Imagine a gadget store the size of downtown Boulder and you’ll have a sense of the Consumer Electronics Show, held last week in Las Vegas.

It offered an estimated 138,000 attendees from around the world a chance to see the latest and greatest from over 4,300 exhibitors, including 1,400 startups. Consumer electronics isn’t just gadgets, it encompasses a lot of underlying technologies such as next generation LiDAR for autonomous vehicles, vision systems for more sophisticated user interaction, endless sensors and monitors, and so much more.

The size of the show is overwhelming, even to seasoned veterans. Name a technology, and there are 50 vendors showing their latest products, including headphones, turntables, enormous televisions, e-bikes, robot pets, robot bartenders, smart home appliances, wearables for health or entertainment, self-driving vehicles, and AI everywhere.

The CES industry trade show began in 1967 with a modest 200 exhibitors and has grown almost every year, moving to its current home of Las Vegas in 1978. The show, not open to the public, saw peak attendance of 182,000 people in 2018 and is coming back post-pandemic. It’s one of the biggest events in Las Vegas, taking over all four halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, along with other enormous convention facilities throughout the city.

To put these numbers in context, compare 138,000 attendees to the population of Boulder (about 106,000) and of Longmont (about 99,000). I logged 38,000 steps visiting every conference building, exhibit and exhibitor this year. That’s 18 miles of walking!

Trends in consumer electronics

Most people don’t replace their electronics annually. When did you buy your last TV, refrigerator, EV car charger, or laptop? The tech industry never sleeps, however, endlessly developing existing technologies and inventing new solutions to make things better and better. There are also entire categories that offer features and capabilities unimagined just a few years prior.

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence worldwide, it’s no surprise that one of the most obvious trends this year was the inclusion of some sort of “AI” in products. From bathroom mirrors to televisions, planters to pool cleaners, headphones to hearing aids, deadbolts to laptops, few products were untouched by this trend. Surprisingly, though, I felt most of these enhancements were rather lackluster and seemed more focused on tapping into the latest buzzword than adding meaningful smarts to devices.

Consumers are attracted to smarter products so even if they didn’t feature AI, plenty of products were promoted as “smart,” even when that seemed a stretch. For example, there were at least a dozen companies offering “smart” fountain-style pet water bowls, some of which had a motion sensor to turn on the fountain based on pet proximity. Does that make it smart, though?

Health and wellness remains a dynamic area, and it’s astonishing how much biometric and health data next generation devices will be able to collect. Music earbuds that track and monitor heart health, a bathroom mirror that can perform health scans, even rings that monitor your health and sleep patterns. Those earbuds can also deliver an at-home hearing test and then equalize your music to compensate for hearing loss. In fact, many companies were featuring over-the-counter hearing aids that look like music earbuds but include a convenient smartphone app, and are poised to help millions of people with low to moderate hearing loss.

Robotics is always a source of fascination for attendees and even mundane robot toys draw a crowd. There were several exoskeleton devices to help people compensate for mobility challenges or work more efficiently with heavy objects. More common were robots with fur coverings that presented as anti-loneliness devices: Virtual pets that had disconcertingly realistic behaviors and some that tapped into AI to allow you to have ongoing conversations.

Green, eco, and sustainability are all important trends in the consumer electronics universe too, and it’s good to see the rise of recycled materials, eco-friendly inks, and package designs focused on minimizing waste. There were solar panels of all sizes and a remarkable number of home battery storage devices that turn those roof-mounted solar panels into a viable power source regardless of the weather.

A number of big computer and tech companies announced new AI-related products too. Graphics card manufacturer Nvidia announced a powerful AI-focused PC that allows users to run complex AI models. Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, LG, MSI, and Dell all introduced computers with more powerful processors to enable AI. Smart mice, keyboards, displays, and other peripherals? Hundreds of those were on exhibit.

A few great new ideas

One of the most intriguing aspects of CES is that small, even one-person startups can gain visibility by simply having a really great invention or idea. A few caught my eye.In the kitchen, Copper introduced an induction range that can replace a gas stove without the need for a 220V circuit. It does this trick by having a built-in battery to manage power spikes. Smart. Also with stoves, Ome is a tiny startup with smart rangetop knobs that replace the existing knobs on electric or gas stoves and then let you manage your stove through an app. Much more importantly, it can also automatically turn off the stove after use, an important safety feature for elderly cooks.

There were many robot vacuum cleaners, some with weird and rather pointless extension arms.

Eureka introduced my favorite robovac, a robot vacuum and mop device that’s smart enough to go back to its base station and clean its brushes if it’s mired in a tough cleaning job.

Lots of AI-powered baby monitors were exhibited, including the UniWhale AI Baby Companion that tracks baby biometrics during sleep with a tiny sensor and a companion app. Liocle introduced a band with biometric sensors that fits under a hard hat and can track worker safety and alertness, a boon for construction site safety. NovoStable introduced a vision-based, AI-powered equine health tracking system that could be ideal for horse owners. GrandPad showed off its latest generation of a tablet-size smartphone for seniors that offers a clean, simple interface with safeguards to ensure they don’t get scammed.

There were tens of thousands of new products introduced at CES 2025 and while some left me scratching my head in puzzlement, others were definitely brilliant ideas. Now we’ll have to see which make it to the local store and which people will actually purchase, the ultimate proof of any consumer technology.

Tech expert and long-time columnist Dave Taylor spent the week at CES, a show he’s attended about 20 times throughout the years. You can find his consumer electronics previews and reviews on YouTube at youtube.com/AskDaveTaylor.