The Best Actually Real Stuff At Ces 2025

10 hours ago

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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 66, your line to nan champion and Verge-iest worldly successful nan world. (If you’re caller here, welcome, happy 2025, and too you tin publication each nan aged editions astatine nan Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been reference astir loneliness and Web3 scams and the early of procedural TV, watching Deadpool & Wolverine connected an airplane for illustration nan caput intended, rewatching Severance and Squid Game to get caller for nan 2nd seasons, eagerly awaiting nan return of Kids Baking Championship, wondering if that’s real Sara Dietschy aliases AI Sara Dietschy, and giving an Apple News Plus subscription a whirl arsenic my go-to news source.

I too personification for you a ample study from CES successful Las Vegas. This type of Installer is simply a mini different than most, conscionable because we saw truthful galore caller things, and truthful galore caller things launched, and successful galore cases, it’s difficult to cognize whether immoderate of it will ever deed shelves. So deliberation of this arsenic information Installer, portion CES recap, information “David hopes desperately these things really ship” list. But I tried difficult to premier retired nan worldly I’m assured will really extremity up connected discarded astatine immoderate constituent soon and mightiness beryllium worthy your money. I’m judge I’ll beryllium incorrect astir a less of them… but here’s hoping. And if you want each nan champion worldly from CES, check retired our yearly awards — there’s tons of awesome worldly successful there.

Also, and astir importantly, my bosom goes retired to everyone successful LA and elsewhere dealing pinch nan fires this week. I’m truthful sorry for everything you’re dealing with, and I dream you’re safe and doing okay.

(As always, nan champion information of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into correct now? What should everyone different beryllium playing / reference / watching / downloading / building retired of Legos correct now? Tell maine everything: [email protected]. And if you cognize personification different who mightiness bask Installer, guardant it to them and show them to subscribe here.)

Installer

/ A play newsletter by David Pierce designed to show you everything you petition to download, watch, read, comprehend to, and investigation that fits successful The Verge’s universe.

The Drop

(A connection connected nan links successful here: I linked to merchandise pages erstwhile they existed, arsenic I ever effort to do. But since this is CES, sometimes location isn’t 1 yet. In those cases, I nexus to Verge stories aliases different coverage.)

The LG StanbyME 2. I cannot explicate to you why I americium truthful into this thing. It’s conscionable a big, portable aboveground (LG calls it a “lifestyle screen,” which is hysterical), pinch a strap and a stand, truthful you tin bent it up aliases prop it connected a table. Is that anything? I don’t know! But I emotion this idea.
The Circular Ring 2. The first exemplary was benignant of a dud, but nan Ring 2 appears to get almost everything right: amended battery, easier charging, nicer design, overmuch features. My 2025 task is to ditch my smartwatch for a smart ring, and this has immoderate potential.
Nvidia Project Digits. This 1 benignant of violates nan reside of nan “things a existent personification mightiness really buy” rubric here, but I americium progressively convinced that nan only bully AI early is 1 wherever your AI systems are overmuch local, overmuch personal, and overmuch yours. Nvidia’s Mac Mini-looking AI instrumentality is simply a cool measurement successful that direction.
The Roam SodaTop. I had a SodaStream for years and loved everything astir it isolated from it was immense and only successful my kitchen. The SodaTop screws correct onto a h2o vessel and carbonates h2o successful 5 seconds. $50! Spectacular, springiness maine 14 of them.
The Lenovo Thinkbook Plus Gen 6. I didn’t get to spot this 1 connected nan CES floor, but Lenovo’s rollable aboveground conception constituent is existent now — and apparently useful beautiful well. $3,500 for a laptop is preposterous, but this is simply a exertion that belongs successful a batch of laptops. Soon.
The Samsung Frame Pro. As acold arsenic I tin tell, nan existent show improvements coming are not ace impressive. But I for illustration that nan Frame setup is simpler and involves little wires now — and I’m hoping this’ll make nan last-gen Frame inexpensive tin that I tin warrant buying one.
The Wonder Petal. All my gardening- and birding-obsessed friends are ace into this thing, a flower-styled and solar-powered camera that uses AI to spot plants and creatures roaming astir your yard. I support proceeding awesome things astir nan Bird Buddy feeder, too.
The Flic Duo. A button! For doing fastener things! You instrumentality this mini point connected a wall and programme what happens erstwhile you click, double-click, spot and hold, swipe, and tons more. It’s Matter-compatible and $49 and nan benignant of constituent each smart location needs.
The SwitchBot Multitasking Household Robot K20 Plus Pro. Yikes, that name. But nan merchandise is truthful smart: a modular robot vacuum that turns into a roving aerial purifier, pet monitor, and more. I emotion nan inclination we’re seeing here, arsenic these move into nan first existent location robots.
The Amazfit Active 2. I noticed my workfellow Victoria Song wearing this watch and told her really overmuch I liked nan red, benignant of Tron-y face. She looked astatine maine and goes, “IT’S ONLY A HUNDRED DOLLARS!” That’s fundamentally nan woody — a pretty, beautiful good, beautiful inexpensive smartwatch and fittingness tracker. With my favourite watchface yet.
The Razer Handheld Dock Chroma. One dock for each your handheld crippled consoles. It has accelerated power, seems to nexus easily, and supports phones, Steam Decks, Switches, and more. I enactment wholly convinced that these consoles are nan early of games, and this is simply a terrific accessory idea.

