Tom's Guide CES 2018 Awards: Top New Tech

CES 2018 will go down in history as the show where the lights went out. But there were also a lot of bright spots, especially in the TV, smart home and augmented-reality (AR) arenas. We saw a TV that literally rolls up when you want it out of sight, a serious challenge by Google to Amazon Alexa's supremacy and a lot of AR glasses that could literally change the way you see the world.

There were also plenty of pleasant surprises, including a Tesla challenger that should have Elon Musk looking over his shoulder and a robot that helps you sleep better. After meeting with dozens of manufacturers, startups and other tech companies across multiple categories, we chose these as the products and innovations that truly stood out.

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"Jaw-dropping" doesn't fully capture how amazing LG Display's rollable 4K OLED TV really is. This show-stopping beauty unfurls dramatically in stages, starting with an information display mode that shows you things like the weather, news headlines and photos. Then, it unrolls more to 21:9, which is ideal for movies. And then, it goes all the way up to 16:9, which is best for TV. Take a peek around the side, and LG's concept set is crazy thin. Plus, the base is movable, so you can literally take a 65-inch Ultra HD set from room to room.

Because this is an OLED TV, you get the technology's signature perfect blacks and rich hues. There's no word on pricing or availability, but we will be first in line to snatch up this rollable TV when it comes to market. — Mark Spoonauer

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MORE: It's Official: LG's Rollable OLED Is the 4K TV of My Dreams

For most of last year, Google was playing catchup with Amazon's Alexa. However, with the Lenovo Smart Display — and other Google Assistant-enabled screens from LG, JBL and Sony — the search giant is tapping into something that Amazon has yet to fully master. By augmenting audio with visual cues, such as recipe instructions, Google is allowing for a deeper relationship with its voice assistant, but one that's not necessarily more complicated. Lenovo's Smart Display gets the nod over the others because it comes in two sizes and works in both portrait and landscape modes, making it adaptable to multiple rooms in your home. — Michael Prospero

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MORE: Lenovo's Smart Displays with Google Assistant One-Up Echo Show

At CES, we saw nearly a dozen pairs of AR glasses, but many of them looked and felt like clunky prototypes or toys. The Vuzix Blade, on the other hand — available beginning later this year for $1,000 — is something I'd actually want to wear. These Android-powered sunglasses-on-steroids pick up where smartwatches fell down by delivering notifications and even Alexa functionality right to your eyes via a color display. The Blade is easy to use, thanks to a touchpad integrated into the right arm, and there's an 8-megapixel camera for capturing photos and videos on the fly.

Vuzix also plans to integrate the camera with Amazon's digital assistant, so you can even ask Alexa "What am I looking at?" and it will be able to identify an object in your line of sight. Vuzix will have to deliver compelling experiences via its own app store to make the premium worth it, but as of right now, the Blade feels like Google Glass done right.  — Mark Spoonauer

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MORE: I Would Actually Wear the Vuzix Blade AR Glasses

Forty-nine inches — that's how big the Shared Experience Display is on this concept vehicle from Chinese startup Byton, which will be coming to China in 2019 and the U.S. by 2020. This electric SUV's monster screen isn't just for show; it delivers your health information, directions to entertainment options, videoconferencing calls, and more. And the Byton is smart enough to know who is in which seat, thanks to facial recognition. You'll be able to do all this while you're driving, because Byton is aiming for autonomous driving capability by the time this Tesla competitor hits stateside. — Mark Spoonauer

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MORE: Inside Byton's Electric SUV Concept - Meet the Car of Tomorrow

We don't know the official name of the smartphone Vivo showed off at CES 2018. Heck, we don't even know if that phone is even going to make it to the U.S. when it debuts later this year. But Vivo's phone still stood out from other mobile devices because it manages to pull off a feat that the likes of Apple and Samsung couldn't with 2017's flagships: It places an embedded fingerprint sensor underneath the front display of a smartphone.

Vivo's implementation of the sensor, developed by Synaptics, is a thing of beauty. It appears only when you need it to unlock the phone or secure a mobile payment, and fades away at other times to let you enjoy the immersive look of an edge-to-edge screen. Other smartphone-makers may follow Vivo's lead this year, but the Chinese phone-manufacturer deserves credit for getting there first. — Philip Michaels

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MORE: Hands-On with Vivo's Fingerprint Sensor

Not all robots are unfeeling automata. Sometimes, they just need a good hug. That's certainly the case with Somnox, a $549 robot whose sole function is to help you sleep better at night. It might be easy to dismiss Somnox as a much more expensive My Pillow, but there's some technology built in to this squeezable, soft cotton robot.

Somnox inhales and exhales as you cuddle it, and before you know it, you're mimicking its breathing patterns and drifting off into dreamland. Somnox boasts other features, like the ability to play lullabies or white noise and shut down once you fall asleep. But it's that core feature — calming you down at bedtime — that puts Somnox head and shoulders above other robots. — Philip Michaels

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Samsung has taken the LED-array display concept from the Jumbotron and brought it into the home theater, with a massive 146-inch TV that uses Samsung's MicroLED technology. After playing defense against competitors' OLED TVs, Samsung has come out swinging in 2018, launching the first real change in TV display technology in nearly a decade. LED-based pixels outshine any backlit competitor for brightness, but the real killer is its perfect black levels — something previously achieved only by OLED.

But it's not just the display tech that's impressive. Samsung has also changed the big-screen game with a modular tile design that lets you build The Wall to your exact size and specifications — a unique feature in the TV world. — Brian Westover

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MORE: Samsung's Wild MicroLED Modular TV Grows to 146 Inches