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As a long-time Mint user, I was frustrated to say the least when news broke at the end of 2023 that Intuit would shut Mint down. I, like millions of others, enjoyed how easily Mint allowed us to track all accounts in one place and monitor credit scores. I also used it regularly to track spending, set goals like pay my mortgage down faster and with general money management.

So I set out to find the best Mint alternatives in the wake of its disappointing demise. I gave Credit Karma, Intuit’s other financial app, a try but found it to be a poor Mint substitute. The following guide lays out my experience testing some of the most popular Mint replacement apps available today in search of my next budgeting app.

Our pick for best Mint alternative remains Quicken Simplifi, even months after the Mint shutting down, thanks to its easy to use app, good income and bill detection and its affordable price. But there are plenty of other solid options out there for those with different needs. If you’re also on the hunt for a budgeting app to replace Mint, we hope these details can help you decide which of the best budgeting apps out there will be right for you.

Table of contents

• Best Mint alternatives in 2026

• Other Mint alternatives we tested

• What is Plaid and how does it work?

• How to import your financial data from the Mint app

• How we tested Mint alternatives

• What about Rocket Money?

Best Mint alternatives in 2026

No pun intended, but what I like about Quicken Simplifi is its simplicity. Whereas other budgeting apps try to distinguish themselves with dark themes and customizable emoji, Simplifi has a clean user interface, with a landing page that you just keep scrolling through to get a detailed overview of all your stats. These include your top-line balances; net worth; recent spending; upcoming recurring payments; a snapshot of your spending plan; top spending categories; achievements; and any watchlists you’ve set up.

Another one of the key features I appreciate is the ability to set up savings goals elsewhere in the app. I also appreciate how it offers neat, almost playful visualizations without ever looking cluttered. I felt at home in the mobile and web dashboards after a day or so, which is faster than I adapted to some competing services (I’m looking at you, YNAB and Monarch).

Getting set up with Simplifi was mostly painless. I was particularly impressed at how easily it connected to Fidelity; not all budget trackers do, for whatever reason. This is also one of the only services I tested that gives you the option of inviting a spouse or financial advisor to co-manage your account. One thing I would add to my initial assessment of the app, having used it for a few months now: I wish Simplifi offered Zillow integration for easily tracking your home value (or at least a rough estimate of it). Various competitors including Monarch Money and Copilot Money work with Zillow, so clearly there's a Zillow API available for use. As it stands, Simplifi users must add real estate manually like any other asset.

Dana Wollman / Engadget

In practice, Simplifi miscategorized some of my expenses, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to any of these budget trackers. As you’re reviewing transactions, you can also mark if you’re expecting a refund, which is a unique feature among the services I tested. Simplifi also estimated my regular income better than some other apps I tested. Most of all, I appreciated the option of being able to categorize some, but not all, purchases from a merchant as recurring. For instance, I can add my two Amazon subscribe-and-saves as recurring payments, without having to create a broad-strokes rule for every Amazon purchase.

The budgeting feature is also self-explanatory and can likely accommodate your preferred budgeting method. Just check that your regular income is accurate and be sure to set up recurring payments, making note of which are bills and which are subscriptions. This is important because Simplifi shows you your total take-home income as well as an “income after bills” figure. That number includes, well, bills but not discretionary subscriptions. From there, you can add spending targets by category in the “planned spending” bucket. Planned spending can also include one-time expenditures, not just monthly budgets. When you create a budget, Simplifi will suggest a number based on a six-month average.

Not dealbreakers, but two things to keep in mind as you get started: Simplifi is notable in that you can’t set up an account through Apple or Google. There is also no option for a free trial, though Quicken promises a “30-day money back guarantee.”

Monarch Money grew on me. My first impression of the budgeting app, which was founded by a former Mint product manager, was that it's more difficult to use than others on this list, including Simplifi, NerdWallet and Copilot. And it is. Editing expense categories, adding recurring transactions and creating rules, for example, is a little more complicated than it needs to be, especially in the mobile app. (My advice: Use the web app for fine-tuning details.) Monarch also didn’t get my income right; I had to edit it.

Once you’re set up, though, Monarch offers an impressive level of granularity. In the budgets section, you can see a bona fide balance sheet showing budgets and actuals for each category. You'll also find a forecast, for the year or by month. And recurring expenses can be set not just by merchant, but other parameters as well. For instance, while most Amazon purchases might be marked as “shopping,” those for the amounts of $54.18 or $34.18 are definitely baby supplies, and can be automatically marked as such each time, not to mention programmed as recurring payments. Weirdly, though, there’s no way to mark certain recurring payments as bills, specifically.

Dana Wollman / Engadget

Not long after I first published this story in December 2023, Monarch introduced a detailed reporting section where you can create on-demand graphs based on things like accounts, categories and tags. That feature is available just on the web version of the app for now. As part of this same update, Monarch added support for an aggregator that makes it possible to automatically update the value of your car. This, combined with the existing Zillow integration for tracking your home value, makes it easy to quickly add a non-liquid asset like a vehicle or real estate, and have it show up in your net worth graph.

The mobile app is mostly self-explanatory. The main dashboard shows your net worth; your four most recent transactions; a month-over-month spending comparison; income month-to-date; upcoming bills; an investments snapshot; a list of any goals you’ve set; and, finally, a link to your month-in-review. That month-in-review is more detailed than most, delving into cash flow; top income and expense categories; cash flow trends; changes to your net worth, assets and liabilities; plus asset and liability breakdowns. In February 2024, Monarch expanded on the net worth graph, so that if you click on the Accounts tab you can see how your net worth changed over different periods of time, including one month, three months, six months, a year or all time.

On the main screen, you’ll also find tabs for savings and checking accounts (and all others as well), transactions, cash flow, budget and recurring. Like many of the other apps featured here, Monarch can auto-detect recurring expenses and income, even if it gets the category wrong. (They all do to an extent.) Expense categories are marked by emoji, which you can customize if you’re so inclined.

Monarch Money uses a combination of networks to connect with banks, including Plaid, MX and Finicity, a competing network owned by Mastercard. (I have a quick explainer on Plaid, the industry standard in this space, toward the end of this guide.) As part of an update in late December, Monarch has also made it easier to connect through those other two networks, if for some reason Plaid fails. Similar to NerdWallet, I found myself completing two-factor authentication every time I wanted to get past the Plaid screen to add another account. Notably, Monarch is the only other app I tested that allows you to grant access to someone else in your family — likely a spouse or financial advisor. Monarch also has a Chrome extension for importing from Mint, though really this is just a shortcut for downloading a CSV file, which you’ll have to do regardless of where you choose to take your Mint data.

Additionally, Monarch just added the ability to track Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Savings accounts, thanks to new functionality brought with the iOS 17.4 update. It's not the only one either; currently, Copilot and YNAB have also added similar functionality that will be available to anyone with the latest versions of their respective apps on a device running iOS 17.4. Instead of manually uploading statements, the new functionality allows apps like Monarch's to automatically pull in transactions and balance history. That should make it easier to account for spending on Apple cards and accounts throughout the month.

