Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Live from CES, the hosts argue that the show’s biggest story is not flashy gadgets but the gap between mature hardware and immature software. They trace trends in robots, AI devices, weird computers, battery life, and smart-home products, concluding that useful innovation now depends less on AI branding and more on standards, power efficiency, and form factors that fit real human behavior.
Main Topics: Hardware is ahead of software: CES is full of impressive robotics and device engineering, but presenters repeatedly show that the software needed to make them useful is not ready yet. Humanoid robots can walk, dance, and fall over, but not reliably perform household tasks like folding towels. AI gadgets are everywhere, but few have clear value: The show is saturated with AI glasses, desk bots, companions, and wearables, yet the hosts argue most are still searching for a convincing use case beyond being another device version of a chatbot. Weird computers are back: Vendors are experimenting with rollable, dual-screen, twisting, and modular PCs, suggesting that laptop design is loosening again after years of convergence. But Windows and Copilot are seen as muddying the value proposition. Battery life has become a marquee feature: Longer battery life is emerging as a genuine consumer benefit in watches, trackers, keyboards, and even vehicle-adjacent products, reflecting more efficient chips and better supply chains rather than pure AI innovation. Smart home is shifting toward invisible tech and standards: Rather than gadgetifying homes, companies are embedding sensors and intelligence into furniture, lamps, TVs, and accessories. Matter and Thread are presented as critical enablers of cross-platform smart-home interoperability. AI branding is losing its shine: The hosts suggest many companies are using 'AI' as a marketing label for ordinary software features. Dell’s candid admission that consumers are not buying based on AI highlights a broader reset in messaging. Wearables should become fashion and utility, not just gadgets: Audience questions push the hosts to argue that wearable tech must look good and serve practical purposes—especially health, accessibility, and subtle interaction—rather than just being novelty hardware.
Key Arguments: CES now functions as a signal of industry intent: what matters is less individual products and more which technologies and form factors companies believe will matter next. Chinese manufacturing scale lets smaller companies rapidly produce robots, accessories, and devices, causing 'a thousand versions of the same thing' to appear almost immediately after an idea emerges. Humanoid robots are overbuilt on the hardware side but underdeveloped on the software side; the real missing piece is world-model-style AI that can handle physical tasks reliably. LLM-based AI has transformed voice interaction and software help, but that does not automatically make dedicated AI gadgets or smart-home assistants useful. AI browsers may reach practical usefulness before smart-home assistants because browsers can observe finite, visible web workflows and let users watch them work. Many consumer products are better framed as ordinary software capabilities rather than AI products; the branding creates confusion and weakens trust. Improved battery life is one of the clearest consumer wins in the current hardware cycle, enabled by efficient chips and mature, cheaper battery manufacturing. Smart homes work better when technology disappears into the environment—lamps, art TVs, sensors, and furniture—rather than when devices loudly advertise themselves as gadgets. Standards like Matter and Thread are essential because they reduce lock-in and let devices from different companies interoperate, which is necessary for truly intelligent homes. Accessibility is an important near-term benefit of AI and machine-learning advances, especially for speech-to-text, noise cancellation, translation, and assistive wearables.
Data Points: CES attendance estimate: 30 to 40,000 - Closing remarks thanking the live audience for attending the Brooklyn Bowl show. Humanoid robot performance: 50th towel-folding demo - The LG presenter repeatedly demonstrates a robot attempting to fold a towel, illustrating how immature the software still is. Robot battery life feature: 13 days - Motorola’s smartwatch is highlighted for its long battery life as a flagship feature. Keyboard battery life: 660 hours - A Keychron keyboard is cited as emphasizing battery endurance. Wearable battery life: about a month - One of the hosts says they are wearing a new Pebble partly because its battery lasts around a month instead of a day. Smart-watch market precedent: Apple Silicon made laptops last all day - Used as an example of how efficiency gains can create an obvious consumer benefit beyond AI branding. CES product naming example: LG Varmblich - Mentioned as an IKEA smart-lamp example that looks like furniture rather than a gadget. Product count example: dozens of booths - West Hall is described as having dozens of booths featuring electric dirt bikes and humanoid robots.
Pivotal Quotes: "all of this hardware is ready, and none of this software is ready" — David Pierce: Core thesis about CES robotics and device demonstrations "everything that we're announcing here has an NPU in it. But what we've learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is they're not buying based on AI" — Kevin Terwilliger: Dell’s candid explanation for why AI branding is not driving consumer purchases "technology that doesn't look so much like technology just feels like the right answer to me" — David Pierce: Discussion of smart-home design, furniture, and invisible technology
Implications: The industry is likely to shift from AI hype toward practical wins: better batteries, interoperable smart homes, useful accessibility tools, and form factors that feel natural. Products that can’t prove real value beyond 'AI' may struggle to win consumers.
From the Episode
Economy. That to me, there's a lot of ways to feel about that. The number one thing that occurred to me as I walked the show floor yesterday was: all of this hardware is ready, and none of this software is ready. Right? If you can build a robot that can fall over, you're just waiting for someone to be like, I figured it out. I figured out how to make the AI make the robot useful. And then when that happens, by some miracle, you'll just have a useless robot in your house. You'll flip the switch, you'll start paying the subscription fee, and the robot will do your laundry. I don't know if you. To the LG booth where they were demoing Cloyd, I watched the poor presenter at the LG booth just the light go out of his eyes. Just the 50th time, he was like, and now it's going to fold this towel. And this was the big demo, right? And it wasn't clothes, it was towels. It was, I'm going to make this rectangle a smaller rectangle with the power of AI. And it just sat there, just baffled, you know, just like, should I? And the guy's like, moving on.
Said, we're very focused on delivering upon the AI capabilities of a device. In fact, everything that we're announcing here has an NPU in it. But what we've learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is they're not buying based on AI. In fact, I think AI probably confuses them more than it helps them understand a specific outcome. Like, A, I appreciate the honesty and forthcomingness, but B, like, yeah, dude, duh. We've been doing this Copilot plus PC thing for a minute. Everybody is trying to explain whether Apple intelligence is going. To be useful. There just has been this idea that we're going to AIFY your laptop and that will change everything. And now we're back to like, but what if it actually just had more screens instead? And I feel like that's a more fun run of hardware right now. Yeah. And we're going to come to it. I think one of the other trends is like, what if we made the battery life good? And like, it's as simple as it gets and it works every time. Yeah. I think that Dell learning this lesson is actually really fascinating for a number of reasons. One, like, you know, Dell's business is.
Yeah. This is the hot new thing, man. We were on Palm Pilots doing the graffiti thing a million years ago. Like, we're so back. It's, I mean, it's great. I love the idea that I could just be like, this guy's kind of dumb. Just do like a smiley face emoji, and that's how you do it. But that's like, that's the thing they're shipping. And I think, but again, the bigger picture here is like technology that doesn't look so much like technology just feels like the right answer to me. And walking around, there's all of this personal care stuff that. Continues to kind of take over the show. There's a lot of like things that, you know, is a box fan technology is like a very fun, Virgy question right now. And this idea of like, how do we make a box fan that looks like a box fan, but does more things than it has in the past, is such a more interesting idea to me than how do we sell you a box fan that looks like a spaceship because it has Bluetooth. Yeah. I mean, the fascinating thing about all of the, let's embed the sensors and smarts in the furniture is.
About The Vergecast
The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel and David Pierce hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Tuesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives – and which ones you should bring into yours.