CES 2025: ShowStoppers Media Event

Article by Angie Kibiloski

On Tuesday, January 7, after Day 1 of CES 2025 came to a close, ShowStoppers welcomed foot-weary media to a cozy ballroom at the Bellagio. Every year, this is the 3^rd and final large media-exclusive event of the week, and thankfully the most relaxing after a long day walking the exhibit halls. This 4-hour event is always a chill experience, with a very manageable number of select, quality exhibitors to browse and meet with, while enjoying some tasty food and a glass of wine. Once again, I’ll be touching only briefly on a few of the products that caught my attention at this event, with fuller reviews hopefully coming in the near future for some of them.

OpenRock X are open-ear sport earbuds, which pair comfort and a secure fit with boosted bass and 4-mic noise cancelation, for the perfect blend of function and listening enjoyment. On the outside, these earbuds have a low-profile flat design, leaving the ear canal open and free from pressure, while resting flush against the outside of the ear. An adjustable, hinged ear hook keeps them firmly in place through heavy activity, no matter the size of your ear. Inside, they have a hefty battery, with 12 hours of play on the buds themselves, and a total of 48 hours with their charging case. The 4 beamforming mics on the earbuds work with a noise canceling algorithm for perfect clarity from ambient sound, and speakers with 14.2 mm dynamic drivers and low-distortion, high-res diaphragms, along with their BassDirect acoustic cavity provide excellent sound quality and resonant bass tones. Pair the OpenRock X earbuds with the OpenRock app to customize your sound modes and adjust individual elements like EQ, sound distribution, tone levels, and noise canceling functions. Grab a pair of OpenRock X earbuds for $169.99 and start rocking your life in comfort.

Teufel has made their North American debut in a partnership with Fender, launching some cool Bluetooth speakers for the rock enthusiast, with crisp sound and studio-ready aesthetics. The Rockster Cross is a medium-sized portable speaker, with IPX5 dust, water, and temperature resistance, control buttons on the speaker, and accessorized with a branded Fender guitar strap and pic. It houses 2 high-res tweeters, one 5-inch subwoofer, 2 passive radiators, and Teufel‘s signature Dynamore system, providing true stereo sound across a wide sound arc. It has an impressive 16 hours of battery life, and is Energy Star certified. You can grab a Rockster Cross for $249.99, or if you want even more portability, pick up a Rockster Go 2 for just $129.99. The Rockster Go 2 packs a punch at the size of a hip pack, with 2 wide-band drivers, one passive bass radiator, and an integrated class-D amp. Small and durable, this model has an IP67 rating for dust, impact, temp, and water resistance, and can withstand being submerged for 30 minutes. It shares the true stereo output with its larger cousin, as well as Teufel‘s wide Dynamore sound distribution. With an impressive 28 hours of battery life, USB-C quick charge, flexible carrying strap, and threaded GoPro mount, the Rockster Go 2 will keep even the most dedicated and active listener adventuring in musical style.

SATELLAI provides AI-driven health monitoring and GPS tracking wearables for your pets, with the upcoming SATELLAI Collar bringing their tech to the market, with future potential for a harness and other form factors. This smart collar incorporates their 5-satellite tracking tech, utilizing GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and more to provide real-time tracking across 180+ countries, even when outside of terrestrial wireless network range. The collar has a 7-day battery life, making it perfect for intentional treks together beyond the grid, or the accidental wandering off of your beloved furry friend. It not only tracks your pup’s location so they’ll never be lost for long, it also monitors their vitals and activity level too, so you can stay informed about their health when they aren’t by your side. Utilize the connected app to set boundaries using virtual fences, track your dog’s health over time with the PetMotion AI assistant, and use vibration and sound to give gentle training feedback to your dog. The collar is a little weighty, and more suited for wider necks, so the initial model of SATELLAI Collar will primarily be for large dogs, or medium dogs with a lot of fluff, though alternative models may be made in the future. The SATELLAI Collar will be available later in the year, with price yet to be determined, but you can go to SATELLAI.com and read all about their tracking tech now.