Monarch also recently launched investment transactions in beta. It also says bill tracking and an overhauled goals system are coming soon. Monarch hasn't provided a timeline for that last one, except to say that the improved goals feature is coming soon.

Copilot Money might be the best-looking budgeting app I tested. It also has the distinction of being exclusive to iOS and Macs — at least for now. Andres Ugarte, the company’s CEO, has publicly promised that Android and web apps are coming soon. But until it follows through, I can’t recommend Copilot for most people with so many good competitors out there.

Copilot Money for Web and Android!

Thanks to the support from our users, and the overwhelming positive reception we're seeing from folks migrating from Mint, we can now say that we'll be building @copilotmoney for Web and Android with a goal to launch in 2024.

We'll continue to…

— Andres Ugarte (@chuga) November 15, 2023

There are other features that Copilot is missing, which I’ll get into. But it is promising, and one to keep an eye on. It’s just a fast, efficient, well designed app, and Android users will be in for a treat when they’ll finally be able to download it. It makes good use of colors, emoji and graphs to help you understand at a glance how you’re doing on everything from your budgets to your investment performance to your credit card debt over time. In particular, Copilot does a better job than almost any other app of visualizing your recurring monthly expenses.

Behind those punchy colors and cutesy emoji, though, is some sophisticated performance. Copilot’s AI-powered “Intelligence” gets smarter as you go at categorizing your expenses. (You can also add your own categories, complete with your choice of emoji.) It’s not perfect. Copilot miscategorized some purchases (they all do), but it makes it easier to edit than most. On top of that, the internal search feature is very fast; it starts whittling down results in your transaction history as soon as you begin typing.

Dana Wollman / Engadget

Copilot is also unique in offering Amazon and Venmo integrations, allowing you to see transaction details. With Amazon, this requires just signing into your Amazon account via an in-app browser. For Venmo, you have to set up fwd@copilot.money as a forwarding address and then create a filter, wherein emails from venmo@venmo.com are automatically forwarded to fwd@copilot.money. Like Monarch Money, you can also add any property you own and track its value through Zillow, which is integrated with the app.

While the app is heavily automated, I still appreciate that Copilot marks new transactions for review. It’s a good way to both weed out fraudulent charges, and also be somewhat intentional about your spending habits.

Like Monarch Money, Copilot updated its app to make it easier to connect to banks through networks other than Plaid. As part of the same update, Copilot said it has improved its connections to both American Express and Fidelity which, again, can be a bugbear for some budget tracking apps. In an even more recent update, Copilot added a Mint import option, which other budgeting apps have begun to offer as well.

Because the app is relatively new (it launched in early 2020), the company is still catching up to the competition on some table-stakes features. Ugarte told me that his team is almost done building out a detailed cash flow section as well. On its website, Copilot also promises a raft of AI-powered features that build on its current “Intelligence” platform, the one that powers its smart expense categorization. These include “smart financial goals,” natural language search, a chat interface, forecasting and benchmarking. That benchmarking, Ugarte tells me, is meant to give people a sense of how they’re doing compared to other Copilot users, on both spending and investment performance. Most of these features should arrive in the new year.

Copilot does a couple interesting things for new customers that distinguish it from the competition. There’s a “demo mode” that feels like a game simulator; no need to add your own accounts. The company is also offering two free months with RIPMINT — a more generous introductory offer than most. When it finally does come time to pony up, the $7.92 monthly plan is cheaper than some competing apps, although the $95-a-year-option is in the same ballpark.

You may know NerdWallet as a site that offers a mix of personal finance news, explainers and guides. I see it often when I google a financial term I don’t know and sure enough, it’s one of the sites I’m most likely to click on. As it happens, NerdWallet also has the distinction of offering one of the only free budgeting apps I tested. In fact, there is no paid version; nothing is locked behind a paywall. The main catch: There are ads everywhere. To be fair, the free version of Mint was like this, too.

Even with the inescapable credit card offers, NerdWallet has a clean, easy-to-understand user interface, which includes both a web and a mobile app. The key metrics that it highlights most prominently are your cash flow, net worth and credit score. (Of note, although Mint itself offered credit score monitoring, most of its rivals do not.) I particularly enjoyed the weekly insights, which delve into things like where you spent the most money or how much you paid in fees — and how that compares to the previous month. Because this is NerdWallet, an encyclopedia of financial info, you get some particularly specific category options when setting up your accounts (think: a Roth or non-Roth IRA).

Dana Wollman / Engadget

As a budgeting app, NerdWallet is more than serviceable, if a bit basic. Like other apps I tested, you can set up recurring bills. Importantly, it follows the popular 50/30/20 budgeting rule, which has you putting 50% of your budget toward things you need, 30% toward things you want, and the remaining 20% into savings or debt repayments. If this works for you, great — just know that you can’t customize your budget to the same degree as some competing apps. You can’t currently create custom spending categories, though a note inside the dashboard section of the app says “you’ll be able to customize them in the future.” You also can’t move items from the wants column to “needs” or vice versa but “In the future, you'll be able to move specific transactions to actively manage what falls into each group.” A NerdWallet spokesperson declined to provide an ETA, though.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that NerdWallet had one of the most onerous setup processes of any app I tested. I don’t think this is a dealbreaker, as you’ll only have to do it once and, hopefully, you aren’t setting up six or seven apps in tandem as I was. What made NerdWallet’s onboarding especially tedious is that every time I wanted to add an account, I had to go through a two-factor authentication process to even get past the Plaid splash screen, and that’s not including the 2FA I had set up at each of my banks. This is a security policy on NerdWallet’s end, not Plaid’s, a Plaid spokesperson says.

Precisely because NerdWallet is one of the only budget trackers to offer credit score monitoring, it also needs more of your personal info during setup, including your birthday, address, phone number and the last four digits of your social security number. It’s the same with Credit Karma, which also does credit score monitoring.

Related to the setup process, I found that NerdWallet was less adept than other apps at automatically detecting my regular income. In my case, it counted a large one-time wire transfer as income, at which point my only other option was to enter my income manually (which is slightly annoying because I would have needed my pay stub handy to double-check my take-home pay).

YNAB is, by its own admission, “different from anything you’ve tried before.” The app, whose name is short for You Need a Budget, promotes a so-called zero-based budgeting system, which forces you to assign a purpose for every dollar you earn. A frequently used analogy is to put each dollar in an envelope; you can always move money from one envelope to another in a pinch. These envelopes can include rent and utilities, along with unforeseen expenses like holiday gifts and the inevitable car repair. The idea is that if you budget a certain amount for the unknowns each month, they won’t feel like they’re sneaking up on you.

Importantly, YNAB is only concerned with the money you have in your accounts now. The app does not ask you to provide your take-home income or set up recurring income payments (although there is a way to do this). The money you will make later in the month through your salaried job is not relevant, because YNAB does not engage in forecasting.

The app is harder to learn than any other here, and it requires more ongoing effort from the user. And YNAB knows that. Inside both the mobile and web apps are links to videos and other tutorials. Although I never quite got comfortable with the user interface, I did come to appreciate YNAB’s insistence on intentionality. Forcing users to draft a new budget each month and to review each transaction is not necessarily a bad thing. As YNAB says on its website, “Sure, you’ve got pie charts showing that you spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants — but you’ve still spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants.” I can see this approach being useful for people who don’t tend to have a lot of cash in reserve at a given time, or who have spending habits they want to correct (to riff off of YNAB’s own example, ordering Seamless four times a week).

