IFA Berlin 2024: Our first European Tech Show

After more than 10 CES shows between the two of us, we consider ourselves veterans. We’ve watched the smart home market at CES go from small corners of big company booths to almost the entire Venetian Convention and Expo Center in Vegas, and have seen CES attendance rise and fall and the show reinvent itself year after year.

While CES has a long history, 57 years to be exact, IFA Berlin has an even longer history, with its start as the Berlin Radio Show in 1924 (IFA stands for Internationale Funkausstellung (International Radio Exhibition). In 1930, Albert Einstein gave the opening speech. Over the years, it has become an industry milestone for launching new products, from the cassette tape recorder, to color TV, to foldable smartphones.?

We love to travel so this year we wanted to expand our horizons and our understanding of the consumer tech market by visiting IFA Berlin for ourselves.?

Logistics

IFA is a long show, running a full six days, and unlike CES, is open to the public. We arrived even earlier, for the two press days before the event began on September 5. The event takes place at the Messe Berlin, a huge sprawling venue in the western part of the city. The physical location is huge, with two transit stations serving the venue from the South and North.

There were some hotels available closer to the venue, but we decided to stay more in the center, which is in the former eastern side of the city, and take advantage of Berlin’s excellent public transportation to reach the Messe. This made for a few very long days, but we were happy with our choice to be more in the newer heart of Berlin.

IFA was mostly confined to the Messe area. There were 28 separate buildings of various shapes and sizes, plus a large main entrance hall and the Somergarten area that hosted concerts and other pop-up exhibit stands. Part of that were three events within IFA – IFA Global Markets for the import/export community, Hub 27 for resellers, and IFA Next for startups. All the launch events seemed to be within the Messe, either at a booth or at one of the meeting rooms instead of offsite.?

Press Days

Vendors big and small held press briefings and launch events before the start of the show and we attended a few of them. But what we really enjoyed was having access to the entire convention hall for the two days just before the event began. Some of the big European players, like Bosch, Siemens, and Miele had their booths all set up (and air conditioning on) from the first day we arrived, while most other vendors were just starting to build their booths.

We had full access so we could get inside, wander around and get a sneak peek at some products, while also learning to navigate the huge venue with its multiple levels and buildings. Some companies made product experts available on site during those press days, but most only had the setup crews working and the press meetings going on in different rooms.?

For us, one of the biggest surprises from the beginning is that the whole show is primarily conducted in English. Even the German company press conferences were delivered in English. While a lot of the products shown were targeted for the European market, it is certainly an international event and with attendees from all over the world, English was the common language.? While there were certainly American companies and staffers at the show, we didn’t see a whole lot of other Americans during our visit.

Overall themes

Partly due to its compartmentalization, it was hard to see the broader themes across the event. The exhibits are mostly contained together in the different buildings, for example, smart home, communications, mobility, gaming, fitness and health. The only areas where we really saw overlap were in home appliances and home entertainment, where larger companies like Miele, Bosch, Siemens, Samsung and LG were showing demonstrations of many different products with some things working together.

Artificial Intelligence Everywhere

One theme that was pervasive throughout IFA was Artificial Intelligence. It felt like every product announcement included some kind of AI, from projectors to coffee makers to robot vacuums. Samsung and LG’s entire booths highlighted AI across all their product lines (controlled by SmartThings and the new LG hub powered by Homey Pro) and while both tried to make it approachable and human, sometimes it still felt a little creepy.

Sustainability

Sustainability is an important issue worldwide and has certainly been a common theme from the last few CES shows. But in Europe, the sustainability theme somehow just feels different and important for all companies to discuss. Probably because it is not just seen as the right thing to do, but is increasingly required by European Union and country-specific laws.?

One thing we saw for the first time at IFA were balcony solar panels. When we saw the first one, we thought, what an interesting idea, but as we continued to walk around we saw at least five or six companies with different models. It makes sense since Europe has much higher housing density, especially in cities, and those homeowners and renters want to take advantage of solar power too.?

We also visited Matter Industries and spent some time talking to them about their patented water filtration system for laundry systems. (We admit we went to their booth because we thought they were related to the Matter smart home standard.) We not only learned that home and commercial laundry contribute to microplastics pollution, but that there are pending EU regulations that require manufacturers to start addressing it.?

