CES 2025: CES Unveiled Pre-Show Event

Article by Angie Kibiloski

On Sunday night, January 5^th, with CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2025 just days away, the CTA (Consumer Technology Association) held their annual official pre-show event, in one of the ballrooms at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. This media-exclusive event, CES Unveiled, always serves as an opening ceremony of sorts, where members of the Technology Press are treated to a curated sneak peek of some of the products that will be exhibited at the convention later in the week. For 3.5 hours, media were able to stroll past 200 booths, speak to the CEO or PR rep from each company, and get hands-on time with products, in a much less chaotic and crowded environment than the showfloor. The companies present included both established and startup brands, and spanned a wide variety of product categories, like smart home, health tech, audio, and all manner of AI. I’ll briefly highlight several of the products that caught my attention during the night, with plans to write more in-depth coverage about a few as they come into the office for a full review process.

Droplet, from Hydrific, is an easy to install water sensor for home use, which fits on any standard home pipes and can detect water flow, usage, and leaks through the use of ultrasonic sensors and machine learning algorithms. There are no tools required to install the device, just clamp Droplet around a segment of piping, and tighten so it fits snugly. Pair your sensor with the mobile app to start measuring the level of water flow through your pipes up to 50 times per second, helping you track usage, conserve water, and detect leaks early to prevent water damage. By placing the app-connected sensor on different pipes around your home, you can see which appliances are using the most water and adjust your habits accordingly. Droplet will start shipping to non-Kickstarter consumers in February, but you can pre-order yours for just $199.00 today.

The IrriSense Smart Irrigation Sprinkler marks Aiper‘s debut into lawn care, and is set to help home owners make lawn irrigation more efficient and cost-effective. The IrriSense is super easy to install, without the need of a professional, and works with your existing plumbing. Controlled by Aiper‘s mobile app, the sprinkler can map yards up to 400 sq. meters, in any shape, and with a variety of non-grass landscaping, spraying up to 39 feet, and rotating 360°. By detecting where your grass ends and walkways, walls, or other obstacles begin, the IrriSense can adjust its spray to avoid wasting water by uselessly spraying things other than your lawn. It’ll also save you money by adapting its flow and schedule by using weather and soil moisture sensors. For gentler lawn care, its flow simulates natural rainfall, and for better lawn health, it can be fitted with an optional fertilizer cartridge to efficiently distribute nutrients as it waters. IrriSense will release for $399 in May, but you can go ahead and read more about it on their pre-release product page.

Wonder, the new sub-brand from Bird Buddy, is set to release the Petal, a discrete and smart way to capture and interact with your backyard plant life. Petal uses the same motion and sound sensing camera tech as their smart bird feeders, but is designed to look like the flower cup of a tulip, and can be mounted either on a stem-style stick, a small flowerpot clip, or a bendy wire fixture. Bird Buddy‘s original AI lives inside the camera, and allows you to monitor your plants and any insect visitors to your yard. Connect through the app to record, save, and share videos and photos, see the AI’s analysis of plant health and insect activity in your pots, and generally keep track of the flora and tiny fauna in your garden ecosystem. Petal‘s Kickstarter campaign will begin in the Spring, and you can sign up to be notified when it goes live at ExperienceWonder.com.

The Monar Canvas Speaker is an AI-driven audio visualizer, which plays your music through a wall-mounted digital frame, while generating AI images based on the song lyrics in real time, in a wide array of styles to suit your preference. You can also choose to display legitimate, historical artworks from a museum gallery database of over 50,000 masterpieces, or display the written lyrics over calming backgrounds instead. Monar supports most major music apps, like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and more. The 19″ HD display is just 1.86″ thick, with a 24.8″ x 20.87″ frame, and weighs 13 lbs. I do think the width of the frame around the screen display could definitely be thinner, there’s a lot of unnecessary blank space, but the concept of having a frame that generates a unique AI visualization of a song every time your play it is cool, regardless of my design preferences. The Monar Canvas Speaker launches soon on Kickstarter, so click that link to be notified when the campaign begins.

Hisong presented the AirStudio One mobile microphone, for pro-grade vocal production on-the-go. This device isn’t just a high-fidelity condenser microphone with lossless noise reduction, but also houses wireless, low-latency, in-ear monitoring earbuds within the compact body, for easy tracking of vocals over existing backing music. Also inside the casing is a USB-C dongle so you can wirelessly connect to any device, be it a phone, tablet, or laptop, and record scratch tracks while on the move or deliver vocals directly into a full session inside your DAW. Not on-board, but included in the box will be an easily attachable pop filter, to make sure your recordings are clean and free of unwanted sizzles and pops. The design is super sleek, thin and comfortable to hold, and beautifully wrapped in either black or gold. Completing the package will be the Hisong Link professional mixing app which lets you tune, mix, EQ, and add effects to your tracks right from your phone. Check out some videos of the AirStudio One in action and sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter campaign gets up and running at Hisong.io.

Coming soon in Q2, Belkin‘s new SoundForm Anywhere earbuds are the lightest, thinnest earbuds I’ve ever picked up.  They have a very flat design, with nothing poking out of, or deep into your ear canal. They stay in your ear with silicon “socks” in various sizes, that gently hug the inside of your ear. They’re perfect for side sleepers who may doze off listening to their favorite podcasts, or those with ear sensitivity to the bulk and pressure of traditional buds resting inside their ears. The SoundForm Anywhere buds are semi-open, so you’ll be able to hear ambient sounds while enjoying your media, and house ENC mics in each earbud for reduced interference from your end when making calls. They last all day, with up to 27 hours of battery power, when combining the 7 hours per charge and 20 extra hours stored inside their case. If you prefer over-ear headphones, or just don’t want to wait for the SoundForm Anywhere earbuds to release, Belkin has also recently released their latest SoundForm Isolate noise canceling headset, with soft, oblong earcups, comfy adjustable headband, and 60 hours of battery life, for just $59.99.

The RingConn Gen 2 purports to be the only health monitoring ring to be able to algorithmically detect episodes of sleep apnea, in addition to the standard sleep parameters and overall health metrics of other devices, including heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, and respiratory rate. You can wear this ring 24/7 and keep track of all your health data over time, access AI-assisted health assessments, and customize your health goals with tailored tips and advice through the connected app. It’s very light weight at just 2 grams, made with durable titanium in silver, black, or gold, has a 12-day battery life, and an IP68 waterproof rating. No subscription is needed to access RingConn Gen 2‘s full monitoring package, making the retail price of $299 very reasonable. If you don’t know your ring size, RingConn can send you a sizing kit to make sure you get the perfect fit for everyday wear before you finalize your purchase.

That’ll do it for my brief look at a handful of the products on display at CES Unveiled 2025. As mentioned at the start, I’ll be bringing you more in-depth coverage of some of these products when I can take a closer look at them as they arrive at our office. For now, I encourage you to follow the links to the company websites and Kickstarter pages that I’ve linked in each product paragraph if you’d like to immediately discover more. Check back on Computer Times in the upcoming weeks and months for full reviews, with my thoughts and experiences using the products. Also, look for continuing CES 2025 coverage in the coming days, as this was just the beginning of the festivities.