20 BEST Things I Saw at Europe’s CES! (IFA 2026)

It might look like I'm at CES but I'm actually on the other side of the world in Berlin, Germany at IFA 2026. I'm on a mission to find cool tech to add to my smart home, whether it's coming out now or in the future. Let's go check it out. So if you've ever wanted more buttons or sensors at your desk, this is Ultrabar. It was just released recently and what's cool is it's like a modular design where they're magnets and you can like connect a bunch of different buttons or displays. And there's a sensor right here and it can detect if you're sitting at your desk. And what's cool is all this stuff integrates really well into Home Assistant so you can program the buttons or the little control wheel to control different devices around your house. And yeah, everything seemed to be pretty responsive. It's very customizable. So yeah, Ultrabar looks pretty sweet. Now one thing I haven't ever seen before solves a problem if you use some of these Zigbee soil moisture detectors. So if you're putting these out in your yard and it's far away from your house, the Zigbee signal might not reach it. So the people at Third Reality created this. It's a Zigbee extender and it has solar panels on top so it can go anywhere in the yard and it can stay charged up for over two weeks without any sunlight. And there's a big huge Zigbee antenna in here. Just stick it in the ground and it extends your Zigbee range for those soil moisture sensors or whatever else you have in your yard. So you might have seen I set up an alarm system in my smart home. Well, if you will need a Zigbee version, Third Reality is making a Zigbee keypad and a siren. So this is pretty sweet. If you're into the Zigbee ecosystem then you could use that for your alarm. Okay, I'm super interested in this next topic because Arizona recently had a massive category 5 dust storm. A level so extreme researchers have only seen them a handful of times. I had never seen my outdoor air quality sensors go so high. Like I could taste the dirt in my mouth. It was so gross. But do air purifiers really do anything? Like I want to see it working. This video is sponsored by Dreo. So thanks to them for helping making this trip out to Germany possible. And it was really cool to see their demo with this smoke chamber. This is Dreo's turbo pure purification system which basically uses a strong motor to push tons of air through a three-stage HEPA filtration system. It captures 99.97 of airborne particles cleaning all the air in the room almost five times per hour. But with air quality I want to see the real numbers to know that it's actually working. Well their new air purifier 530 S can show the live 2.5 particular matter readings. Plus it has an RGB air quality indicator with different colors showing air quality levels at a glance. And RGBIC ambient lighting that can be personalized through the Dreo app. My kids would love this. Plus there's a 30-day air quality report to show you all of that juicy data. Yeah I'm a nerd. I like looking at charts and numbers about my house. And since it's Dreo you know it's gonna be near silence. It can be as quiet as 18 decibels. Dreo is also introducing their air intelligence. It factors in all the air quality data, energy savings, and uses an AI agent that can proactively coordinate your home appliances. And that got me thinking if my home can already tell me what's happening with the air what if it could do something about it? And that's where Dreo air intelligence comes in. It uses information about our environment, comfort, and energy use to help our smart home make smarter decisions. With home wellness score and energy saving status you can see what's happening and what the AI is doing. AI gets a lot of hype but it's cool to think about it doing things for us in the near future. So I'm here at the home assistant booth and they have these really cool little displays like mini dashboards that Darren set up. You guys got to check it out. So these are some of my favorite little displays. They're made with ESP home so they're very inexpensive. And right now they're displaying album art. And what's cool is on the back of these CDs there's a little NFC tag. And so if you scan it on this it will start playing the music and then display the album art on the display. So that's pretty awesome. And it's crazy how inexpensive these devices are. The components inside I think maybe the seat studio ESP 32 costs around five dollars and then the components probably cost about a dollar each. I made this on a weekend just a few hours so it's really accessible. So that's pretty cool but this little device is probably my favorite. It's a tiny little dashboard with tons of little buttons and switches to control the lights, the thermostat, music. It doesn't use a battery and I love how small it is but it's really easy to set up like Darren was showing me. And yeah it's pretty simple. I thought it was gonna be way more complex. It's actually really easy and it's super inexpensive. So I definitely want to try this more when I get home and it was fun to check out here at the booth. Every time I walk by the home assistant booth it was packed. It was so fun to hang out here talk to a lot of the people that make home assistant possible and a lot of people that are visiting. I was able to say hi to a lot of you so thanks for that and yeah so much fun. Have you ever woke up and thought man I just wish I could say a phrase to AI and have it change my lights to a different color? Yep that's never happened for me. But Govee's doing it. Govee's doing it. They have a few new lights that they're showing off. Well