Gl.inet made its name with mobile routers—we loved the Spitz 4G LTE router—but now the company is getting into home routers with the new Marble, which it’s showing off here at CES. The Marble is a router hiding behind an 8×10 picture frame. You mount the router to the back, slide in your favorite image, and then either hang it out the wall or stand it up on a flat surface. That’s right, a router that doesn’t look like some tiny alien ship landed in your living room. The frame is optional, you can just set up the router by yourself. If you’re boring like that.

Aside from aesthetics, the main appeal to the Marble is the OpenWRT firmware that comes with it. OpenWRT is an open-source Linux operating system for routers and other embedded devices. The list of features is staggeringly long, but highlights include everything from Mesh networking and load balancing to IP tunneling. Its main appeal is to networking geeks like myself, who love to have full control over their network.

Gl.inet’s Marble puts all that power in a nice, clean white device that hides itself away. We’re still waiting on the price and Gl.inet says it should be available in “Q2 2024.”

Eye strain and mental fatigue are familiar hazards for anyone who stares at screens all day, which is most of us. AdHawk Microsystems says its new eye-tracking glasses, the MindLink Air, can help. Available in three styles, various colors, and with prescription lenses, these glasses rely on tiny micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS, to 3D model your eye and track its movements. No camera is necessary and the glasses weigh in at just 40 grams with a 290 mAh battery and sensors in the temples.

Your eye data is captured thousands of times a second and appears in a wealth of charts on the companion Android or iOS app. This data can be used to determine when a break is needed, flag mental fatigue, and highlight your peak mental performance periods. Dr. Neil Sarkar, the company’s CEO, told us the hope is that after establishing a personal baseline, the glasses will highlight changes in cognitive function or eye health that could help you seek any necessary treatment early, much the same way as your smartwatch or fitness tracker might flag a heart issue.

Until now, these glasses have been the preserve of researchers, and have been used extensively for things like pilot training and assessments. Eye-tracking also has major applications in gaming and the growing field of mixed reality. Intel, Sony, and Samsung have all invested in AdHawk Microsystems, and it’s easy to imagine these sensors being integrated into the next generation of smart glasses. But would you be willing to drop a few hundred dollars on eye-tracking glasses today? You can register an interest at the website and they are expected to start shipping sometime this spring.

TP-Link has a massive and growing stable of smart home products and has revamped its Tapo app with a fresh new look to wrangle them. The Tapo app will now handle Tapo security cameras, robot vacuums, smart switches, and more. You can even add and control Kasa devices (TP-Link’s other smart home brand) in the Tapo app now. The new Tapo for Pad app enables you to mirror your in-home device layout and link gadgets for easier automation. TP-Link also unveiled the Smart HomeBase Tapo H500, a Matter-compatible smart home hub with onboard AI that can connect up to 16 cameras and 64 sensors. It has 16GB of storage (expandable to 16TB) for local recording and supports ONVIF.

Speaking of devices, TP-Link has too many new 2024 releases to mention, but a few highlights caught our eye. The Tapo C402 Kit, Tapo Wire-Free MagCam Kit, and Tapo C428 Kit are a range of security cameras with solar panels. The headlining C428 boasts 2K resolution and a larger sensor for high-quality color night vision, but all three cameras offer onboard AI. If you prefer to shed light on the scene, the Tapo C720 is a powerful floodlight camera that goes up to 2,800 lumens. Two new video doorbells on the horizon, the D225 and the D210, offer local storage and don’t require a subscription.

TP-Link isn’t resting there because the Tapo RV20 Plus and RV30 Plus are new LiDAR robot vacuums that can automatically empty themselves. And there is a whole line of Matter-certified smart switches, dimmers, and smart plugs. TP-Link also has new Tapo sensors to detect motion, water leaks, and track temperature and humidity.

The Weber Summit Smart Gas Grill is an internet-connected smokestack that aims to take all the guesswork out of grilling. The gas-powered stove automatically adjusts the temperature to ensure proper rareness. You can choose to warm your meat with direct or indirect heat, and the Summit will show you exactly where on the grill to place it to achieve your desired results. The bulk of the unit is knob-free—control everything via a screen that’s sure to get BBQ sauce smeared all over it. A connected Weber app will send your phone constant updates about your meal. Also use it to monitor fuel levels and even switch the grill off from your phone. The Weber Summit comes in stainless steel or ceramic variants and starts at $3,899—a high price to ensure you never burn a brisket.

