I get it: On one hand, you want to be a resilient off-grid solarpunk freed from the yoke of your increasingly-unreliable power company. On the other, you'd still like to enjoy creature comforts both at home and when you're on the road. It's a problem EcoFlow understands, and has turned up to CES promising to help. The company is showing off a new Whole Home Backup Solution, which ties in to its existing Delta Pro batteries. But that's less interesting to me than the gizmos which are joining the ecosystem at today's show.

Since the 1960s, robots have assumed major roles in industrial manufacturing and assembly, the remote detonation of explosives, search and rescue, and academic research. But the devices have remained out of reach, in affordability and practicality, to most consumers. That, according to Professor Andrew Ng, the director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Stanford University in California, is about to change. One big reason, Mr. Ng said, is the mass production of smartphones and game consoles, which has driven down the size and price of robotic building blocks like accelerometers, gyroscopes and sensors. On the edges of consumer consciousness, the first generation of devices with rudimentary artificial intelligence are beginning to appear: entertainment and educational robots like the Hexy, and a line of tireless household drones that can mow lawns, sweep floors, clean swimming pools and even enhance golf games.

Give the job to a robot. Robotic mowers resemble a Roomba, except they target grass instead of dust bunnies--traveling around your yard to keep your pasture in check with their spinning blades. Unlike their gas-guzzling, human-steered counterparts, these battery-powered bots are quiet enough to work at night (making about as much noise as a window-unit air conditioner). And because they run automatically on a schedule you set, you can deploy them with abandon. In fact, a robotic mower performs most effectively when used a few times a week, trimming a small amount each time.