Nothing says CES like looking at a gadget and uttering to yourself, “What the actual f*ck?” Wacky gadgets are as important to the allure of the world’s biggest consumer electronics show as phones are to MWC or as being illegitimate is to Trump Mobile.
Now that CES 2026 is fading into the distance, we’re here to compile the winners of the weird. The creme of the confusing gadget crop; the best of the baffling; the titans of “tf did I just see?!”
iPolish color-changing nails
Probably one of the biggest show-stealers this year was a set of acrylic nails that can change colors on demand, thanks to a novel little gadget made by a company called iPolish.
Basically, the whole thing works by applying a small piece of electrophoretic film to an acrylic nail. Once applied, that nail can have its color transformed by a vape-looking device that emits an electric field. With iPolish, you can select between 400 different colors that are chosen via a companion app and shift the color of each nail almost instantly.
Believe it or not, you can actually buy iPolish’s starter kit right now for $95 with an expected ship date in June.
Lollipop Star’s music-playing candy
Sometimes wacky CES gadgets just feel like someone mashed a bunch of words together, and I am going to take the liberty of filing this bone-conducting lollipop under that category.
The Lolipop Star is exactly what I said: a lollipop that you put in your mouth to play music in your head. You have to bite down slightly to really hear the tunes since this is bone-conducting audio tech that emanates from the stem, but that activity yields its own sugar-y reward—you get to crunch on delicious candy.
Right now, there are three artists—Ice Spice, Akon, and Armani White—but hey, who knows? Maybe lollipops with bone conduction are the next big thing, and this is just the beginning. Charlie XCX flavor, here we come.
Fitasy 3D-printed shoes
You might think that 3D printing is for VR accessories and untraceable guns, but there are plenty of other uses. I’ll give you a hint: look down. No, not that; I’m talking about your feet.
Fitasy brought its foot-scanning tech to CES 2026, which 3D prints shoes that are tailored exactly to the anatomy of your feet. To do this, all you have to do is take a bunch of feet pics (no, Fitasy is not paying for them) to create a 3D model in an app. That model is then made using digital light projection 3D printing to create a rubber-like pair of kicks with a shock-absorbing lattice design.
The whole thing is as impressive as it is weird. If your dogs are dying for a pair of 3D-printed, fully custom shoes, you can buy a pair from Fitasy starting at $180.
Glyde smart hair clipper
There was smart everything at CES 2026—smart plates, smart mirrors, and smart pet bowls. There is, however, only one smart device that can trim your hair, and that comes courtesy of Glyde. Why shove smart tech into clippers? Well, Glyde claims that the clipper is “mistake-proof” and uses a “smart blade: to sense your speed, tilt, and angle, so it can “adjust in real time to prevent uneven fades or overcuts.” There’s also a weird band that you have to wear while you’re using Glyde, so it knows where you’re cutting.
We tried to test Glyde for ourselves, but Gizmodo’s smart home expert, Wes Davis’ hair was apparently “too long.” Hey, we said “weirdest gadgets,” not “most functional,” okay?
Mui Board smart wood
I remember two long years ago when I wrote about the Mui Board; it had already been kicking around the CES circuit for years. The smart home hub, which is actually made of real wood, initially debuted as a concept in 2019 but never actually got shipped. Well, 2026 was the year for the Mui Board; with a new generation, this expensive piece of wood is actually finding its way to customers, and I want one just as bad as I did way back when.
The Mui Board doesn’t do anything groundbreaking on a technical level—it controls stuff like lighting and can be used to set timers or see notifications and weather like other smart home hubs—but it does look a lot nicer and emphasizes minimalism. You can also touch the wood surface, which is capacitive, to interact with the hub and your smart home.
It costs $800, which is a lot for a piece of smart wood, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t pull the trigger if I had that kind of frivolous gadget slush fund.
TDM Neo headphone speakers
Sometimes you have to just ask yourself: why not both? That’s what TDM did when it made headphones that also turn into speakers. Yup, that’s right—music outside and in, baby.
These headphones fold up and attach magnetically, so when you’re tired of internalizing all your audio, you can make everyone else listen to your Spotify liked songs, too. I got to hear the TDM Neo myself, and while it was hard to get a sense of how the speaker part sounds, given that I was in a loud, crowded room, the headphone part sounded pretty okay. Could you just buy a Bluetooth speaker to go along with your headphones? Of course, but going full Transformer is so much cooler.
Neurable and HyperX brain-sensing gaming headset
You can put the energy drinks away, because there’s a new way to lock in that doesn’t involve ingesting 50g of sugar. This new gaming headset concept from Neurable and HyperX integrates EEG sensors to track your focus and help guide you to becoming a better gamer.
To help zero you in, Neurable is using what basically amounts to a meditation that asks you to look at a bunch of dots and focus until the dots get smaller. Remember, there are EEGs in this thing, so it’s measuring your focus scientifically; you can’t cheat your way into minimizing the dots.
If the headset does its job, it should increase your focus by reducing your cognitive load—the less other crap you’re focusing on, the more you can concentrate on pwning. The whole thing is pretty nifty if you ask me, and while there’s no hard release date, it doesn’t feel like something that would be totally impossible to make.
Beatbot’s RoboTurtle
It’s not all about Spot, Boston Dynamics’ horrifying dog-like robot—turtles can have a little bit of robotics, too, as a treat.
Introducing RoboTurtle from Beatbot, which is a company known for making pool-cleaning robots. Unlike its other pool robots, RoboTurtle has a more altruistic mission of conducting research in delicate ecosystems like coral reefs. The idea is that RoboTurtle can blend in with its surroundings and collect data more easily without scaring away surrounding sea life.
On top of that, it’s also just a cool form of biomimicry and pretty damn cute. I mean, look at this thing and tell me you wouldn’t want one to swim around your pool and monitor chlorine levels? Personally, I think Beatbot is onto something here, environmentalism or not.
Gizmodo is on the ground in Las Vegas all week bringing you everything you need to know about the tech unveiled at CES 2026. You can follow our CES live blog here and find all our coverage here.
Source: gizmodo.com
