Short-lived bling, dumb smart things, and more: The worst in show from CES 2025

ces The Consumer Electronics Show is back to showcase not just the cutting edge of innovation but also the worst of what's possible when modern tech collides with today's culture of capitalist excess.

As they have for the past several years, a group of repairability, sustainability, and privacy advocates have come together to present the CES Worst in Show awards again this year. Six categories of failure are awarded by the participants annually, with products being lampooned for being unrepairable, insecure, privacy nightmares, environmentally unfriendly, generally unasked for, and just plain worst of the show. 

And boy, are there some doozies to catalog from Las Vegas this year.

A $2,200 smart ring with a short-lived battery?

Taking the prize for the least repairable is the Ultrahuman Rare, described by the company as the "world's first luxury smart ring," which likely puts it in the running for the "who asked for this" prize, too. 

iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, who presented the award for Ultrahuman's repairability fail, said that despite a price tag of $2,200, the Rare's battery is only rated for 500 charge cycles, and replacing it is impossible without destroying the ring. 

"Luxury items may be fleeting, but two years of use for $2,200 is a new low," iFixit said of the ring. To be fair to Ultrahuman, it says the Rare - which seems to have the same internals as its more modestly priced $349 Air ring - is able to hold a charge for up to six days. At 500 charge cycles, this translates to just over eight years of potential use, assuming minimal degradation, which means it would likely be obsolete by the time the battery dies. Either way, you're still out more than two grand for the privilege. 

The smart crib that is always watching

Bosch took to CES to demonstrate its Revol smart crib that uses AI to keep an eye on its occupant via a camera, microphone and even a radar sensor. 

"One of the things we hate most at EFF is products that play on people's fears and vulnerabilities in order to suck in their data and their money," Electronic Frontier Foundation executive director Cindy Cohn said of the ever-watching and ever-data collecting crib. 

While concerns lingered over where that data goes, Bosch has been in touch to assure us that the Revol is safe for privacy-concerned parents.

"All data is encrypted end-to-end and stored on Bosch-administered servers while all data at rest is secured locally with individual data encryption keys," the company said.

"Caregivers have the final say on whether data is transmitted at all," Bosch added, reiterating that it has an offline mode.

Moreover, Cohn also questioned whether the $1,200 price tag is justified "for something most parents will only use for a few months." In Cohn's words, is just too much - not to mention the inevitable results of a failure to update its software.

TP-Link doesn't mention China security concerns

Paul Roberts, founder of Secure Repairs as well as The Security Ledger, picked the TP-Link Archer BE900 router as the biggest security loser at CES 2025 because of the manufacturer's failure to mention anything to do with the security issues that have arisen in the past year due to its link to China.

Hacks of TP-Link routers are common and well documented, Roberts said. As we reported late last year, the US government is even reportedly considering a ban of these Chinese-made devices from sale in the US after reports of large-scale breaches and the use of their hardware in botnet construction in recent years. 

However, as Roberts pointed out, such botnets aren't exclusive to TP-Link hardware, with even US-made devices ending up hijacked by China. TP-Link itself also previously told The Register that there's a distinction between Chinese-based TP-Link Technologies and TP-Link systems, which separated itself from its Chinese parent in 2022. 

TP-Link Systems was in touch to tell us that the claims in the Worst in Show awards were incorrect, and to reiterate that it wasn't tied to its former Chinese parent.

"Nearly all products sold in the United States are manufactured in Vietnam," a TP-Link Systems spokesperson told us. "Our company carefully controls its own supply chains, implements rigorous secure product development and testing processes and takes timely and appropriate action to mitigate any vulnerabilities we become aware of."

TP-Link Systems also took umbrage with Roberts' claim that, as a Chinese company, it's required to report vulnerabilities to Beijing before anyone else. "[We do] not provide any such security reporting to China," the biz said.

Destroy the environment by ordering takeout from your car's AI 'commerce platform'

"[Choosing a product with the worst environmental impact] was a tough selection because AI is everywhere," Consumer Reports policy fellow Stacey Higginbotham said. "And the computing power required to deliver some of these features is astronomical compared to the value they offer."

Higginbotham definitely found a winner - or loser - in the form of SoundHound's new vehicle infotainment AI, which the company bills as "the first ever in-vehicle voice commerce platform," which is essentially a lot of words to say that it's able to order takeout for you while you drive home. 

Higginbotham criticized SoundHound for the computing demands of its in-vehicle AI system, which she said requires more power to operate than traditional voice assistants. She also raised concerns that promoting in-car ordering for takeout could contribute to increased waste from disposable packaging.

So, when will in-car fast food advertisements start cramming themselves into a car near you? Sometime this year, though SoundHound wasn't very specific, only saying it is in talks "with well-known automotive manufacturers" to cram its fast food AI into vehicles.

SoundHound has been in touch to debate the claim that its in-vehicle AI took more energy to train, noting that it didn't benchmark its training against similar systems and as such can't address that claim, but said it didn't require extensive training beyond the company's core capabilities.

"Our solutions are built on proprietary technology and are designed to be energy-efficient, avoiding frequent retraining," SoundHound said, noting that many of the features of the new assistant are able to run on hardware embedded in the vehicle. It added its cloud services are also "lightweight and efficient" as well.

"SoundHound’s in-vehicle AI is designed to encourage a seamless, distraction-free driving experience," the outfit told us. "We believe that speaking is the most natural way to interact with devices and services and our goal is to empower consumers with the power of voice.

Nobody asked for a washing machine that'll take phone calls

The latest generation of Samsung's Bespoke AI powered appliances being shown off at CES is packed with new features that, according to Public Interest Research Group senior director Nathan Proctor, absolutely no one asked for, which is why it earned that award this year.

Proctor said that Samsung's latest essentially "force feed useless smart features" to consumers, with things like ovens and washing machines now able to make phone calls, requiring the addition of unnecessary screens and microphones to appliances that really don't need them. 

All those unnecessary smart features make for an appliance that'll just break faster for a higher cost, and "all just to be able to take a phone call from a washing machine," Proctor asked. 

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Worst in show: LG's overly-smart refrigerator

Continuing the theme from the "nobody asked for this category," The Repair Association executive director Gay Gordon-Byrne has dubbed LG's "AI Home Inside 2.0 refrigerator with [ThinQ]" as this year's worst in show for making an essential appliance too damn complicated for its own good. 

"When I talk with legislators about the right to repair, the first question is always about cellphones, and the second is always about refrigerators," Gordon-Byrne said, because of the ubiquitous and essential nature of both to modern life. 

By turning the main door of its four-door refrigerator into a large display panel complete with audio output, cameras, and extra sensors, LG has made its smart fridge more prone to repair issues. Critics argue that, like Samsung's smart appliances, these features make the fridge more expensive upfront, potentially shorter-lived, more costly to maintain, and more energy-intensive due to always-on components.

"I can't think of a less durable product when you add all these unnecessary functions to something that's very basic and has to run 24/7," Gordon-Byrne said. "It's really a waste."

As no one seems to have shown up to accept their awards, The Register has reached out to all the companies earning these dubious honors for comment. ®

Editor's note: This story was amended post-publication with comments from TP-Link Systems and SoundHound.