CES is the single most important tech event of the year. The annual trade expo kicks off each year in technology, providing corporations the opportunity to introduce their next wave of products or tease the ambitious, far-out, and often weird new ideas they’ve been working on behind the scenes.
This year’s event begins in Las Vegas on Tuesday, January 9th and goes through Friday, January 12th, but anticipate news to begin as soon as, well, right now. Companies have been slowly releasing announcements over the last week, and many will attempt to preempt the conference with announcements in the days leading up to the exhibit floor opening.
In addition, there will be a complete day of keynote speeches before to the show’s formal opening. On Monday, expect to hear from LG, Samsung, Nvidia, Sony, and a slew of other businesses in the tech and auto industries when they hold back-to-back presentations.
The Verge will be covering the concert from start to finish, as always. Here are some of the major stories we anticipate seeing this year.
TVs
CES is first and foremost a show about new TVs. But it seems like we’re in for a relatively quiet, iterative year when it comes to new TV hardware. Last year, we saw meaningful leaps in brightness for OLED TVs, which made them suitable for brighter rooms and more viewing environments. And Mini LED became the status quo for mid- to high-end LCD TVs — at relatively affordable prices, to boot.
However, LG has already revealed their 2024 range, and there will be no significant panel advancements this year. Instead, the hot “new” item from LG, Roku, and, presumably, other businesses is AI processing. We’ve seen TV manufacturers apply AI and machine learning to enhance picture and sound for a few years now, but at CES 2024, they’re going all in. That may come as no surprise considering the emergence of LLMs like as ChatGPT, Bard, and others. AI is being utilized in home theater to change settings that many consumers never bother tweaking themselves and to offer material more depth and clarity. Many of these AI methods will undoubtedly be disabled by image purists, but the trend is evident.
As usual, Samsung is the wild card. Will the largest TV maker, like many competitors, play it safe, or does the corporation have anything more ground-breaking in the works? We’ll find out in a few days in Las Vegas. — Christopher Welch
Transportation
While CES is frequently disguised as a car exhibition, this year is going to be different. Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, and a slew of other prominent names will be missing. You can credit the United Auto Workers strike during the summer for that, which prompted the Big Three to cancel their CES plans for this year.
However, there will be plenty of auto-related announcements, including Honda’s new “global EV series” and a flurry of in-car technologies. All of this, of course, will be accompanied with a sprinkle of our favorite tech buzzwords, such as AI, LLMs, and machine learning. So keep an eye out for it.
Along with Honda, prominent automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and BMW will have something to announce at CES. And Big Tech businesses like Intel and Amazon will be enhancing their reputations as rising car suppliers by revealing new goods in the near future. While there may be less vehicle news to digest than in previous years, CES is still expected to provide a few surprises for all the gearheads and mobility nerds in attendance. Hawkins, Andrew J.
Laptops
Intel has officially revealed a new series of CPUs in the Meteor Lake family, which means you can expect to see a number of laptops sporting the improved silicon at CES. However, an increase in CPU specifications is rarely enough to grab the attention of attendees at the world’s largest consumer electronics expo.
CES is when laptop manufacturers prefer to show off their flashiest new designs and strange little experiments. That implies we should see at least one or two odd gadgets that make us wonder about the development of laptop design.
I’d also bet we’re going to see some bigger laptops. An adage at The Verge is people love big screens, and that love isn’t limited to phones and TVs. They want them in their laptops, too. With Apple recently embracing larger 14- and 16-inch displays, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of its competitors start following suit, moving us slowly away from the standard 13- and 15-inch laptop sizes to something a little roomier. — Alex Cranz
Smart Home
A lot of smart home advancements will revolve on two words: artificial intelligence. With their news conference headlined “AI for All: Connectivity in the Age of AI,” Samsung is setting the tone (see how they got AI in there twice?!). The electronics behemoth has already launched AI-enabled smart cooktops, vacuums, and refrigerators, and I anticipate more to follow. LG will demonstrate an AI-powered house robot called “Smart Home AI Agent” that would “understand context and intentions as well as actively communicate with users.”
