The Best Smart Home Gadgets From CES 2021
Behold the top intelligent technology that CES had to offer.
By John Elliot
Sun, Jan 24, 2021 1:03am
3 min
3 min
Not even a pandemic could stop the world’s premier technology trade event, the Consumer Electronics Show, now officially known as CES, but this year, in accordance with social distancing and safety protocols, the event went all online.
Despite the novel format, CES was still packed with all the cutting-edge tech for which it’s become known. Below are some of the best devices you may be welcoming into your smart home soon.
LG Transparent OLED Smart Bed TV
Two years ago, all of CES was a clamour about LG’s OLED TV R, a 4K, organic LED smart screen that unfurled out of and re-rolled into a Dolby speaker base. This year, they’ve upped the innovation—by making it transparent and installable at the foot of your bed. The LG Transparent OLED Smart Bed TV, as debuted by LG Display, the company’s sci-fi-like screen division, is a 55-inch, 40% transparent screen which ascends and descends from a sleek and slender (and portable!) containment unit which is placed at the base of the bed. The screen, which users can see through when it is on or off, features speakers built into the display, and the container base provides an all-black secondary screen that can rise behind the transparent one for users to enjoy the full richness and colour of whatever they are watching. In addition to allowing users to consume televised entertainment, the Transparent OLED Smart Bed TV will allow them to mirror their devices on screen, and LG anticipates a suite of smart features for the device, from notifications and weather alerts to activity prompts and music streaming.
Like so many of CES’ most eye-grabbing gadgets, price and release date have not been named for the LG Transparent OLED Smart Bed TV.
NordicTrack Vault
Gym enthusiasts, acutely aware of what the pandemic has taken from them, will be overjoyed to learn of the NordicTrack Vault. Like the Mirror by Lululemon, the Vault is a full-length reflective surface/HD touchscreen that allows users to perfect their form as they take a wide variety of classes (yoga, lifting, high-intensity interval training and much more) from NordicTrack’s suite of iFit trainers. Unlike the Mirror, which is a freestanding or wall-hanging device, the Vault’s screen doubles as a door to a workout equipment storage system, complete with dumbbells, kettlebells, yoga, pilates, and strength-training accessories, giving Vault owners and even wider range of exercise options at their disposal.
Open to pre-order now, the Vault is available for around $3775 (exercise equipment included) or approx. $2500 (standalone), with each option including one year of iFit Family Membership.
Kohler Stillness Bath
Looking for a smart (and luxurious) soaking experience? Kohler, a leading name in high-tech bathroom fixtures, has heard your pleas. Modeled after a Japanese spa-style soaking tub, the $20,000 Kohler Stillness Bath is an infinity-edge bathtub that users can fill via voice command (even specifying precise temperature) and features a mood-lighting system ringing the entire basin. Users can even upgrade their Stillness Bath to include an “Experience Tower,” which will add aromatherapy and mist to their bathing experience—both also controllable by voice command.
The Kohler Stillness Bath will be available for $7800 to $20,000, depending on features, with the various models rolling out from May to October 2021.
MyQ Pet Portal
Here’s one for the dogs (and cats). The Pet Portal from MyQ looks to liberate indoor-outdoor pet owners from the constant need to give their four-legged friends entry to and exit from the home. Outfitted with a live-video streaming camera and two-way audio via the MyQ app, Pet Portal owners can open the pet door for their cats and dogs remotely from their phones or tablets—or they can cede the decision entirely to their furry companions. With an accompanying Bluetooth-enabled collar, pets can activate the Pet Portal via (very) close encounter, and once the device, which opens in two panels like elevator doors, grants entry or exit, it quickly closes and locks to prevent any other unwelcome visitors.
The Pet Portal, which requires professional installation and replaces an existing exterior door, is available for $2,999.
Samsung Bot Handy
The smart home owner who wants the full “Jetsons” experience will be eagerly anticipating the release of the Samsung Bot Handy. Intended to serve as an extra hand wherever you need it around the house, the Bot Handy is a slender, mobile pillar with a rolling base and digital face—complete with expressions—and a fully articulating arm with clamp hand, that can pour you a drink, pick up laundry or even place dishes in the dishwasher. A forward-facing camera and pretty clever A.I. allow the Bot Handy to determine the material components of what it is seeing and handle it accordingly.
There is no release date or price yet for the helpful robotic companion, which Samsung lists as “in development.”
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A five-bedroom Palo Alto home designed by Steven Ehrlich is listed for $44 million, making it the city’s most expensive listing. Built around a dramatic concrete spine, the home features four courtyards and a pool.
By E.B. Solomont
Thu, Sep 24, 2026 3 min
3 min
For years, tech entrepreneur Asher Waldfogel and his wife, Helyn MacLean, dreamed of building a modern house in Palo Alto, Calif.
The couple, however, worried about clashing with the Mediterranean-style architecture typically associated with their neighborhood of Old Palo Alto.
So they tapped architect Steven Ehrlich to create a design that paid homage to its surroundings with stucco, mahogany and titanium zinc cladding. They spent $20 million over several years building the house, completed in 2005.
Now looking to be closer to their adult daughter on the East Coast, they are putting the five-bedroom home on the market for $44 million—the most expensive listing in Palo Alto.
Waldfogel is an angel investor who co-founded Redback Networks, a telecommunications-equipment company. MacLean previously had a career in fundraising.
The couple purchased the roughly 0.4-acre site for $7.1 million in 2000 and demolished a circa-1930s Spanish Colonial home. The house they built pinwheels around a central staircase. It has 7,900 square feet of livable space, with four distinct courtyards and a pool.
A key feature of the home is a cast-in-place concrete wall, or spine, that is two stories high and about 80 feet long. “There’s a little bit of controlled chaos in what comes out of the form,” unlike a perfectly uniform surface, Waldfogel said. “If you want that, you do it in plastic.”
Waldfogel said he and his wife are thinking about the next phase of life now that their daughter is grown, although they have not decided where they will move. They also have a home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“Right now we’re just trying to emotionally let go and decide what to do next,” he said.
Palo Alto, an epicenter of venture capital and tech startups in Silicon Valley, is home to some of the country’s biggest tech titans. Sales volume and prices are rising, with a median sale price of $3.5 million for the three months ending in August, up 5.8% year-over-year, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin.
Arthur Sharif of Sotheby’s International Realty—San Francisco Brokerage has the listing.
