CES remains the premier show that highlights the advancement of technology.
As I write this, CES 2025 is in its third day. After the show closes on January 10th and I’ve had more time to absorb what I saw and the big topics and products released, I’ll share them in my column early next week.
However, I have identified three main trends that have run through the show so far.
The first is that HE was everywhere in the show. You couldn’t find a vendor that didn’t mention AI on their booth displays or in their marketing material. Artificial intelligence was demonstrated in many ways, but the central theme emerged in the term “smart” applied to devices, applications and services that use AI in some form.
There were smart TVs, cars, trucks, boats and motorcycles. There were smart kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, various business and consumer robots, watches, etc. And, of course, my favorites – smart toilets.
Echoing this smart focus was the second big theme of health-related wearables. New smart rings, like the one from Ringconn can now detect sleep apnea. Ultrahuman and Aura both showed off new health monitoring features on their new rings. Dexcom showed off the over-the-counter consumer-focused Stelo, which monitors glucose to find out how food, exercise and even sleep affect your glucose. This device is especially important for those with pre-diabetes, as well as those who need to understand how their exercise and foods affect their blood sugar.
Abbot showed two similar over-the-counter devices; Lingo is sold as a wellness product for people who do not have diabetes. Next up is Abbott’s new Libre Rio device, aimed at adults with type 2 diabetes who don’t use insulin, posing a direct challenge to Dexcom’s Stelo device.
The folks at Techradar shared a closer look at the health wearables at this year’s CES, and included details about the Garmin Instinct 3 smartwatch, Ring Circular 2, Withings Omnia, and more that were front and center of the wearable health products introduced. at CES. 2025.
The third theme of the show was an emphasis on smart glasses. Xreal had a large booth showing off the new Xreal One and Xreal Pro.
I have been using Xreal smart glasses for over a year. These are my go-to glasses for watching videos. The current version can give the user a virtual 100-inch screen, and the new versions show a visual screen that appears to be a 500-inch screen. I use these to watch videos and movies when I fly and it feels like I’m in a theater, not a cramped airplane seat. I spoke with the CEO of Xreal and he shared a great roadmap for their glasses that will make them smarter and with new designs in the future.
I saw at least seven new smart glasses at the show. An interesting one was from Even Realities called the Even G1. It displays information on the glass lens itself. I had a demo from their CEO and while he spoke in Chinese, she translated what he said into English on the glass lens.
The folks at ZDNet tested many other smart glasses at CES 2025 and shared their experiences at this link.
The CES 2025 session I moderated on Tuesday, January 8, focused on XR headphones and smart glasses. My panel included Jason McGuigan, Head of Virtual Reality at Lenovo, Kelly Ingham, VP Wearables and Research Partners, Reality Labs, at Meta, and Scott Meyers, VP of Hardware at Snap.
The session focused on XR headsets and smart glasses, and panelists largely agreed that XR headsets will continue to be used more for gaming, many enterprise applications, especially training, and in some educational circles.
Kelly Ingham shared how the Quest headset has become the best-selling XR headset on the market, with thousands of apps supporting its Horizon OS platform. While games are at the core of most Quest models, it has tons of related apps in a variety of areas, such as Supernatural for exercise, one called Bigscreen, a social media video streaming app, Open Brush, an app 3D paintings and one called Whirligig, a media player for viewing local files in VR.
Lenovo’s Jason McGuigan showed how their XR headset is being used in many business and industrial applications and noted that their main audience has been enterprises and business companies. These firms have adopted XR for areas such as digital twins, manufacturing and many forms of enterprise solutions.
We quickly moved on to the topic of smart glasses as all three panelists have products in this area and are experts. Smart glasses are poised to become one of the hottest areas in technology over the next three years.
Scott Myers shared how their Snap glasses have become the leading smart glasses on the market today. They already have hundreds of thousands of users and developers supporting Snap OS and will continue to add more apps and features in 2025.
Lenovo also has new smart glasses in the works, and Jason sees this as another important area for Lenovo’s continued investment.
Meta’s Kelly Ingham gave an update on Orion, their new smart glass project that they demonstrated at their developer conference in September 2025. They already have thousands of developers supporting their Meta Horizon OS and it will be one of important platforms for XR headsets and smartphone glasses going forward.
Kelly also gave an update on the Meta-Rayban Wayfarer sunglasses. She said they’re working on adding more AI features, one of which I’m personally deeply interested in: translation. She said this is already working and being tested and should be released later this year.
The panel also discussed Google’s launch of Android XR OS in December 2025.
This new XR OS and smart glasses will most likely become a powerful new way for major device vendors to enter the smart glasses market by 2026. So far, Samsung, Qualcomm, Sony and Xreal are committed to Android XR and you can expect Google to have its own version as well.
Once Google releases the Android XR developer kit, we should see thousands of Android XR apps appear soon as device manufacturers release their own smart glasses that support this OS.
Apple is the next company we expect to be in the smartglasses mix. Apple has had smart glasses in the works since at least 2016 and is expected to be another major player in the market. Apple has shown that it can be late to a market and still dominate it. Whatever they eventually bring to market in hardware, they’ll have a strong base of developers trained in AR Kit, the third major platform for smart glasses.
Snap has a good lead in this area, but will face new competition, just like others with their operating system.
The panel also shared that they see smart glasses eventually becoming the most prevalent way for people to receive and interact with digital information. This does not mean that it will replace a PC or even a smartphone, but as a digital device that is always on and accessible, it can become our most powerful way to navigate our digital world.
At the end of the discussion, I asked the panelists what technical hurdles we still have to help smart glasses provide the best user experience. An important issue was identified, which presents a real technical challenge. This concern has to do with the specific type of lens required to effectively project information or data onto the glasses.
I have been working in this field for 10 years and have met most of the optical companies working in it. Despite recent advances, we remain several years away from realizing the optimal lens for smart glasses. These lenses must simultaneously provide information inside the glass, be more energy efficient, and achieve the resolution needed for a seamless user experience.
CES remains formidable, with 135,000 attendees and over two million square feet of exhibit space in seven locations across Las Vegas. I averaged 22,000 steps each day. As someone who has been to 50 CES shows so far, I find it harder to cover this show the bigger it gets. However, for me and many others, the trip is worth it to see the latest and greatest technology presented in a single show environment.
With new developments in XR, AI and wearable technology, CES 2025 has solidified its place as a barometer for the next wave of innovation. As we move into 2025 and beyond, it’s exciting to think how these trends will evolve and transform our digital experiences.
Disclosure: Lenovo, Google, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Apple subscribe to Creative Strategies research reports along with many other high-tech companies worldwide.
