IFA 2023: the biggest announcements from Europe's big tech show - The Verge

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CES may rule the roost in the States, but over in Europe, it’s IFA that serves as the year’s biggest tech trade show. It means we’re likely to see plenty of product announcements, as well as showcases that’ll cast a light on where consumer tech is now and where it’s heading in the next 12 months.

This year, IFA opens its doors to the public on September 1st and runs through the weekend to September 5th. But much like CES, many companies like to make their big announcements in the days leading up to the show’s public opening. If September and October (Techtember and Techtober, if you will) are the year’s two big months for tech announcements, then IFA is their starting gun.

The Verge will be covering IFA 2023 live from Berlin, taking a firsthand look at all of the biggest launches, and you can follow along with all our coverage below. In recent years, IFA has acquired a reputation as being a big smart home trade show. Last year, it took place on the eve of Matter’s launch and was filled with companies making big promises about their support for the fledgling standard. So, alongside announcements from LG, Samsung, and Honor, expect plenty of robot vacuum cleaners, security cameras, and smart lights, as well as difficult questions about if and when Matter is going to let them effortlessly work together.

Mophie’s new magnetic stands and mounts.
Image: Mophie

Mophie just announced at IFA that it’s releasing three Qi2-compatible, 15W wireless smartphone chargers — the Snap Plus Powerstation Mini Stand ($69.95), the Snap Plus 3-in-1 stand ($129.95), and the Snap Plus wireless charging vent mount ($69.95) — starting later this year.

Mophie doesn’t mention the iPhone specifically, but it’s rumored Apple will enable support for 15W, non-MagSafe wireless charging with the iPhone 15, as the second generation of Qi includes Apple's input and a similar magnet layout. We’ve asked Mophie and will update here if we receive a response.

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Now you can view your fans in all their RGB glory.

Yeelight’s seriously fun Cube Smart Lamp (from $76) got a new feature this week. Announced at IFA 2023, the modular lighting system can now show real-time fan counts from your YouTube and Twitch live streams.

The Matter-compatible light fixture already displays a clock face on four of its cubes, and now it can sync with your YouTube and Twitch channels to display real-time viewer numbers while you stream.

The Cube Light (center and far sides) on show at Yeelight’s IFA booth. A new update to the Matter-compatible RGB lighting system lets you stream your Twitch and YouTube live view counts.
Photo Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Urbanista’s Malibu.

After releasing two solar-powered pairs of headphones, you would have thought that it’d be simple for Urbanista to apply the same technology to a Bluetooth speaker. But with the Malibu, which is being shown off at IFA in Berlin ahead of its release later this month, Urbanista says it had a whole new set of challenges to overcome.

That’s because the company’s approach to its solar powered products hasn’t just been to put some solar-absorbing material on an existing device and call it a day. Instead, Urbanista product director Marten Sahlen and the company’s brand and marketing director Tuomas Lonka tell me the company spends a lot of time making the products more power efficient in the first place, so they can get the maximum benefit from the extra sun-provided power.

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The Deebot X20 Omni — the latest robot vacuum mop from Ecovacs — was on display at IFA 2023 this week.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The robot vacuum cleaner is undergoing a renaissance this year as all the major manufacturers figure out new and more outlandish ways to make the tiresome chore of cleaning your floors fully automated.

At the IFA 2023 tech trade show in Berlin this week, robot vacuums were literally roaming the halls as companies showed off their latest innovations. We saw robot mops that integrate into your plumbing, big advances in navigation, smaller sizes for multi-function docking stations, and a robot mop that can do the splits to clean your baseboards better.

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The SwitchBot S10, the company’s first robot vacuum for the US market, brings with it some unique features.
Image: SwitchBot

Smart home robotics company SwitchBot — of robot finger fame — has come up with another ingenious solution for automating boring chores in your home. This one is a sizable leap toward a Rosie the Robot vision of a fully autonomous robot house cleaner, though without the personality. The SwitchBot S10 is a new robot vacuum and mop that autonomously drains and refills its dirty and clean water tanks using a battery-powered water station that hooks directly into your plumbing.

