Europe’s biggest consumer technology trade show, IFA, is taking place once again in early September 2024. Companies from around the world will pack into Berlin’s massive Messe exhibition center to show off their wares. Last year’s IFA saw a host of announcements from audio, TV, wearable, and smartphone brands, but it was the smart home that made the biggest impact at the German trade show.
Laptops that twist, robovacs that can climb, and AI in everything; here’s all you need to know about everything revealed at Europe’s largest tech show.
The electronics giant says the smart home is ready for prime time as it launches a new hub, opens its ThinQ platform to other devices, and plans to share its appliances with other ecosystems.
An upcoming Galaxy Ring and SmartThings integration enables the smart ring to trigger smart home automations.
A giant super-sized model of the wearable was at IFA this week to demo how your home can respond to biometric signals.
It showed the ring sensing the wearer had fallen asleep or woken up and then starting a sleep routine or a good morning routine. Now that’s an effortless interface.
At IFA this week, Roborock and SharkNinja showed off robot vacuums that can lift themselves up to get over high room transitions, but Dreame went “a step” further.
It demoed its new ProLeap system, which uses retractable legs to navigate very low steps, as this video from The Ambient shows.
The tech is still in development but the company says it should arrive on its product line soon.
I love a good tactile dial and a sleek touchscreen for controlling my smart home gadgets, so Aqara’s new Panel Hub S1 Plus and Touchscreen Dial V1 caught my eye.
Both hardwire to existing light fixtures and can control other devices wirelessly — and that physical dial is so nice!
They’re launching in Europe and Aqara says U.S. versions could arrive next year.
The Siemens/Bosch XXL built-in fridge freezer was launched last year, and Eelco Lammertink of BSH tells me it will be upgraded to Matter in early 2025.
“Our ambition is to have our entire product line be connectable via Matter,” he said. BSH is also upgrading its Smart Kitchen Dock to be a Matter bridge, which will allow existing appliances to work with Matter.
The Camovue is a new outdoor camera from the folks behind Reolink that can send alerts when it detects specific animals.
It can spot up to 12 species, including wild boar, deer (bucks and does), mountain lions, elk, ducks, weasels, cattle, goats, turkeys, raccoons, and foxes.
The company says it’s working on adding more critter-spotting capabilities. The camera is slated for launch later this year.
A camera embedded into a keypad that can stream to a separate video intercom inside your home, Switchbot’s first video doorbell solution also works as a keypad for its smart door locks.
Both components are quite large and bulky, but it’s intriguing as an all-in-one solution for a video intercom. This is still a prototype; we expect to hear more about it next year.
The Narwal Freo Z Ultra ($1,499.99) uses two cameras to constantly scan while cleaning and adapt to what it spots.
Dual AI chips mean it can identify objects and decide how to clean — get close to chair leg but give pet poop a wide berth, retract its brush when it sees a cable, and activate mop-only when there’s a wet mess ahead.
Does it look good on me?
EcoFlow’s new $129 Power Hat is possibly the most uncomfortable hat I’ve ever worn — but if it can keep my phone charged while running around IFA in the blistering 90-degree heat in Berlin, it might be worth it.
The company says the hat can charge a 4,000mAh smartphone in a few hours. It’s surprisingly lightweight but unsurprisingly unattractive.
The RingConn 2 monitors your SpO2 levels while sleeping and promises 90 percent accuracy after just three hours of wear. The company is in the process of gaining FDA approval for the feature.
In the meantime, the surprisingly lightweight smart ring has the standard health-tracking features — including sleep, activity, stress, and heart-rate monitoring. It costs $299, claims up to 12 days of battery life, and doesn’t require a subscription.
Announced at CES, the Matter Smart Multicolor Permanent Outdoor lights are now available for pre-order starting at $199.99, shipping in October.
The full-color and tunable white lights feature 30 addressable LED pucks per 15-meter strip with a Kelvin range of 2200 to 6500 and 50 lumens per puck. The lights are trimmable and extendable up to 45 meters and work over 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi.
The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, which launched as a Snapdragon laptop, will get a $1,699 AMD Zen 5 variant in October with an undisclosed Ryzen AI Pro chip.
North America won’t get: €699 IdeaPad Slim 5 with AMD Ryzen 7000; €1699 Yoga Pro 7 with AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 and a 14.5-inch 600-nit OLED; €999 ThinkBook 16 Gen7+ with Ryzen AI 9 365.
It features Qualcomm’s new budget 8-core chip underneath a 16-inch 2K 60Hz, 300-nit IPS display — with “up to” 32GB RAM and 1TB storage. It does come standard with an big 84Wh battery.
Lenovo’s other new Qualcomm is the $850 IdeaPad 5x 2-in-1. It has a brighter 14-inch 400-nit OLED display, but a smaller 57Wh battery and only one USB-C.
Good news: Lenovo’s 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Carbon and 15-inch Yoga Slim 7i now have Intel Lunar Lake chips alongside 2.8K OLED screens and twin Thunderbolt 4 ports. Lenovo says the 2.16-pound Carbon is its lightest ever.
Weird news: They’re both now “Aura Edition” laptops, which apparently means software like focus modes, posture alerts, and “Smart Share” — tap an iPhone or Android to your laptop to share photos.
Priced for mass adoption, you still get a surprisingly capable 4K 30fps drone that can launch and land in the palm of your hand.
Unlike other companies, Sammy says it’s bringing its newest AI features to its older phones.
The Galaxy S24 series, S23 series, S23 FE, Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5, and Tab S9 series will all get the same AI features as its new Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 via a One UI 6.1.1 update, starting with S24 users in Europe and the US on September 9th.
It’s the first press day at the IFA 2024 tech show, and Samsung’s giant billboard on the side of Messe Berlin’s City Cube might just hint at what we’ll see inside this week.
The South Korean tech giant’s press conference starts in 15 minutes, and The Verge will be there — as long as I can find some coffee first.
Follow our IFA story stream for all the news.
The modular Solix X1 already announced for the US is now available in Europe in single- or three-phase configurations. LFP battery capacities start at 5kWh and expand to 180kWh with up to 36kW of power output. That’s enough to juice any device — even your EV — for hours, days, or indefinite operation when integrated with solar.
Think Powerwall, but not from Elon Musk.
