CES is always a bit of a fever dream, especially so close after the New Year, but 2026 feels a bit different.
Usually, the Las Vegas show floor is a graveyard for “concept” tech that never actually sees the light of day – and while that’s very much still the case – the focus of this year’s show has shifted more towards things you’ll actually be able to buy and use before the year’s out. A wild concept, I know.
From the death of the boring slab-glass phone to the moment smart home AI finally stopped being annoying and started being helpful, the trends emerging from this year’s show could have a big impact on your tech setup in 2026.
I’ve spent the week digging through the noise to find the developments that actually matter, whether that’s the long-awaited arrival of smart glasses that don’t look like props from a bad Sci-fi movie, or the fact that ‘budget’ TVs are now giving premium giants a run for their money – and here are the four biggest trends from CES 2026 that’ll define your year in tech.
More compact, smarter glasses
Smart glasses are a growing niche in the tech sector, and it feels like 2026 is going to be the year that they finally break into the mainstream.
Putting aside the recent release of various Meta-branded glasses, from the second-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses to the Oakley Meta Vanguard, there was a bevvy of smart glasses on show, each catering to a slightly different niche.
That includes the Rokid Glasses, a Ray-Ban Meta competitor that boasts built-in speakers and a camera like Meta’s alternative, along with a heads-up display. This discreet built-in screen displays notifications, real-time translation and even directions from Google Maps, and it’s going on sale this month for just $299.
Even Realities also took the opportunity to showcase the G2 smart glasses that launched at the end of 2025, offering a surprisingly slim, lightweight design closer to regular glasses than any other competitor, complete with built-in screens.
Catering to a slightly different audience, Xreal and Asus ROG teamed up to reveal the ROG Xreal R1 AR gaming glasses, allowing you to play games from a PC, console or handheld onto a spatial screen that can go up to 171 inches, while also offering an impressive 240Hz refresh rate.
Xreal also debuted its new Xreal 1S AR Glasses, which are both more feature-rich and cheaper than their predecessors, while projector brand Xgimi also announced it’d be releasing a range of smart glasses under a new MemoMind brand.
So yes, it looks like the smart glasses war is gearing up – and crucially, they’re finally starting to look more like regular glasses than VR headsets.
An explosion of AI in smart home tech
AI is already being shoehorned into practically every bit of smart home tech available, but it feels like 2026 will be the year it actually becomes, well, useful, not just a bit of marketing.
Take Google for example; it’s pushing Gemini into the living room with Google TV’s new AI tools and assistant-style features rolling out this year. But it’s not just adding Gemini to everything either.
Where the AI label should begin earning its keep is in gadgets that are meant to do a job without constant supervision. Based on the various smart home showcases at CES, it looks like robot cleaners are beginning to lean on AI for behaviours like recognising objects and adjusting how they clean – even down to things like lowering the noise when they’re near a sleeping baby.
There’s also the use of AI in smart cameras to not only better recognise and even describe the scene via notifications sent to your smartphone, but to intelligently detect whether it’s worth alerting you at all. Some, like Ring, are even using AI to alert you to unusual events.
If it stops me from getting drowned out by my robot vacuum cleaner on Zoom calls or calms the barrage of smart camera notifications I get on my phone, I’m all for it. AI all the things.
Unique smartphone form factors
CES isn’t usually a big show for smartphones – that’d be MWC – but CES teases a year of extraordinary smartphone form factors. Gone are the days of regular metal and glass rectangles, apparently.
That was best embodied by the presence of Samsung’s new Galaxy TriFold, a foldable phone that expands into something resembling a tablet, using – as the name suggests – three segments instead of the two used by regular book-style phones. It’s one of the first foldables to genuinely deliver on the promise of a phone that unfurls into a tablet, and it’s not a concept; the phone is set to go on sale in the States this year.
It’s not just foldables though; phones like the Clicks Communicator, an ode to the Blackberry of yesteryear with a full physical keyboard and a focus on productivity over all else, caused a lot of excitement at this year’s show, with the phone set for release in the coming months.
Then there’s the square-shaped Ikko MindOne, an intriguing take on a smartphone that relies heavily on AI rather than on-device grunt. It’s small, energy-efficient, has a rear-facing camera that flips around to face the front for selfies, and, frankly, doesn’t look like anything else on the market right now.
If this is what we’re seeing at CES, 2026 looks like a very interesting year for smartphones.
Better, yet cheaper, TVs
CES has proven that the gap between mid- and top-tiers is closing quickly, thanks mainly to brands like Hisense and TCL. These brands, while better-known for more affordable TVs, are now offering flagship models that can compete with the best around from the likes of Sony, LG and Samsung.
Hisense, for example, was the first to show an RGB LED TV, while TCL is pushing mini-LED with its new X11L revealed at CES 2026, along with new materials like reformulated quantum dots and a new colour filter approach.
Of course, Sony and LG still have real advantages that connoisseurs of viewing will appreciate – Sony’s well-known for excellent video processing, while LG’s OLED tech offers better contrast and black levels than most of the competition – but for the everyday viewer, these differences aren’t immediately noticeable.
And with Hisense and TCL known for undercutting the big three in terms of price, it might force a response in the form of lower prices.