CES has just gotten underway, but we’ve already seen some dramatic TV trends, particularly when it comes to screen brightness. First, TCL’s new QM8 TV flexed 5,000 nits of peak brightness, more than doubling the brightest TVs we tested last year. Not to be outdone, Hisense literally doubled down, unveiling the market-ready 110UX TV with up to 10,000 nits peak brightness. As we shade our eyes in anticipation of these new screens, there’s another point worth noting about both: they’re humungous.

As its name implies, the 110UX comes in at 110 inches, while TCL’s largest QM8, the QM891, is a whopping 115 inches. Those TVs aren’t alone. From LG’s 97-inch G4 and wireless M4 OLED TVs to Samsung’s run of 98-inch 8K and 4K Neo QLEDs, it seems virtually every TV maker is going big this year. That’s not to mention more traditional big-screen options like Samsung’s 150-inch compatible short throw projector, The Premiere.

Think 100-inch TVs are only for sultans and tech titans decking out their megayachts? That, too, seems to be changing. TCL’s new QM7 TV will be the first of the brand’s new mid-tier options available at up to 98 inches while its entry-level S Class TVs stretch to 85 inches. Similarly, Hisense will offer its middle-range U76N at 100 inches, claiming last year’s 100-inch U8K TV was one of its “fastest-selling models to date.”

That’s not to say this burgeoning era of ultra-sized screens will be cheap, mind you, and we’re still waiting on final pricing for most models. That said, if you’re willing to make some compromises on screen quality, 2024 is already shaping up to be the best year yet for those seeking a monstrous TV that doesn’t cost more than your car. Just getting it in your car (or through your front door) is a different issue.

We were impressed by the Ultrahuman Ring Air (7/10, WIRED Recommends), a subscription-free smart ring that tracks your activity and sleep, but the company’s follow-up is something of a surprise. The Ultrahuman Home is a kind of hub device designed to track your living space. It measures a smorgasbord of environmental factors, including sunlight levels, particulate matter, noise exposure, and humidity. It connects via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, promises on-device processing to protect your privacy, and includes a smoke sensor as an additional safety feature.

The idea of combining individual health tracking with environmental measurements is an interesting one, but much depends on what actionable insights the Ultrahuman Home can offer. The Ring Air outputs a wealth of data and offers a handful of suggestions throughout the day, but changing your environment could prove more challenging than modifying your activity. The Ultrahuman Home will also, presumably, be limited to the immediate space where you plug it in, but few of us sleep, work, and play in the same room. Just like the ring, Ultrahuman’s Home is subscription-free. It will cost $349 for pre-order, with shipping expected in July.

Nanoleaf and its wall lighting panels have been around for a while, but Nanoleaf’s newest product is moving onto a different wall: your ceiling. The Skylight is designed to give you an “open-air” feel into your home with lighting panels overhead that can emit a variety of whites and colors.

The Skylight panels are a little larger than Nanoleaf’s popular Shapes Kit, coming in at a little under 12 inches on each side, compared to the 9-inch hexagons or larger triangles. But it’s pricier: Skylight only comes with three panels for $250. Each additional panel costs $70. It’s also harder to install since Nanoleaf recommends hardwiring these into your ceiling, instead of just plugging them into an outlet. You only need to hardwire one square in, though, as it’s a modular system that can build on the original panel nearly in any configuration you’d like on your ceiling.

Like Nanoleaf’s other products, it can connect to larger smart home platforms for easy control and sync with music—we’ve found that the response time to music works better the closer it is to the speaker, so your mileage may vary more than usual with the Skylight up on the ceiling.

The first day of this year’s CES is winding down now. After a full day of press conferences and media-only demos, we’re going into power-saving mode so we can recharge for tomorrow. We’ll hit pause on this here live blog for now and pick things up in the morning. Tuesday is when the CES expo halls open to the public, so it’s going to be a big day. Come back around 8 am Pacific, 11 am Eastern for more chatty cars, sentient bots, and televisions too big to fit through your front door.

The highs of Sony’s press conference were very high, and its lows were extremely weird. The company’s film and TV studios have had a killer year—The Last of Us alone is up for eight Emmys next week—and the majority of tonight’s presentation was on technology and platforms to support emerging creators, like a native digital birth certificate on photos to prevent disinformation. I was also very excited to be reminded of the upcoming God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn TV series.

