All the cool gadgets that made me sad I didn’t go to CES 2025

I didn’t go to CES 2025, and under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t miss the 10-hour flight clutching hand luggage packed to the brim with lip balm and moisturizer or the endless traipsing around casinos once I’d arrived. But watching the event from afar this year did give me more than just a twinge of FOMO.

I saw peers and colleagues find gadgets that not only looked fun (usually the best part of CES) but also devices I really want to own in the future. Here are seven that caught my eye, along with one thing that irritated me quite a lot.

Plantaform Smart Indoor Garden

Whether it’s my love of weird sci-fi like Silent Running, YouTube channels like AntsCanada, or the fact I’m terrible at remembering to water my indoor plants, Plantaform’s Smart Indoor Garden really captured my attention.

It’s apparently self-cleaning and self-watering, which suits my hands-off approach to my poor indoor plants at the moment, and the combination of colored lights and fog inside will ensure it meets my sci-fi design expectations.

I don’t want to grow vegetables or herbs in it, but ornamental plants and flowers instead. I like tech products that are also talking pieces, and because the Smart Indoor Garden is gigantic, no one who comes into my house will miss it.

Nekojita FuFu

Japanese robotics company Yukai Engineering makes wonderful products, from the delightful Qoobo tailed cushion to the unusual Amagami Ham Ham, and I was very sad not to see its latest creation, Nekojita FuFu, in person. In true Yukai Engineering fashion, it solves a problem you didn’t know you had in a very endearing way. The cute cat-like robot has an internal fan that cools down hot drinks and food, and as a fan of coffee, cats, and robots, I’d quite like one, please.

LG AeroCat Tower

One thing that does concern me about the Plantaform Smart Indoor Garden is my recently arrived kitten gaining access to it, so I will try to turn its attention toward a new gadget made especially for it. LG’s AeroCat Tower is an air purifier with health-tracking tech for your cat.

There are two platforms — one for sleeping and one for sitting on — that have sensors for weight and sleep tracking, and it’s controlled using LG’s ThinQ app. While I like the idea of multi-use gadgets, I’m pretty certain my kitten will ignore it entirely, based on how it ignores most of the things I’ve bought it already.

Samsung Ballie

Samsung’s ball-shaped robot has been a mainstay of CES for several years, and apparently it’s now almost ready for release. I’ve been hankering after a robotic companion for a while, and Samsung says it’ll be out in 2025. I knew I should have held off getting a kitten instead, just for a short while longer. Ballie is part AI companion, part house robot, and part petsitter, so I’m sure I’ll still find a place for it in my life. If only it did the vacuuming, too.

Amazfit V1tal

Leaving privacy issues aside, the Amazfit V1tal really does seem to solve the problem of remembering to log your meals in a health app. The camera watches you eat, and the software analyzes your food intake before breaking it down into calories and macros in an app. I’ve never been bothered to log my food, but I do think it would be beneficial. Get past the camera-watching-you-shovel-food-into-your-mouth weirdness, and the V1tal has a lot of potential.

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6

I have absolutely no need for the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, but every time I see the 14-inch screen unroll to become a 16-inch tall screen, I smile. It’s silly, not especially helpful, and I bet I’d end up only using the small screen after a while, but it’s pure CES fun, and everyone who sees it will undoubtedly say, “Wow!” It’s apparently going to be released later this year, and I can’t wait to pair it with the Motorola Rizr and live the rollable life.

PocketBook InkPoster

I have a fairly large, blank expanse of wall in my home that’s crying out for some art, but I can’t decide on what to put there. My indecision would be solved with the PocketBook InkPoster, a massive 31.3-inch E Ink “poster” that has a library of images already installed, or you can use your own. It uses a battery so there’s no need to conceal any wires, there’s no backlight, and E Ink closely replicates the look of paper, so it won’t look like a screen on the wall. The trouble is, the 31.3-inch version costs $1,700 and I have a feeling I’ll need two.

One thing irritated me

What list would be complete without a product that I didn’t like? It’s not that I dislike BMW’s Panoramic iDrive dashboard; it just disappoints me. Car interior design centered around multiple screens just isn’t very interesting to look at, but worse is if you remove the BMW badge from the steering wheel — there is absolutely nothing that says it’s a BMW interior at all.

Lately, car brands seem intent on stripping away all the individual, defining aspects associated with them, resorting to faceless “high-tech” interiors that look as boring as they do annoying to use. The Sony Honda Mobility Afeela suffers in the same way. It’s all forgettable, lifeless, and entirely uninspiring.

But as the interior design in cars I’ll never buy are the only things that irritated me from CES 2025, I’d say it looked like a pretty good show, and I was sad to miss out on seeing all these things in person.