The Consumer Electronics Show, known as CES, is the premiere annual event for consumer brands debuting new products. The sheer size of the event, which takes over Las Vegas from January 5 to 10, is hard to wrap your head around, as is the breadth of products represented there. Smart home technology makes up a big enough slice of the pie to have its own section of the event, this year at The Venetian.
In some ways, when we talk about what we hope to see at CES, we’re actually saying what we hope to see for the next year, because most things at CES aren’t quite ready for the mass market just yet. While I’ve been getting sneak peeks at what a lot of companies are going to be releasing for CES in 2025, there are still a few types of products I really hope I’ll get to see more of.
More types of sensors for better automation
Sensors are a key part of a smart home toolbox, serving as a trigger for various actions. Their utility depends on two factors: that they work reliably, and that the automation software offers enough flexibility in how you can use them. There’s still a lot of room for both these factors improve.
There are lots of brands that offer sensors with spotty reliability—particularly those that measure water and temperature. So generally, I’d like to see more big brands in this space release basic sensors (motion, light, presence, temperature, and water) that can be trusted.
Beyond improving what we already have, there are some newer spaces I’d love to see smart sensors explore. With the explosion of smart lights that I expect us to see at CES, I’d love better and more sensitive light sensors that can sense a color shift—I dream of being able to run an automation where my robot mop is triggered by a sensor recognizing the white tiles are no longer white due to dirt, for example. I’d also like sensors that compare indoor and outdoor air quality with greater detail about where air issues are coming from, and weight sensors that can be used to run automations based on how much weight changes—for instance, a sensor on food and water dishes that can tell me how much my dog ate and drank today.
We already know that the most trusted name in sensors, Aqara, is rumored to release a new presence sensor. As exciting as that is, I’d love to see even more sensors from them—ones that push into new areas of representation like I’ve named above.
Key improvements in robot vacuums and mowers, please
This year, I’ve played with an untold number of vacuums, a bunch of lawnmowers, and even a few personal robots like the Enabot. I expect we’re going to continue to see robot vacuums leap forward this year, as they have the past few. I expect we’ll see absurd levels of suction power, and the robots are going to start to develop a whole new set of skills. We had one stair-climbing robot last year, so I expect we’ll start to see more robots with that sort of dexterity. Switchbot started to play with the idea of a robot vacuum as a household butler, shuttling water from the source to humidifiers, and I predict it’ll continue to build that idea out. If the robot can shuttle water, what else can it move for you?
What I’d like to see in robot vacuums is consistency in high-end models—by now they should all have a compartment for cleaning fluid on board the charging dock, and they should all have the ability be to directed by remote control in the app.
I’d like to see robot assistants for vacuums go away entirely: they’re unhelpful, unrefined, and just another unwanted voice in my house. Instead, I’d like robot vacuums to better integrate with existing voice assistants.
Also, I’d love to see robot vacuums take on baseboards. I’m sure this seems small, but brands are obsessed with how close their robots get to the wall, and yet they ignore the baseboards, which remain filthy and ignored. Narwal has started to address this, although in the most basic way, by attaching a muff to the robot that sweeps against the baseboard, but it’s not enough.
I predict we’ll see a ton of robot lawnmowers this year, which is exciting. I predict that like the Yarbo and Mowrator, most lawnmowers will also start to do “more,” including collecting and dumping of leaves. What I hope to see is more stability in mid-large size models, with beefier wheels that can handle dips and hills with ease, but with a tighter turn radius that doesn’t tear up your lawn. I would love to see a fleet of small robot lawnmowers, perfect for tiny lawns, and for them to be sold at tiny prices. I would not like to see more lawn printing, which allows you to mow designs into your lawn. Though it sounded exciting, it turned out to be pretty silly in practice.
Will we finally get our personal robots this year?
Remember Ballie, from Samsung? I’d love this to be the year actual personal robots make it into the consumer market in a real way. So far, I’m unimpressed with those I’ve tried. I have an Enabot that is supposed to follow my dog around, but so far, it just runs into my washing machine over and over again. Personal robots don’t have to do it all yet, but I truly think these robots could work for emotional support and a light physical assist in housework or technological chores. But for that to happen, a brand has to (please) get a good one to market already.
Better smart lighting throughout the entire home
Over the last year, smart home tech has deeply infiltrated the new construction and retrofit market. It’s not enough to have a smart bulb or a lamp on a smart plug, now everything from recessed lights to under cabinet lights to permanent outdoor lights are smart. I hope we continue to see growth in the retrofit market, which benefits renters.
I’ve noticed a massive uptick in entertainment lighting in the last year—floor lamps that can change to any color, bendable foam lights that resemble neon lights, even light curtains. After falling in love with my glowing Nanoleaf lights, I’d love to see more exploration in LED smart lights for inside the home and office that look like they’re for adults, not just kids. There’s really no reason any light in your home should only be able to be tuned to white anymore, and when all your lights can play together as one to engage in shifting color schemes, your whole house becomes a big light therapy factory.
Where else can smart locks possibly go?
Every time I think smart locks have been all figured out, something new comes out that improves things yet again. The first facial recognition locks came out this year, and then the palm print lock, and now, it looks like Eufy is going to announce a lock with palm recognition. It feels like Star Trek.
My biggest wish for smart locks is that they get better about retrofitting older homes, which arguably need the security the most. There are still many kinds of older locks that have few or no smart lock retrofit options. I’d also like to see some smart locks that look like many of our homes do: stately and refined instead of cold and modern.
Better, more secure smart cameras
This year, smart cameras took on a few trends: 24/7 continuous recording, which is more informative than the clips we were used to getting. We also saw an explosion of off-grid cameras which worked well and only needed solar power. The downside of these cameras is the amount of data they use, since they’re not connected to wifi.
I’d like to see better compression of that video on off-grid cameras so they become more usable. I’d love to see the cameras get smaller and less visible, too. At this point, I’m only interested in PTZ (point, tilt, zoom) cameras, and wonder why anyone would buy something else, so I’d like to see less of the static viewpoint cameras, too. Finally, I hope to see better security around these cameras, with real ways to secure the feeds.
Standards, hubs, and automation
I don’t want this, really, but I expect we will see tons of brands try to relaunch their hubs as multi-hubs—that is, platforms that control not just that brand’s devices, but allows them to integrate and interact with all your devices across brands.
Most people utilize Google, Apple, or Amazon for this. Personally, I would prefer to see brands focus on exceptional integration with major multi-hubs that already exist. Of course, I’d like to see Matter—the connection standard that was supposed to revolutionize smart home by getting rid of all your smart hubs and apps so you only needed one—utilized in all new devices as a connection method. Matter has been slow to adoption, but I still believe in its potential.
I’d also like to see automation get easier with our assistants and multi-hubs. While AI has started to play a role (Google has recently added Gemini as a possibility for automation help, but I found it clunky), automation remains pretty one-note for most users. It’s a lot of “if this happens, do that.” It’s difficult to execute multi-step automations or dependent automations with more than one condition. I’d love to see that change.