The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 wrapped up four days of knowledge-sharing among technology innovators at 12 venues across Las Vegas, including the Las Vegas Convention Center, in early January. The trade show welcomed over 148,000 attendees from around the globe, with over 4,100 exhibitors showing off the latest tech products.
“The energy at CES 2026 was extraordinary,” says Kinsey Fabrizio, president of the Consumer Technology Association (based in Arlington, Virginia), which owns and produces CES, in a prepared statement. “CES brings the global tech ecosystem together for an unmatched volume of deal making, partnerships, and idea sharing. The innovation unveiled [at the trade show] spanning artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, mobility, robotics, health, and so much more, underscores CES as the global stage where bold ideas move from vision to reality.”
While CES is known for flashy concept cars and giant TVs (this year featured a robot dog named Jennie), the real wins for meeting planners at this year’s show were stealth solutions to age-old logistical struggles: waste, accessibility, and the dreaded dead battery. Here are a few products to keep an eye on:
Belkin UltraCharge Pro Power Bank 10K With Magnetic Ring: The last thing you want is for a device to power down in the middle of your event, where you might be competing for an outlet or struggling to find one at all. The $100 UltraCharge Pro Power Bank (to be released this February) from Los Angeles-based Belkin can recharge two devices simultaneously with a built-in kickstand, digital display, and a magnetic ring that allows you to attach accessories (like the ever-valuable phone grip) while charging.
Clear Drop Soft Plastic Compactor: Events produce a lot of waste, including soft plastics (a la grocery bags, chip bags, and other food packaging), one of the many categories of items most recycling facilities won’t accept. The Clear Drop Soft Plastic Compactor from Clear Drop of McKinney, Texas, is a device that can turn hundreds of soft plastic bags into one solid, compact brick, which can then be sent to one of the company’s partner facilities in a prepaid shipping envelope for recycling. While you can’t drop the bricks into regular recycling bins just yet, Clear Drop is working to bring additional recycling partners on board, with its ultimate goal to include municipal recycling programs.
Core Devices Pebble Round 2 Smart Watch: Pebble smart watches are back after about a decade in hiatus—creator Eric Migicovsky sold the original Pebble Technology Corp. to Fitbit, now owned by Google, in 2016, and production ceased. The Pebble Round 2 smart watch from Migicovsky’s new company, Core Devices of Palo Alto, California, is ultra-thin at 8.1 millimeters, featuring a 1/3-inch e-paper touchscreen display and a promised battery life of two weeks. Pebble watches are designed to have basic smart-watch capabilities (step tracking, notifications, and music control) while limiting distraction and power consumption. They have physical buttons, so if you get an unwanted call during a keynote, you can press ignore without ever looking down. The watch is expected to be readily available this May.
HapWare Aleye Haptic Wristband: New from Colorado-based HapWare, this wristband—intended to pair with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses—vibrates in specific patterns on the wearer’s wrist to correspond with the facial expressions and gestures of the person they’re talking to, potentially helping attendees who are neurodivergent, blind, low vision, or otherwise struggle with nonverbal cues get more out of an event experience.
LG Gram Pro Redesign: It gets tiresome to lug tons of equipment to venues, so it’s nice to have a laptop that’s light and durable. LG debuted the redesign of its lightweight 16-inch Gram Pro laptop, made of an aluminum/magnesium alloy the company has dubbed “Aerominum.” A 17-inch model also was released, the lightest laptop at its size with the NVIDIA RTX graphics processing unit.
Samsung Freestyle+ Projector: A solid portable projector can be a game changer for impromptu breakout sessions or meetings held in executive suites that lack permanent audiovisual tech. Samsung’s latest portable projector, The Freestyle+, is nearly twice as bright as the previous model (The Freestyle, released in 2022), yielding 430 ISO lumens, the internationally standardized rating for projector light output. The updated model features 160-degree rotation; support for Samsung’s Q-Symphony technology for easy connection to nearby soundbars; and built-in Vision AI that can summon Samsung’s virtual assistant, Bixby, to adjust settings and what is being shown. Its 3D Auto Keystone feature can correct distortion and calibrate projections to different wall surfaces and colors for improved visibility. This product will have a phased global rollout throughout the first half of this year.
WheelMove Wheelchair Add-On: The French company WheelMove demonstrated a compact motorized wheelchair add-on that acts as a power-assist device and lifts up a manual wheelchair’s front wheels for easy navigation over rough terrain—in short, this device gives a manual wheelchair electric-wheelchair powers. The accessory can be attached to a wheelchair in seconds, upgrading the chair with a 10-inch extra wheel and a 250-watt motor that can drive up to 6 miles per hour. As this tech evolves, it could mean attendees once limited by a venue’s terrain might have more opportunities to participate.
belkin.com
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