My colleague Valentina Palladino, knowing I was working on this guide, penned a respectful rebuttal, explaining why she’s been using YNAB for years. Perhaps, like her, you have major savings goals you want to achieve, whether it’s paying for a wedding or buying a house. I suggest you give her column a read. For me, though, YNAB’s approach feels like overkill.

Other Mint alternatives we tested PocketGuard

PocketGuard used to be a solid free budget tracker, but the company has since limited its “free” version to just a free seven-day trial. Now, you’ll have to choose between two plans once the trial is over: a $13 monthly plan or a $75 annual plan. When I first tested it, I found it to be more restricted than NerdWallet, but still a decent option. The main overview screen shows you your net worth, total assets and debts; net income and total spending for the month; upcoming bills; a handy reminder of when your next paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you have; and any goals. Like some other apps, including Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an “after bills” approach, where you enter all of your recurring bills, and then PocketGuard shows you what’s left, and that’s what you’re supposed to be budgeting: your disposable income.

Although PocketGuard’s UI is easy enough to understand, it lacks polish. The “accounts” tab is a little busy, and doesn’t show totals for categories like cash or investments. Seemingly small details like weirdly phrased or punctuated copy occasionally make the app feel janky. More than once, it prompted me to update the app when no updates were available. The web version, meanwhile, feels like the mobile app blown up to a larger format and doesn’t take advantage of the extra screen real estate. Ultimately, now that the free tier is gone, it just doesn’t present the same value proposition as it once did.

What is Plaid and how does it work?

Each of the apps I tested uses the same underlying network, called Plaid, to pull in financial data, so it’s worth explaining in its own section what it is and how it works. Plaid was founded as a fintech startup in 2013 and is today the industry standard in connecting banks with third-party apps. Plaid works with over 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada and Europe. Additionally, more than 8,000 third-party apps and services rely on Plaid, the company claims.

To be clear, you don’t need a dedicated Plaid app to use it; the technology is baked into a wide array of apps, including the budget trackers I tested for this guide. Once you find the “add an account” option in whichever one you’re using, you’ll see a menu of commonly used banks. There’s also a search field you can use to look yours up directly. Once you find yours, you’ll be prompted to enter your login credentials. If you have two-factor authentication set up, you’ll need to enter a one-time passcode as well.

As the middleman, Plaid is a passthrough for information that may include your account balances, transaction history, account type and routing or account number. Plaid uses encryption, and says it has a policy of not selling or renting customer data to other companies. However, I would not be doing my job if I didn’t note that in 2022 Plaid was forced to pay $58 million to consumers in a class action suit for collecting “more financial data than was needed.” As part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to change some of its business practices.

In a statement provided to Engadget, a Plaid spokesperson said the company continues to deny the allegations underpinning the lawsuit and that “the crux of the non-financial terms in the settlement are focused on us accelerating workstreams already underway related to giving people more transparency into Plaid’s role in connecting their accounts, and ensuring that our workstreams around data minimization remain on track.”

How to import your financial data from the Mint app

Mint users should consider getting their data ready to migrate to their new budgeting app of choice soon. Unfortunately, importing data from Mint is not as easy as entering your credentials from inside your new app and hitting “import.” In fact, any app that advertises the ability to port over your stats from Mint is just going to have you upload a CSV file of transactions and other data.

To download a CSV file from Mint, do the following:

1. Sign into Mint.com and hit Transactions in the menu on the left side of the screen.

2. Select an account, or all accounts.

3. Scroll down and look for “export [number] transactions” in smaller print.

4. Your CSV file should begin downloading.

Note: Downloading on a per-account basis might seem more annoying, but could help you get set up on the other side, if the app you’re using has you importing transactions one-for-one into their corresponding accounts.

How we tested Mint alternatives

Before I dove into the world of budgeting apps, I had to do some research. To find a list of apps to test, I consulted trusty ol’ Google (and even trustier Reddit); read reviews of popular apps on the App Store; and also asked friends and colleagues what budget tracking apps they might be using. Some of the apps I found were free, just like Mint. These, of course, show loads of ads (excuse me, “offers”) to stay in business. But most of the available apps require paid subscriptions, with prices typically topping out around $100 a year, or $15 a month. (Spoiler: My top pick is cheaper than that.)

Since this guide is meant to help Mint users find a permanent replacement, any services I chose to test needed to do several things: import all of your account data into one place; offer budgeting tools; and track your spending, net worth and credit score. Except where noted, all of these apps are available for iOS, Android and on the web.

Once I had my shortlist of six apps, I got to work setting them up. For the sake of thoroughly testing these apps (and remember, I really was looking for a Mint alternative myself), I made a point of adding every account to every budgeting app, no matter how small or immaterial the balance. What ensued was a veritable Groundhog Day of two-factor authentication. Just hours of entering passwords and one-time passcodes, for the same banks half a dozen times over. Hopefully, you only have to do this once.

What about Rocket Money?

Rocket Money is another free financial app that tracks spending and supports things like balance alerts and account linking. If you pay for the premium tier, the service can also help you cancel unwanted subscriptions. We did not test it for this guide, but we'll consider it in future updates.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-best-budgeting-apps-to-replace-mint-143047346.html?src=rss

Noted turntable manufacturer Victrola just announced the Soundstage speaker at CES. This thin little doodad actually sits underneath turntables, removing the need for a full stereo set-up. The Soundstage isn't the first speaker that offers this functionality, but this one has tech-forward features.

It offers multiple connection options, including Bluetooth. Many newer Victrola turntables can do Bluetooth streaming, so adding this speaker to a setup would be extremely simple. Otherwise, companies offer Bluetooth receivers for turntables.

It also allows for traditional wired connections, and there's an option for USB-C. In other words, the Soundstage should easily connect to other audio sources like smartphones and computers. It even integrates with Auracast for multi-speaker setups.

Victrola

As for sound, Victrola promises superior audio thanks to a "vibration-isolated design." There's a specialized woofer for bass response and balanced mode radiators (a type of driver) for stereo separation. It likely won't sound as good as a full sound system but, again, think of all of those annoying wires.

The Soundstage will be available this summer and costs $350. There will be multiple colorways, including walnut and black.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/this-speaker-by-victrola-sits-underneath-turntables-and-streams-audio-via-bluetooth-100021991.html?src=rss

Cambridge Audio has three new active speakers at CES 2026. The L/R Series is a trio of active bookshelf-style speakers, each with wired and wireless modes.

The flagship L/R X is an 800W model (400W per speaker). The largest of the three, it unsurprisingly carries the highest price, at $2,299. It uses a 2.5-way acoustic design: a 28mm Torus tweeter alongside dual 5-inch woofers. The L/R X has a pair of 6-inch force-canceling passive radiators, a 64-bit audio pipeline, DynamEQ and Wi-Fi streaming (via Cambridge Audio's StreamMagic app). It even adds LED underlighting for an extra aesthetic touch.

