After canceling our CES plans in 2022 (and there wasn’t even a 2021 show), the Engadget team sent a dozen people to this year’s CES. The show wasn’t as busy as it was in pre-pandemic years, but many events were packed and companies had plenty of announcements to dig through. So what was the best of CES? You can consult all the winners here.
Our Best of the Best winner wasn’t a car or a TV sticking to the wall. No, it’s the Leonardo Project. This is Sony’s first gaming hardware designed specifically for people with limited motor control – and it’s pretty eye-catching.
sony
This controller kit works out-of-the-box with the PlayStation 5, offering two circular gamepads lined with interchangeable buttons, third-party accessory ports, and other customizable inputs. The controllers are laid flat on a table or mounted on a standard tripod. They can also be paired with a DualSense to turn all three devices into a single gamepad, providing great flexibility.
To ensure it delivers on its accessibility promises, Sony has partnered with advocacy organizations including AbleGamers, SpecialEffect, and Stack Up, much like Microsoft did with the revolutionary Xbox Adaptive Controller. While there’s no release date or price yet for Project Leonardo, Sony is finally seizing an opportunity to expand the PS5 player base.
—Mat Smith
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The launch could be at the expense of the company’s other products.
According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple plans to announce its first mixed reality headset this spring, ahead of its annual WWDC conference in June. In a sign that a launch is finally on the horizon, Apple has reportedly shared the headset with a handful of high-profile software developers, giving them a first look at its new xrOS software. However, the focus on its new hardware lineup will allegedly affect its heavy hitters.
The next version of the company’s iOS operating system will likely ship with “fewer major changes than originally planned” due to Apple’s reassignment of software engineers to the xrOS team. “The same goes for macOS 14,” adds Gurman. The company apparently has no updates “to note” for its iPad, Apple Watch and audio product lines.
Ridiculous but beautiful.
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Roland’s 50th anniversary celebration included a beautiful anniversary concept piano, built in collaboration with Japanese furniture manufacturer Karimoku. The exterior is a cast piece of Japanese Nara oak that hides a 14-speaker 360-degree system. Roland has also built speakers into drones that hover above the piano, controlled by the player. Unfortunately, these couldn’t fly off the CES exhibit floor, because Security, so Roland hung a pair of them on wires. Boo.
A Galaxy Unpacked event is scheduled for that day.
Samsung may have inadvertently confirmed that it will unveil its next flagship phones early next month. The company’s Colombian website posted a page revealing that its next Galaxy Unpacked event is scheduled for February 1, 2023. “Epic times are coming,” it read before the page was taken offline. Samsung’s showcase for its flagship devices has slipped earlier in the calendar over the years: for the Galaxy S22 series, Samsung organized an event on February 9, 2022.
The features that matter, in a lighter package.
HTC is hitting back at Meta’s Pro VR headset with the Vive XR Elite. The XR Elite matches many of the industry-leading specs of the Quest Pro, including 2K resolution support for each eye, a 90Hz refresh rate, and full standalone operation. However, weighing 625 grams (compared to 722 for the Quest Pro) and with a more comfortable headband, the XR Elite does an even better job of delivering an airy handheld VR/AR experience. Despite its strengths, the XR Elite also shares many of the same flaws as the Quest Pro. Starting at $1,099, it’s a bit cheaper than Meta’s $1,500 rival, but still quite pricey. We put it through its paces on the show floor at CES 2023.
Trend alert: urinalysis technology.
Although none won Engadget’s Best of CES award, there has been a boom in toilet bowl technology. You can present this as a natural evolution of the fitness tracker, testing your pee for many easily identified diseases. But is it really the next frontier of consumer health tracking? These devices may never have the popularity of a Fitbit, but for medical facilities and assisted living complexes, they could be a game-changer.
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