Samsung, LG and Lego lead charge at CES 2026 with innovations spanning creaseless foldable phones, sensor-packed building blocks and displays that disappear into dashboards.
What’s happening: CES 2026 officially opened its doors in Las Vegas on 6 January, with announcements spanning LG’s 9mm-thick Wallpaper TV, Samsung’s 130-inch television, Nvidia’s Vera Rubin superchip and Lego’s sensor-equipped Smart Bricks.
Las Vegas has become the epicentre of technological innovation this week, as CES 2026 transforms the city into a sprawling showcase of tomorrow’s consumer and business technology.
Lego unveiled sensor-studded Smart Bricks equipped with chips that recognise other bricks, measure tilt and movement, generate sounds and activate LED lights. The Smart Play system debuts in Star Wars sets on 1 March, priced between $70 and $160. The sets include speakers emitting lightsaber swooshes, fighter sounds and The Imperial March.
The AI integration extends beyond toys. The Vocci AI smart ring records and transcribes meetings across over 100 languages. Users press a button on the ring to mark important moments, prompting AI-generated insights highlighted in red.
Withings announced the Body Scan 2 smart scale at $600, tracking over 60 biomarkers including hypertension risk detection and cellular health assessment. The device uses Impedance Cardiography to monitor heart pumping efficiency and Bioimpedance Spectroscopy for metabolic function analysis. Launch is planned for the second quarter of 2026, pending FDA clearance.
Govee showcased ceiling lights mimicking real skylights with shifting daytime colours. The Ultra model reaches 5,000-lumen brightness and responds to voice prompts for displaying various visual modes.
Lockly’s OwlGuard security camera, selling this spring for $100, features 2K resolution, colour night vision and operates without Wi-Fi. Optional accessories include a monocle for enhanced zooming and shades for reducing glare.
Display breakthroughs
Amazon introduced its Ember Artline TV, competing directly with Samsung’s The Frame through its matte screen and access to over 2,000 pieces of free art. The 4K QLED model supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus, available at $900 for 55 inches and $1,100 for 65 inches.
Samsung Display demonstrated concepts including foldable phones with practically invisible creases and vehicle models featuring curved 18.1-inch L-shaped centre displays. A 13.8-inch passenger display can retract into the dashboard when not needed, with technology preventing drivers from viewing passenger content.
LG revealed its W6 Wallpaper TV measuring just 9mm thick. Samsung’s 130-inch micro RGB television uses red, green and blue LEDs instead of white backlights, with the company calling it the world’s largest.
Samsung’s ultra-thin OLED S95H features a refined bezel delivering art gallery elegance. The Freestyle+ portable projector allows users to view content on walls, ceilings and uneven surfaces like corners and curtains. The 2026 TV lineup supports HDR10+ ADVANCED, delivering enhanced brightness and genre-based optimisation.
Samsung introduced five new Odyssey gaming monitors, led by the first 6K 3D Odyssey G9. AI integration has reshaped business technology priorities, with brands accelerating adoption to meet consumer demands.
AI dominates
Nvidia unveiled its Vera Rubin superchip, combining one Vera CPU and two Rubin GPUs in a single processor. The platform delivers up to 50 petaflops of inference performance and 35 petaflops of training performance, representing five times and 3.5 times improvements over Blackwell respectively.
The Vera Rubin NVL72 server combines 72 GPUs into a single system, with full production already underway. Cloud providers including AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Oracle Cloud plan deployments in the second half of 2026. The platform promises up to 10 times reduction in inference token cost and requires four times fewer GPUs to train mixture-of-experts models compared with Blackwell.
Intel launched Core Ultra Series 3 processors, the first compute platform built on Intel 18A process technology designed and manufactured in the United States. The chips will power over 200 laptop designs, delivering up to 60 per cent better multithread performance and 77 per cent faster gaming performance than previous generation processors. Battery life extends to 27 hours on some models.
The new class of Intel Core Ultra X9 and X7 processors features up to 16 CPU cores, 12 Xe-cores and 50 NPU TOPS. Pre-orders begin 6 January, with systems available globally from 27 January.
HP’s OmniBook Ultra 14, described as the world’s slimmest consumer notebook at 0.55 inches at its thickest point, houses either Intel Core Ultra Series 3 or Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 processors. The latter enables up to 85 TOPS NPU for local AI processing, starting at $1,550.
Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon X2 Plus chip, a more affordable version of the X2 Elite that could enable cheaper laptops as unprecedented RAM demand for AI data centres pushes up electronics costs. The chip uses a 3-nanometre process, matching Apple’s M3 chips.
Robotics revolution
Samsung Display showcased a teaching assistant robot concept designed to guide students to classrooms, share professor information and track assignments through its circular screen.
The Sweekar AI pet physically grows as users interact with it, whilst Qualcomm demonstrated robots capable of bending over backwards.
The Thine AI notetaker app leverages iPhone microphones and Siri functionality, avoiding separate hardware. The $200 monthly subscription targets executives tracking networking conversations and meetings. The app listens to conversations and provides summaries without storing audio recordings.
Computing advances
Lower-tier HP OmniBook models arrive through the year, with the OmniBook 5 starting at $850 in February and the OmniBook 3 at $500. The desktop OmniStudio X27 all-in-one features a Neo:LED display, described as an IPS panel with mini-LED backlight delivering better brightness and deeper blacks.
Bosch introduced vacuum models competing with Shark and Dyson, including the Unlimited 9 ($499 to $579) and Unlimited 10 ($599 to $699). Both feature manual debris compression in dustbins, automatic surface-type detection and dirt-indicating LED lights.
Belkin announced the Charging Case Pro for Nintendo Switch 2, packing a removable 10,000 mAh power bank delivering up to 30W of fast charging. The case features its own LCD to display battery life and recharges externally without opening.
Press conferences continue through the week, with additional reveals scheduled from AMD and Sony Honda Mobility. The event runs through 9 January, with official best of CES 2026 awards announced Wednesday morning.
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