Combined with an auto-empty charging dock that dries the mop, the S10 is the most fully automated floor cleaner I’ve seen. You won’t need to refill its mopping tank, deal with emptying dirty water post-clean, or mess with its mops. The only dirty work you need to do is empty its dust bag after about 70 days (according to the company). Otherwise, it should trundle around your home, mopping and sweeping until the cows come home.

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The concept phone is designed to have a range of purse straps attached to it.
Image: Honor

The V Purse is a new concept phone from Honor that asks “what if foldables were more like fashion accessories?” The company showed off the device during a presentation at IFA 2023 alongside the Honor Magic V2, its latest foldable phone announced in China earlier this year.

The V Purse is a demonstration of what’s possible for folding devices, and Honor hasn’t said if it’ll ever be released it as a product. Conversely, the company says it plans to release the Magic V2 globally no later than Q1 next year, CNBC reports, but has yet to officially announce pricing outside China.

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The Yale Smart Outdoor Camera looks on even as the Smart Video Doorbell records a delivery.
Image: Yale

Yale has launched a new line of its home security products specifically for the European market. In addition to a new video doorbell, the company revealed the next-gen of its smart alarm system, plus new indoor and outdoor smart cameras — all of which integrate with its line of smart locks.

Using the Yale Smart Video Doorbell, you can keep tabs on your doorstep with 1080p footage and a 154-degree field of view. The device comes in wired and wireless options, offering two-way audio talk, live viewing, and night vision. You’ll receive a notification when the doorbell detects motion and when someone rings the doorbell. The Smart Video Doorbell itself costs £129.99 / €159.99.

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Here I am, washing a...truck?

Every company and its mother seems to be putting out handheld gaming PCs these days, and Lenovo is next to the plate. The company has announced the Legion Go, its first Windows-powered gaming handheld, which will be available for purchase in October. It’s got an 8.8-inch QHD Plus screen, an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, and a 49.2Wh battery (which is bigger than those of the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck). Oh, and the controllers pop off, which is neat.

While Valve’s Steam Deck tends to be the first product that comes to mind when this category is discussed, the Legion Go seems more like a cross between the Nintendo Switch and Asus’ ROG Ally. For one, with models starting at $699, the Ally is clearly what Lenovo is trying to match on price. But it also, like the Ally, is running old-school Windows and has more controls (a touchpad, primarily) that are tailored toward operating that system.

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For a meager $4,400, all this can be yours.
Image: Lenovo

Lenovo has announced a new Legion 9i, and it might just be the wildest thing I’ve ever seen from the Legion line. It’s coming in October, it starts at a whopping $4,399 (you know, a totally normal price to pay for things), and Lenovo is throwing in all kinds of eccentric stuff.

The company is clearly most excited about the fact that the 9i is the first 16-inch gaming laptop with a self-contained liquid-cooling system. This is exactly what it sounds like. Most laptops use air cooling to transfer heat along heat pipes to a radiator; a fluid-cooled device instead does that with water and a pump which, as you might imagine, can handle much more thermal mass. Such a system could theoretically allow the 9i to pull truly massive amounts of power (up to 230W, Lenovo claims) for a ridiculous gaming experience.

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Alexa and Google Assistant: two great tastes that taste great together?

Not bad, right? I love how Jon puts it in his full writeup:

I had to do a little trial and error to work out exactly how to get them working best in sync. But it felt similar to the trial and error process of speaking to a voice assistant in the first place
Samsung’s new app, Samsung Food, is designed to be a personalized AI cooking assistant.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Samsung has been trying to make the connected kitchen work since 2016, when it launched its smart fridge with an Android tablet slapped on the front. But today, with the reveal of Samsung Food at the IFA 2023 tech show, it took a big step in the right direction.

This isn’t because the app is amazingly innovative at launch. In fact, slightly the opposite. It’s a rebranded, revamped version of the Whisk app, which has been around since 2013. With this new version of the software, Samsung is finally uniting the disparate sides of smart cooking: the recipes, the food itself, and the kitchen appliances.

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‘Hey robot, mow the lawn.’

The Dreame Roboticmower A1, a new robot lawnmower, can tackle yards as large as half an acre, which is good news for us Americans with big yards.

These electric autonomous grass-cutting devices have struggled to take off in the US due to range issues, complexity, and high costs.

