Best of CES 2025: The smart home & home security gear we loved

09.01.2025 14:30

PC World

It’s been another banner year for home security and smart home at CES, and after scouring the show floor, we’ve rounded up the smart products that stood apart from the rest.

Among our picks: a video doorbell and a smart deadbolt with their own screens (about time), a Matter-enabled smart lamp that can control other Matter devices without an internet connection, a smart pet door that opens when your pets approach from either side, and a smart toothbrush that promises to scour your teeth and gums in 20 seconds flat.

So without further ado, here’s the smart security and home gear that quickened our heartbeats this week in Vegas, starting with…

SwitchBot Video Doorbell

Availability: Early 2025
Price: TBD

SwitchBot

Wouldn’t it be nice to see who was at your doorstep without fishing out your smartphone—or, you know, opening the door? You can with help from the SwitchBot Video Doorbell, a wired- or battery-powered unit that comes with its own 4 x 3 display, which you can mount in the kitchen, your living room, or even right next to the front door.

The display can be outfitted with 512GB of local storage—meaning no need for the cloud—while the doorbell itself supports 4K video and offers a 165-degree field of view. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Lockly Vision Prestige

Availability: Q4 2025
Price: $499.99

Lockly

Looks like the whole video-doorbell-with-a-display thing is catching on, because Lockly was showing off its own take at CES this week. A smart lock rather than a video doorbell, the Lockly Vision Prestige comes with not one, but two integrated displays: one on its exterior, and a second on its interior escutcheons, thus saving you the trouble of mounting an extra display (although you’ll lose the ability to put the Lockly’s display wherever you like).

Similar to the SwitchBot doorbell, the Lockly Vision Prestige boasts 2K video resolution, and it also does facial recognition, among other tricks. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Feno Smartbrush

Availability: Now
Price: $299

Feno

One of the biggest obstacles to dental care is “compliance” – ensuring that we not only brush twice a day, but that we cover every portion of our teeth and gums. So, what if you didn’t have to navigate every nook and cranny inside your mouth? Would your compliance improve? This is what makes the Feno Smartbrush so intriguing.

You insert this strange-looking device inside your mouth, and then 18,000 bristles work in concert to deliver 250 strokes per tooth. The whole process takes only 20 seconds. The system also includes smart features like an oral scanner and an app that lets you share data with your dentist. It’s a strange concept, certainly, but Feno maintains its brushing experience beats traditional electric toothbrushes for dental health. – Jon Phillips, editorial director

Read more: The World’s First Connected Smartbrush (Feno.co)

LIFX Luna Lamp

Availability: February
Price: $69.99

LIFX

With its first ever smart lamp, LIFX drew inspiration from an early product: its own SuperColor Ceiling light, an eye-catching, multi-zone fixture that won our Editors’ Choice award last year. Packing in 26 discretely addressable color zones, the Luna Lamp can be mounted on a wall or placed on a flat surface, like a countertop or a bedside table.

The Matter-enabled Luna Lamp also boasts a quartet of programmable buttons that can control either the lamp’s own settings or other nearby Matter devices—even without an internet connection, thanks to Matter’s device-to-device binding functionality. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Schlage Sense Pro

Availability: 2025
Price: TBD

Schlage

Just as we’d rather not deal with a phone for peeking at our porch, so would we prefer to skip our handhelds when it comes to unlocking the door. That’s why we’re bullish about the Schlage Sense Pro, a smart deadbolt with an ace up its sleeve: Ultra WideBand (UWB) technology, which allows the device to unlock itself when it detects you’re nearby.

Besides UWB, the Schlage Sense Pro supports NFC tap-to-unlock functionality, as well as PIN entry using the included keypad. Best of all, this Matter-enabled deadbolt supports Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Pawport Smart Pet Door

Availability: Early 2025
Price: Starts at $499

Pawport

Give your favorite four-legged friend the freedom to come and go as they choose while keeping your home safe with the Pawport Smart Pet Door, a retrofit-style device that slides in front of an existing pet door.

With help from an included Bluetooth collar tag, the steel-and-aluminum Smart Pet Door senses when your pet approaches, opening its doors automatically, while a sensitivity gauge keeps the doors from accidentally closing on your furry friend. You can also control the door remotely with the Pawport app, while pet “curfews” can keep your pet inside during designated hours. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Direction9 software TV keyboard

Availability: TBD
Price: N/A

Jared Newman / Foundry

A solution to the tedious task of keying in user names, passwords, and other text-entry fields on TV screens, this software keyboard from Direction9 takes its cues from the pre-iPhone days of T9 text prediction. Essentially, you use your TV remote’s arrow keys to navigate clusters of letters and numbers, with Direction9’s text prediction technology doing its best to quickly guess what you’re trying to type (you can disable the text prediction when keying in strong passwords and such).

