Netflix just announced the pending release of a Stranger Things documentary, hot on the heels of the series finale. It premieres on January 12. One Last Adventure focuses on the making of season five, so it's not a full series retrospective. This seems similar to what Disney+ does a few weeks after a popular Star Wars or Marvel show drops.
Still, it's a documentary about the very last season of the show, so there's likely to be some tearful goodbyes and all of that jazz. As a matter of fact, the trailer shows plenty of hugs along with sit-down interviews.
It'll shine a light on how some of the stunts and set pieces came together, which is cool. Stranger Things, after all, is primarily a show about spectacle and season five had plenty to spare. The Duffer Brothers will also discuss how they came to write some of those final character arcs (no spoilers here.)
If you're grieving the loss of Steve Harrington, Delightful Derrick, Eleven and the rest, this should make for a nice watch. It's worth noting that while Stranger Things has doled out its last needle drop, the franchise itself is still going.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a-stranger-things-making-of-documentary-hits-netflix-next-week-175539720.html?src=rss
Tamagotchi ripoffs are alive and well at CES 2026, and SoildTech's spin on the idea is to stick a virtual pet in the dirt to help you stop killing your plants. Senso combines a plant health sensor and a Tamagotchi-like device, offering insights into the conditions of a houseplant's environment and a gamified way of keeping up with them.
If a plant is in need of watering or could use some lighting adjustments, little characters will offer you quests to complete those tasks. And by taking care of your plant properly, you'll also be helping those characters' virtual home planet thrive. (A world that, I must point out, looks a whole lot like one I've seen before as a Tamagotchi Paradise owner). The virtual pet component magnetically attaches to a two-pronged probe that's inserted into the pot, so it can be swapped between the sensors in different plants if you have more than one.
The companion app for the Senso device showing plant data and care tips
SoildTech
In the AI-powered app, where you can add and manage multiple plants, you'll get the full breakdown of each one's data and needs. Soildtech says the app can also identify plants and the diseases they may be afflicted with from a photograph. Senso supports voice interactions so you can turn directly to the device for caretaking advice too.
It's designed with beginner plant enthusiasts in mind and is, admittedly, super cute, though I can't speak to how well it can actually assess the health of a plant from our brief look at it. Senso comes in multiple colors and will launch on Kickstarter "soon."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/this-tamagotchi-clone-is-designed-to-help-you-keep-your-plants-alive-172000982.html?src=rss
One trend emerging from CES 2026 is wearable microphones you can use to dictate your thoughts. Vocci is one such gadget, a titanium ring with a single button capable of recording audio for up to eight hours on a charge. Unlike someof itscompetitors, Vocci isn’t just for catching your own thoughts as they spring forth from your scalp. Instead, you’ll be able to record whole conversations and meetings from the comfort of your proximal phalanx.
Users can start and end recordings by double clicking the ring’s single button, while single clicks are used to mark important moments within the recording. Tagged moments will instruct the AI app to add more context, highlights or reminders, where appropriate. Once the file has been processed, you’ll receive a transcript, complete with a summary and commentary.
I’m told the ring has a range of five meters, but I was unable to hear an example recording or see a working demo of the technology. I did ask why a ring would be more effective at capturing a room’s worth of chat over, say, using a recording app on one’s phone laid on a table. But the response was to point out a user may forget to start the recording, and you can’t disagree with that.
Vocci will ship with a charging case, and will be able to recharge to full in half an hour, but it’s not clear yet how much (if at all) power will be stored in the case’s batteries. We also don’t know how much the ring will cost, but it’s likely to be available for pre-order at some point in February. As for the ring’s pedigree, it comes from Gyges Labs, the company which leant its name, manufacturing and engineering expertise to last year’s Halliday Smart Glasses.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/voccis-ai-note-taking-ring-aims-to-do-much-more-170536442.html?src=rss
Audeze has unveiled the second generation of its Maxwell gaming headset at CES 2026. The Maxwell 2 is a comprehensive refresh aimed at competitive players and anyone seeking more immersive audio when gaming on PC or consoles. The original Maxwell headset was our pick for best premium gaming headset in 2025.