they're kind of new they're not really just announced. The Govee ceiling light ultra and the Govee sky ceiling light. The Govee sky ceiling lights a little brighter and it just does like different colors where the Govee ceiling light ultra can do like little images that you can generate like a little gif and it will display it which it's kind of interesting. They have all their AI lighting that I'm not really a huge fan of. I'm just like hey select a scene change the colors I don't need to say a phrase to AI to change it depending on how I'm feeling but Govee's making it anyways. Okay I might not use this in my smart home but it's so cool I got to show you. So we've seen drones before but this thing is completely different. It flies like a bird. I've never seen anything like this. There's no propeller it just uses a normal controller like a DJI drone and instead of making the propeller spin faster the wings flap faster and then to steer it it moves the back tail and the back tail is also stabilized. It's awesome because it doesn't have you know those noisy propellers that you see with the DJI drone so you could bring this into nature and it's just quiet flying through the air. I think it looks pretty fun. It's coming out on Kickstarter soon it's gonna cost $1,400 which is pretty expensive but they have like $700 off if you sign up early on Kickstarter. I think for like a first initial prototype this thing looks awesome. Some of my favorite cameras in my smart home are Reolink so I'm here at the Reolink booth and they have a new camera that they're announcing. It's the Omni V2i Ultra so it has the wide-angle camera on top and then the 360 like turret style camera on bottom and what's great about this is it's 4k it runs on battery and it has a removable rechargeable battery so that will stay topped up if it has 30 minutes of sunlight so that's great to see and of course they showed some of these other Omni V flagship cameras that have the 180 degree cameras on top and the turret on the bottom those things are so sweet but you know not everyone has access to PoE so I'm really glad to see this that has solar. I would love to add one of these in like kind of a faraway spot for my house. So if you watch my channel before you know I love some great smart lights but what I like even more are reliable smart lights so here at Aqara they're announcing a bunch of new smart lights and all of them work with Zigbee and Thread so they're gonna be way more reliable. They have some downlights and this new one that you know it's kind of this floor lamp you've seen Govee make something similar and they look pretty good. It's fun to see the demo of all the lights in here because it worked so well. Normally at these trade shows the lights and Wi-Fi isn't working great but because these use Zigbee and Thread they work flawlessly. All the lights are gonna be available in October no word on pricing just yet and they also had this cool little device you've probably seen one of these before it's the Aqara Cube but this one's made out of metal so it has more of a premium feel. Aqara's FP 400 is about to come out that's gonna be a lot better at sensing people with zones. They also have the FP 400 Pro and this one's gonna be more tailored towards fall detection and so if you need to keep an eye on someone to make sure that they're safe this could be a good choice. Okay I'm not much of a gamer but I do like to play occasionally and I like to be productive so this thing from Acer really caught my eye it's a dual play mini it's a portable game console but you can flip it open to expose a keyboard and the keyboard is actually a decent size like it was easy to type on it so it would be fun to bring on a trip or something because you could game get a little work done. I think this is a really cool form factor and I could see people really enjoying this. As you guys probably know I live in Arizona and it's extremely hot and so I like to sleep cool but eight sleep they're pretty expensive and they don't really work well with the smart home. Well this changes with this thing more. First of all it's way less expensive it's $7.99 it's basically the same thing as eight sleep it's like a mattress topper where water can go through the topper and cool you or heat you and it can do one side cool one side warm so it doesn't really matter you know you can set the temperature to whatever you want and the controls are right there next to your bed so it's really easy to adjust the temperature there's no fees and it works with the smart home so it works with like Amazon Apple not really sure yet about home assistant or matter so hopefully they add that but I think for the price this is so much better and I think will be a lot more accessible for a lot of people especially if you want to integrate it into your smart home. So Nanoleaf had some big announcements here at IFA. One they're merging with SwitchBot so that will be interesting but they're also partnering with Philips Hue so they have this new little module that can plug into the existing Nanoleaf lights and then you can control it with your Philips Hue ecosystem and that means these Nanoleaf lights will work with Zigbee so they'll be a lot more reliable I really like the Nanoleaf lights but sometimes connectivity can be iffy so being able to control them with Zigbee and work with the Philips Hue ecosystem is a big win. So one thing I plan on having in my own home and I think a lot of people will have in their homes in the future is a local AI box like something that just runs AI locally does a ton of stuff for your house and with Anker they're calling it mind base it's kind of like this