It’s a promising concept, but for now, it’s just that: a concept. Direction9 is fishing around for device manufactures who might be interested in licensing the keyboard, and hopefully the company will drum up some interest during its demos at CES. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Aqara Panel Hub S1 Plus

Availability: January (EU), later in 2025 (U.S.)
Price: TBD

Aqara

Sick of waiting for Apple’s rumored HomePod with a screen? If you’re in Europe, you’ll be able to scoop up Aqara’s similar, wall-mountable touchscreen control panel this month; a U.S. launch is slated for later this year.

Complete with widgets and status indicators, the 6.9-inch Aqara Panel Hub S1 Plus lets you take change of Aqara’s smart home devices (including latest dimmers, switches, and motion sensors), as well as other Matter- and Zigbee enabled devices. As its name suggests, the Panel Hub S1 Plus can also act as a Zigbee or Matter hub. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Zero Breeze Mark 3

Availability: Late February
Price: $1,299.99

Zero Breeze

Anywhere A/C? That’s the idea behind Zero Breeze Mark 3, a portable air conditioner unit that runs on battery power and goes where you go, provided you’re up to hauling this 22-pound unit around.

Capable of running off a vehicle’s 12-volt power outlet as well as its own 1022Wh battery (which delivers up to seven hours of chill time), the Zero Breeze Mark 3 can crank out 5,280 BTUs of cooling, good for dipping the mercury in an RV, a tent, or another small space. You also get the choice of seven cooling modes, from the insta-chill Rocket Mode to the quieter Sleep Mode. – Ben Patterson, senior writer

Savant Smart Budget System

Availability: Spring 2025
Price: Depends on the number of circuits

Savant

If you’re contemplating upgrading your electrical service panel because you want to install something like an EV charger a hot tub, or if you’re switching from major appliances from gas to electric models, and you you need more than the 100 amps currently servicing your home, Savant’s customizable Smart Budget system can save you $10 to $15 thousand dollars or more. Your final cost will depend on the size of your system, but you’ll spend a fraction of that amount for Savant’s system; in fact, most homeowners will spend $1,000 to $1,500 for the hardware, plus installation.

The genius of Savant’s product is that you probably don’t need even 100 amps of electricity all the time, you really just need to manage how that power is divvied up. Traditional breaker panels don’t take that into account, but the Power Budget does. Modules installed in your existing service panel turn off the circuits you’re not using at the time, either with a smartphone app or on a schedule, so that power can be directed to the circuits you are using.

When you’re charging your car, for example, you might have the Smart Budget turn off the circuits powering your electric clothes dryer or your electric range. And when you’re cooking dinner, you can have it shut off the circuit for your car charger or clothes dryer so your range can operate. We’re grossly oversimplifying how this all works—and it does a lot more than what we’ve just described, too–but the bottom line is that it’s a brilliant money-saving solution.– Michael brown, executive editor

Glomensio Firefly Gen 2

Availability: Now
Price: $299

Glomensio

I almost passed over Glomensio’s pitch, because illuminated house numbers? How innovative could they possible be? As it turns out, radically cool. The Firefly Gen 2 house numbers are not just backlit, they’re also Matter compatible and can connect to your smart home or home security system. What’s more, they also have a Bluetooth radio onboard, so that if you call 911, the lights will begin flashing red and blue so first responders can spot your home as soon as they turn down your street.

At the same time, the sign can send a notification to a trusted neighbor who might be able to come over and render assistance before the EMTs even arrive. Or you can program the numbers to turn green to help a delivery or rideshare driver locate your house. And unlike most CES product announcements, you don’t have to wait to buy a Firefly Gen 2, it’s available at Amazon now. – Michael brown, executive editor

InkPoster

Availability: mid-Spring 2025
Price: $599, $1,700, or $2,400 depending on size

James Barber/Foundry

The InkPoster frame displays high-resolution images in a low-power matte frame that consumes electricity only while changing the image. InkPoster has a library of licensed images that users can install, and the images on display at CES looked spectacular, especially if your expectations were tempered in advance by the current state of E Ink used in color eBook devices.

Owners can enjoy an image for however long they like while the InkPoster maintains that static image at zero wattage. The InkPoster is available in 3 sizes: a 31.5 inches ($1,700), 28.5 inches ($599), and 28.5 inches ($2,400). The largest model incorporates Sharp’s IGZO technology for enhanced image updates and flexibility. – James Barber, contributing writer

xMEMS Labs silicon speaker on a chip

Availability: In finished products Fall 2025
Price: Will depend on the device it’s integrated into

xMEMS Labs

The new Sycamore MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) speaker from xMEMS brings full-spectrum audio to an ultra-tiny package, marking a huge step forward from current MEMS speakers in the marketplace, which are paired with a traditional coil-and-magnet driver to deliver the low end that MEMS has previously been unable to deliver.

Not only are these MEMS speakers incredibly small, but they also give designers the opportunity to tune perfectly matched left-right speaker pairs for the first time. This breakthrough should give earbud and headphone manufacturers a platform to innovate and make radical improvements to the DSP (digital signal processing) that’s critical to the musical experiences we enjoy today. Look for xMEMS Sycamore chips to show up in earbuds this fall, followed closely by smart watches and smart glasses. – James Barber, contributing writer