The walnut variant of the L/R XCambridge Audio

In the middle is the $1,599 L/R M. Cambridge Audio describes it as using the same foundations as the flagship model (including the 2.5-way acoustic design), but with only 300W of power. This model has smaller (4-inch) dual woofers alongside the same 28mm tweeter. Its smaller force-canceling passive radiators measure 4.75 inches each. Like the larger model, the L/R M supports Wi-Fi streaming and includes LED underlighting.

The smallest and most affordable of the three is the $549 L/R S. This 100W speaker pairs a 21mm hard-dome tweeter with a 3-inch long-throw woofer. Although you can save money on this model, you'll miss out on Wi-Fi streaming. (In its place is Bluetooth aptX HD.) It also lacks the LED underlighting found in the L/R X and L/R M.

Each speaker is available in black, white, green, blue, orange and walnut colors. Cambridge Audio says all three tiers of L/R speakers will be available "later in 2026." You can learn more at the company’s website.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/cambridge-audio-unveils-three-wireless-bookshelf-speakers-at-ces-100000178.html?src=rss

Shokz may have made its name with bone-conduction headsets, but the company has also built open-style earbuds in recent years. At CES 2026, the company is debuting its most recent model, the OpenFit Pro, which combines effective noise reduction with Dolby Atmos support in a premium set of wireless buds. As the name suggests, these sit outside of your ears, secured by an over-the-ear hook, so that you can stay in tune with your surroundings at all times.

To me, the main appeal of the OpenFit Pro is the new Noise Reduction Mode that acts as a bit of active noise cancellation (ANC) for the open earbuds. The feature is adjustable, allowing you to slide between Reduced, Default and Enhanced levels of said reduction. I’m happy to report the tool does make a difference, even at its lowest setting, by assisting with background noise like raucous HVAC units. Shokz says the OpenFit Pro’s noise reduction is best suited for moderately noisy environments — like cafes, gyms and offices. And when you don’t need it, you can switch back to Open Mode for a fully unfiltered line to reality.

Shokz OpenFit Pro Billy Steele for Engadget

The other attractive feature on the OpenFit Pro is Dolby Atmos spatial sound and Dolby Audio with Dolby head tracking. Streaming music in Atmos really shows what the OpenFit Pro is capable of, putting the “ultra large” 11mm x 20mm synchronized dual-diaphragm drivers at the forefront. Shokz promises more powerful bass and “more authentic” sound in this model, and I’d say the company delivers on that promise based on my initial testing. The only issue is that your neighbors will be able to hear your tunes at moderate volumes. My colleagues sitting across the table as I write this commented on my selection of “The Fate of Ophelia.” Call me Tay-curious.

You can expect up to six hours on a charge and up to 24 hours of use with the case with Noise Reduction Mode enabled. Turn that feature off and you’ll get up to 12 hours on the earbuds themselves. Plus, there’s IP55 protection, wireless charging and wear detection, so the OpenFit Pro will be both durable and convenient to use.

The OpenFit Pro is available for preorder starting today (January 6) for $249.95. You can make your early commitment at the Shokz website or Best Buy.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/ces-2026-shokz-new-earbuds-effectively-reduce-noise-while-keeping-your-ears-open-080000996.html?src=rss

Just like last year, NVIDIA has used some of its time on the CES stage to introduce an upgraded version of its real-time image-upscaling technology. The new DLSS 4.5 promises sharper visuals with the 2nd Generation Super Resolution Transformer, which the company says will deliver better temporal stability, reduced ghosting and improved anti-aliasing. The DLSS 4.5 also includes Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, which maximizes frame per second to monitor refresh rate, delivering up to 4K 240Hz path traced performance.

The 2nd Gen Transformer Super Resolution is available now for all RTX GPUs, while the Dynamic 6x Frame Generation will arrive some time in spring 2026 for the RTX 50 series. It will also be available for more than 400 games through the NVIDIA app.  

Another new feature is RTX Remix Logic, which allows real-time environmental reactions to in-game events. For instance, when a door is opened on screen, the NVIDIA tech can present changes to volumetric conditions, display different weather simulations with particles or alter materials. More than 30 different common events can be detected, and the RTX Remix Logic can make adaptations to volumetrics, particles, material properties and light properties.

NVIDIA noted that it now has native clients for both Linux and Fire TV. That's the roundup of major gaming updates from the company's CES presentation, but NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang had plenty to talk about earlier today.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nvidia-announces-dlss-45-at-ces-2026-053000128.html?src=rss

For better or worse, CES 2026 is already shaping up to be a big year for humanoid robots. Chinese company Agibot showed up with two: the roughly human-sized A2 and the slightly smaller X2, both of which were displaying their surprisingly impressive dancing abilities. 

We watched both robots walk around, wave at passersby and show off their best moves. The larger A2 mostly kept its legs still and danced mainly with its arms. The smaller X2 on the other hand is a bit more nimble — it has a larger set of "feet" to give it more stability — and those abilities were on full display.

At the time we saw them, the robots were controlled partially by an Agibot rep using a dedicated controller, but the company told me the robots are able to move autonomously in spaces once they've been able to use their onboard sensors to map out their environmentThe company, which has already shipped several thousand robots in China and plans to make them available in the United States this year, says both the A2 and X2 are intended to provide a flexible platform so people can interact with the robots in a variety of situations.

This year seems to be the year that the robots have learned to do laundry, dance and probably a bunch of other stuff. These humanoid 🤖 are made by Agibot and they have the dance moves down pic.twitter.com/MnT11Xq4Yq

— Karissa Bell (@karissabe) January 6, 2026

Agibot envisions the larger A2 as a kind of hospitality helper robot that can greet visitors at museums or conferences (like CES) and provide directions or even walk alongside their human guests. 

The smaller X2 on the other hand could be suited for educational purposes or other scenarios when you might want a robot with slightly more human-like movements. It could even be a good TikTok companion, as Agibot's head of communications, Yuheng Feng explained to me. "Take a Tiktok video, for example, you can use that video to train the robot, [so] it can also dance exactly like you did in the video." 

The company hasn't given details on when its robots might show up in the US or how much they might cost. Feng told me a lot will depend on how companies want to use them because their hardware is able to be customized depending on the use case. For now, though, we'll just soak in the dance moves.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/agibots-humanoid-robots-can-give-directions-and-learn-your-tiktok-dances-045049798.html?src=rss

The following article discusses adult themes.

One surprising find at CES 2026 comes from OhDoki, the Norwegian makers of The Handy, a smart stroking device. It turned up to the desert with two new products, the Handy 2 and the Handy 2 Pro. Fundamentally, they’re the same device, but the Handy 2 Pro comes with a far bigger battery, taking the usable life from one hour on the standard model all the way to five. That extra power enables you to run the 2 Pro far faster and harder than the original once you set it into Turbo mode. In fact, I was told the hardware can essentially be “overclocked,” although I wouldn’t recommend it. Because the motor action was so aggressive that even just holding it in the hand, I’d be worried about breaking bones.

