The Sony CES 2025 keynote will begin soon and you can watch it, and follow our coverage live, right here. The Afeela electric vehicle dominated Sony's 2023 and 2024 CES press conferences and it appears that trend will continue this year, with an appearance at the Sony event (and a followup press conference) already confirmed. This represents a change for Sony, a CES mainstay company, as it's better known for its decades in the consumer electronics space with its Walkman portables and Trinitron TVs of old along with next-gen PlayStation consoles and Alpha cameras. The Afeela is the first product from Sony Honda Mobility, a joint venture between the Japanese electronics and transportation giants. After a surprise rollout at CES 2023, the Sony CES presser teed up additional details on the EV's LiDAR-heavy sensor array and AI-enhanced cabin tech (the latter coming with an assist from Microsoft) at CES 2024.

Believe it or not, AI is already subtly reshaping the PC. No, we're not talking about the microprocessor or integrated NPUs. There, progress has been slow and stuttering, as chip vendors and Microsoft work toward establishing an ecosystem of Copilot PCs. Instead, PC vendors are looking for ways to reinvent the familiar with AI capabilities. But we wanted to know what PC vendors thought about the future of the AI PCs they're building.

Believe it or not, AI is already subtly reshaping the PC. No, we're not talking about the microprocessor or integrated NPUs. There, progress has been slow and stuttering, as chip vendors and Microsoft work toward establishing an ecosystem of Copilot PCs. Instead, PC vendors are looking for ways to reinvent the familiar with AI capabilities. But we wanted to know what PC vendors thought about the future of the AI PCs they're building.

Smart plugs are among the simpler smart home devices, giving you voice and app control over appliances like lamps, fans, humidifiers and basic coffee makers. You can create schedules and routines, too, either through a plug's proprietary app or through your preferred smart home platform. But much like other IoT devices, which system plays nice with which plug depends on compatibility, and each brand's app offers different features. We tested out ten popular options to see which are worth buying. Before you buy one, it helps to know what a smart plug can and can't do. They work best with things that have an on/off switch, making them great for lamps and other lights.

This photo provided by Samsung Electronics Co. on Tuesday, shows the company's BESPOKE JetBot AI vacuum cleaner. Samsung Electronics Co. on Tuesday launched a new robot vacuum cleaner with upgraded artificial intelligence (AI) solutions here as the tech giant eyes to boost home appliance sales amid the pandemic-driven stay-at-home trend. The BESPOKE JetBot AI vacuum cleaner comes in five colors at a price of 1.59 million won ($1,430). The product, which was first unveiled at the all-digital Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2021, is equipped with Intel's Movidius AI solution and utilizes LiDAR and 3-D sensors to avoid objects, while cleaning hard-to-reach areas. Samsung said the vacuum cleaner has active stereo camera-type sensors that can detect any object over 1-centimeter high at up to 1 meter of distance.

Across the board, Philips Hue LED lights topped all of our tests thanks to an easy setup, a robust suite of features, and an intuitive app. Additional support with smart assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri adds tremendous benefit to an already impressive portfolio. Once you throw in the additional rainbow of possible light colors, these are without a doubt the best smart bulbs you can buy. The only downside is that unlike some other options, Philips Hue lights do require a hub (the Philips Hue Bridge) in order to work remotely. While they can be controlled over Bluetooth, that will only work when you're physically near the bulb.

Most smart-home owners dim lamps by screwing in smart bulbs, but plugging your lamps into a smart plug that supports dimming is an even easier solution. Plug-in smart dimmers aren't as ubiquitous as simple on/off smart plugs, but every major electrical manufacturer has one. This Enbrighten model from Jasco is based on Zigbee technology and so depends on a smart home hub that supports the same. That can be a Samsung SmartThings, a Hubitat Elevation, an Amazon Echo Plus, or a second-generation Echo Show, among others. As with its in-wall dimmer, however, the Enbrighten plug-in dimmer is not formally certified to work with SmartThings.

Samsung SmartThings has been the leading product in the smart hub space pretty much since the day it was released, but one small problem has long held it back: It had to be tethered to your router with an ethernet cable. For many users, including myself, that one problem was a deal breaker. There are just two available ethernet ports on my router, and I'm just not interested in turning my living room into a server closet with switches and cables running all over the place. With the third-generation SmartThings Hub (Samsung model number GP-U999SJVLGDA), Samsung finally enters the wireless age in earnest. It still provides the option to connect the hub to your router via ethernet, but Wi-Fi connectivity is the default.

Samsung's Bixby digital assistant is taking the next step in its challenge of Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple's Siri, and will soon be available in a high-end speaker with an integrated smart home hub. At the launch of its Galaxy Note 9 smartphone today in New York, Samsung said a Bixby speaker, called Galaxy Home, is on the way. The speaker will feature an integrated SmartThings hub, which will enable it to control the vast array of smart home devices in the SmartThings ecosystem. That should make it much more powerful than the Amazon Echo Plus, which is equipped with a ZigBee radio, but doesn't support the equally popular Z-Wave platform. We knew a smart speaker was coming from Samsung sometime this year, but not much else.

The humble vacuum cleaner has come a long way over the past few years. Gone are the days when you had to carve out 30 minutes or more per week to keep those carpets clean. These days, your vacuum can clean the house for you -- meaning you can leave, and come home to a totally clean home. There are a number of smart robotic vacuums out there, and while they all do basically the same thing, there are a few key differences that might make one product better than another for your uses. Apart from the obvious -- like the fact that you want a robotic vacuum to be relatively good at cleaning, you'll also want to consider how the vacuum is controlled.