The headline upgrade is Audeze’s patent-pending SLAM technology, which the brand claims improves spatial cues while delivering “punchier” bass. Maxwell 2 pairs that with 90mm planar magnetic drivers, which offer a wide frequency range of 10Hz to 50kHz. Audeze says the result is clearer detail for every in-game sound from subtle directional footsteps in competitive FPS games to bass-heavy moments like big explosions with near-zero distortion.
An upgraded suspension strap with ventilation holes aims to ensure comfort during longer sessions and a new earpad design gives your ears more space. A new magnetic attachment system should make earpads easier to swap.
The Maxwell 2 headset includes an AI noise-canceling mic setup with AI-assisted noise removal on a removable hypercardioid boom mic. The headset can connect with a wireless USB-C dongle as well as Bluetooth 5.3. Battery life is rated at over 80 hours of wireless playback and the headset supports USB-C fast charging.
Pricing is set at $329 for the PlayStation version and $349 for the Xbox model (which supports Dolby Atmos on compatible devices). Both versions also support Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch and they’re available now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/audeze-has-unveiled-the-maxwell-2-gaming-headset-at-ces-2026-170056068.html?src=rss
XGIMI, which burst on the scene in 2025 with several impressive projectors, has unveiled its latest high-end model called the Titan Noir Max. The new model revealed at CES 2026 has many of the bells and whistles found on professional-level projectors including a dynamic IRIS system for improved contrast, along with a new thermal system designed to boost brightness.
The Titan Noir Max has a design to XGIMI's Titan model announced last year, but it's taller and a bit squarer with an elegant grille-like pattern on the front. As with other XGIMI models, it features a laser light engine and 4K video quality, though the company didn't say if it had the same big Texas Instruments 0.78-inch DMD (digital micromirror device) chip as the original Titan model.
The key new feature is a dynamic IRIS system that boosts native contrast to 10,000:1 for deeper blacks and brighter highlights. At the same time, it boasts new "precision tuned optics" (ie a better lens) also designed to improve contrast and color nuance.
Another key feature is a re-engineered DMD architecture that can handle "substantially higher light power densities," XGIMI says. This should allow for increased brightness, though the company didn't provide a figure in ANSI Lumens. It would be impressive if it topped the 5,000 Lumen Titan, though.
Many other specs are lacking, like color accuracy in the Rec.2020 space. However, the company is promising a lot, saying that the Titan Noir Max will offer "the stability, accuracy, and reliability required for color-critical work, studio environments, and high-end installations." At the same time, it's also targeted at home enthusiasts, promising to "turn a blank wall into a cinematic event."
XGIMI's Titan was only recently released for $3,999 but there's no word yet on the price or release date of the Titan Noir Max. Unlike the Horizon 20 series (which has a smaller 0.47-inch DMD chip) the Titan has received very few reviews so far, but one French projector site gave it a solid score.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/xgimis-titan-noir-max-4k-projector-has-a-dynamic-iris-for-increased-contrast-170044625.html?src=rss
Brisk It has shown off AI-enabled smart grills at CES before now, but for 2026, the company is taking its cooking tech indoors. With the Neoma multi-function countertop oven, the company offers AI features that can serve as both sous chef and nutritionist, helping you create dishes that fit your budget, diet and other lifestyle needs. The Brisk It Agentic AI can also help with meal planning and grocery orders on top of automatic cooking cycles for recipes it selects.
The Neoma has a temperature range from 90 to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and cooking times of one minute up to twelve hours. This means you can do everything from baking to roasting, air frying and more. In fact, it comes with an air fry basket, baking pan, oven rack, and crumb tray. The robust steel construction, glass door and interior space should make the Neoma well-suited for most kitchens.