There are plenty of useful new features, including using the Handy’s beefy battery to charge your other USB-C devices. In addition, the sleeves are now be mounted to the motor arm with a click on motion, so you don’t have to wrestle with the (very) weighty hardware when you don’t have to. There are even tripod screws on both the side and bottom of the unit, enabling you to mount the Handy 2 to any compatible equipment. And, if you don’t want to use your phone to control the action, there’s a dot matrix display on the side which will show you both speed and stroke length.

Naturally, the company’s representatives were keen to highlight the connectivity features beyond just connecting to your own phone. As well as allowing other people to control the device, it’ll sync with various VR and video content platforms as well as tube sites like Xhamster. And the company has recently teamed up with a cam platform for more remote opportunities for intimacy.

The Handy 2 and Handy 2 Pro launch January 6, with the regular model priced at $299 and the Pro going for $499. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-handy-2-pro-is-an-overclockable-sex-toy-044456140.html?src=rss

Last year in Las Vegas at CES 2025, Sony Honda Mobility displayed yet another revision of its now-familiar yet still-unreleased Afeela 1 sedan. With a starting price of $89,900 and a maximum range of 300 miles, it didn't seem like a great value proposition. 12 months later, the math still hasn't changed, but would-be buyers now have a slightly taller option to consider.

Meet the Afeela Prototype 2026, a version of the Afeela 1 sedan that's been up-scaled to better suit American SUV proclivities. It offers a carbon copy of the smaller Afeela's understated styling, including the external, nose-mounted LCD, and is due "as early as 2028." 

Afeela Prototype 2026Tim Stevens for Engadget

That's code for "2029 is probably more likely" and is, sadly, all we know about the thing for now. 

And what about the Afeela 1? Shugo Yamaguchi, president and CEO of Sony Honda Mobility of America, confirmed that it's still on track for a release this year, still priced at $90,000 to start, and still set to be built at Honda's Ohio factory. That last bit is particularly good news, as the global tariff situation has been rather fluid since we saw the sedan last year. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the Afeela 1's core attributes haven't aged so well, particularly given it's intended to appeal to an increasingly skeptical American market, a situation that has driven Honda to dial down its own US EV aspirations. 300 miles of range is an increasingly middling figure, especially for a machine priced within spitting distance of a Porsche Taycan. 

To make the Afeela 1 compelling, Sony Honda Mobility is leaning into the tech play, launching with an advanced hands-off, eyes-on driver assistance system (a la GM's Super Cruise). Thanks to the beauty of over-the-air updates, the Afeela 1 will eventually offer Level 4 autonomy, leaning on a bevy of integrated sensors, including a roof-mounted LIDAR pod. That would theoretically mean you could drive in Gran Turismo 7 while your car drove you to work.

Afeela 1Tim Stevens for Engadget

At launch, though, the driver will only be able to play GT and other PlayStation games while the car is parked, thanks to built-in Remote Play functionality. Beyond gaming, Sony is building out a comprehensive set of APIs that will enable third-party developers to create immersive in-cabin experiences, including custom gauge clusters and infotainment skins. All that will be run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon Digital Chassis, with enough power to handle both the evolving active safety and infotainment duties.

That all sounds fun, but the bad news is that would-be buyers are going to have to wait a little longer to start customising their rides. Production on the Afeela 1 has slipped, and it will not ship to the first customers until the very end of 2026. Those customers will have to be in California, as that's the only state where the sedan will be for sale. Arizona will come next, sometime in 2027, but nobody at Sony Honda Mobility will say which state will get the next bite of this apple, or when. 

Will it be worth the wait? We'll circle back later with more detailed impressions from inside this year's iteration of the Afeela 1.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/sony-honda-mobilitys-afeela-prototype-2026-puts-an-suv-spin-on-its-too-familiar-sedan-at-ces-043927882.html?src=rss

Garmin’s big announcement for CES 2026 wasn’t another fitness watch. Instead, it revealed it is adding food (and calorie) tracking to its Connect app. It combines AI image recognition with a rich food database, so you can monitor your calorie and nutrient intake without leaving the app — and even log some food through its watches.

The food tracking works similarly to existing apps like MyFitnessPal, Noom, LifeSum and many others. Still, Garmin hopes to make its companion app the best place for tracking nutrition without having to leave its app – and tying it into your other fitness goals.

This makes sense in a few ways. If you already use Garmin to track your exercise, the app can provide a more accurate estimate of your calorie expenditure. It’ll personalize it based on height, weight and gender, which you’ve likely already entered on your Garmin profile. It can even offer calorie and macronutrient recommendations tailored to your fitness goals.

However, it unveiled the news at CES 2026, a tech conference held in Las Vegas, which seemed like a troll. Las Vegas, where you’re never far from a three-foot margarita, a BLT Bloody Mary or fried chicken and waffles. In fact, Garmin selected one of my favorite restaurants, Yardbird, to showcase its new nutrition-tracking feature. Yardbird does incredible chicken and waffles. It’s possibly the worst possible place to start monitoring my calorie intake, regardless of the 15,000-odd steps I take each day here.

In addition to the food database, you can use the camera to log food. With AI-powered image recognition, the Connect app makes a generally good guess at what you’re eating. During the media briefing lunch, the app swiftly recognized grilled salmon, corn and several other vegetables. The quantities were not remotely accurate, however: Five kernels of corn do not equate to one cup. You can manually adjust the serving size, but unfortunately, it can’t make a more informed estimate at this point. A Garmin spokesperson noted that the company is looking into how to improve accuracy here. (It’s a common issue for any app or service attempting to use AI image detection to analyse meals.) It was, however, quick and easy. 

Mat Smith for Engadget

You can also create customized meal entries (with the correct ingredient quantities), making it easier to track your regular breakfast habits or midday coffee order. Better still, you can monitor nutrition and calorie intake on compatible Garmin watches. You can even log your favorite (and recently logged foods from your wrist without needing to use your phone. Voice commands also work on compatible Garmin wearables.

The feature is now available to Garmin Connect+ subscribers, who pay $6.99 per month. This also includes Active Intelligence, which already offers AI-powered insights into your workouts. It can now factor in your nutrition.

Subscribers will also be able to get daily, weekly, monthly and even annual reports on calorie targets (and what you ended up consuming). But let’s start monitoring that once I’ve left Vegas, please.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/garmin-food-tracking-feature-connect-plus-ces-2026-043231948.html?src=rss

OhSnap won our hearts (and a best of CES award) last year with the MCON, its tiny Bluetooth game pad that magnetically connects to your phone. At the time, we tried a pre-production unit, but in the year since the MCON has been finalized and went on sale last month. I just got a chance to try the final version here at CES, and just a quick demo was enough to convince me that OhSnap has made some solid refinements over the last year.

Just as we saw last year, the MCON attaches magnetically to an iPhone or any compatible Android phone (the company also includes a magnetic ring in the box for Androids that don’t have Qi2 yet). It has the full array of controls, including four face buttons, a D-pad, two joysticks and index finger buttons and full bumpers. It’s just sleeker and feels more solid than last year’s prototype, and while mounting your makes it feel a bit top-heavy, it’s not awkward enough to cause real issues when playuing (at least that’s how I felt after my brief demo).