While Dreame’s bot may cost as much as $2,000 (pricing isn't finalized) it uses lidar mapping so there’s no need for clunky beacons or fiddly guide wire.

This robot lawnmower could take one more chore off your To Do.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Belkin’s convertible charger can either stand upright or be used like a traditional pad.
Image: Belkin

Belkin is embracing the new magnet-enhanced Qi2 wireless charging standard with a pair of new products being announced at Berlin’s IFA 2023 tech show. There’s the BoostCharge Convertible Qi2 Wireless Pad to Stand (yes, that’s the name), which can either work like a traditional Qi pad or hold a phone upright while it charges — great for the iPhone’s new StandBy feature. There’s also the BoostCharge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad with Qi2, which is equipped with a pair of wireless charging pads (one 15W and one 5W) plus a USB-C port for charging a third device like an Apple Watch via an optional dongle.

Announced at CES earlier this year, Qi2 is a new version of Qi wireless charging that effectively integrates the magnets from Apple’s MagSafe standard into a cross-platform spec. Belkin has previously put out several MagSafe chargers, so it’s not much of a surprise that it’s embracing Qi2.

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The ScanWatch 2 will cost $349.95 and features a temperature sensing module.
Image: Withings

After nearly three yearswithout a new smartwatch, Withings is kicking off IFA 2023 by announcing not one but two ScanWatch hybrid watches.

The $349.95 ScanWatch 2 is Withings’ latest and greatest hybrid smartwatch, with a new temperature tracking module that uses a combination of four sensors: a thermistor; heat flux; PPG (the green LED for measuring heart rate); and accelerometer. Data from the four sensors will then be fed into an algorithm that uses movement, heart rate, and skin temperature to deliver health insights. Withings also introduced a slightly pared-down, fashion-first ScanWatch Light for $249.99.

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The Acer Chromebook 516 GE was one of the first gaming-specific Chromebooks, announced 2022.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The point of cloud gaming is it doesn’t require a powerful PC; a Chromebook should do just fine. Today, Google and Nvidia are ready to prove it by giving away a free, no-strings-attached GeForce Now subscription to every modern Chromebook owner.

You don’t have to buy a new machine, and there’s no recurring subscription. You don’t have to enter any credit card information, Google spokesperson Peter Du confirms to The Verge. As long as you’ve got a Chromebook from 2017 or newer, you can simply head over to Google’s Chromebook Perks page and hit the “Get perk” button to redeem a three-month subscription to the Priority tier of Nvidia’s GeForce Now.

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The Horizon Ultra is bright enough to overcome some ambient light.
Image: Xgimi

Home projector upstart Xgimi just announced its new Horizon Ultra model, dubbed the “world’s first 4K long-throw projector with Dolby Vision.” While I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for the device to produce an image with jaw-dropping HDR, it’s certainly a very bright all-in-one Android TV 11 projector for well below $2,000.

The Horizon Ultra uses a new “Dual Light” laser and LED hybrid light source to produce 2,300 ISO lumens. That’s a 27 percent increase in brightness compared to the reasonably bright (1,760 ISO lumens) Xgimi Horizon Pro projector I reviewed a few years ago. Of course, that brightness is measured at the bulb, and the image brightness falls off considerably the farther away you move the unit in order to grow the display to its 200-inch suggested maximum. That, in addition to lacking the ability to turn off individual pixels to create true blacks, is why you should be skeptical about HDR offering any noticeable improvements on projectors, especially in this price range.

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Image: Jabra

With Apple and Samsung both offering earbuds that deliver excellent sound quality and compelling ecosystem tricks, it’s getting increasingly harder for regular old earbud makers to stand out. Even mainstays in the category like Jabra can sometimes get lost in the mix — despite having an expansive product lineup. So today Jabra is announcing two new premium earbuds at the same time, with each targeted at very different use cases. The flagship Elite 10 ($249) is intended to be the company’s best-sounding and most comfortable pair of earbuds yet, while the fitness-geared Elite 8 Active buds ($199) have reached a new level of durability (with the ratings and certifications to prove it). Both also mark Jabra’s embracing of spatial audio.