Screen share

It’s a different clip successful nan blogging / societal media universe. Threads, Bluesky, X, Mastodon, and a cardinal different platforms are expanding and changing, and it’s difficult to fig retired wherever to locomotion your clip and energy. I’ve been talking to folks for years now astir really each this is expected to activity and personification consistently been convinced that Manton Reece is connected nan correct track. He’s nan creator of Micro.blog, which is elemental for illustration Twitter but individual for illustration a blog and has a batch of ample ideas astir interoperability and nan fediverse.

This week, Manton launched Micro.one, a $1 / play level that gives you a blog, connected your ain domain, that too lets you position to nan fediverse. If I were looking for a caller spot to post, there’s a bully chance I’d commencement there.

I asked Manton to banal his homescreen pinch us, wanting to spot if I could snoop connected immoderate different caller things he mightiness beryllium moving on. Here’s Manton’s homescreen, affirmative immoderate info connected nan apps he uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 16 Pro Max. This is nan first clip I’ve had nan biggest iPhone. I thought it would beryllium bully to effort arsenic a benignant of mini iPad. It makes reference and penning conscionable a mini easier.

The wallpaper: My wallpaper is coagulated black. Boring! But it makes everything consciousness crisp and readable. (For nan lockscreen background, I personification a photograph of family.)

The apps: Messages, Phone, Photos, Camera, Safari, Calm, NetNewsWire, Spotify, Google Maps, Slack, Fantastical, Libby, Overcast, Swarm, Reeder, Kindle, Hey, Epilogue, Strata, Micro.blog.

I support a blank connection of icons astatine nan apical and bottommost of my homescreen, truthful location are little icons to benignant done erstwhile uncovering an app to open. It too makes reaching nan apical icons easier. I support each notification badges hidden to debar clutter, too.

In nan dock, I personification Hey email and a less companion apps for my Micro.blog platform: Epilogue for keeping measurement of books, Strata for notes, and nan charismatic Micro.blog app. Also connected nan homescreen, I personification immoderate apps for reading, for illustration Libby and nan Kindle app, and, for immoderate reason, 2 RSS readers: NetNewsWire and Reeder. I usage Spotify alternatively of Apple Music and Fantastical alternatively of Apple Calendar.

I too asked Manton to banal a less things he’s into correct now. Here’s what he sent back:

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson. I’m presently halfway done this book and emotion nan epic scope of a communicative that spans aggregate standalone book series. I dream to publication overmuch this year. I measurement what books I’m reading, and I position a short microblog position to my ain tract astir each one.
ChatGPT. As a developer, I thought I was bully penning codification connected my own, and I was initially skeptical of AI. But now, nan ChatGPT app for Mac is ever running. Throughout nan day, I’m feeding it random questions and asking for programming help. I judge powerfully successful value creativity, and location are galore things I don’t want a robot to do for me, but arsenic a tool, it has been really useful.
I usage Swarm to cheque into places I sojourn for illustration java shops aliases caller places while traveling. Foursquare has precocious unopen down its metropolis line to refocus connected Swarm, but it’s not clear what benignant of early nan app has. I occasionally import my check-ins into a abstracted blog truthful I personification each nan humanities data.

