I’ve been to CES way more times than I can count with my fingers.
Upon returning, friends and family ask about the “coolest” thing I’ve seen at the show, and I often don’t have a clear answer.
This time around, though, at CES 2026, I ran into something totally worth talking about.
CES 2026: The same show with a different perspective
No, that cool thing had nothing to do with artificial intelligence, robots, or screens—the usual suspects of CES 2026. It wasn’t even a Wi-Fi 8 router, even though ASUS’s NeoCore was quite neat. (Follow this link for what I covered at the show within my area of coverage.)
Instead, it was a pair of wireless earbuds, or, more specifically, the idea of it, as represented by an example in the photo above.
Take another look at it! And before you get taken aback by its cost, keep in mind that it’s not the price that makes it “cool”, or maybe just part of the idea that makes it so.
With that, let’s back up a bit to put things in perspective.
CES 2026: The guilt (road) trip
As last year, I also drove to CES 2026 through Death Valley.
I left home in the San Francisco Bay Area on the first Sunday of the year and camped that night at Panamint campground in the national park.
I picked this campground because its RV lots are more readily available without requiring reservations months in advance. And with a 50-AMP socket, I can arrive there with a near-empty “tank” and leave with a full charge the next morning, enough to get to Vegas without stopping along the way.
And that was exactly what happened, which saved me both time and charging cost. (Tip: You need a NEMA 14-50 adapter for your car to have level-2 charging at an RV hookup. For a Tesla, that’d be this adapter.)
That night, as my plan to fall asleep gazing at the stars was foiled by an unusually bright moon, I decided to watch something on my iPad, and it just happened that I had Netflix’s “Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy” predownloaded.
If you haven’t seen the documentary, I’d recommend it. Among other things, it reinforces my worries about the amount of unnecessary waste we produce, living in a supposedly “modern” society.
If you don’t have time to watch, the gist of the documentary is that over the decades, retailers and manufacturers of consumer goods have figured out how to dupe the world’s population into hyper-consumerism via five core principles: Sell more, waste more, lie more, hide more, and control more.
Among many tactics, planned obsolescence (deliberately making devices hard to repair) hit home closely. I’m sure you all can relate to that. I’ve personally replaced many devices simply because their non-replaceable battery no longer carried a decent charge. And batteries will die. It’s just a matter of time.
The next morning, as I continued to Las Vegas, I felt a bit of guilt thinking about the hundreds of products I’ve reviewed or recommended, the number of new ones I’d see at the show, and how much I’ve personally contributed to the world’s self-inflicted environmental crisis, beyond my own consumption.
Speaking of which, in case you’re wondering, for the trip I brought along the following devices:
- a 2019 MacBook Pro 16″ (with a 2022 Dell Inspiron 16 7620 as a backup).
- a 2020 iPad Pro 12.9″.
- a Pixel 9 Pro (with a Pixel 7 Pro as a backup).
Note how none of them was the latest model year. In fact, I got the Pixel 9 Pro only because my Pixel 7 Pro’s screen got all scratched up, and it didn’t make sense to have it repaired.
Other than that, I also have a pair of Anker Space A40 earbuds, which were my third pair in the past few years—the previous ones died in one way or another.
In any case, it’s dreadful to think about how all of the stuff I have with me will eventually end up in the landfill.
CES 2026: The routine of endless walking, meeting, and getting lost
I made it to Vegas in the early afternoon on 2026’s first Monday, with ample time to settle before the first meeting at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, where I also picked up my CES media badge.
While I could describe all that in a sentence, the process of getting the badge and reaching the meeting took me over an hour, from the moment I arrived at The Cosmopolitan. Like the rest of the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, it is a massive property deliberately designed to disorient visitors as they walk from one casino area to another. And I got lost multiple times.
This whole walking-around-and-getting-lost routine is one any CES attendee will attest to.
After the meeting, I walked from The Cosmopolitan to attend Pepcom’s Digital Experience!, which took place in the evening at Paris Las Vegas, which is another gigantic building purportedly housing an entire quartier of Paris inside, and didn’t get back to my hotel room until almost midnight. It was a productive first day.
The next day was a full day of meetings and visits to various booths on the show floor—lots and lots of walking and talking. And, as the previous day, it ended with another night event: the Showstoppers, which took place at the Grand Ballroom of the Bellagio, located at the massive casino’s back.