box that you can add 48 terabytes of SSD storage which would probably cost more than your house but yeah it's supposed to just have an AI agent just does it all automations you know everything it's a little unclear exactly what it all is because it's still pretty new it comes out early next year so it'll be interesting to see how good it is but their doorbell from Eufy you got to go check this out this new Eufy doorbell is pretty sweet because it has a fisheye lens and a 3k resolution so it can see super wide and when it zooms in you can see a decent amount of detail and I think this would be really useful for those doorbells where they're not in the greatest position like kind of facing sideways from the door so you'll be able to see all the people and top to bottom so you'll be able to see packages and people standing up close I think it looks pretty sweet there's more local AI boxes especially here at you green they have three different versions there's a base version and then there's a pro version which is a little more powerful and then there's the master agent which is extremely powerful and very pricey but they have a little microphone on it you can talk to their AI and give it commands it was like opening up the shades turning the lights on and off and you'll be able to control more smart home devices with matter in the future they also have a little speaker that will connect to it and that way you can have it in different parts of your house talk to the AI agent have it do things you green is also announcing some cameras and they're showcasing and they have one really really cool feature so as you get closer it can turn on the lights and give you a warning but watch what happens if you get too close the siren goes off and the lights start flashing like red and blue lights which I think more camera should have stuff like that okay this isn't necessarily smart home tech I just like it as someone that does YouTube videos it's called the versa and it's like a little pocket camera that has a little gimbal we've seen these before but this one can attach to a tiny little drone and it can follow you so you get some cool shots walking around some hand gestures and controlling the drone like that this is something I might want because you can get some cool shots that you normally wouldn't be able to do if you don't have a cameraman you just slapped a little camera on the drone and it was so light it hardly weighs anything and I want it actually I want pretty much everything in this section this is the creator section cameras all that kind of stuff yeah when you do YouTube videos this is just too much fun over here here at LG it's a little different than CES they still have a lot of stuff but one thing that's very interesting is the homie section so they came out with the homie portal which is kind of like this little small dashboard it's round and it looks very good like you could put this on a counter in a bedroom and super versatile unfortunately I can't play with it right now it's under a piece of glass because they only have one prototype that they've made and just like the homie system it's designed to be really easy to use I still think homie is a great option for people that don't want to use home assistant the homie portal is pre-order right now they're gonna start shipping it in like December and January so yeah if you have homie I would definitely check this out but what I really wanted my smart home is their AI art frame Luna they already had a first version which worked pretty well but they've updated it so it doesn't have any of those white border bezels on it so now it's just pure e-paper with a frame so it looks so much better they've increased the resolution so looks sharper and the battery life is extended they were saying something like six years which I don't know if I fully believe that but I'm sure it'll last a really long time hanging on the wall and it can hold a lot more pictures on board and they also had this really cool feature that they were telling about you can send one of these as a gift to like a parent you can have a QR code be sent with it and when they open it they can scan a QR code and it will print an image that you choose like of your family on to the picture frame when they first open it which I think is such a good idea perfect for gift-giving yeah I definitely want to try that my smart home so I've always been interested in the small projectors but they've never looked quite that good like I saw the one from ours in last year and it was 720p and not super bright but they made a 1080p version that's slightly bigger and it looks so much better like I was watching this kid and his dad play Mario Kart and it looks so good and it made me kind of want to play with my kids like sure at home or especially on the go like we're traveling it'd be fun to bring Nintendo switch and this little projector that can fold up so small and really easy to travel with so it can go up to a hundred inches and they were demoing that it looked pretty decent and the big size which was surprising it's available now with the IFA discount it's like $579 and then it will retail for $629 I think yeah pretty cool little device ever since moving into our new house with RealGrass having a robot lawnmower has been essential I've been using the x4 30 and it's been amazing well Navimo just announced a new one the h5 Pro has three new features compared to the x4 30 series the main one is this edge mowing so it's called the edge maestro and it will swing out when it's near an edge so you don't have to go around with a weed whacker and clean up the edges so even though it doesn't swing