This Week in Tech (TWiT) – Episode 1066: "A Supercomputer in Your Pocket"

Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Leo Laporte
Guests: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (The Verge), Jason Heiner (The Deep View), Father Robert Ballecer, SJ (The Digital Jesuit)
Theme: CES 2026 wrap-up, with a focus on the leap in AI hardware, robotics in the home, and the future of smart devices.

Episode Overview

The annual CES (Consumer Electronics Show) wrap-up episode dives into the latest trends, breakthroughs, and oddities from CES 2026. Leo Laporte is joined by three experts who traversed the convention floors: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from The Verge, Jason Heiner from The Deep View, and Father Robert Ballecer, SJ, The Digital Jesuit. Their conversation centers around the rapid advancement of AI and robotics, the practical realities of bringing robots into everyday life, and the shifting landscape of smart home and autonomous technologies.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Robots at Home: Still a Work in Progress

• Humanoid Robot Hype: 2025 saw an explosion of humanoid robotics, but most are still more PR than practical. Most show-floor demos at CES were remotely piloted, not autonomous. Jennifer recounts how a 170-pound robot named Jupiter collapsed on her during a demo ([05:00]).
  • Quote: "If that was not a humanoid robot, you wouldn't have tried to catch it. If there were a big metal box falling over, you'd have run." – Padre ([06:17])
• Household Utility Gap: Tasks as simple as opening a laundry detergent bottle proved too challenging for this year’s crop of robots. “If it can't open a bottle, what is it going to be doing in my home?” – Jennifer ([07:52])
• Rebranding Robotics: The move from "robots" to "physical AI" was a big theme. The industry is shifting from chasing human-shaped, general-purpose bots to task-specific, reliably useful devices (e.g., robot vacuums, laundry robots, and devices with digital twin simulation for better deployment) ([11:01]–[15:50]).
  • Quote: “We don’t need a humanoid robot to do everything in our home. What we just need is…robots we have in our homes to be better at what they do.” – Jennifer ([15:50])

2. CES Robot Highlights

• Dreametech and Roborock: Chinese robot vacuum makers have not just caught up but out-innovated established US brands. Their booths dominated the show and showcased robots that can climb stairs and sort laundry ([22:06]–[24:23]).
• Security, Privacy & Processing:
  • Concerns were voiced about the mapping and cameras in autonomous home robots, especially as much of the AI processing happens in the cloud (potentially in China) ([25:12]).
  • Products like Matic pride themselves on local, private processing ([26:07]).
• Quirky Gadgets: The Dreametech Halo hair dryer (a large smart arc-shaped dryer-lamp) bemused the panel with its blend of AI and lifestyle ([28:04]).

3. A Supercomputer in Your Pocket: Local AI Breakthroughs

• Father Robert’s “Secret” Device: He describes an unreleased device (likely running Nvidia’s next-gen AI chips) that brings data-center class AI computing to a compact, on-premises box ([38:43]–[41:58]).
  • Can process 4K video in 90 seconds or do real-time translation completely offline—crucial for privacy or classified settings.
  • “It’s a nice trend of taking just enough compute power, and putting it into your local network…so you can do everything in house.” – Padre ([40:48])
• Industry Implications: This signals a movement toward distributed computing power—moving away from cloud-dependency for AI workloads and enabling high-performance, privacy-respecting applications for enterprises and, eventually, consumers.

4. Data Center Power: AI Chips Arms Race

• Nvidia Vera Rubin Platform: Unveiled at CES, this suite of AI chips and dense integration brings 3.5x the performance of Blackwell, with huge efficiency gains—ushering in rack-scale processing ([44:04]–[46:04], [160:07]).
  • “Vera Rubin does eight times the work per watt of Grace Blackwell.” – Padre ([50:51])
• Market Impact: Despite a flood of older chips (some never powered on due to power constraints), new chips like Vera Rubin are so efficient that it makes economic sense to replace old hardware quickly.
• Environmental Costs & Power: AI’s unsustainable water and power usage prompted discussions about sustainability, including Meta’s recent nuclear power agreements ([53:05]).

5. CES Top Picks—Padre’s Countdown

#5 Strut EV (Smart Wheelchair): Advanced sensors and AI for safe, autonomous mobility. Well-priced relative to accessibility needs ([32:20]).
#4 Densis Z1 Knee Exoskeleton: Lightweight robotic exoskeleton for mobility assistance—a leap in wearability ([73:44]).
#3 Jackery Solar Marsbot: Solar-chasing robot with a built-in battery pack for off-grid living ([93:11]).
#2 LG Transparent OLED Mobility Display: Context-aware AR projected into windshields—an intelligent, unobtrusive layer for driving ([126:51]).
#1 Nvidia Rubin Platform: (See above—AI infrastructure game-changer) ([160:07]).