Getting to the ballroom from the hotel’s entrance is a trip in itself. After getting out of the casino maze, you have to follow multiple long hallways totaling a bout half a mile of distance. So even if you don’t get lost along the way, you’ll need at least half an hour. More with breaks.
As you can imagine, by the time I arrived at the event, having walked for at least 10 miles through artificial, noisy environments up to then, I needed a rest more than anything. So, I planned to quickly meet with specific vendors and then head back to the hotel to have some quiet time.
T10 Bespoke earbuds: The neat idea of buy once, use forever
As I was on my way out of Showstoppers, I ran into Bear Clark, who seemed to prefer to be called “just Bear”, from Ear Micro, a company focused on blending tech in the form factors of traditional fashion jewelry.
Bear was there to pitch a new T10 Bespoke lineup of ultra-luxury earbuds that he founded. Considering my previous experience with my own conventional earbuds (and how they’d become e-waste) mentioned above, I wasn’t really interested.
But when Bear said, “I like the fact that you seem skeptical. Allow me to make a believer out of you!”, I obliged. Bear then cleaned the demo pair with an alcohol wipe and put them on my ears.
Right away, I felt they fit exceptionally well—snugly with comfort. Each has this just-right heft that makes it belong in my ear, as though it were designed specifically for that spot.
After that, I was pleasantly surprised to find I could use nods or headshakes to control the usual volume, play/pause, and other features—which can be customized via the T10 Bespoke app on Bear’s iPhone.
Bear says that T10 Bespoke comes with “advanced touch, voice, head motion, and gestures, allowing hands-free, eyes-free commands.” And during the short demo, all that worked flawlessly. The gadget was smart enough to ignore general head gestures, like when I move my head to the music, and only responded to deliberate motion commands.
In terms of sound quality and noise cancellation, calling it “out of this world” would not be a cliché. The show floor was loud with high ambient noise, and the earbuds took me to a place so tranquil that after about a minute, I didn’t want to take them off—in fact, I was never in a quieter environment for the rest of my time in Las Vegas. Again, the earbuds felt like they belonged, naturally.
But that wasn’t the most impressive part. Bear told me that each earbud is actually a chassis housing a “mini super-computer,” with everything inside designed to be repairable or replaceable.
Specifically, it can be opened via a single screw, as shown in the photo above, and inside, you’ll supposedly find 144 separate components. The battery itself, which has enough juice for some 9 hours of continuous playback, “costs less than $6 to replace,” per Bear.
“This thing will never get obsolete,” Bear said, addressing my e-waste concern, “as we can change everything on the inside as technology evolves”.
With that, I’m sold. Now comes the hard part.
The T10 Bespoke Earbuds cost at least $3,200 a set, including accessories such as a charging case. After that, the hardware can be customized with precious stones or other materials, so there is no limit to the cost. At the show, Bear was wearing his personal set, made of solid gold and purportedly costing $185,000.
As you can imagine, I can’t afford that. Still, I love the idea. The right to repair and replace parts should be part of the ownership. And, within reason, I don’t mind paying extra for that.
So, yes, the T10 Bespoke is the coolest thing I saw at CES 2026. If you have a few grand burning a hole in your wallet and want a piece of jewelry that could be the best pair of earbuds, give it a try!
CES 2026: The flu
I ended up getting back to my hotel room that night much later than I’d like, with a scratchy throat. That wasn’t all that surprising, considering the dry weather in Vegas.
But it was something else. Over the past few days, I saw many people coughing or wearing face masks. With lots of folks arriving from all over the world, attending CES always carries a risk of catching something. We often call it the “CES flu”.
And this year, it got me. I got up the next morning coughing, sneezing, and completely hoarse. After a hot shower and morning coffee, with zero improvement, I decided to skip the rest of the show and leave before I got worse. It would be dangerous to drive when really unwell.
As I was driving out of Las Vegas, I received multiple messages in response to my meeting cancellations, and many said they were sick, too. So, I wasn’t alone.
I got home on Wednesday evening, exhausted. In hindsight, it was the right call to leave early… And as I published this story on Saturday, I was much better, though still on the mend. What a week!
The takeaway
Every CES is unique, but they’re all the same in the sense that it’s always about vendors pitching products they want consumers to buy. And that’s all they care about. I haven’t seen any manufacturer taking end-of-life for products into consideration.
And for that reason, the T10 Bespoke is most intriguing. Sure, it’s expensive, but the idea of buy-once-use-for-ever will definitely help reduce unnecessary e-waste.
It’s a long way, but we need to start somewhere.