out as far as some of the competition it is much more quiet than like the weed whacker string and it cuts it more evenly it also has LiDAR now so it's gonna be a lot more accurate at detecting things and 360 cameras so they're more on the edge so it can see a lot better it will come out next year sometime in q1 they don't have any pricing yet but I'm excited for it this one from Ecovacs really caught my eye because it has this swing out arm edge trimmer that goes out so far and this thing's a beast it has like these hydraulic lifts so it can raise up if it's gonna go over some big bumps and then lower back down so it can cut the grass this thing is just a monster each of the robot lawnmowers all have their own little things that they're good at now Mimotion they just announced the Luba 4 and this one has three cutting blades underneath so it can cut a wider area the front wheels can now turn so it used to use the omni wheels on the three so that won't rip up the grass as much but it can also go backwards if it is in like kind of a tight spot instead of turning around a lot it can just go forward and backwards like you know you would use with like a normal lawnmower sometimes you just pull it backwards and then they have an accessory that you can add on to the back it's a swing out arm that does the weed whacking off to the side it looks like you can swing out pretty far so doesn't seem like it's gonna miss a whole lot I'm excited that a lot of these are now getting these edge trimming off to the side because that just less work for me they also have these behemoths that are a commercial grade they're meant for like golf courses yeah these things are like tanks now this is one I don't understand at all why do I need an arm on my robot lawnmower to pick stuff up like if something's in the way just knock it off to the side I don't need to precisely pick it up maybe some of you want this and if you do let me know down in the comments it's so funny having the snowblower pull around a wagon I need that for my kids to take them on walks around the neighborhood my kids were literally saying they want something just like this it's a small little camera that you can attach to your pets to get like a pet POV to see what they see it has 64 gigs of internal storage so it just records them as they run around the house or you take them on a walk or something and then you can see the live stream as well on your phone the camera only weighs 25 grams so a lot less than an action camera I think that would fit our dog Annie who's kind of a small dog a lot better it's gonna be coming out in like October ish they don't have a price yet because of the internal storage you know and how prices are fluctuating so much on the storage yeah I'm sure once my kids see this video they're gonna make me buy one so I've had my iPhone for a few years now and the battery life is getting terrible and I refuse to upgrade because it's still a great phone so a little power bank that can slap on the back is very attractive but not any power bank here at IFA Belkin is showcasing their new semi solid-state power bank and what's cool about these is they last three times longer so like a normal power bank can you know recharge about 300 cycles maybe 500 but this can do it three times more than that it has a gel like substance inside so instead of liquid that way if it got punctured or something it's not gonna smoke or explode a lot more safe so they have a smaller one for MagSafe to slap onto your phone and then a slightly bigger one for like your laptop this one has a little screen on it tells you the battery life if it's overheating and some cool stuff like that and the price isn't too bad it's $65 for the MagSafe version and $80 for the larger laptop size and it's available now I didn't even know iRobot was still making robot vacuums but apparently they made a really cool one something that I've been saying I want for a long time and it's like a two-in-one so there's a bigger robot vacuum think of it as like a dock on wheels and it holds a smaller robot vacuum so the bigger robot can clean up bigger messes like they showed some spaghetti on the carpet and it just sucked it right up it can get spills on the ground and food and then for the smaller stuff it lowers down a smaller robot vacuum and then that just goes around and cleans everything so you can get under like smaller furniture and all that but I think this is awesome I've always wanted a bigger robot that can do different things and then like a smaller one as well now it is just a concept but the idea of having a dock on wheels like charge up the robot vacuum and clean bigger messes I think is pretty awesome so I've had a lot of people ask me what's the difference between CES and IFA well CES might have some slightly flashier booths but IFA they have bumper cars they have multi-level mazes like literally dead ends where you can get stuck yeah pretty crazy stuff and they have families here like kids which you do not see at CES but I think that's what makes IFA special like you see these families interacting with the tech and it's easy to take for granted but when you see the families like wowed by it and like loving it just makes you appreciate it like I am so grateful I was able to come here try out so many awesome pieces of tech and I can't wait for the future thanks for watching apparently they did a way heavier wave for Shane than they did for Paul so yeah it's so dystopian here especially in the robot area where you see kids playing with robots kids riding on robots what robots are all fun and games until they decide to start taking us out then it won't be so fun anymore