Here’s the Smart Home Tech I Hope to See at CES 2025
The Consumer Electronics Show, known as CES, is the premier annual event where consumer brands unveil new products. It’s hard to imagine the scale of the event, which will take place in Las Vegas from January 5 to 10 , as well as the breadth of products presented there. Smart home technology is a big enough piece of the pie to warrant its own section at this year’s event at The Venetian.
In some ways, when we talk about what we hope to see at CES, we’re really talking about what we hope to see next year, because most things at CES aren’t quite ready for the mass market yet. While I’ve been catching up on what many companies are planning to release at CES 2025, there are still a few types of products that I’m really looking forward to seeing more of.
More sensor types for better automation
Sensors are a key part of the smart home toolkit , serving as triggers for various actions. Their usefulness depends on two factors: they work reliably and the automation software offers sufficient flexibility in their use. There is still a lot of room for improvement on both of these factors.
There are many brands offering sensors with inconsistent reliability, especially those that measure water and temperature. Overall, I wish more of the big brands in this space would make basic sensors (motion, light, presence, temperature and water) that you can trust.
Besides improving what we already have, there are also new areas that I would like to explore with smart sensors. With the advent of smart lights, which I expect we’ll see at CES, I’d like to have better, more sensitive light sensors that can detect color changes—I’m dreaming of being able to run an automation where my robot mop is activated by a sensor. learning that white tiles are no longer white, for example due to dirt. I also need sensors that compare indoor and outdoor air quality with more details on where air problems are coming from, and weight sensors that can be used to trigger automation based on how much weight changes, such as a food sensor food and water. dishes that can tell me how much my dog ate and drank today.
We already know that the most trusted company in the sensor field, Aqara, is rumored to be releasing a new occupancy sensor . As interesting as this is, I’d like to see even more sensors from them – ones that delve into new areas of presentation, as I mentioned above.
Please report major improvements in robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers.
This year I’ve played with countless vacuum cleaners, tons of lawn mowers, and even a few personal robots like Enabot . I expect that this year we will continue to see robot vacuum cleaners take the leap forward as they have over the past few years. I expect we’ll see absurd levels of suction power and robots will start to develop a whole new set of skills. Last year we had one robot climb stairs , so I expect we’ll start to see more robots with this kind of dexterity. Switchbot has started experimenting with the idea of a robot vacuum cleaner acting as a home butler, delivering water from the source to humidifiers, and I predict it will continue to develop this idea. If a robot can move water, what else can it move for you?
What I’d like to see in robot vacuum cleaners is consistency across high-end models: they should now all have a compartment for cleaning fluid on the charging dock, and they should all be able to be operated via remote control. application.
I’d like to see robot vacuum cleaners disappear completely: they’re useless, imperfect, and just another unwanted voice in my home. Instead, I’d like to see robot vacuum cleaners integrate better with existing voice assistants.
Also, I would like to see robot vacuum cleaners use baseboards. I’m sure it seems like a small thing, but brands are obsessed with how close their robots get to the wall, while neglecting baseboards that remain dirty and ignored. Narwhal began to solve this problem, albeit in the simplest way, by attaching a clutch to the robot that sweeps the baseboard, but this is not enough.
I predict we’ll see a ton of robotic lawnmowers this year, which is great. I predict that, like the Yarbo and Mowrator , most lawnmowers will also start to do “more” including picking up and dumping leaves. I’m hoping to see more stability in the mid- and large-sized models, with beefier wheels that can handle hills and inclines with ease, but with a tighter turning radius that won’t damage your lawn. I’d love to see a fleet of small robotic lawnmowers, perfect for tiny lawns, sold at tiny prices. I would love to see more lawn seals that allow you to mow patterns in your lawn. While this sounded exciting, in practice it turned out to be quite stupid.
Will we finally get our own personal robots this year?
Remember Bally from Samsung? I’d like to see true personal robots truly hit the consumer market this year. So far the ones I’ve tried haven’t impressed me. I have an Enabot that is supposed to follow my dog, but so far it just crashes into my washing machine over and over again. Personal robots don’t necessarily need to do all of this yet, but I do think these robots could work for emotional support and light physical assistance with housework or technological tasks. But for this to happen, the brand must (please) already have a good product on the market.
The best smart lighting throughout your whole home
Over the past year, smart home technology has made deep inroads into the new construction and remodeling market. It’s not enough to have a smart bulb or a lamp with a smart plug: now everything from recessed lights to under-cabinet lights to permanent outdoor lighting is smart. I hope we continue to see growth in the market for retrofitted equipment, which will benefit tenants.
Last year I noticed a huge increase in entertainment lighting: floor lamps that can be changed to any color, flexible foam lights that resemble neon lights , and even lightweight curtains. After falling in love with the Nanoleaf glowing lights, I’d love to see more research into smart LED lights for the home and office that look like they’re meant for adults and not just kids. There’s really no reason why any light in your home could be set to just white, and when all of your lights can work together as one, changing color schemes, your entire home becomes a big light therapy factory.
Where else can smart locks go?
Every time I think I’ve got the smart lock thing figured out, something new comes along that makes things better again. The first facial recognition locks came out this year, then the palmprint lock, and now it looks like Eufy is about to announce a palm recognition lock. It feels like Star Trek .
My biggest wish for smart locks is that they do a better job of retrofitting older homes that may have the most security needs. There are still many types of older locks that have few or no smart lock upgrade options. I’d also like to see smart locks that look like many of our homes: stately and sophisticated rather than cold and modern.
Better and safer smart cameras
This year, smart cameras have adopted several trends: continuous recording 24/7 , which is more informative than the clips we are used to. We also saw an explosion in the number of self-powered cameras that worked well and only needed solar power. The downside to these cameras is the amount of data they use since they are not connected to Wi-Fi.
I would like to see this video compressed better on standalone cameras to make them easier to use. I would also like the cameras to become smaller and less noticeable. At the moment I’m only interested in PTZ (pointing, tilting, zooming) cameras and wondering why anyone would buy anything else, so I’d also like to see fewer static point of view cameras. Finally, I hope to see better security around these cameras and real ways to protect the channels.
Standards, hubs and automation
I don’t really want to, but I expect we’ll see a lot of brands try to relaunch their hubs as multihubs – that is, platforms that control not only that brand’s devices, but allow them to integrate and interact with all your devices. devices of different brands.
Most people use Google, Apple or Amazon for this. Personally, I would prefer to see brands focus on exclusive integration with existing large multi-centers. Of course, I’d love to see Matter —the connectivity standard that was supposed to revolutionize the smart home by getting rid of all your smart hubs and apps so you only need one—to be used in all new devices as a connection method. Matter’s acceptance has been slow, but I still believe in its potential.
I would also like to see automation become easier with our assistants and multi-hubs. While AI has started to play a role (Google recently added Gemini to help with automation, but I found it clunky), automation remains fairly straightforward for most users. There is a lot of “if this happens, do that.” It is difficult to perform multi-step automation or dependent automation with more than one condition. I’d like to see this change.