6. Smart Home Matures: Interoperability and Utility

• Unified Standards Pay Off: Platforms like Matter, Thread, and ALERO are enabling reliable, cross-brand device connectivity, letting manufacturers focus on features and price ([150:44]).
• Physical Controls Return: The humble button/remote is making a comeback as a critical interface for smart homes, thanks to reliability and tactile feedback ([154:03]). Google’s lack of Matter button support remains a notable gap.
  • Quote: "Physical controls are so key in the smart home... If you're going to replace switches you need to have something equally good—or better—to replace it.” – Leo ([155:25], [155:33])
• Affordable Innovation: IKEA’s entrance brings $10 Bluetooth speakers and affordable, accessible smart lighting; colored lighting becomes more immersive and intuitive (Spatial Aware feature in Philips Hue) ([143:47], [147:07]).

7. AI Companions and Ethical Quandaries

• Emotional Support Robots: A rising trend of AI companions for elderly or lonely users—often crossing into the uncanny or questionable territory in their attempts at “emotional support.” Hybrid results, but evidence some can successfully boost real-world human contact ([62:23], [68:33]).
  • Quote: “It helped...the residents who used these devices tended to reach out to real humans more than they would have otherwise.” – Padre ([68:33])
• AI in Toys: New LEGO "smart bricks" use Bluetooth and NFC—fun, not AI, and delighting both adults and children. Meanwhile, the Senate debates banning AI in children's toys ([58:49], [60:06]).
  • Quote: “Our product has no AI. It's dumber than anything you have seen at the show, and it's also the coolest.” – LEGO rep (paraphrased, [59:06])
• Concern Over Kids & Tech: Some advanced AI storybook readers and interactive tablets provoke debate about the right blend of digital and analog childhood ([71:00]).

8. Wearables, Smart Glasses & Interfaces

• Meta Ray-Bans, Amazon Echo Frames, Solos/Rokid: AI/AR smart glasses continue to iterate. The market is still waiting for a "breakthrough" device—mainly audio features or simple heads-up displays. Real-time AI language models (Claude, GPT-5) are finding their way into wearables ([80:37]–[88:38]).
• Gesture/Voice as Input: The future might hold cross-device, personalized AI acting as tour guide, assistant, and more, always present with you ([85:00]).

9. Personal Health Tech: Quantified Self

• Toilet with Camera, Smart Scale, L'Oréal LED face mask: The drive to measure everything—heart health, sweat, weight, even toilet output—is accelerating. The value is sometimes dubious, sometimes revolutionary ([102:20], [121:45]).

10. Automotive Tech: Cautious But Steady Path Forward

• Level 2–4 Autonomy: Mercedes and BMW demoed increasingly practical driver-assist technologies; Nvidia’s open-source Alpha-Mayo “chain of thought” reasoning model aims to help carmakers bridge the "software gap" in autonomy ([131:25], [138:10]).
• Rivian’s Ambition: New chip, integrated LIDAR/radar, and sub-$50K pricing potentially make it the next great American EV/autonomy success ([139:02]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Robots at CES: “I tried to help it...and oh my go, it’s heavy. It really tweaked my wrist. I was like, I need to file a worker’s comp claim.” – Jennifer, after Jupiter the robot fell on her ([06:09]).
• On Humanoid Robots: “If it can't open a bottle, what is it going to be doing in my home?” – Jennifer ([07:52])
• Physical AI Instead of Robots: “…Physical AI means AI that is embodied in some way that can do a number of things…This sort of influx of robotics is about to happen thanks to AI and world models. It’s probably going to be one of the big trends of 2026.” – Jason ([13:01])
• Local Supercomputing: “The nice thing about it is we’re going to be using it for video creation. You can do everything local. You don’t even have to remotely touch cloud resources.” – Padre ([39:16])
• Smart Home Maturity: “It was less about silly, crazy gadgets doing weird things in your home and more about – here, we’ve made this stuff better and this stuff works.” – Jennifer ([150:44])
• Efficiency in AI Hardware: “Per watt of power used, Vera Rubin does eight times the work of Grace Blackwell.” – Padre ([50:51])

Important Timestamps

• 03:59: Jennifer’s humanoid robot mishap
• 11:01: The “physical AI” rebrand in robotics
• 15:50: The case for task-specific home robots
• 22:02: Domination of Dreametech and Roborock at CES
• 38:43: “A supercomputer in your pocket” – breakthrough local AI hardware
• 44:04: Nvidia Vera Rubin chip platform announcement
• 73:44 / 160:07: Padre’s Top Five Countdown (see section 5 above)
• 150:44: Jennifer on the smart home “coming of age”
• 154:03: Why buttons—physical controls—are back in smart homes
• 166:39: CES’s transformation: more enterprise, more AI, more launches

Tone & Language

The panel is lively, curious, occasionally skeptical, but enthusiastically geeky. There’s plenty of playful banter (especially regarding robots falling over and AI-powered hair dryers), but also careful reflection on privacy, sustainability, and the actual everyday utility—or frivolity—of this year’s CES innovations.

Conclusion

CES 2026 isn’t just about dazzling gadgets—it marks a clear pivot toward on-device AI power, practical robotics, affordable and interoperable smart home technology, and the mainstreaming of intelligent, connected living. The panel sees true progress toward privacy, sustainability, and genuine usefulness—but also calls out plenty of marketing bluster, cautionary tales, and the quirks that make CES, well, CES.