Brisk It isn’t leaving the grill game though. The company also announced the AI Hybrid Gas Grill at CES. The hybrid bit describes the dual gas and wood pellet combustion, giving users the ability to infuse wood smoke in their high-heat grilling sessions. Of course, Brisk It’s AI goes to work here too, with adaptive cooking and personalized meal plans.
The AI Hybrid Gas Grill will be available at retailers later this year. The Neoma AI Countertop Oven will hit Kickstarter in February before a wider retail launch. Brisk it didn’t mention pricing for either model in its press materials.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/brisk-it-brings-its-ai-cooking-tech-to-an-indoor-oven-at-ces-2026-170000705.html?src=rss
At CES 2026, HP is showing off its latest flagship consumer laptop: The Omnibook Ultra 14. It features an all-new super thin design that’s much tougher than it looks.
According to HP, the Omnibook Ultra 14 is the “world’s most durably slim 14-inch consumer notebook,” which is a somewhat convoluted way of saying the system remains quite portable — just 0.42 inches thick — while still passing 20 different military standard tests (MIL-STD-810) for things like shock resistance, drops and extreme temperatures. The whole system is crafted from aluminum, though instead of taking a unibody approach like you see on Apple’s MacBooks, HP opted for forge stamped manufacturing which is said to give the laptop added strength and bend resistance. The result is a notebook that’s both 52 percent lighter than the previous model at 2.8 pounds and five percent thinner than a 2025 M4 MacBook Air 13. And after seeing it in person, I have to say it looks pretty slick, too.
As you’d expect from a premium ultraportable, the Omnibook comes with a vivid 3K OLED display, up to 64GB of memory, 2TB of storage and your choice of either an Intel Core Ultra 3 CPU or a Snapdragon Elite X2 chip. That said, thanks to an exclusive partnership with Qualcomm, anyone planning on running a lot of AI-based apps on the Ultra 14 may want to go with the Snapdragon variant as it’ll come with a slightly more powerful NPU that maxes out at 85 TOPS (that’s trillions of operations per second) rather than the 80 TOPS you’d get from other OEMs. Furthermore, to help support strong sustained performance, the Ultra 14 is also the first Omnibook to feature a built-in vapor chamber.
Granted, as a pretty straightforward ultraportable, this thing doesn’t have a ton of special features. But even so, I appreciate that HP didn’t cut corners regarding its keyboard, which has a nice feel that’s not too stiff or bouncy and sits above a rather large touchpad. The company even found room for quad speakers and three USB-C ports that offer Thunderbolt 4, power delivery (USB PD 3.1) and DisplayPort 2.1.
My one small nitpick is that I would have liked to see an SD or microSD card reader as well, but considering HP’s emphasis on portability and toughness, I’m not surprised that it didn't make it. The other thing I’m not so sure about is the Omnibook name in general. It’s been a little while since HP axed the Spectre branding for its top tier consumer laptops and I kind of wish HP would bring it back as it sounds better and feels more befitting of a flagship system like this.
Regardless, if you’re in the market for a premium 14-inch Windows laptop, the Omnibook Ultra 14 looks like it will be a very strong contender when it goes on sale later this month starting at $1,550.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-hp-omnibook-ultra-14-at-ces-2026-super-sleek-and-surprisingly-durable-170000330.html?src=rss
CES tends to bring a wave of news from chipmakers, and Qualcomm has used this year's event to announce the Snapdragon X2 Plus laptop processor. This is a more modest version of the flagship Snapdragon X2 Elite chip that Qualcomm unveiled in September.
The Snapdragon X2 Elite will be available in the coming generation of Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs and its integrated Hexagon NPU can deliver the 80 TOPS performance benchmark for powering artificial intelligence tasks. The chip is also equipped with a third-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU with either six cores or ten cores. For comparison, the Snapdragon X2 Elite gives options of either 12 or 18 cores.
