IFA 2024 Day 1: Putting The Fun Into Functional

When AI-powered robot vacuums inevitably rise up and attempt to cleanse the Earth of biological life, there’s a good chance the last pockets of humanity will use stairs as a natural weapon against them. The staircase is the natural enemy of the robovac, with the squat little bots being incapable of climbing them at best and suicidally flinging themselves down them at worst. Until now anyway.

It turns out Dreame has built a robot vacuum capable of climbing steps — sort of. The prototype device is capable of throwing its front end in the air and conquering elevations of up two inches. So, you’re still safe upstairs, for now, but that slightly elevated kitchen floor no longer offers any protection. As for flinging itself downstairs, it doesn’t do that either. It uses lasers to gauge the height of a drop, so you can leave those basement doors open without fear of losing your expensive robot vacuum. Dreame anticipates this tech will be available on consumer products at the start of next year.

Have you ever gone fishing, spent an afternoon toiling in the garden, or even went on a nice hike only to find your phone has died on you? What you need is a solar powered sunhat from EcoFlow. The aptly named “PowerHat” doesn’t have a built-in battery bank but can deliver power to one, or directly to your phone, via a USB-C port.

The green-energy adornment can slap 5 volts at 2.4 amps into your devices, as long as enough sunlight is hitting it. That’s 12 watts of charging power, which is enough to slowly drag a smartphone to full battery. Don’t expect supercharging, it’s just a bonnet after all. It comes in two sizes, medium-large for those with a 23-inch head, and large to x-large for those with a beefier 24-inch circumference around their domes.

It’s also waterproof, or the solar panels are anyway. The dome of the hat is actually a mesh, so while the electronics will be safe your head might get a touch wet should the clouds show up and ruin your charging experience.

If you need power on the go, Bluetti has you sorted with its “Handsfree 2” backpack-based portable power station. It offers up to 700 watts and 512 watt-hours of power on the go, and only takes up a fraction of the backpack it lives in.

Bluetti’s target audience is people who work in the field and rely on battery-powered tech. So if your drone needs extra juice, or you need to plug in a spotlight somewhere obscure, then this could well be a vital piece of work gear for you in the near future. There are also more casual applications. Hikers and campers who pick up one of these powerful bags can “glamp” deeper in the woods than ever before.

According to Bluetti, the power station packs enough juice to charge an iPhone 20 times, a drone eight times, a laptop five times, and run a projector for close to two hours. If you need something a little lighter, there’s also the “Handsfree 1” which packs 300 watts, 267 watt-hours, and is roughly half the size of its big brother.

LG, as per usual, has a humungous booth at IFA. I’m using the term “booth” very loosely here. It would be more accurate to say that LG has an entire hall to itself. There are a whole lot of appliances there designed to make your home smarter, or dry your clothes more ecologically, and of course, there’s AI there that will help grandma make a dental appointment for some reason. But LG also has an adorable little robot that is called the Self-Driving AI Home Hub, which is a really antiseptic way of saying it’s a device that answers the question, “What if ChatGPT and your Echo dot had a baby on wheels with a cute little face?”

This robot is downright adorable with really expressive eyes that look up at you like a puppy, and to answer your next question, no I didn’t pet it. But I wanted to. It stands on two legs, held aloft by gyroscopes and a healthy dose of science.

The Self-Driving AI Home Hub is a little ridiculous, and extremely cute, but I don’t think it really has a place in most homes. LG hasn’t announced pricing on the robot yet either, which probably suggests that it’ll be expensive, likely prohibitively so. But that doesn’t matter because it’s too insanely cute to care about things like money and practicality. Welcome to the future.

Keeping with the cute theme, Anker has an adorable little 3-in-1 charger called the MagGo Wireless charging pad. This charging station can charge your iPhone 15 Pro, Apple Watch, and your Airpods (or any other Qi charging device) in one shot. There’s nothing particularly fascinating or interesting about that, but the design is very cute.

The charging pads for the iPhone and the AirPods are the same size, while the charger for the Apple watch is smaller. They magnetically stick together into a little river stone-looking thing that slips easily into your pocket or bag. It connects to power using USB Type-C.

The charging pads are Qi 2 compatible, so you can get up to 15W of wireless charging. It’s also Mfi certified meaning Apple approves of it existing. The charger comes with a five-foot cable in the box as well. I’ve never had a wireless charging pad whose cheeks I’ve wanted to pinch, but I guess that trend is over now. The charging pad is available on Anker’s website now, but it’s a bit on the pricey side. Cuteness comes with a cost.

What? A new drone from DJI? No way. That’s crazy! But it’s really not. DJI has a new drone that is cute, fun, and manages to cover a segment of audience that it hadn’t adequately addressed yet. The DJI Neo is a tiny flying selfie drone. With a touch of a button, you can get the drone to take off from the palm of your hand, fly a prescribed route, take a photo or video while doing it, and then come back and land in the palm of your hand. It’s a one-touch flying experience.

DJI thinks this drone will be popular with creators who are looking for a way to quickly film themselves autonomously with minimal need for user input. The camera on the drone shoots at 4K which is already impressive for such a tiny little drone at an equally impressive price. The drone is available today at DJI’s website for just $199.