We saw tantalizing glimpses of hardware, like sensors for creators to work in 3D on the PSVR2, or a mobile device for the PS5 a la the Steam Deck, but both were presented without further elaboration.

The Afeela, Sony’s smart car, is just getting weirder and weirder. I’m just not sure about the car as a “digital entertainment space” or as a platform for creativity; when I’m driving, I don’t have the particular need to call upon the powers of Unreal Engine to pretend I’m cruising through a land of dinosaurs. Sony is now collaborating with Microsoft to apply AI capabilities and, uh, attribute human emotions to your car? I think? I feel so old for wanting to be friends with people, not cars. You can’t watch TV with your Afeela on the couch.

Blood donations are down. Only 3 percent of the eligible population donates blood annually in the United States, and that donor pool is rapidly aging and becoming less diverse; in the last ten years, blood centers have lost 30 percent of donors under the age of 30. That’s because, honestly, the experience of donating is boring, slightly painful, and unpleasant. It’s six minutes of sitting there staring at a wall while someone pokes needles in your arms. Not that I’m recounting this from experience or anything.

To lure these younger donors in, the medical device company Abbott Laboratories has unrolled a mixed-reality experience at blood donation centers across the United States. (Interestingly, Abbott has had a mixed-reality team since 2020.)

The program is intended to help ease the anxiety and discomfort some people feel when giving blood. The experience centers on the use of the Microsoft HoloLens 2, a pricey mixed-reality headset that has two important advantages over, say, the PSVR2 or Meta Quest 3. The see-through visor allows phlebotomists to see the donor’s eyes and face so they know if they’re getting sick or going to pass out (or have passed out). You also can use eye tracking to play games and don’t need to move your hands.

We had an opportunity to try Abbott’s game and play a soothing game involving planting seeds. Why not let them play Animal Crossing, you ask? Well, you don’t want the donor to forget that they’re sitting there entirely and try to get up or jerk around or gasp. This is a use of mixed-reality that we can really get behind. Schedule your donation here.

A beauty company has never delivered a CES keynote address before. However, in light of the fact that the consumer tech industry has been driven forward by chemists and engineers for decades, it should probably be a little less surprising that L’Oreal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus is addressing the crowd here tomorrow morning.

We’ve long been fans of L’Oreal’s work around accessibility and sustainability. (Last year, we saw the Hapta, a motorized makeup applicator for those with hand-motion disorders or arthritis). This year, I spoke to Guive Balooch, L’Oreal’s president of augmented beauty and open innovation, about the company’s strategy of using technology to make products that are more inclusive instead of making flashy concepts that chase the trend du jour.

“You can’t start with the tech,” says Balooch. “You have to start with what people need.” From 2018’s UV sensor to detect skin cancer, to being one of the first companies to debut virtual makeup try-on with augmented reality, Balooch has spearheaded development that addresses the beauty consumer’s needs—which includes the desire for more efficient and sustainable products. “Some people ask, ‘Why would a beauty company work on water technology?’” says Galooch, referring to L’Oreal’s water saver showerhead, which the company developed in partnership with Swiss startup Gjosa and debuted at CES in 2021. “Our commitment to sustainability is not just something we talk about. We want to work on all adjacent areas to sustainability.”

As for this year’s buzzword? L’Oreal is incorporating AI, but more in its research and development teams to model what the next generation of cosmetics will look like and how they’ll be applied. “People want easier and faster ways to apply makeup mess-free, or not have their fingers be the barrier to what they want,” Balooch says. “All of those are opportunities for how AI can help us create services … One day, The Fifth Element idea of makeup where you put glasses on your face and it’s done, that’s not as far as we think, thanks to AI.”

L’Oreal will have some product news to share tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.

I’m officially declaring this CES as the CES of the Things That Are Also Other Things (CES, hire me as your copywriter!). If it’s not a stethoscope that’s also a thermometer or a car that’s your best friend or a robot vacuum that’s also a stick vacuum, it’s also a washer that has a robot vacuum stuck underneath. Eureka’s Dual Washing Bot is … well, it’s exactly what it says it is. A robot vacuum with AI stain detection lives in the bottom of a combo washer-dryer unit. It doesn’t have any particular special properties beyond the ability to save you tons of space, but who needs more than that? For those whom this may not thrill and delight, the 100-year-old company is also releasing a standard robot vacuum, the J20, and a standard stick vacuum, the Omniverse, at CES as well.