The controller also has grips that unfold to help balance things, and the plate that attaches your phone to the controller has a kickstand. So if you want to drop your phone down on a tray table on a plane and play just holding the controller, feel free. All in all, the MCON feels like a flexible and high-quality device that’s probably worth the $150 OhSnap asks for it.

The MCON dock connects your phone to your TV for full-screen gameplay.Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

The company also has some new accessories to show off. There’s a $70 TV dock that powers your phone and outputs video from USB-C to HDMI. You could use this dock with any Bluetooth controller hooked up to your mobile phone, not just the MCON. There’s also a tiny $30 adapter you can put on your keychain that has a USB-C plug that goes into your phone; plug an HDMI cable into the other end and you can broadcast your games to a TV anywhere you go and play them with a controller.

It’s a pretty clever and comprehensive set of products, and while there are tons of mobile game controllers, the OhSnap feels like one of the more portable and sleek options out there. OhSnap is working on something even slimmer, though. The company showed off two new prototype controllers, the MCON Lite and MCON Slim.

OhSnap is working on two new MCON controller that are more compact than the original.Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

As the names suggest, they’re both more compact than the original model. The Lite uses concave joypads rather than full sticks, and the Slim makes things even smaller by using concave touch pads. Your’e not going to get quite the same quality experience with those as you would with the bigger version, but they are noticeably thinner; OhSnap says they’ll be cheaper, too. The MCON Lite is scheduled to arrive this summer, while the Slim should launch in the fall (around the same time as the iPhone 18).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/another-look-at-ohsnaps-mcon-a-magnetic-game-controller-for-your-phone-042424092.html?src=rss

New tech at CES often makes categorization hard. Is Cozyla’s latest device a digital family calendar, a TV or a smart home hub? After seeing it, I’d say the answer is, yes? Cozyla calls the Calendar + Max the “largest interactive hub in it’s category.” And indeed, it’s the size of a big flatscreen, but the main interface is just like any other Cozyla device, an Android-based family calendar and planner with shared schedules, notes, meal plans, and chores. It syncs with Google, Yahoo and Apple calendars as well as Outlook, and it will run apps from the Google Play store. (Yahoo owns Engadget, but has no say in our editorial coverage.)

But this super-sized version can also stream shows and movies with whichever apps you subscribe to. The photo integration, via the app, will take pics from your phone and stick them on the bigs screen. You can also create a slideshow and photo walls to look at when the calendar is off.

The smart home integration lets you view your security camera and video doorbell feeds on a much larger scale than your phone’s display can offer. The display has a camera of its own so you can make FaceTime and Zoom calls.

The Max comes on a built-in stand that you can roll around the house, along with a battery that should power the whole thing for around six hours. When I first heard about it, I found myself wondering where I would put Calendar+ Max in my house. The kitchen is an ideal centralized calendar location, but I don’t want to watch Miss Scarlet in there. Luckily, the wheels make that conundrum moot. This can go anywhere you want it to, and swings into portrailt orientation that looks great for chore mode, and landscape orientation for watching shows.

Possibly the best part is the lack of subscription required. Like with all Cozyla screens, there’s no ongoing cost to use all the features. The Calendar + Max has no release date or price available just yet, but if I ever decided to organize my family’s life beyond barely contained chaos, I can see myself considering it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/cozyla-showed-off-a-4k-55-inch-digital-family-calendar-at-ces-040352802.html?src=rss

Projector maker XGIMI has turned up at CES to launch its own range of AR glasses, but don’t get the champagne out too soon. MemoMind is a new brand under which its AI-infused eyewear will be sold, with two distinct units arriving at some point in the near future. The company says it has leveraged its know-how in optics and engineering to produce glasses which are unobtrusively light, all the better for blending into your daily life. Fashionistas will even be overjoyed to learn the glasses’ ship in eight different frame styles, five different temple designs and can be worn with prescription lenses. 

Memo One is the company’s flagship option, with dual-eye displays and integrated speakers so you can see and hear your AI assistant. The Memo Air, meanwhile, is a more stripped down model  weighing just 28.9 grams which just has a single eye display. Unfortunately, the company is using microLED displays rather than waveguides, making them a far harder sell for a lot of would-be users. After all, putting something that small so close to your eye but behind your prescription means it’s a painful experience for short sighted folks to focus on text. As I explained in my Halliday review, this technology is no friend to the glasses wearers who would otherwise be the ideal early adopters.

Update Jan 5, 2026: I have never been so happy to post an update, as I have now seen these in person and learned that they do not use microLED displays. In fact, they do use waveguides, making them a lot more attractive than I had initially thought. In fact, the glasses they remind me the most of is Even Realities’ G1, which I reviewed and absolutely loved.

MemoMind LineupXGIMI

In fact there are plenty of similarities, including the fact you need to tilt your head up to activate them. The waveguide prisms are a lot taller here, giving you plenty more real estate for your important data. To the point where the homescreen was set to include a full stock tracker (with graphs) and still had room for the time and notification pane.

They’re also surprisingly light, despite the fact the model I tested was the feature-packed flagship as opposed to the display free version.

The glasses are just a vehicle for the company’s AI assistant, promising translation, summarization, note-taking, reminders and contextual guidance. Unlike some of its would-be rivals, XGIMI says its platform will switch between OpenAI, Azure and (Alibaba’s) Qwen depending on what it thinks will offer you the best result for each task. Naturally, we’ll need to get them in to test before passing final judgment on their qualities but, you can color us naturally hostile to those damn microLEDs until we’re convinced otherwise.

XGIMI says the flagship Memo One will be available to pre-order “soon,” most likely after MWC in March. It’ll cost $599, with prescription lenses available for an additional, as yet unspecified charge, and the other models coming further down the line.

This story was updated to rectify incorrect information from the company’s press release.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/xgimi-best-known-for-projectors-launches-its-own-smart-glasses-170000968.html?src=rss

The whole AI PC trend didn't exactly set the world on fire last year, but, like clockwork, AMD is still ready to deliver a new batch of AI chips at CES 2026. The Ryzen AI 400 processors will offer some slight speed upgrades over last year's chips, and notably, they also include AMD's first Copilot+ processors for desktops. Sure, the Copilot+ program didn't really go anywhere, but as I've argued, it at least served as a template for building capable AI PCs. Now we just need some genuinely useful AI features in Windows — Recall and Copilot's voice commands aren't really compelling enough on their own.

AMD's first AI desktop chips, the Ryzen 8000G series, arrived in 2024 with relatively underpowered neural processing units (NPUs) for AI tasks. The Ryzen AI 400 chips, on the other hand, feature 60 TOPS XDNA 2 NPUs (up from the 50 to 55 TOPS in Ryzen AI 300 hardware). That places them well above the 40 TOPS NPU minimum for Copilot+ systems. For most consumers, NPU speeds don't really mean much yet, but if you're running AI models on your system you can expect slightly faster inferencing from AMD's previous chips.

AMD Ryzen AI 400 chipsAMD

The top-end Ryzen AI 9 HX 475 offers up to 12 Zen 5 CPU cores, 5.2GHz max boost speeds and up to 8,533 MT/s memory speeds. The line scales down to the four-core Ryzen AI 5 430, but even that model supports speedy 8,000 MTS RAM and offers a 50 TOPS NPU.