According to the company, this iteration of the CPU boasts up to 35 percent faster single-core performance compared with the previous generation. It also says the six-core model has up to 10 percent faster multi-core performance over the prior model, while the ten-core option has up to 17 percent better multi-core performance. Both versions of the Snapdragon X2 Plus come with an Adreno GPU that has improved performance up to 29 percent over the past iteration.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/qualcomm-unveils-snapdragon-x2-plus-chip-at-ces-170000392.html?src=rss
Projector maker XGIMI has turned up at CES to launch its own range of AR glasses, but don’t get the champagne out too soon. MemoMind is a new brand under which its AI-infused eyewear will be sold, with two distinct units arriving at some point in the near future. The company says it has leveraged its know-how in optics and engineering to produce glasses which are unobtrusively light, all the better for blending into your daily life. Fashionistas will even be overjoyed to learn the glasses’ ship in eight different frame styles, five different temple designs and can be worn with prescription lenses.
Memo One is the company’s flagship option, with dual-eye displays and integrated speakers so you can see and hear your AI assistant. The Memo Air, meanwhile, is a more stripped down model weighing just 28.9 grams which just has a single eye display. Unfortunately, the company is using microLED displays rather than waveguides, making them a far harder sell for a lot of would-be users. After all, putting something that small so close to your eye but behind your prescription means it’s a painful experience for short sighted folks to focus on text. As I explained in my Halliday review, this technology is no friend to the glasses wearers who would otherwise be the ideal early adopters.
Update Jan 5, 2026: I have never been so happy to post an update, as I have now seen these in person and learned that they do not use microLED displays. In fact, they do use waveguides, making them a lot more attractive than I had initially thought. In fact, the glasses they remind me the most of is Even Realities’ G1, which I reviewed and absolutely loved.
MemoMind Lineup
XGIMI
In fact there are plenty of similarities, including the fact you need to tilt your head up to activate them. The waveguide prisms are a lot taller here, giving you plenty more real estate for your important data. To the point where the homescreen was set to include a full stock tracker (with graphs) and still had room for the time and notification pane.
They’re also surprisingly light, despite the fact the model I tested was the feature-packed flagship as opposed to the display free version.
The glasses are just a vehicle for the company’s AI assistant, promising translation, summarization, note-taking, reminders and contextual guidance. Unlike some of its would-be rivals, XGIMI says its platform will switch between OpenAI, Azure and (Alibaba’s) Qwen depending on what it thinks will offer you the best result for each task. Naturally, we’ll need to get them in to test before passing final judgment on their qualities but, you can color us naturally hostile to those damn microLEDs until we’re convinced otherwise.
XGIMI says the flagship Memo One will be available to pre-order “soon,” most likely after MWC in March. It’ll cost $599, with prescription lenses available for an additional, as yet unspecified charge, and the other models coming further down the line.
This story was updated to rectify incorrect information from the company’s press release.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/xgimi-best-known-for-projectors-launches-its-own-smart-glasses-170000968.html?src=rss
Anker rolled out a bunch of new chargers and other gear at CES 2026, including a cute one that's already on sale. The new Nano charger with smart display, which is an upgrade to the existing Nano charger in Anker's lineup, is on sale for $30 right now while you can pre-order it. That's $10 off the regular MSRP, and shipments will start going out on January 20.
The 45W charger includes a smart display that shows real-time data like power flow, temperature and charging status. It also features "fun animations to keep things cheerful." Anker says it can recognize what's being charged and automatically adjust certain metrics to ensure a longer battery lifespan.
To that end, it works with just about everything. The company advertises that this charger is a good fit for the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods and Samsung devices, among others. The new Nano Charger is on the smaller side, with dual folding prongs that rotate to fit most outlets.
The deal does require a coupon code, but it's auto-applied at checkout. If that doesn't work, it's WS24D5XT3DV9. We haven't gotten a chance to try this one yet, but it looks promising.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-new-anker-45w-nano-charger-with-smart-display-from-ces-is-10-off-already-160707620.html?src=rss