Smart locks, veins, and face unlock tradeoffs

2026 is just beginning, and it's already time for the biggest gadget event of the year. As the Verge team heads to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, David and Nilay run through as many of the newly announced products as they can. There are robots, art TVs, phones, more robots, smart Legos, smart home gizmos, and still more robots. Some of this stuff will ship, and might even be a big hit. Some of it, well, won't. But it's all an interesting look into what's happening in tech right now.Also: if you're in Vegas for CES, come see us live! We'll be at the Brooklyn Bowl on Wednesday, January 7th, for live recordings of Decoder and The Vergecast, and we'd love to see you there.

Further reading:

• ⁠This robot companion is a cameraman for your pet ⁠

• ⁠LG says its CLOiD home robot will be folding laundry and making breakfast at CES ⁠

• ⁠SwitchBot brings a humanoid home robot to CES ⁠

• ⁠You can’t buy Zeroth’s WALL-E robot in the US, but you can get its cousin ⁠

• ⁠This startup brought WALL-E to life and will also sell you WALL-E’s weird cousin⁠

• ⁠Kicking Robots, by James Vincent⁠

• ⁠The Clicks Power Keyboard is also a backup battery for your phone ⁠

• ⁠The Clicks Communicator is a BlackBerry for your phone ⁠

• ⁠I just want to keep unfolding the Samsung Z TriFold ⁠

• ⁠The Aliro smart lock standard for NFC and UWB unlocking will launch this year ⁠

• ⁠Lutron adds smart wood blinds to its Caséta line. ⁠

• ⁠Bosch’s fancy coffee machine is getting Alexa Plus ⁠

• ⁠The new Ultraloq smart lock uses both your face and your palm to let you in ⁠

• ⁠Lockin’s new vein-scanning smart lock has a video doorbell and recharges wirelessly ⁠

• ⁠Hands-on with the Mui Board: a wooden smart home controller ⁠

• ⁠The Mui Board will support mmWave sleep tracking and gesture control ⁠

• ⁠You can unlock SwitchBot’s first deadbolt smart lock with your face ⁠

• ⁠Lifx launches a smart mirror and a $30 dimmer switch that can control smart bulbs ⁠

• ⁠Lockly’s new smart locks will support Matter and NFC ⁠

• ⁠GE Lighting’s new Matter-compatible smart shades start at just $300 ⁠

• ⁠The LG OLED evo W6 Wallpaper TV makes its return at CES ⁠

• ⁠RGB is the next big thing in OLED gaming monitors ⁠

• ⁠Belkin’s new HDMI adapter wirelessly connects to screens from 130 feet ⁠

• ⁠LG’s new Gallery TV, designed for displaying art, will be at CES 2026 ⁠

• ⁠Samsung brings back the Timeless Frame with its biggest Micro RGB TV at CES. ⁠

• ⁠TCL debuts a new quantum dot and color filter technology with the X11L ⁠

• ⁠Gemini on Google TV is getting Nano Banana and voice-controlled settings ⁠

• ⁠Amazon announces a Samsung Frame competitor with the Ember Artline TV ⁠

• ⁠Amazon Fire TV OS gets a revamp that’s more modern and pleasing ⁠

• ⁠LG’s new karaoke-ready party speaker uses AI to remove song vocals ⁠

• ⁠Would you let AI cut your hair? ⁠

• ⁠A developer for a ‘major food delivery app’ says the ‘algorithms are rigged against you⁠

• ⁠Lego announces Smart Brick, the ‘most significant evolution’ in 50 years | The Verge⁠

• ⁠Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is now blogging about AI slop ⁠

• ⁠“Feed is dead.” ⁠

• ⁠Adam Mosseri on how Instagram exists in the age of AI-generated images⁠

• ⁠The Trump phone just missed another release date ⁠

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