During a recent preview of both products, Jabra told me that consumers rank comfort as the most important factor when shopping for earbuds. This led the company to rethink the core design when coming up with the Elite 10 buds, which have a semi-open design to avoid any clogged-ear sensation or unpleasant occlusion. This helps differentiate them from the rest of Jabra’s closed-style buds. The Elite 10s also feature oval-shaped, super soft silicone ear tips that don’t go very deep into your ears at all. But despite being shaped for extended comfort and that semi-open style, Jabra says these earbuds deliver its most powerful active noise cancellation yet. “Using scanning technology, the earbuds measure noise leakage and play infrasonic sound waves to determine the individual ear canal shape,” the company says. “The ANC filter is then applied dynamically, automatically switching to the most effective ANC level.”

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The TV neatly folded down into its suitcase.
Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge

LG’s StanbyME Go, its bizarre $999.99 27-inch suitcase TV announced for the US earlier this month, is on show in Berlin at a corner of its booth at IFA 2023.

We had a poke around the demo model being displayed on the show floor, and couldn’t find any of the games that are apparently optimized for its touchscreen. But we were able to get acquainted with its robust articulating design. The TV can be swiveled from portrait into landscape, and set at any angle from straight upwards to straight forwards.

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If 5G is a banana, what is 6G?

“It has the potential to change the world,” said Samsung at the IFA event in Berlin, without any shame.

Now where have we heard this before? Prepare the HYPErdrive!

Oh, Samsung.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
I love the smell of IFA in the morning.

The sun’s shining, the IFA flags are fluttering, and the announcements are in full swing. We’ve got a packed day ahead of us in Berlin, but here are some highlights of the biggest stories so far:

JBL has announced new speakers that offer simultaneous access to Alexa and Google Assistant, Philips Hue has announced new smart lights and security cameras, and Sennheiser has a new soundbar.

Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge
The Eve Play is AirPlay 2-ready.
Image: Eve

Eve announced it’s releasing a $149.95 AirPlay 2 receiver called the Eve Play — its first audio device — on November 14th. Though a little pricey, the receiver looks aimed at audiophiles: it’s got optical, coaxial, and RCA audio outputs, 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, a built-in DAC, and an ethernet port.

Eve says you can adjust latency between speakers automatically or manually using the Eve app’s Audio Sync feature if you’re finding multiroom audio isn’t perfectly synchronized. Users will need an iPhone or iPad to use it, as well as a home network to connect it to either via Wi-Fi or ethernet.

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Do the Smart Thing in the kitchen.

We’re at Samsung’s IFA 2023 press conference in Berlin, where the tech giant isn’t launching a humongous new TV... but a new app.

Samsung Food is a souped-up recipe app powered by generative AI that integrates with SmartThings and Samsung’s appliances to try and fill the gap between the idea of the smart, connected kitchen and well, the way we actually cook.

We’ve got a deeper dive coming soon.

Samsung’s smart home platform SmartThings takes center stage at the IFA 2023 press conference.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Jlab’s $39.99 Jbuds Mini are the smallest yet.

“The smallest true wireless earbud of any major headphone brand,” according to JLab, and comfortable enough to wear while sleeping. They feature Bluetooth multipoint for quick swaps between your computer and phone, with 5.5 hours of continuous playtime, or 20 hours after recharging from the case. They’re sweat-proof, and also offer a pass-through audio feature to better hear your surroundings. They only lack ANC.
The JBL Authentics 200, the smallest of the three speakers.

JBL is very proud of its new Authentics speaker range. It’s proud of the retro-inspired design, which harks back to its L-100 speakers from the 1970s. It’s proud of the sound quality (obviously) and the range of streaming services and technologies they support. But the only thing I had on my mind when I got to try one of the speakers out for myself was its ability to run Google Assistant and Alexa at the same time, and listen for each wake word simultaneously.

This isn’t the first time that the two popular voice assistants have been available on the same speaker, nor is it the first time any two voice assistants have been available simultaneously. Sonos already sells speakers that have both Google Assistant and Alexa built-in, but only one can be active at a time — you can’t have them both listening and responding to commands. Alexa can also coexist for simultaneous use with Sonos’s own Voice Control service, but not with Google Assistant.

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