Gadgets

It was the year of XR. But then, they all seem to be, these days. Strong presences from Meta, Magic Leap, Sony and HTC led the way at this year’s CES, with hundreds of startups picking up the rear. I was dazzled by a few demos but ultimately left wondering what form a true mainstreaming

TechCrunch Live hosted a special, in-person event at CES featuring a long conversation with Ecobee CEO and founder Stuart Lombard. This was our first in-person TechCrunch Live, and I can’t wait to do more. We talked about a lot — how a startup can maximize CES, how to build delightful products and how hardware startups

According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is going to spend most of 2023 focusing on a brand new device — a mixed-reality headset that has been a work in progress for several years. The new device could look like a pair of ski goggles, based on an earlier report from The Information. It

Hot on the heels from its $15 million fundraise just a few months ago, Brelyon showed off its vision for what immersive visuals could look like. At CES in Las Vegas, we tried out the 8K fully immersive OLED display, which gives a VR headset-like experience without having to strap anything to your face. “Brelyon

Humans are eternally curious about the night sky but figuring out how to use a telescope is non-trivial. At CES in Las Vegas, Unistellar believes it has the perfect solution with its Equinox 2 Smart Telescope. “When I was a young teenager, I had a telescope that I used during the long summer nights. Fast-forward

Packing battery tech nobody uses in consumer devices and a half-horsepower motor, BlenderCap is one of the most ludicrously over-engineered products we’ve seen in a hot minute. At CES in Las Vegas, we took a closer look at talked with the team behind the product to find out more. Let’s start with, er, why do

At CES in Las Vegas this week, AnkerWork announced its brand new AnkerWork M650 Wireless Microphone. It’s a two-microphone kit that can be clipped (or magnetically attached) to your clothing. Perfect for video interviews or improving the quality on zoom calls. The microphone includes high-quality audio and noise-cancellation technology wrapped up in a compact carry

You wait for years for a urine analysis company, then all of them hit their flow all at once. One of the notable trends at CES in Las Vegas this year was that the quantified-self movement is going deeper. No longer content with just measuring your heart rate, number of steps, and EKG on your

Something wasn’t working. In late 2020, Magic Leap announced a major change spearheaded by incoming CEO, Peggy Johnson. “[W]hat I found was nothing was really broken,” she told the press at the time, “It just needed to have a bit more focus.” From the outside, certainly, it seemed like typically understated Chief Executive speak. It

You probably haven’t heard of Brane Audio yet, but trust me on this one: You will. One of my highlights at CES in Las Vegas today was listening to the company’s debut speaker, the Brane X, side-by-side with some other well-known speaker brands. The company’s founder has a background from high-precision magnetics, and after exiting

From the desk of ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea’ at CES in Las Vegas, comes 444. The early-stage startup is planning to combine pepper spray with some electronics so a potential attack victim’s friends can be notified when they’ve had to deploy the defence spray to get themselves out of a bind.

AR tech sounds pretty cool, but nobody wants to be a glasshole. Today at CES, we checked out Lumus‘ bid to make AR glasses a little bit less cringe. The company creates a series of glasses that look, well, more or less like glasses, and are compatible with prescription lenses, too. The new glasses are

At CES, the company launches battery backup, a lawnmower, a portable A/C and a portable fridge Haje Jan Kamps 21 hours Today at its special launch event, home backup power giant EcoFlow launched a flurry of new products, including a ‘Whole-home Backup Power Solution.’ The company also launched a battery-powered fridge and a portable battery-powered

It’s the first official day of CES and our team has already located dozens of the coolest new gadgets, features, and weird concept cars that probably will never see the light of day. Halo (not Amazon’s Halo) has a wearable for babies that tracks heart rate, rollover, skin temperature, and movement. 10,000 steps a day

Come on in, the water is lovely. You wouldn’t have thought there was space for more players in the busy soup that’s the crowded sous-vide market, but Typhur begs to differ, thank you very much. At CES in Las Vegas, the company released an exquisitely designed $99 temperature sensor and announced its flagship product, the