In 2020, Samsung made waves with its Ballie smart assistant. Not merely a voice-activated speaker, Ballie was a literal ball that could follow you around the house (unless you go upstairs). This year, Samsung brought Ballie back with an updated look, a built-in projector, and some new AI-powered tasks like coming to you when you call, or following you around the house. Its projector can be used to display media or show status info about other devices that don’t have screens. It can even project onto walls or floors, and adjust to find the ideal angle based on where you are and the ambient lighting conditions.

Korean car manufacturer Kia is back at CES for the first time in five years, and it has a new type of EV in production, as part of the company’s “Platform Beyond Vehicle” program that aims to put a fleet of autonomous vans to your city’s streets.

Visually, the concept PV series is competing with the autonomous vehicles like Zoox for that boxy toaster look. The vehicles come in three flavors, the smaller PV1, the slightly larger P5 meant for ride hailing or shorter delivery services, and the large PV7 which has more interior space and a longer driving range. For further confusion, there are three versions of the PV5—one basic, one with a high roof, and one more van shaped. So five total options, though none of those subcategories have names quite yet.

Kia says it has some big future plans for the vehicles, though it’s not clear when exactly they’ll take place. (CES announcements tend to lean a bit on the make-believe.) The first phase, Kia says it plans to focus the vehicles on ridesharing and delivery services in cities, much like rival companies like Waymo, Cruise, and Zoox. From there, it wants to evolve its services to incorporate AI features. Yes, these vehicles will someday likely include some generative AI voice assistants.

I already loved the 240 Hz IPS display on the Razer Blade 14 and now Razer is upping the ante with the newest Razer Blade 16. It comes with a 16-inch 2560×1600 resolution OLED panel—meaning it will likely have even better black levels than the already impressive screen on the Blade 14—with an ultra-smooth 240 Hz refresh rate. The Blade 14 is also getting a refresh with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor option, and up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU upgrades.

Much like Bosch, which is working on a hydrogen car engine, Hyundai has announced that it too is doubling down on hydrogen, presenting what it calls a blueprint for a hydrogen energy ecosystem. Hyundai has the world’s highest market share in hydrogen-powered vehicle sales, though that isn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds, of course. Hyundai’s future hydrogen solutions will supposedly go beyond passenger cars, trucks, and buses to include things such as trams, ships, power generators, and planes.

At its press conference today, the group announced it is working on tech that aims to transform pollutants into clean hydrogen. Hyundai has two approaches for this: Waste-to-Hydrogen (W2H) and Plastic-to-Hydrogen (P2H). W2H involves the fermentation of organic waste (food waste, livestock manure, etc) to generate biogas. This biogas is then treated to capture carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen. P2H involves melting waste plastics that cannot be recycled, gasifying the molten plastics, and then producing hydrogen from this by removing “unnecessary elements”.

The other main focus of Hyundai’s CES announcements was on software, continuing the auto trend we’re seeing this year where new hardware is taking something of a back seat. A new Software-Defined Everything’ (SDX) strategy will focus on, of course, AI.

The SDX strategy inevitably includes software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Apparently, the idea is to “decouple hardware and software” in its cars, leading to better, faster, and wider updates. Such a scheme leaves you wondering if this wasn’t done already, then why wasn’t it? Indeed, the sharing of tech between Hyundai and sister-brand Kia is already extensive, so it is unclear how this new initiative moves things further, though “software-defined fleets for businesses” were mentioned.

Hyundai also said it intends to transform its vehicles into “AI machines” so it can personalize user experiences and deliver “added-value”. But we’ve heard this before many times from other manufacturers. All of them want to do this, but few seem clear on exactly how to do it successfully. Part of the group’s efforts to achieve this involves writing its own software for its user interface and developing a new infotainment system complete with the obligatory app marketplace. And, unlike Volkswagen, which has opted to integrate ChatGPT into its coming cars, Hyundai group is now developing its own LLM to put in its vehicles. All this is going to take time, though, so don’t expect the first software from this initiative to drop until 2026.

