Thomas Ricker

The self-balancing brand once hyped as “more important than the internet” has been so thoroughly milked of its value by Ninebot that it now covers giant batteries, lawn mowers, robots, 4x4s, and scooters that can’t balance themselves at all.

Power stations commonly feature a small integrated light, but the Solix C800 Plus attaches a rechargeable camping light to a long retractable pole (that doubles as a selfie stick) to illuminate a larger area of 10 square meters for up to eight hours. It’s loaded with ports and features 768Wh of LFP storage, up to 1200W of AC output, and 300W of solar input. Available in March but pricing is still TBD.

The company’s fitness watches are unmatched in longevity, value over time, and their ability to track all the performance minutia athletes want to track. But Garmin Connect — which ties everything together — well... sucks, which was made all the more obvious after Apple started playing on Garmin’s turf. The new Connect app and website is currently beta-only for select customers, but is coming to everyone “later this year.”

Unlike LG’s transparent OLED TV, Sammy’s transparent MicroLED display is still just a prototype, but CES 2024 is the first time Samsung is showing it in public.

The Signature OLED T — T for transparent — is a new 77-inch 4K TV that’ll go on sale later this year. It’s not the best TV for the money, but this is something you’d buy just because you can.

Six of the 21 new Starlink satellites launched last night support the company’s new Direct to Cell service announced in 2022. SpaceX will now test the service with ordinary 4G LTE-compatible phones on T-Mobile in the US before the text messaging service goes live in multiple countries this year. Voice and data (and IoT devices) will be added in 2025 as more D2C satellites come online.

The DukeBox is a modern take on the jukebox from the company’s experimental LG Labs division. It combines front-firing speakers on the bottom and a 360-degree speaker on top with a vacuum tube audio system behind a transparent OLED panel that can display things like track information, album art, or... a fireplace, naturally. It’ll be demonstrated at the big CES show starting next week in Las Vegas.