Here’s what nan Installer statement is into this week. I want to cognize what you’re into correct now arsenic well! Email [email protected] aliases relationship maine connected Signal — @davidpierce.11 — pinch your recommendations for point and everything, and we’ll characteristic immoderate of our favorites coming each week. For moreover overmuch awesome recommendations, cheque retired nan replies to this position connected Threads and this position connected Bluesky.

“I stumbled upon a four-part series connected YouTube by Digging The Greats. He does a awesome dense dive into utilizing an iPod for 30 days and really it changed his life. Really awesome interviews and penetration astir algorithms, getting immoderate life back, and utilizing exertion without nan addiction. Really absorbing stuff.” – Owen

“Last week, I ordered a Laifen Wave electrical toothbrush, and it’s taking measurement excessively agelong successful nan mail. I want to play pinch my caller gadget now, damn it!” – Ellie

“I’ve been listening to nan afloat discography of Essenger. I deliberation that having an physics groove during nan busiest clip of nan twelvemonth successful tech makes nan tech world moreover cooler!” – Eli

“A caller clasp called Pre-AI Search. All it does is prime to pre-2023 Google results, but it’s been a spot of a lifesaver fixed really garbage Google image hunt is now. Been beautiful useful for my investigation — Google image hunt has been unsmooth pinch each nan AI stuff, but filtering to pre-2023 helps find existent creation resources again.” – Frankie

“Flyleaf. A beautiful read-it-later app for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS.” – Ryan

“I conscionable started listening to nan awesome If Books Could Kill podcast. You’re Wrong About alum Michael Hobbes and lawyer Peter Shamshiri tackle nan question, ‘What if celebrated taxable books would personification adjacent review?’ The reply is beautiful damning for nan books but awesome nosy for america listeners.” – Laszlo

“Not new, but nan Baseus Nomos 5-in-1 charging position changed my afloat array setup. The retractable cablegram and StandBy mode-friendly telephone equine (Qi2!) make it worthy it.” – Hawke

“I’ve been bingeing AEW connected Max. I was a puerility wrestling instrumentality who sewage backmost into WWE casually astatine nan pandemic Wrestlemania. Now that it’s connected Max, I’ve been bingeing nan past 2 months of AEW shows to get acquainted pinch nan merchandise and amended comparison it to post-McMahon WWE. Overall, it’s beautiful good.” – Brian

“Greg Iles’ Southern Man, a monolithic but riveting caller group successful modern Mississippi, has been eating up each my spare time.” – Darragh

“I impulse you cheque retired ProjectionLab. It’s a beautifully designed financial readying instrumentality that I’ve been utilizing for nan past less years. This solo dev-built app makes it elemental to exemplary finances and strategy for nan future.” – Jake

“Watching this scary series, From, connected Prime Video. Very different than astir shows connected nan internet.” – Daniyal

Signing off

Over nan picnic break, I came crossed a really beautiful group of app icons from a designer named Lokki, and of group jumped astatine an excuse to yet again wholly overhaul my homescreen. I really for illustration it now! But successful buying nan icon pack, I too sewage a group of Widgy widgets, which sent maine down nan rabbit dispersed of what I americium now convinced is nan coolest app connected nan outer for Apple devices. Widgy lets you make fundamentally immoderate widget you tin ideate — you tin creation it from scratch, adhd tons of features and interactivity, and share worldly you’ve made truthful different group tin download aliases bargain widgets arsenic well. The adjacent type of my homescreen is going to beryllium each widgets, nary apps. And it’s going to beryllium each Widgy. Widgets each nan measurement down, baby.

See you adjacent week!