At IFA 2024 in Berlin you will be able to see devices, artificial intelligence, robots and much more

I’m a sucker for smart kitchens. Build me a kitchen that tells me what to cook, when to cook it, how to cook it, and does the boring stuff for me, and then cleans it all up, and I’ll be a happy tech reviewer. For years, that seemed completely out of reach. Appliance manufacturers have been putting Wi-Fi chips in everything, but they’ve done almost nothing to make those appliances smart. If all your appliances aren’t the same brand, nothing will work together in a smart kitchen—the one place where interoperability really matters.

At the IFA tech show in Berlin, Germany this week, the biggest names in home appliances will be showing off their latest gadgets and hopefully providing solutions to some of these problems. I’ll be there to hear what companies like LG, Samsung, Bosch, Haier (GE Appliances), AEG (Electrolux) and SharkNinja have to say about the evolution of home appliances.

Some of the news has already come out ahead of the show. Samsung announced it’s bringing more AI to its Samsung Food app, which is meant to be a connection between your appliances and your pantry. LG revealed its first dedicated smart home hub. ThinQ On lets you control LG appliances with your voice and will monitor them and notify you when the washing machine is done or the oven is preheated. The company will use LG’s ThinQ AI technology to demonstrate voice-controlled cooking at the show.

I expect we’ll hear a lot more about how companies plan to use generative AI to make our kitchens do more of our work for us. Yes, gadgets are all well and good, but so far most smart kitchens have felt isolated in individual ecosystems or trapped in single-function devices with terrible apps. Many companies seem to think generative AI can help provide the connective tissue that a smart home needs, one that can interpret what we want it to do and make our devices do it for us.

Of course, IFA, which celebrates its centennial this year, isn’t just about smart devices. IFA is a huge consumer electronics trade show; it’s basically Europe’s version of CES, but with smaller TVs and fewer cars and tractors.

Based on the past few years, we can expect to see announcements of new European smartphones and new smartphone accessories, with companies like Honor, Anker, Belkin, Fairphone, and Motorola all showing off their products.

Laptop innovations are often a part of the Berlin scene, and since it’s 2024, we can assume there will be a lot of AI news. Acer is holding a press conference, and Lenovo is set to unveil a couple of new Copilot Plus computers.

In home audio and entertainment, TCL has announcements planned, and Bluetooth SIG will showcase its Auracast technology. Once again, there will be a slew of home robots at the show, with Roborock, Dreame, Narwhal, SharkNinja and Ecovacs all set to showcase their latest floor-cleaning gadgets.

We’ll also see a slew of new gadgets from smart home companies, including smart lights, locks, cameras, and sensors. Aqara, Meross, EcoFlow, Govee, Nanoleaf, Reolink, Shelly, and SwitchBot are all headed to Germany to show off their latest gadgets, and Edge we’ll be there to tell you about the latest and greatest.

This year, Canadian rocker Bryan Adams is headlining a series of concerts on the lawn outside the Messe Berlin conference center. While I wade through the crowds in search of the latest foldable phone, yoga laptop, and smartest kitchen accessory to write about, remember that everything I do, I do for you.