I’ll be interested to see how much substance these firms put behind their AI boasts. Context is unquestionably an area where AI may improve smart home experiences, and generative AI has enormous potential to simplify the smart home. I’ll be searching for ideas that shift the responsibility of programming our smart homes from humans to computers. Companies who can properly incorporate this into their smart home solutions will be one step ahead.
Matter will be the other keyword for the connected home at CES 2024. The new smart home standard, named The Verge’s Best in Show last year, stuttered in 2023. I anticipate product announcements in the newly supported categories of robot vacuums and home appliances (Ecovacs, Roborock, GE Profile, and Whirlpool are all exhibiting this year), as well as more goods in underserved areas such as smart locks and smart thermostats, to re-establish momentum.
Overall, I predict it will be a quieter year on the gadget front. Many companies need to regroup and reassess their approach as the combined forces of Matter and AI begin to shape a brave new smart home. — Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Gaming
CES may occasionally feature a slew of PC gaming announcements before of Computex in the summer, and it appears like the expo will have plenty this year. Nvidia is expected to reveal its first RTX 40-series Super cards at CES 2024, the first Super versions since the RTX 20-series. AMD is also expected to be releasing its own RX 7600 XT GPU later this month, maybe after CES.
I’m primarily interested in the newest OLED gaming displays. We saw the first set of 240Hz OLED displays at CES last year, and it appears that these will extend in multiple forms and sizes for 2024, along with better refresh rates. LG has pre-announced a half-dozen new OLED gaming displays, including one with 480Hz at 1080p and 240Hz at 4K resolution. LG Display is also releasing a 27-inch OLED with 480Hz at 1440p later this year. Samsung has also launched a new series of Odyssey OLED gaming displays with refresh rates of up to 360Hz.
Another portable gaming PC is possible. Both Asus and Lenovo have provided alternatives to Valve’s famous Steam Deck, but there are a number of other Windows-powered options as well. MSI has thrown a strong clue that a ROG Ally and Steam Deck rival is on the way. I’d be amazed if CES didn’t include another mobile gaming PC. — Mr. Tom Warren
Phones
In terms of phone news, the weeks between October and mid-January are similar to baseball’s All-Star break. Sure, there are some of your favorite players on the field, and there is a game going on, but the real action comes later. This year, Samsung Unpacked will take place immediately after CES, on January 17th, with Mobile World Congress following in late February. As a result, this year’s CES will be rather quiet in terms of mobile news.
Still, CES probably won’t be a total shutout. The first phones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 have been trickling out, and we might get a glimpse of one or two more in Vegas. Qualcomm’s new flagship chipset leans into generative AI in a big way, and that’s definitely going to be a major theme throughout the year. And who knows? Maybe we’ll see some wacky flexible screen concepts from TCL. Those are always fun! — Allison Johnson
Wearables
Smartwatches have taken a back seat at CES in previous years, so don’t expect to see anything on that front this year. For example, Fossil is a CES regular, bringing a mini-horde of Android watches to Vegas each year. However, it will not be present this year. That’s okay, since CES is where stranger wearable ideas shine.
I’d expect something out of the ordinary from Withings. Perhaps not as far-fetched as last year’s at-home urinalysis equipment, but CES is often when the business reveals its vision for our telehealth future. Smart rings have also been simmering for a while, and while many aren’t quite ready for primetime, I expect to see firms showcasing their ideas on a smaller, more inconspicuous health tracker. It’s also possible that we’ll see new over-the-counter hearing aids on the exhibition floor, as well as designs for AR smart glasses — especially since Apple’s Vision Pro is just around the horizon.
I’ve said it before, but CES is where we see a lot of health tech concepts that never seem to make it to customers (or won’t for a long time). I’m sure some exhibitors will be looking into noninvasive blood glucose monitoring, wearable blood pressure monitors, and smart home telehealth equipment. Beauty and wellness technology has also grown in popularity at the exhibition. L’Oreal, which has a larger tech footprint than you might believe, is scheduled to offer a keynote this year, so I’m sure they’ve got something spectacular planned as well. Victoria Song’s