AMD isn't giving us many specific details on the Ryzen AI 400 chips at CES, but broadly, it claims they'll offer up to 30 percent faster multi-tasking, 70 percent faster content creation and 10 percent faster gaming than its previous chips. The company also says you'll see 70 percent better "unplugged connectivity" on Cinebench nT, which is hopefully a sign that you'll see improved performance overall on battery.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amds-ryzen-ai-400-chips-are-a-big-boost-for-laptops-and-desktops-alike-033000635.html?src=rss

While it's nice to see desktop support in AMD's new Ryzen AI 400 chips, demanding gamers and enthusiasts will likely be more intrigued by the company's next batch of Ryzen AI Max+ chips, as well as the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D with 3D V-Cache. The former will make its way into small desktops and a handful of workhorse laptops, while the latter is another option for gamers who want the speed bump of 3D V-cache without shelling out for the $700 9950X3D. 

Last year, AMD debuted its Ryzen AI Max chips as a way to create a single piece of silicon with powerful CPU cores, GPU cores, NPUs and integrated memory, similar to Apple's home-brewed chips. At the time, AMD VP Joe Macri also noted that the existence of Apple Silicon helped make the Ryzen AI Max chips possible.

"Many people in the PC industry said, well, if you want graphics, it's gotta be discrete graphics because otherwise people will think it's bad graphics," Macri said at last year's CES. "What Apple showed was consumers don't care what's inside the box. They actually care what the what the box looks like. They care about the screen, the keyboard, the mouse. They care about what it does."

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chip familyAMD

At CES this year, AMD is unveiled the 12-core Ryzen AI Max+ 392 and eight-core Ryzen AI Max+ 388. Both chips feature boost speeds up to 5GHz, 50 TOPS NPUs and GPUs capable of 60 TFLOPs. We've seen the earlier Ryzen AI Max chips in the Framework Desktop and the ROG Flow Z13, and we were generally impressed with its performance. For small systems, it was powerful enough that we really didn't miss having dedicated GPUs.

AMD Ryzen 7 9000X3DAMD

As for the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, it's an 8-core chip that can reach up to 5.6GHz boost speeds with 104MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. Like all of AMD's X3D chips, it uses 3D V-cache technology to vertically stack additional cache memory. In comparison, the standard 9850HX chip has 76MB of L2 and L3 cache.

AMD says the new Ryzen AI Max+ chips and the 9850X3D will ship in the first quarter. There's no pricing information on the latter, yet, but recent leaked listings suggest it may go for around $200. Rumors also point to a massive dual-cache (192MB!) 9950X3D2 chip coming soon.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amds-new-ryzen-ai-max-chips-and-ryzen-7-9850x3d-court-desktop-enthusiasts-at-ces-2026-033000587.html?src=rss

After relaunching its Area-51 brand with a new 16-inch laptop in 2025, Alienware is teasing two new laptops at CES 2026 in an attempt to reach an even larger audience. Dell's gaming brand plans to launch both entry-level and ultra-slim models later this year, and in the meantime, it's rolling out updates to its existing desktops and laptops to tide people over.

Alienware isn't sharing all the details of its new laptops at CES, but we do have the highlights. The company's new "ultra-slim gaming laptop" will be around 17mm or 0.67 inches thin, and come in either 14-inch or 16-inch variants. While the 16-inch version of the laptop will feature NVIDIA discrete graphics and "new highly efficient CPUs," it's not meant to be a gaming powerhouse like the Area-51. Instead, Alienware suggests the laptop will work for gaming and also "creative projects, productivity and everything in between."

The entry-level laptop is similarly not at Area-51-levels of power, but Alienware claims it'll deliver "strong gaming performance" at its "most accessible price point yet." That should ideally put the new laptop under the $1,199 starting price of the more streamlined Alienware 16 Aurora laptop.

The Alienware Area-51 Desktop will get updated with the latest AMD chips in February 2026.Dell

On top of those two new models, Alienware is bringing new anti-glare OLED panels to a selection of its Alienware 16X Aurora and Alienware 16 Area-51 laptops, along with new Intel Core Ultra 200HX chips. The new display panels reach 620 nits of peak HDR brightness and have a 0.2ms response time for even smoother gameplay. The Alienware 18 Area-51 is also getting an upgrade to Intel Core Ultra 200HX chips, while the Alienware Area-51 Desktop will ship with AMD's new Ryzen 7 9850X3D chips.

There's currently no pricing available for Alienware's new laptops, or the updated versions of its older models. The updated Alienware 16X Aurora, Alienware 16 Area-51, and Alienware 18 Area-51 laptops will be available in Q1 2026. The update Alienware Area-51 Desktop is coming in February 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/alienware-teases-new-super-slim-and-entry-level-gaming-laptops-at-ces-2026-033000700.html?src=rss

Urinalysis company Vivoo has rocked up at CES 2026 with two new products designed to keep an eye on your health. The first is the Smart Toilet, which clips onto your bowl and uses optical sensors to monitor your hydration levels.

It’s an evolution of the smart toilet product it originally announced back in 2023, which used a reactive testing strip as part of its process. Here, that feature has been ditched in favor of just collecting a small sample in its pocket-shaped cup for non-contact testing before being released.

The optical sensors in question are designed to track your urine’s specific gravity to monitor how hydrated you are. (If urine is too dense, it’s a sign of dehydration, while if it’s too thin, it’s a sign of over-hydration or something more serious, like diabetes or renal failure.)

mage of the Vivoo Smart Toilet being splashed with water Vivoo

You trigger a reading via the smartphone app, and when the test is complete the data will be pushed back to your device. The company says its battery will last for more than 1,000 measurements before you need to recharge it, too.

Vivoo doesn’t (Withings) name (Withings) names (Withings) but throws a sharp elbow toward its competitor. It boasts that its product will last for 1,000 tests on a single charge, “vastly exceeding the handful of monthly readings offered by chemical cartridge-based tests.” And that its battery pack, which sits on the outside of the toilet bowl, means you won’t need to uninstall the sensor to recharge and clean it on a regular basis. 

Image of Vivoo's FlowPad Vivoo

At the same time, the company is announcing Hygenic FlowPad, a menstrual pad infused with microfluidics. These are capable of monitoring factors such as Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSI), a marker for fertiity, ovarian health and perimenopause. Once the wearer removes the pad, they are tasked with scanning it with their phone camera to Vivoo’s app, much like many of its other at-home tests. At present, there’s no word on when FlowPad will be available to buy, but the company hopes to charge $4-5 per pad. 

Vivoo’s Smart Toilet can be ordered today, with early birds getting the gear for $99 with no need for an additional subscription, due to ship March. A second batch on the same deal arrives in June, but latecomers will have to wait until September 2026 when it goes on general sale. At that point, the price will climb to $129, plus an additional $6 a month for the subscription.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/vivoos-toilet-computer-keeps-an-eye-on-your-hydration-030000209.html?src=rss

French startup NAOX is at CES with a groundbreaking wearable EEG for clinics and research, but that’s not what we’re interested in today. Because it’s also here showing off a prototype of the consumer version, which incorporates its brain-scanning technology in wireless earbuds. As early as the end of this year, your earbuds could pull double-duty, pumping out tunes and keeping an eye on your brain’s health.

