IFA 2026 brings the latest consumer tech to Berlin.
IFA Berlin has often been a place to see cutting-edge tech, cool concepts, and interesting prototypes (or should we say
?). While there certainly have been some of those this year, like
, 2026 has felt more muted than last year. We’re still seeing the same demos of things like the
concept. Instead, what I’ve seen is companies really trying to drill down on perfecting the products and product lines that work for them.
Here are the trends I saw at IFA Berlin 2026 that drew my attention and are worth watching for next year.
Dust mites and allergies are the new target for robot vacuums
The Eufy E35 Omni was at IFA, but they didn’t run it.
Robot vacuums have become pretty good maintenance tools for cleaning up dust and pet hair, but if you’re someone with asthma or serious allergies, you likely still need a good HEPA-certified vacuum and air purifier to keep things manageable. Well, that’s the new target of companies like Anker with the
. Both are certified by different organizations to prove they work as claimed. The X12S was tested by the SGS Testing & Control Services Singapore and, in testing, removed an average of 97.44% of dust mite allergens and 95.45% of dust mites from carpet. The Omni E35 also claims the ability to remove a slightly higher 99% of dust mites and has
Realistically, the percentage difference isn’t particularly significant. What’s notable here is that companies are actively seeking out certifications that prove their robot vacuums are capable of robust levels of cleaning and sterilization, that it’s suitable for maternal health, newborns and allergy sufferers. This might sound niche, but as someone who has three asthmatic cats and occasionally seasonal allergies, I’m interested to see if it lives up to the testing claims.
This is something we’re likely to see more of as robot vacuums become established not just for cleaning but for sanitizing as well, with models that can deploy steam, UV light, and sprays. In the same way
became increasingly common over the past decade as an easy way to cleanse your air and reduce allergies, we may see certified, high-quality robot vacuums take on the same role.
If you’ve been following robot vacuums at all, one thing you’ve probably noticed is that they’ve gotten pretty good at vacuuming, but mopping can still be a challenge with older and dried-on stains. An old spill of tomato sauce, red wine or ketchup on tile is still going to require you to use elbow grease to remove it — I speak from experience.
Pretty much every company is trying to address this cleaning gap by using different mopping options, ranging from roller mops that self-clean with more downward pressure measured in newtons, as with iRobot and Eufy’s new lineup, which increases the pressure to 14N or 18N, depending on the model. That’s a simple and theoretically easy solution, just give the robot vacuum the elbow grease it’s missing, and iRobot has tried to do that for the vacuuming side of things too by adding a “skirt” that drops down on the
that significantly increases suction strength on the already substantial 35,000 pascals.
The key problem with this strategy, though, is that robot vacuums are size-constrained, and unless you try something like iRobot’s Duo, which incorporates a floor washing unit combined with a mobile docking station, you’re never going to get the power of a real wet and dry mop, let alone an
Another way companies at IFA have tried to address this is Ecovacs Deebot X12S Omnicyclone, which incorporates high-pressure water sprayers to saturate old stains and help work them out of hard surfaces. Clever idea, but questionable implementation with the X12S. As I watched, I completely missed its ketchup-stain target and instead doused the floor, but it still managed to remove the mess. The 875 Combo uses a hot steam spray from the bottom of the unit to help loosen the stain, but no demos were offered, so I can’t know how it works in practice until we lab test it.
I’m sorry to say that humanoid robot demos were just plain boring this year. Yeah, there are dancing robots and robots that can do backflips, like the PrimeBot T1 and Q1, and ones that can sort laundry or pick things like Dreame’s robot butler and
. Yawn. The real issue is that these things still don’t do anything more than what they did last year, and as I wrote in my
, the timeline for these robots is a lot further away than we’d hope and a lot more expensive. With a realistic timeline ranging from five to 10 years for partially functional home assistants that can do things like fold laundry and prices that will be closer to $100,000 than $10,000, I expect us to get many more years of IFA humanoid demos without actually getting a humanoid robot that you can buy and use in your home.
Part of why I’m not particularly impressed by any of these humanoid demonstrations is that robot vacuums have gotten so good. We’ve stopped talking about wheth