VR is a lot of fun, but sometimes moving around inside your headset can be unrealistic, disorienting, nauseating, or a combination of all 3. Roto VR aims to solve this with their $799 motorized, swiveling Roto VR Explorer gaming chair, with initial launch compatibility for Meta Quest 2, 3, and 3S, and adapters and accessories for Steam VR coming in the next phase. A huge issue with movement inside VR is that full immersive motion with smooth turning visuals will often trigger nausea, because your eyes are seeing motion while your body is sensing stillness, confusing your brain in between. You can turn on snap-to-turn, which I can attest helps a great deal, but it ruins the sense of reality inside your virtual world. Many VR gamers play seated already, to avoid running into furniture or walls, so the logical next step would be to create a chair that provides the turning motion for you, tricking your brain into accepting the movement your eyes are seeing in the game. The Roto VR Explorer uses patented “look and turn” technology, rotating up to 360° triggered along with your head movements, and syncing game audio to the haptic feedback across the seat and backrest of the chair for even better immersion. The chair is currently compatible with 400+ games in the Meta Quest store, covering all titles that can be set to seated mode. I get extremely motion sick in any titles listed as anything more intense than Comfortable, so I’ll be very curious if the Roto VR Explorer chair will work for me.

Evenflo has been trusted for their childcare products for years, especially their carriers, cots, and car seats. Their newest addition to the lineup is the SensorySoothe infant car seat, which utilizes AI and app controls to soothe fussy babies while on the go. The base seat is made like all their other premium quality car seats, keeping your baby nestled safe and comfortable amongst its cushions and harness. The special feature of this design comes housed in the handle, with a full spectrum LED light spread across the entire inner surface of the handle, as well as directional speakers focused down into the seat, which are connected to the Evenflo app for customizable light and soundscapes. SensorySoothe lets you program a variety of pre-sets to suit your baby’s preferences and moods, by changing lighting colors, patterns, and rhythms, adding ambient sounds like birds or water, and even playing lullabies or entertaining songs. If you don’t know what to program, SensorySoothe provides science-based light and sound suggestions appropriate for a child’s ever changing sensory development stages as a starting point. When your baby gets fussy and needs some soothing or distracting, activate one of these pre-sets using the app, voice commands through Siri and Google, or with the push of a button on the seat itself. This model isn’t out quite yet, but you can visit Evenflo.com for their full line of car seats and other infant products while you wait for the SensorySoothe to launch mid-February.

The whole line of myFirst products is designed to introduce young kids to the world of smart devices, while keeping their experience safe and age appropriate. Devices include a variety of AI-assisted cameras, digital frames, safe-listening headphones and earbuds, smartwatches, and more, all connected through the myFirst Circle app and a parent-controlled social media network of trusted family and friends. By having limited connectivity, these products teach kids how to interact with smart tech in a safe manner, without the dangers of accessing the wider internet. Each of these devices provides a child-friendly version of the product type, with pared down functions as well as size, and with designs and materials made to appeal to a younger crowd. Not gonna lie, though, as a 44-year-old adult I kinda still want the giraffe camera for myself. The newest product on offer is the myFirst Fone S4, which is kind of a combo phone and smartwatch for $199. In addition to voice and text, it can make video calls, host group chats, send secret messages using “magiCode” vibrations, and build good habits through an on-board reward system. It also has GPS tracking to give parents peace of mind. The entire range of myFirst products are really cool, and designed to be a full ecosystem of smart tech for your kids, so check out everything at myFirst.tech.

The Aurzen ZIP Tri-Fold Projector is a super portable, lightweight projector that folds like a Z to fit in your pocket. This HD projector weighs just 0.62 lbs., and folds to half the size of your smartphone, with the world’s thinnest 8mm HD optical engine, and smallest DLP microchip on-board. It may be small, but it still boasts 720p resolution, stereo speakers, zero-lag autofocus and vertical auto keystone, a 5000 mAh battery with quick-charge capabilities, and 100 lumens brightness from its LED. The folding design isn’t just for easy portability, the aluminum alloy hinges also allow you to micro-adjust the positioning of the lens to get the perfect height and angle from any surface. In addition to the projector itself, there are a variety of accessories for added function, like the CastPlay wireless HDMI dongle to effortlessly stream from devices like your TV or Switch, the MagPlay combination suction and magnetic grip to mount your ZIP to any flat surface, and the PowerPlay magnetic charging stand, to extend your projector’s battery life while in use. The Aurzen ZIP is currently available on Kickstarter for $249, and will start shipping around March. Aurzen also has several other projector models in larger, more traditional formats, so check those out as well at Aurzen.com.

There you have it, a brief look at some of the products showcased at ShowStoppers this year. I’ll hopefully be getting a few of these into the office for a complete review process, so keep an eye out for those. Check out all the product links in each section above for yourself in the meantime, and get a jump on finding out even more details. If you missed them, also check out my coverage of some more great product from the previous 2 media-only events, CES Unveiled and Pepcom’s Digital Experience. Next to come will be highlights from my days walking around the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Venetian Expo, so make sure to circle back for those as well.