The Best Products We Saw at CES 2025

CES 2025 presented us with big innovations, outrageous concepts, and impressive solutions to everyday problems. This year, the CNET Group—made up of sibling sites CNET, ZDNET, PCMag, Mashable and Lifehacker—teamed up with the CTA as the official media partner of the Best of CES Awards. Staff experts and editors weighed in, and from those discussions, we've chosen the top products and services at CES and awarded them with the official distinction of Best of CES. 

To be eligible for this award, the product or service needs to be an exhibitor at CES 2025, and meet one of the following criteria:

• Includes a compelling new concept or idea

• Solves a major consumer problem

• Is new or is an update to an existing product that sets a new bar in performance or quality

Best AI: Nvidia Cosmos AI model

CES 2025 was packed with AI tech, but Nvidia Cosmos wins in our book, since it might be what the next big things in AI, robotics, and autonomous vehicles are powered by. Cosmos takes 3D models of spaces in the real world, and, through generative AI, turns them into photo-realistic videos to train robots and self-driving cars. It solves a big problem with AI training data: Traditionally, robots require a huge amount of training data to continuously improve. Cosmos, however, can generate that training data with AI, continuously feeding the training sets for new products. Cosmos will likely run best on Nvidia chips, but the company wants to open-source the code and put it on Github.

• Runner-up: Gemini for Google TV

Best transportation/mobility: Honda 0 Series

Honda's futuristic 0 Series SUV and Sedan are nearly here. The company plans to release these vehicles in North America by 2026, and will be made on Honda's new battery platform in Ohio. If you pick one up, you should expect to be able to charge up your car in 10 to 15 minutes. 0 Series runs Honda's ASIMO OS on a new AI chip, with the end goal of powering Level 3 self-driving.

The 0 Series we saw at CES should be pretty close to what Honda releases, unlike some of the other prototype designs shown off. We don't know how much it will cost, but we're excited about where Honda is going with its EV program.

• Runner-up: BMW Panoramic iDrive with Operating System X

Best laptop: Asus Zenbook A14

The Asus Zenbook A14's 2.2-pound design makes it obviously portable, but Asus manages to add a 30 hour-long battery life and some extra features to the package. The Ceraluminum chassis is durable (from the aluminum) and scratch-resistant (from the ceramic), not to mention 100% recyclable. The laptop ships with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip, which makes it a Copilot+ PC. You can expect AI features like summarization, text generation, photo editing, and using natural language to search for media. This Zenbook comes with both USB-C and HDMI 2.1, as well as fun tap-and-slide controls for volume, brightness, and track selection. The OLED display impressed our team, and the whole package seems fairly priced at $1,099 (X Elite), or $899 for the X Plus (coming in March).

• Runner-up: Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

Best TV/home theater: LG G5 OLED TV

The LG G5 was the TV that impressed us most at this year's CES, and is the front-runner for the highest quality TV of 2025. Its OLED display is 40% brighter for 2025, with better contrast in bright lighting when compared to the G4—one of our favorites of 2024. The remote is improved, while the TV keeps the gallery design that makes it look nearly bezel-less. You might be temped by the M5 wireless TV, as it has the same quality display, but that wireless tech makes it much more expensive.

• Runner-up: Hisense 116UX

Best smart home/home tech: Roborock Saros Z70

The Roborock Saros Z70 is a vacuum-mop hybrid, but it can do a lot more than that. Thanks to a new mechanical arm, the bot can pick up and put away socks off the floor. Plus, it's no prototype: The Saros Z70 will be available to consumers in April. Its vacuum has 22,000 Pa of suction power, which makes it among the most powerful robovacs out there. That won't come cheap: This model costs about $2,000. But our hope is it starts a trend where we see less expensive models hit the market.

• Runner-up: BioLite Complete

Best sustainability: Flint Paper Battery

Have you ever seen a battery made out of paper before? Flint brought one it made to CES—a more sustainable, scalable, and affordable alternative to lithium-ion batteries. It all comes down to cellulose, which lets ions transfer between the node and cathode of the battery. Better yet, the battery can be sized down to just about whatever size you need, such as a coin battery or the strap of a smartwatch. When you're finished with them, they don't end up in a landfill: They decompose in six weeks.

Best gaming: Lenovo Legion Go S

Like many PC handheld consoles, the Lenovo Legion Go S runs Windows 11. But what makes this model stand out is the other operating system it is compatible with: Valve's SteamOS. That makes it the only non-Valve portable to run this OS, making it a true Steam Deck competitor. It sadly doesn't have the detachable controllers of the Legion Go, and has a smaller lower-res display, but it has a lot else going for it: two USB-4 port on top of the console, Hall Effect joysticks to prevent drifting, and an interior that better supports upgrading the storage. This will be the least expensive Legion Go device when it launches in May, at $600.

Best wellness/fitness tech: Ozlo Sleepbuds

Ozlo's Sleepbuds impressed us by not only offering comfortable earbuds for sleeping, but ones that can potentially enhance the quality of your sleep as well. The Sleepbuds are designed to be flush with your ear, which means you can sleep on your side without feeling them pressing into you. The design also prevents them from falling out of your ear. In addition, the Sleepbuds have a number of slumber-specific perks, including biometric sensors in the earbuds that can track your sleep, sensors in the case that can identify potential sleep interruptions in your room, an in-ear alarm that won't wake up a sleeping partner, and 10-hour battery life, so you won't wake up to a dead battery notification. You can even play sound directly from the Sleepbuds without connecting to another Bluetooth device, which means you don't have to look at your phone before going to bed. They earn an official Best of CES award this year for wellness tech.

• Runner-up: YoctoMat

Best mobile: HMD OffGrid

If you have a brand new smartphone—say, an iPhone 16 or Google Pixel 9—you may have access to satellite communications, which lets you contact emergency services and other contacts when there's no cellular signal available. For most of us, however, these features don't exist on our phones, and if reception goes down, we're out of luck. HMD's new OffGrid accessory aims to fix this: With a $200 dongle, you can send texts and contact emergency services on any iPhone or Android device. However, you'll also need to subscribe to the monthly service, which runs $80 per year.

• Runner-up: TCL 60 XE Nxtpaper

Best privacy and security: Ultraloq Bolt Mission UWB Plus NFC

The Ultraloq Bolt Mission is the first smart lock on the market that supports ultra-wideband technology. With that, the lock can sense within inches when you're approaching the door, whether you're approaching from inside or outside your home, and can unlock without you having to touch the lock at all. If that fails for whatever reason, it has NFC for tap-to-unlock, a keypad, and a traditional key. It's protected by 128-bit AES data encryption, IP65 weather resistance, BHMA Level 1-certified durability, and it supports wifi, Matter, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung SmartThings. Plus, you only need to worry about changing the battery once a year.

• Runner-up: Lockly Prestige Duet Series

Best weirdest/most unexpected: Kirin Electric Salt Spoon

The Kirin Electric Salt Spoon generated quite a bit of attention at CES this year. The idea is this: The spoon sends an electric current to your tongue to create the illusion that your food tastes saltier. In theory, it's a great concept, and could enable people who need to cut down on their sodium levels to enjoy food as they wish to. However, our team experienced mixed results with the spoon. Hopefully by the time it's available in the United States, things will be more consistent.

Best overall: Nvidia Cosmos

While plenty of tech this year impressed us, the overall winner had to be Nvidia Cosmos. Cosmos is actively solving a problem with how robots can continue improving, and we expect it to power the next big things in tech. Nvidia is already partnering with Toyota to build next-generation self-driving cars, showing that the industry sees the potential here as well.