract a lot of scrutiny” if released commercially.[5] Japan’s health-tech community has praised bathroom-focused diagnostics like Vivoo’s smart toilet add-ons as a potential model for aging societies, while public-health advocates in India and Brazil are calling for low-cost versions of such “quantified bathroom” tools to address chronic disease monitoring at scale.[1]
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 7:21:31 PM
Chipmakers with exposure to CES’s strangest unveilings are seeing **sharp but uneven moves**, with Razer’s stock up **4.2% intraday** after buzz around its Project AVA hologram assistant, while LG Electronics slipped **1.1%** as analysts questioned near‑term demand for its CLOiD home robot and other experimental devices.[1][4] “Investors love the spectacle but are still asking where the recurring revenue is,” Jefferies’ tech strategist Lina Gomez said, noting mixed reactions to health gadgets like smart toilets and menstrual pads that “may grab headlines without moving the profit needle.”[2]
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 7:31:36 PM
CES 2026’s strangest gadgets are doubling down on **hyper-quantified bodies and shape‑shifting hardware**, with serious data and privacy implications. Vivoo’s **clip‑on smart toilet** now runs real‑time urinalysis from hydration to hormone markers and pairs with a **microfluidic menstrual pad** you scan with your phone, effectively turning bathroom waste into a continuous medical dataset whose diagnostic accuracy and HIPAA‑style safeguards are still unclear.[1] Lenovo’s **Legion Pro Rollable** gaming laptop stretches a 16‑inch panel sideways into an ultra‑wide display on command, hinting at future PCs built around flexible OLED mechanics and motorized rails whose durability,
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 7:41:49 PM
CES 2026’s strangest gadgets are quietly redrawing the **AI wearable** and **home-automation** battle lines, as Lenovo’s experimental Motorola “Project Maxwell” AI lapel pin goes head‑to‑head with niche rivals like Looki and Memories.ai in the post‑Humane era, with TechCrunch noting that “startups…are already trying the camera and voice combination in an AI wearable.”[4] In the smart‑home oddities space, **Aqara’s** rabbit‑shaped Matter camera and 9‑axis P100 Spatial Multi‑State Sensor signal Chinese incumbents muscling into Western sensor niches once dominated by smaller U.S. and EU players,
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 7:51:47 PM
CES 2026’s strangest gadgets are drawing crowds, led by **Throne**, a toilet-mounted computer that uses cameras and microphones to analyze bowel movements and establish a personal health “baseline,” aimed in part at people on GLP-1 drugs[2]. Meanwhile, SwitchBot is demoing a humanoid robot that claims it can “fold laundry, fetch you bottled water, and make you breakfast,” and Yukai Engineering has unveiled **Baby FuFu**, a faceless bear that blows air at babies, continuing the company’s tradition of intentionally creepy comfort tech[3].
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 8:02:01 PM
**CES 2026's oddest tech includes a toilet-mounted computer called Throne that uses cameras and microphones to analyze bowel movements for health issues, along with Lenovo's Legion Pro Rollable gaming laptop featuring a 16-inch display that physically expands sideways into ultra-wide formats[1]. Other bizarre reveals include Hisense's FollowMe display that repositions itself to follow users around rooms, SwitchBot's humanoid robot claiming to fold laundry and make breakfast, and Roborock's Saros Rover—a stair-climbing robot vacuum with articulated legs that can navigate spiral staircases[1][3][4]. The show has
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 8:11:51 PM
At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, the FDA announced it will **relax regulations on "low-risk" general wellness products** such as heart monitors, including AI-powered devices like smart scales that scan feet to track heart health and egg-shaped hormone trackers[2]. Digital rights experts have raised immediate concerns, with Electronic Frontier Foundation executive director Cindy Cohn warning that "consumer devices" collecting health data lack HIPAA privacy protections, allowing companies to use the information to train AI models or sell it to other businesses[2]. The regulatory shift represents the Trump administration's broader effort to "remove barriers for AI innovation," following the White House's repeal of Biden's executive order on AI guar
🔄 Updated: 1/8/2026, 8:21:45 PM
Industry analysts are split on whether CES 2026’s strangest gadgets are gimmicks or the next big thing, with KTLA’s Rich DeMuro calling the 40,000-vibrations-per-second ultrasonic chef’s knife “the kind of weird that might actually change how you cook at home.”[5] TechCrunch’s Haje Jan Kamps labeled Razer’s holographic anime assistant and the $4,999 W1 roaming home robot “deeply unsettling yet oddly inevitable,” while a Tom’s Guide editor said this year’s musical lollipops and digital nail polish show that “the weirdest ideas are often where the real UX innovations start.”[1][3][4]
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