![\"LEGO](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/5eb47061dbe57bfee398a2106911d1b1e4950eb5.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cBig screens are no longer the exception; they\u2019re the expectation,\u201d Samsung Australia\u2019s Simon Howe said. Australia remains a top-10 market globally for premium televisions per capita \u2013 we love our screens even when budgets are tight.<\/p>\n
Hisense expanded its RGB MiniLED range with the UR Series, bringing premium display technology to accessible price points. The company\u2019s partnership with French audio specialists Devialet continues, and for gamers, 180Hz refresh rates promise competitive advantage.<\/p>\n
Your AI assistant can recommend what to watch next. It cannot explain why the world outside your living room grows more volatile.<\/p>\n
The new TVs will undoubtedly be popular locally but what stood out most wasn\u2019t the hardware. It\u2019s the insistence that artificial intelligence must be embedded in everything.<\/p>\n
Samsung, LG and Hisense each spruiked new AI features full of promise. Tony Brown, LG\u2019s television lead, made the pitch I heard all week: AI processes your content for optimal picture quality, scales up low-definition YouTube clips and navigates streaming abundance. Samsung\u2019s \u201cVisual AI Companion\u201d lets you query sports statistics mid-game.<\/p>\n
Yet the relentless AI branding still sits somewhere between actual innovation and a marketing arms race. After the pandemic drove a wave of TV upgrades, many consumers will be ready to upgrade again this year, particularly ahead of the FIFA World Cup. Questions about picture quality, size and price will still probably be more important than whether your TV can tell you which actor you\u2019re looking at.<\/p>\n
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Lego\u2019s surprise<\/p>\n
The most novel announcement wasn\u2019t from a tech company at all. Lego unveiled Smart Play, which the company calls its biggest innovation in 50 years.<\/p>\n
Eight years in development, the system embeds sophisticated electronics into standard bricks. A chip smaller than a LEGO stud combines sensors, microphones and computing into a 2×4 footprint. These smart bricks form a \u201cdecentralised computing network\u201d \u2013 models built by different children can interact without prior connection.<\/p>\n
Futurist Sally Dominguez, observing from the show floor, noted that purely digital AI products gave visitors \u201ca really boring time walking around\u201d, but when digital technologies create hybrid physical experiences, products can really sing.<\/p>\n
Literally, in the case of Lego. The Lego demonstration drew audience excitement \u2013 and even some gasps \u2013 in ways that another slightly slimmer laptop simply couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
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LEGO smart bricks are shown during a LEGO news conference ahead of the CES tech show.Credit: AP<\/p>\n
Julia Goldin, the company\u2019s chief marketing officer, framed it as consumer driven rather than technology driven. \u201cThis innovation came through understanding how kids play,\u201d she said in an interview. The platform extends physical play time, encourages storytelling and crucially doesn\u2019t require a screen or power button. Children can simply start playing.<\/p>\n
The first Star Wars sets will be launched in March. Futurist Mark Pesce noted his hope that the system allowed unstructured play rather than constraining imagination to pre-programmed interactions. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
The \u2018zero-labour\u2019 home<\/p>\n
The broader theme was domestic liberation through robotics. LG demonstrated CLOiD, an AI-powered home robot representing the company\u2019s vision of bringing intelligence from screens into the physical world.<\/p>\n
The timeline for Australian homes? \u201cA few years away\u201d, but the direction is clear. Samsung\u2019s AI smart kitchens and laundry appliances similarly point to a choreless future.<\/p>\n
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An LG Electronics CLOiD home robot.Credit: Bloomberg<\/p>\n
More immediately, Ecovacs showcased robot vacuums with 30,000 pascals of suction and \u201cperpetual runtime\u201d batteries that fast-charge during cleaning pit stops. The company leads the Australian market and is integrating AI stain detection that identifies dried ketchup, sprays it, waits, then cleans. \u201cYou should be able to just decide that you want your floor cleaned, your windows cleaned, and let us take care of that,\u201d says Karen Powell, Ecovacs\u2019 Australian head.<\/p>\n
Where was Australia?![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0f162f6fb12ea7396e38f30366290566f8e1da91.jpeg\")
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Dr Catherine Ball.Credit: Fairfax<\/p>\n
Walking the floor, you encounter national pavilions from South Korea, France and Israel. They are co-ordinated presences where startups cluster under a common flag, making it easier for buyers and investors to find them. Australia, conspicuously, had nothing.<\/p>\n
Dr Catherine Ball, a futurist who tracks the show, argues this represents a structural gap with very real costs. She says CES is one of the few places where buyers, investors, partners and media converge at scale \u2013 where a startup can move from \u201cnice demo\u201d to \u201clet\u2019s pilot this\u201d in a single week. Australian founders hustle alone, making our IP harder to discover, harder to trust and easier to overlook.<\/p>\n
She says that means fewer warm introductions, fewer conversations about distribution and less visibility in rooms where shortlists get written and awards doled out. A co-ordinated \u201cTeam Australia\u201d booth would create a single front door for startups, she says.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a reasonable question whether Australia\u2019s innovation ambitions are serious or merely rhetorical. We talk about becoming a technology exporter while leaving our entrepreneurs to navigate the world\u2019s largest innovation show without institutional support.<\/p>\n
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AI-enabled toys and robots were everywhere at CES.Credit: AP<\/p>\n
The uncomfortable truth<\/p>\n
As is often the case for the tech sector, CES exists in a bubble. Its 140,000 attendees were sealed off from reality in windowless convention centres. The overarching theme of the show was about making life easier and better, through AI, smart robots and bigger and brighter television sets.<\/p>\n
Yet on the same day we watched demonstrations of robot companions designed to eliminate loneliness, an ICE agent shot a woman through her windshield, just a couple of days after US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in a military operation and flew him to New York.<\/p>\n
CES promises a world where your television understands your preferences, where smart LEGO bricks create new dimensions of play. The technology is impressive.<\/p>\n
But this frictionless, AI-powered future is a jarring one, one being marketed to Australian consumers alongside a present where unarmed citizens are being shot in residential streets and foreign leaders are extracted by military force, while bushfires rage back home. Your AI assistant can recommend what to watch next. It cannot explain why the world outside your living room grows more volatile.<\/p>\n
The robots don\u2019t know, either. They just keep cleaning.<\/p>\n
David Swan travelled to Las Vegas with support from Samsung, LG, Hisense and Lego.<\/p>\n