With so much focus at CES on TVs and high-end audio, more consumer-friendly audio gear can sometimes go overlooked. Sennheiser is bucking that trend this year with three shiny new headphone models, including the latest iteration of its popular Momentum earbuds, the Momentum True Wireless 4 ($300), the new Accentum Plus over-ears ($230), and a new workout-ready model, the Momentum Sports ($330).

It’s the last of those three that really draws the eye thanks to a rugged design that’s loaded with tech, including built-in sensors to track both your body temperature and heart rate. True wireless earbuds have always been an ideal vehicle for biosensor technology, but manufacturers have largely been moving away from it in recent years, opting instead for more audio-centric features like 3D spatial audio and ever-improving noise canceling.

Sennheiser claims the Momentum Sport “seamlessly” integrates with health apps from devices like the Apple Watch, Garmin Watch, and Peloton. The company also claims the buds are the first third-party product to work with Polar’s biosensing and data analytics. Other features include IP55 dust and water resistance, shock resistance, adaptive noise canceling, and more. We’ll be interested to try all three models, but we’re especially excited to put these pricey new sports buds to the test.

Celestron, one of our favorite telescope makers, is diving into the world of screen-based scopes with the new Celestron Origin. The new startgazer is built around the company’s Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (RASA) optical system. Celestron has developed this imaging system specifically for astrophotography, trying to eliminate the need for complex setups with equatorial mounts and autoguiding for folks who want to take detailed photos of the night sky.

The Origin allows you to explore the stars via the 6.4-megapixel Sony IMX178 color CMOS sensor, which can send images to your smartphone, tablet, or television. A built-in battery means you can run the Origin wherever you are for 6 hours. Yes this means, you can set up the Origin outside and then go relax on the couch, projecting the heavens onto your TV.

Weighing 40 pounds assembled, the Origin is 24 inches long, 26 wide, and 48 inches tall; not huge by telescope standards, but definitely bigger than some. The Origin is $3,999 and is available for purchase now.

One of the major stumbling blocks to EV adoption is how inconvenient it is to charge your electric car. This year, the mobility company Bosch is experimenting with automated valet charging with Volkswagen subsidiary Cariad. In the parking garages where Cariad and Bosch are testing the system, you can indicate to the valet that your car needs charging. The automated valet guides your driverless car to a charging robot that automatically opens the flap and plugs in, topping off the battery while you run errands.

The charging system was shown off during Bosch’s press conference at CES this morning. The company also showed a new IDS heat pump, which is optimized for use in colder climates and should encourage an uptick in energy-efficient heat pump usage.

Bosch also revealed that it’s working on developing a hydrogen engine for later release this year, which converts fuel directly into energy without turning it into electricity first and which Bosch claims will be virtually carbon neutral. The U.S. government has invested heavily in hydrogen infrastructure; you can also take a ride in a hydrogen-powered truck here at CES.

Am I heavily invested in the idea of a carbon-neutral future? Yes. Is the Hindenburg my only reference for a hydrogen-powered vehicle? Also yes.

Just as we were marveling at TCL’s searing new QM8 TVs that claim a peak brightness at an eye-boiling 5,000 nits, the company’s compatriot Hisense upped the ante significantly. At its press conference Monday morning, Hisense showed off the 110UX, an insanely powerful new version of its luxury UX TV that claims to offer a mind-bending 10,000 nits of peak brightness. Yep, you read that correctly, 10,000 nits—doubling TCL’s QM8 and boasting four to five times the peak brightness of most top TVs currently on the market. The television adds other notable specs, including over 40,000 dimming zones for powerful contrast and an advanced color gamut that covers an impressive 95 percent of the highest TV color range standard, BT.2020.

As noted in my post about TCL, a TV’s peak brightness generally refers to only very tiny spectral highlights that appear in quick flashes while watching select content. Still, we’ve only ever encountered this kind of pixel furnace in prototypes of TVs past, which is what makes unveiling a market-ready TV with this much power so intriguing. What will this kind of brightness mean for regular content? Will we be forced to turn the backlighting all the way down just to tame it?

This all remains to be seen, but today marks a significant development for LED display tech as manufacturers continue to push the limits in an attempt to literally outshine rival OLED TVs that trade on their perfect black levels foremost. Hisense’s 110UX is only available in one massive (and expensive) screen size, making TCL’s QM8 a much easier way for most of us to experience next-gen brightness. In either case, it’s going to be exciting when these new TVs begin to arrive this spring – sunglasses required.