IFA just kicked off its 2026 show in Berlin, and I’ve been on the ground taking in all the new tech, from robotic lawn mowers and rollable laptops to every kind of smart home gadget you can imagine.
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There’s no way to see it all, but here’s my shortlist of the coolest gadgets I went hands-on with at the show, including a bezelless smartphone, a necklace that tracks what you eat, and a device that runs your computer for you.
1. Acer Swift Blade 14
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETAcer announced the Swift Blade 14 at IFA, the sole model in an all-new subbrand of ultralight, thin laptops with OLED displays. The 14-inch model weighs just 1.7 pounds (799 grams) and measures 0.5 inches thick, with a 3K OLED display and an Intel Core 7 350 processor — a lightweight, battery-efficient chip.
It’s a gorgeous laptop, but it isn’t intended for demanding workflows, as it caps out at just 12GB of LPDDR5-6400 RAM and an integrated Intel graphics card. Instead, it commits to portability and premium features at an accessible (but not yet finalized) price point.
It’s also one of the lightest laptops I’ve gone hands-on with, targeting users looking for portability and battery life across mainstream workflows and visual content … and looking good while doing it. The Swift Blade 14 is set to be released in the first quarter of 2027.
2. Tecno’s bezelless phone
Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETIt wouldn’t be IFA without some proof-of-concept devices, and Tecno’s aptly named Bezelless smartphone is one of the coolest of 2026. It’s not exactly 100% bezel-free, but the 6.78-inch OLED panel stretches all the way to the edges of the phone, making the screen and UI seem huge in your hand.
The concept model features 8GB of RAM, 256GB of local storage, a MediaTek Dimensity 7400e chipset, and a 50MP main camera, but should it actually make it to market, those specs could certainly change. What’s cool here is the company’s ability to show off a successful execution of this design and how it could inspire follow-up devices.
3. Odyss food-logging necklace
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETLet’s admit it: Manual food logging is impossible to sustain over time. Odyss‘ AI-powered necklace attempts to solve the problem of manual input by automatically identifying and tracking what you eat through the multimodal AI camera in the necklace.
This technology already exists, to be sure, but what surprised me was how good it was at quickly and accurately identifying food, particularly more complex combinations of cooked dishes like “couscous with roasted carrots and sprouts”.
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Privacy concerns abound when wearing what is essentially a camera around your neck, but this showcase of intelligent multimodal AI has interesting implications for the future of health-focused wearables. Odyss is currently beta testing.
4. Flowtica Scribe
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETI appreciate when product designers understand that the simplest solution is often the best. Flowtica’s Scribe is a normal (and very premium) ballpoint pen with a special feature: It’s also a recorder and transcriber. With a single button on the top of the pen, you can quickly record entire meetings or conversations while taking notes as normal.
Transcriptions are sent to the app, and tapping the multifunction button allows for some additional functions for the end result, like highlighting particular parts of a conversation as it’s happening in real time so you can come back to the important parts. The Scribe is available now for $159.
5. Plantiemoji
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETThe big brands like to show off at IFA, but the show is notable for its small-scale products, too. Take this device from the two-person company Plantiemoji. It’s essentially a sensor you stick into the soil that measures soil quality, oxygen, moisture, and light, then uses AI to compare them with the optimal conditions for your plant species (identifiable in the app).
The resulting assessment comes back in the form of an animated emoji GIF — one of 26 available — on the sensor, summarizing how the plant is feeling and what you can do to improve it. This isn’t groundbreaking tech, but it might be the best way to teach my 3-year-old niece how to care for plants.
6. Dell 14S
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETWe saw a handful of MacBook Neo competitors at IFA this year, but perhaps the sleekest is Dell’s new 14S, an all-aluminum 14-inch laptop hitting the market right around the $699 price point. It brings the basics to a solid build, with a practical selection of ports, cool colorways, and some fantastic battery life: up to 21 hours on one charge, Dell says.
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It caps out at 16GB of RAM and runs Intel Core Series 3 “Wildcat Lake” processors — lightweight, battery-efficient chips — for all-day use by students and for mainstream workflows. For PC users searching for a Neo equivalent, this is as close as I’ve seen yet. The 14S will be available this fall.
7. Violoop
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETThis little box connects to your computer via HDMI and USB-C and harnesses multimodal AI to see what’s on your screen. It then takes actions on your behalf — including complex, multistep workflows like responding to emails or navigating databases.
Violoop processes content locally to determine what it’s seeing and how to act — including navigating Windows and web pages and typing on its own. In a demo, the company told me it’s designed to be a “second participant” on your computer, performing actions and doing work for you, even if you’re completely AFK.
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It’s still training, however, having accessed only tens of thousands of screens — not the millions it needs — with success rates for more complex tasks not quite averaging 80%. Still, watching this little box go through your emails, type responses, and send them successfully was a little scary, but it hints at the near future of AI agents in the workplace. Violoop is currently on Kickstarter.
8. Lenovo’s “Project Swan” rollable laptop
Joseph Maldonado/ZDNETLenovo’s latest rollable laptop proof of concept is a bit tamer than past years’ iterations, and that’s a good thing. Dubbed “Project Swan,” this 14-inch ThinkBook features a horizontal rollable screen that extends out to 17 inches — just enough to be impactful, but not so big as to look like a precarious (and expensive) gimmick.
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The design here is more practical, with a single hinge connecting the extra-large display to the keyboard component and only a few inches of extension on either side. Lenovo has proved that it will bring its proof of concepts to market, so Project Swan — or a similarly designed laptop — could become a reality within a year or so, especially since the reined-in mechanics could keep prices more accessible.
9. Acer’s Project DualPlay Mini
AcerGamers who travel for work, rejoice. The concept here is simple: a gaming handheld with a screen that flips around to the back so it can become a mini laptop.
The hardware in modern gaming handhelds is powerful enough to act as PCs, and this one is no exception. Powered by an Intel chip (though Acer didn’t specify which one), it runs Windows and easily takes on the role of a laptop with a backlit keyboard or a handheld with the same dual-fan cooling architecture as Acer’s other flagship handheld, the Predator Atlas 8.
The DualPlay Mini is still a proof of concept, but this is one I have high hopes of seeing in the near future.
