CES 2025: what gadgets to expect at the tech show

Not only are the holidays ahead, but also the CES 2025 trade show in Las Vegas. The show itself opens on Tuesday, January 7, but you can expect plenty of important announcements in the days leading up to it. The show has changed over the years, with many major companies preferring their own product launch events to the traditional flashy press conferences. In this article, we’ll take a look at the expected gadgets and small appliances that are expected to appear at CES 2025.

Wi-Fi routers at CES 2025

New Wi-Fi standards emerge every few years, and CES — is a typical place where companies show off new products as well as the debut of a new standard. Products supporting the current standard, Wi-Fi 7, were unveiled last year, so we don’t expect any major new products at this year’s show. Moreover, Wi-Fi 7 routers have already reached non-commercial sales, some of them can be purchased for ~10-15 thousand rubles.

Nevertheless, Wi-Fi 7 itself is sure to be featured in all the other non-routable products at CES 2025. Many of the devices mentioned in this article will come with Wi-Fi 7 support. Phones, tablets, and PCs — are obvious candidates; most of those unveiled at CES will have this support. Cars and smart home devices, however, are less likely to have Wi-Fi 7 support, as many of them operate exclusively in the 2.4 GHz band, which doesn’t benefit much from Wi-Fi 7.

Which is not a big deal.

Smart Home

There was a lot of buzz about artificial intelligence last year, and at CES 2025 there should be more concrete integrations rather than conceptualizations. Matter has been one of the most popular brands at CES for several years now, and this smart home industry standard will continue to expand its list of compatible devices. Matter recently made it easier to control gadgets from different devices, so you can turn on a connected lamp using Siri on your phone.

Matter has recently made it easier to control gadgets from different devices, so you can turn on a connected lamp using Siri on your phone.

AI is already integrated into several categories of smart home devices, such as things like robot vacuums, so keep an eye out for improvements on those fronts. We saw some cool automated vacuum cleaners at CES, including models where a vacuum cleaner is integrated into a robot vacuum cleaner or the base of a robot vacuum cleaner fits into a washing machine. So stay tuned for interesting hybrids or cool news about what these robotic helpers can do.

So stay tuned for more interesting hybrids or cool news about what these robotic helpers can do.

Technology for Fitness and Health

CES — is not the place for big brands to unveil fitness watches: they’ve already unveiled new watch models in the summer and fall of 2024, ahead of the holiday shopping season. Instead, expect smaller companies to introduce new technology in odd shapes and sizes. In the past year, we’ve seen several companies looking to make health tracking more advanced with artificial intelligence, as well as integrating health tracking into more and more everyday household items and things you might wear.

Health tracking will be a big part of the new technology.

Displays and monitors

OLED gaming monitors took the lead in the premium gaming monitor market that year. There’s a big opportunity to revitalize cheaper monitors, so CES could prove rich in updated, familiar 4K monitors that are better suited for mid-range PCs and consoles.

OLED has migrated into other display categories, including portable monitors, and we expect that trend to continue. And while IPS Black can’t compete with the near-infinite contrast ratio of OLED, its 2000:1 and even 3000:1 contrast ratios are far superior to standard IPS, so expect to see more IPS Black monitors, especially in the professional arena.

And we expect to see more IPS Black monitors, especially in the professional arena.

We don’t expect to see a fundamental change in desktop displays at the show, although 8K resolution monitors are still a reality, and although we’ve seen DisplayPort 2.1 in high-end monitors like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9, it’s still early days. There are also strong hints that HDMI 2.2 will be introduced at CES 2025, so it’s possible that we’ll see the new technology in monitors as early as mid-2025.

Here’s a good chance we’ll see the new technology in monitors as early as mid-2025.

Hard Disk Drives

External SSDs supporting the USB4 standard with a maximum throughput of up to 40Gbps didn’t catch on right away, but with new laptops coming out with USB4 ports, it’s likely we’ll see new SSDs taking full advantage of this interface.

In 2024, we’ll see plenty of external SSDs with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps maximum throughput) support, though few computers have Gen 2×2 support built in. To get the speed benefits, you usually need to purchase a motherboard or expansion card that supports this standard. We hope that more computers with native 2×2 ports will be introduced at CES to meet this growing need.

And we hope that more computers with native 2×2 ports will be introduced at CES to meet this growing need.

The latest high-end standard for internal M.2 SSDs — PCI Express 5.0, which promises throughput (sequential reads) from 10,000 MB/s to 14,000 MB/s. Last year saw the first laptops with PCIe 5 M.2 connectors, but the development of 5th generation SSDs will require some engineering finesse to ensure they both fit into those connectors and stay cool enough to prevent throttling. This seems like a natural progression and will hopefully be a surprise coming out of CES 2025.

So far, it seems like a natural progression and hopefully a surprise coming out of CES 2025.

VR, AR and smart glasses

Don’t expect any news from the big virtual and mixed reality vendors at CES: Apple, Valve, et al. prefer to make announcements in their own time. In fact, VR itself is cooling off a bit, judging by the warm reception of the Apple Vision Pro 2024. Large headsets that cover the view are still niche products, even if they offer a clear end-to-end view and are relatively inexpensive.

They’re still a niche product, even if they offer a clear end-to-end view and are relatively inexpensive.

CES 2025 will likely feature smaller companies showing off VR headsets for enterprises and enthusiasts. Bulky headsets are more popular with enterprises doing engineering or similarly targeted tasks, while high-end tethered consumer headsets still serve racing and flight simulator enthusiasts who want to build their own rigs. Any new headsets in these categories are likely to be incremental upgrades.

Any new headsets in these categories are likely to be incremental upgrades.

We expect to see new smart glasses with built-in displays. This growing category is steadily evolving from video glasses with a few gimmicks to less obtrusive, fully transparent displays on separate hardware that lets you wear them on the go. Google has already announced the Android XR platform, which covers VR and AR, and we may see the first glimpses of smart glasses using that platform at the show, but don’t expect any Android XR-based consumer devices at CES.

Android XR-based devices are not expected to appear at CES.