The product being released today is the NAOX Link NX01, an in-ear EEG designed to replace the wire-covered caps you’ve seen at a sleep clinic. It’s designed to be much more convenient for use in long-term studies, enabling people to keep an eye on their health while on the go. Don’t think you’ll be able to mess with one of these yourself as it is targeted toward clinical environments.

Of more interest is the NAOX Wave, which uses the same in-ear EEG technology from Link, but in a pair of wireless earbuds. As with the clinical model, Wave is designed to quietly keep an eye on your brain’s biomarkers as you go about your day. The company says it’ll be able to monitor your mental activity while working, relaxing and sleeping. In the companion app, you’ll get insights about your mental health, sleep analytics and cognitive performance, as well as details on your brain’s age. 

NAOX has said its version of the buds will launch towards the end of 2026, but it may not be the only name selling this tech. The company says it is interested in licensing its technology to audio companies, so we could see these EEGs popping up in earbuds from other, more established brands.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/naoxs-wireless-earbuds-have-a-built-in-eeg-to-monitor-your-brain-health-030000605.html?src=rss

You’ll be able to watch more live sports programming on Peacock that supports Dolby Vision and Atmos starting this year. At the moment, the only live sports offering you can enjoy with Atmos on the service is Sunday Night Football. Now, Dolby Laboratories has announced at CES that Peacock is expanding the availability of Dolby Vision and Atmos across live sports over the coming year. Peacock will add support for both technologies to Sunday Night Football, NBA and MLB live sporting events that the streaming service will offer its subscribers.

“Our partnership with Dolby ensures that whether our subscribers are streaming a thrilling playoff game, the latest Universal blockbuster, or a critically acclaimed Peacock Original, they're experiencing it exactly as creators intended — with breathtaking picture and immersive sound that brings every moment to life,” said David Bohunek, Senior Vice President of Global Video Engineering at NBCUniversal.

The companies have also announced that Peacock will start supporting Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby AC-4 starting later this year. Dolby Laboratories called Vision 2 “a groundbreaking evolution of its industry-leading picture quality innovation” when it announced the technology at IFA 2025. It was designed with today’s TV technology in mind, and it uses AI to automatically adjust your TV based on what you’re watching and where you're watching it. Meanwhile, AC-4 is a new audio format that Dolby says can deliver the highest audio quality “at a much lower bandwidth than other formats.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/peacock-is-expanding-dolby-vision-and-atmos-availability-for-live-sports-023000794.html?src=rss

Smartglasses company Rokid has introduced new display-free AI glasses at CES 2026. Dubbed "Style", the glasses are intended for all-day use and are compatible with users' corrective prescriptions.

Style supports multiple AI engines, including ChatGPT and DeepSeek, instead of being locked to any LLM. The glasses can also work with Google Maps and Microsoft AI translation.

Style is powered by a dual-chip setup, with an NXP RT600 handling low-power, always-on tasks and a Qualcomm AR1 taking on heavier AI and imaging workloads. Rokid claims this architecture helps it reach up to 12 hours of battery life under typical use.

A 12MP camera with a Sony sensor on the front supports 4K capture. Video can be shot in three different aspect ratios, which Rokid says makes it easier for creators to make content for different platforms. Style can record up to 10 minutes of continuous footage, which Rokid is quick to point out exceeds the roughly three-minute limit on Meta Ray-Bans.

The glasses weigh 38.5 grams and sport ultra-thin lenses with anti-scratch coatings. Style is a bit lighter than the Rokid smartglasses that we reviewed earlier this year, which include a display. The company also offers transition lenses in a variety of colors and the frames are offered in two.

Style is available for reservation now with a one dollar deposit and will officially release globally January 19. The AI smart glasses will retail for $300. Glasses purchased for a vision-impaired user will receive a 20 dollar subsidy from Rokid.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/rokid-introduces-display-free-ai-smartglasses-at-ces-2026-010017906.html?src=rss

"Relaxing" isn't a word anyone is likely to associate with CES. If anything, it is the antithesis of CES, an exhausting and wildly overstimulating marathon event that takes place in the already exhausting and wildly overstimulating Las Vegas. But a demo of Ambient's bedside device, Dreamie, ahead of its appearance at CES-adjacent Pepcom had me properly lulled and ready to go right back to bed. Dreamie is a smart sunrise alarm clock and nighttime wind-down device that has a built-in podcast player, a catalog of green, pink and brown noise sound masks, guided breathing programs, contactless motion sensors to provide insights into your sleep habits, dynamic lighting with simulated sunrise wake-ups and Bluetooth connectivity for headphones.

But most importantly for anyone trying to avoid using their phone immediately before bed, it's a standalone system in which all controls, features and scheduling options as well as data storage are on-device. And there's no subscription. 

The goal of Dreamie is "to help you separate from your phone while providing a lot of the conveniences that you would normally have," said CEO and co-founder Adrian Canoso. You can set multiple alarms on different schedules, access soothing content to fall asleep to and customize how gradual your sunrise wakeup is. There are environmental sensors to clue you in on the humidity, temperature and lighting conditions over the course of the night, to give you a better idea of how these things may be affecting your sleep. 

Dreamie is a relatively small device compared to other sunrise-style clocks, with a truncated pill-shaped body and a sleek circular touchscreen. Around the display is a hidden dial for volume control, and it feels great to rotate, with just the right amount of resistance. There's also a touch strip on top of the device to easily adjust the dimness of the light by dragging your finger along it. From the display, you can even change the direction the light is pointing so you don't blast yourself (or your partner) with it when your eyes aren't ready, casting the light off to the back instead. 

Dreamie's brightness controls Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget

Its 20-LED array can go from a soft, warm orangey glow to cool and bright blue-white, and certain programs, like the aurora borealis soundscape, will trigger other colors of the rainbow, throwing soothing green, blue and magenta. More impressive is the rich sound that comes from its 50 millimeter speaker. Dreamie has a 360-degree speaker grille on the bottom of the device that sends sound in all directions to create more immersive ambient sound. 

When a speaker is pointing toward you, "it's almost like a laser beam coming at you," which isn't exactly the most relaxing experience, explained Canoso, who previously worked in industrial design and robotics, and before that, as a studio recording engineer. "[Dreamie] projects the sound all the way around… So when you put it next to you on a night table, it sounds more diffused. It's not the loudest speaker out there because we've optimized it for rich sound quality at lower volumes. We don't need it loud. We just need it to sound good." 

And sound good, it does. It's seriously got me thinking I may finally have found the thing to replace the Philips Wake-Up Light I've been clinging to for close to 10 years now that has decent lighting but absolutely abysmal sound quality.

Dreamie, which costs $250, recently started shipping after a successful crowdfunding campaign, and certain features — including podcasts and sleep insights — haven't launched just yet (though I did get to see the podcast library during the demonstration, so it is a real thing, and it’s expected to roll out later this month). Those and other future features will arrive via free over-the-air updates. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/this-tabletop-sleep-device-and-sunrise-alarm-clock-aims-to-help-you-put-your-phone-away-before-bed-004751464.html?src=rss