Ember’s a bit of a weird one. The Southern California firm has two distinct – though not wholly unrelated arms. There’s the smart mug side of the business that launched the startup and the more recent cold chain shipping wing, which leverages its temperature control technology to move things like medical supplies. While it seemed

CES is about to begin in earnest, but even though the show floor opens tomorrow, we’ve already found lots of interesting tech at the show, ranging from practical to bizarre (yet compelling). Read on for our roundup of the coolest things we’ve seen so far. Image Credits: Icoma Last night we spotted a suitcase-sized electric

It would be a massive understatement to suggest that robot toys are a mixed bag. They largely get the looks right, but brains are another thing altogether. Look at the time and money that went into building the first Roomba, for example, and it becomes very clear why the dream of ubiquitous home robot still

Nintendo’s Power Glove was, to quote one of the 80s’ finest films, “so bad.” The NES peripheral transfixed a generation of youngsters, only to later realize that the “bad” in this instance should perhaps have been taken a bit more literally. Nintendo ultimately sold one million of the things, but the technology just wasn’t there,

There are a lot of YouTube videos out there that we’d rather not smell, but Kyoto-based tech startup Aromajoin today showed off the option to add a multidimensional experience to the mix. Using its ‘Aroma Shooter’ technology and a programmable ‘AromaPlayer,’ a neck-wearable smell dispenser can add six different aromas to your video-watching shenanigans. We

Ecobee started in 2007 when connected thermostats were an entirely different product and nothing like what’s available today. Ecobee released its Smart thermostat in 2008, bringing modern connectivity and usability to the device. I’m excited to host a special irl TechCrunch Live event at CES 2023. We’re filming in the LVCC Grand Concourse on the

Taking a deep breath as I write these words: Next week, TechCrunch will return to our first in-person CES in three years. Phew. It felt good to finally get that off my chest. The last time our team flew to Las Vegas for the event was January 2020. An auspicious date. It wouldn’t be long

Movano’s getting a week’s jump on what might well prove a banner CES for the smart ring. Today the Bay Area-based firm debuted Evie, a smart ring focused on women’s health set to hit the market later next year. The device capitalizes on the recent popularity of the unobtrusive form factor, led by the likes

Remember the Apple AirPower charging mat? Announced in 2017, the device was supposed to recharge three devices simultaneously, but Apple never released it, citing engineering issues. Now, Tesla is giving it a shot with the just-announced Wireless Charging Platform. Inside the Cybertruck-inspired aluminum casing is a wireless charging platform named FreePower from a startup called

In August, Drop announced its first new in-house mechanical keyboard in quite a while: the 75% Drop Sense75. On paper, the $349 gasket-mount keyboard looked like a winner, with an understated but classy design, Drop’s DCX keycaps, in-house stabilizers and its Holy Panda X tactile switches. The final result is a bit of a disappointment,

Isn’t it wonderful that there are researchers out there whose job is quite simply to make a robotic bird? That’s certainly the goal of this lab, whose flapping-wing drone, or ornithopter, has now been equipped with a grasping claw to let it take a rest on a nearby branch or perhaps even a finger —

Good sound is as important to enjoying a game as any other part of the experience, and these days you have your choice of dozens of headsets for every platform. Here are a few of the latest and greatest headsets for your gaming pleasure whether you’re a PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch or even mobile gamer.

The world of mechanical keyboards is a very deep rabbit hole and it’s no secret that more and more people have fallen into it in recent years. So if you have somebody in your life who keeps talking about lubing switches, gasket mounts and the pros and cons of ABS vs PBT keycaps, chances are

This year was a big one for the smart home thanks to the actual introduction of Matter after a couple years of discussion and refining the standard. It’s still early days for the cross-brand compatibility layer, and it’s probably still something that should only be one factor in how you set up your smart home

Apple’s new “Emergency SOS” service that lets off-grid iPhone users call for help via satellite has led to what may very well be its first successful rescue operation, certainly the first to be documented live. As related by the Montrose Search & Rescue Team, which conducted the operation, two people were in a vehicle driving