Some Of The Weirdest CES Gadgets From Past (And Present) Shows

CES in Las Vegas has been happening for years now, but do you know the history of how the coolest - and strangest (which I will talk about later in this article) - new gadgets came to be shown off in Las Vegas?

The first CES was held in June 1967 in New York City. It was a spinoff from the Chicago Music Show, which, until then, had served as the main event for exhibiting consumer electronics. The event had 17,500 attenders and over 100 exhibitors! The kickoff speaker was Motorola chairman Bob Galvin.

From 1978 to 1994, CES was held twice each year: once in January in Las Vegas  - The Winter Consumer Electronics Show (WCES) and once in June in Chicago - The Summer Consumer Electronics Show.

The winter show was successfully held in Las Vegas in 1995, but the summer Chicago shows were beginning to lose popularity, so the organizers decided to experiment by having the show in different cities starting in 1995 with a show in Philadelphia.. However, the inaugural E3 gaming show was scheduled to be held on the West Coast in May and was a source of increasing competition, causing the Philadelphia Summer CES show to be cancelled.

The 1996 Winter show was again held in Las Vegas in January,  followed by a Summer show in Orlando, Florida, but just a fraction of the regular exhibitors participated. The next "Summer" show was scheduled to be held in conjunction with Spring COMDEX in Atlanta, but only two dozen (or so) exhibitors signed on, so the CES portion of the show was cancelled.

In 1998, the show changed to a once-a-year format with Las Vegas as the location. It's now, of course, one of the largest conventions/shows in Las Vegas. The other biggie is CONEXPO - which takes about  two and a half weeks to set up, run, and break down.

CES 2023 is over, and now in the books. We've definitely seen a lot of innovative,  amazing, wonderful - and weird - items come out of CES each year.

Below are some of the weirdest, strangest, and bad gadgets to come out of CES over the past 20 years or so. Like the Taser holster, and toilet paper robot.

Some items are still being sold today. Maybe you have one?

-Carla Rea

2020: The year that saw mass panic buying of toilet paper. Along came a robot that could bring your toilet paper to you! Coincidence? Probably. The RollBot never really became a thing - but maybe it should have!

Photo: Mario Tama via Getty Images

The HapiFork is yet another vibrating gadget (not complaining there) that tells you to eat your meals slower.  The idea being, that you are less likely to overeat. If you wolf your measl down like you're in prison, this was the gadget for you!  

Photo: David Becker via Getty Images

This was first shown off at CES 1998. The Hitachi Xybernaut wearable computer was an amazing, yet terrible idea long before Google Glass was even a gleam in one's eye. The Windows based Xybernaut Poma offered a 128MHz RISC processor and 32MB of RAM for the low, low price of $1,499, and it strapped to your arm, and your face, and your belt. "Hey! Wanna date me???"

Photo: Nina Ruecker via Getty Images

Withings U-Scan is a toilet add on that - well -  analyzes your pee. There’s a lot of potential data in your pee, enabling early detection of diseases and cycle tracking (for women), but there are also major privacy issues with this one.

Back in the 2000's, the iPod became such a cultural phenomenon that every company rushed to make an MP3 player of its own. This resulted in one of the dumbest CES products: the Tazer MP3 holster. Imagine trying to not only charge your holste,r but also connect it via USB to your computer to fill it up with a whopping 1GB of music!

Photo: Ethan Miller via Getty Images