CES is where sober silicon gets down with ridiculous ideas, and this year’s show embraced the latter with enthusiasm.
But beyond the star chips and concept cars, the show floor was speckled with devices that even veteran showgoers stopped to gawk at before asking: “Wait, it does what?” From edible sound to an ultrasonic chef’s knife and AI buddies with faces, the weirdest tech at CES 2026 had a function — some of it practical, some of it just plain fun.
Consumer Technology Association, which organizes CES, normally hosts 100,000+ visitors and thousands of exhibitors across over 150 countries. In that ocean of innovation, the outliers can tell us where user behavior, design and culture might be heading next. Here, some of the more bonkers standouts worth talking about.
Edible Audio Turns Bone Conduction into a Sugar Rush
The Lollipop Star got everyone’s heads and taste buds turning when it blew music through your teeth. The $9 treat relies on a small transducer hidden inside the stick to ferry vibrations through your jawbone, a twist on the bone-conduction tech swimmers and cyclists can already get with open-ear headphones. The result: a private audio feed you can listen to even as your ears remain open to the room.
It’s novelty, sure, but it’s also something of an object lesson in haptics. To test out the technology, we enlisted the help of five listeners who do not get on with normal earbuds. Bone conduction works by bypassing your eardrum and beaming vibrations directly into your inner ear — in theory, it can help certain listeners. Food-safe hardware is the key here. The company’s representatives pointed to sealed components and a single-use design, taking durability cues from disposable medical sensors.
Headphones That Flip Into a Tabletop Speaker
New audio brand TDM revealed a neat two-for-one: over-ears that twist into a tabletop speaker. Turn them out and the internal amp reroutes its output to add power, and changes EQ for room fill. It’s a throwback to boombox culture, but updated for apartment dwellings and communal spaces, where one device should do double duty.
Don’t expect club-worthy SPL capabilities from a headset footprint, but the industrial design solves an actual problem — changing from private to public without Bluetooth shenanigans. If modular audio was — or at least still is — last decade’s micro-niche, multi-mode hardware might just be the new must-have carry-on accessory.
A Knife That Cuts With Ultrasonic Waves and Micro-Vibrations
Seattle-based Ultrasonics’ $399 kitchen knife draws on industrial food processing, where knives vibrating at tens of thousands of cycles per second can cut through cheese, confections and soft produce with little drag. Turn on the handle switch, and the blade vibrates microscopically — only enough to lessen cutting force, firm up thin slices and stop tomato skin from putting up a struggle.
But behind the foodie cred, there’s an accessibility story. About 24% of U.S. adults are affected by arthritis, and grip strength drastically decreases as we age, the CDC says. More people can be comfortable cooking with a blade that requires less force. The company promises food-safe sealing and a removable blade to wash — crucial, what with the cautions around powered cutlery.
AI Companions Receive Physical Faces for the Home
Two very contrasting visions of embodied AI drew consistent crowds. Mind With Heart Robotics also showed off An’An, a plush panda that’s meant to be a conversation partner for elderly people — or kids who are practicing social skills. Think expressive eyes, mild nudges and routines that can signal it’s time to take medication or provide a checkup of sorts every day without engaging clinical mode.
There is research to support the approach. Tests with social robots such as Japan’s AIST-created PARO robotic seal have demonstrated decreases in anxiety and loneliness among the elderly in caregiving environments. In a Cochrane review of social robot interventions, there were modest yet promising increases in engagement. A caveat, shared by gerontology experts, is that the robots supplement, rather than replace, human connection.
On another axis, the Chinese startup Lepro showed off Ami, a desk-friendly OLED “soulmate” that exists in a tiny frame instead of on your phone. It’s a counterintuitive pitch: Bring a persistent, 10-inch-tall digital companion into your home so you can dodge the distraction treadmill of app notifications. APA surveys have found that persistent notifications cause increased stress; and a static opt-in AI presence is a promising step in the direction of digital boundaries.
Why the Weird Shit at CES Actually Matters
Strange things happen at CES, and they’re not always more of the trend toward disruptive change that has been in the offing for years just waiting to break through. The first wave of bone-conduction wearables sounded nutty at first, until they found their footing with athletes and accessibility users. Foldable displays were once fragile prototypes; now they’re shipping in the millions, says IDC’s foldable tracker. The three overarching currents in this year’s crop seem to be tactile interfaces that mix senses, devices that change roles at a user’s whim and AI that steps out of the app and into the room.
Not all of them will ship — nor should they. But the boundary-pushers also compel bigger companies to think beyond just spec sheets and toward what technology should actually feel like. If you emerged from the show with a sugar-coated song in your head and newfound appreciation for knives that hum, mission accomplished.