Regulation

Speaking of regulation, Europe certainly has a more significant regulatory environment than the US market and it is definitely something you feel at a European show like IFA. Products have to cover multiple country requirements plus additional EU initiatives and companies have to adapt their products or they can’t sell them. When we saw a product demonstrated, we always needed to verify which markets it would be available in and when, and we saw plenty of things that will never be introduced in the US market.

European Design

Products for the European market definitely have a different design vibe and you can see that reflected all over IFA. We did not see the huge television displays or a lot of high-tech looking refrigerators, ovens and stoves. While the technology is certainly there, it’s not in your face and a lot of times is hidden behind stylish cabinets to blend in with a home’s interior. It’s not surprising that the Wireless Power Consortium introduced their final spec for the Ki cordless kitchen power standard at the event.?

IFA Next

The European design vibe also applied to the very sleek and elegant showcase for startups, IFA Next. At CES, we are used to spending most of a day in Eureka Park, a stuffy, crowded space on the bottom floor of the Venetian with low ceilings and poor ventilation. IFA Next was much more open and airy and even the small pods for startups, while small, felt a lot nicer.?

Unfortunately, while the set up looked better than Eureka Park, there was not that much energy at IFA Next when we walked through. According to the show, they were expecting 350 startups but it certainly didn’t feel like that many. This definitely feels like a growth opportunity for the show and for the European Startup community.

Our favorite products from IFA

Robot Vacuums

IFA is a home appliance show and you could certainly tell from the number of robot vacuums announced. Dreame, Eufy, Narwal, Roborock and Switchbot all announced new models during the week.?

We were not surprised to see that Roborock is now the number one global brand of robot vacuum cleaners. They announced three new flagship robot vacuums for different types of usages. The Qrevo Curv and Qrevo Edge include anti-hair tangling technology as well as a chassis that allows them to lift up and over to adapt to different types of floors. We’re looking forward to trying the Qrevo Slim, at 8.2 cm tall, one of the very slimmest on the market.

We also liked the Narwal Freo Z Ultra, because it seemed like they were trying hard to listen to customer feedback and use AI to navigate around things like cords, toys, dog poop and other common obstacles. The Freo Z Ultra camera works like two eyes to “see” what’s on the floor and avoid it.

SwitchBot also announced a new 3 in 1 robot and handheld vacuum and mop, the K10+ Pro Combo, which is great for small spaces, plus a lot of new clever smart home products. Our favorite was the Air Purifier Table – turning a necessary home appliance into a multifunctional, nice looking piece of furniture. ? They even showcased how their robot vacuum can reload the water in their humidifier, an interesting way to get more out of the appliance.?

Lighting?

Smart Lighting continues to be a big segment in the smart home, and IFA was no exception. It seems smart lighting is getting more sophisticated and more expensive.

The new Govee Curtain Light 2.0 is as it sounds, a curtain of hanging lights that you can personalize into different displays. You can get them in different sizes, up to 14.8 ft by 6.6 ft., and use your prompts to create AI-generated light shows to create your own unique mood, indoors or outdoors.

The Nanoleaf Blocks are smart LED blocks that you can mix and match to create a colorful wall display, even using them as shelves and pegboards. Instead of just pretty wall decor, they are becoming a functional part of the home or apartment.?

Other favorites

Yaber announced the K3 and K3 Pro Projectors. The K3 is a beautiful cinematic projector with industry leading brightness and audio in a small package. You can control it with your voice and tap your phone on it to transfer content from your phone. If you want even better sound, get the K3 Pro model as that includes a sub woofer from JBL.?

TwelveSouth took something everyone needs and made it better with the PlugBug. It has Apple FindMy built in so you can find it buried in your backpack, in the trunk of your car, or in your kid’s room when it gets lost. It comes in two sizes – 50 watt and 120 watt – for small devices like phones, ipads and watches as well as laptops.?

Summary

We had a great time at IFA and exploring the dynamic city of Berlin. Will we come back every year? We’re not sure but it is tempting!