Irene, that's a robot or a real woman. And they've got this robot that's actually folding towels that literally folds into something that you can fit into your backpack. A lot of the people who struggle sleeping well, this is something that can help you sleep much better. The guy told me this is completely electric, so you can go off grid for up to 2 weeks.
This is Tesla's humanoid robot. It's very interesting to me that at a big event like this, they are not actually doing a live demo of something the robot can do. Let's say they have a fall and they can't reach a phone or something like that. This AI can inform one of their family relative. This one here is specifically for washing shoes or trainers.
This actually a vanity unit for cosmetics that has refrigeration. Snap Maker actually really changed the game in the 3D printing industry. So, I've always thought these kind of bases as opposed to legs are much better for industrial scenarios. Unfortunately, um you need to wait an hour to get into the hall that dreamy have.
I'm at one of the biggest techs in the world and it's happening right here in Shanghai. The AI revolution might not start with phones or computers. It might start with your home appliances. And I'm at Appliance and Electronics World Expo 2026, where companies like Hire, TCL, and High Sense are showing how AI is about to transform everything from robot vacuums to smart kitchens and even humanoid robots.
In this post, we're going to explore the technologies that could soon be inside of millions of houses. So, let's go see what the future holds. So, here are some of the TCL screens. This is a 98 in. And again, they just keep pushing and pushing this technology further and further. And uh over here we got gaming monitors.
You know, TCL started with just making panels and screens. They're now one of the largest um panel and screen manufacturers in China, but they've also diversified into many other areas. One of those areas is um domestic appliances. Let's go check out their latest AI um appliances. So, this is the um TCL washer dryer tower.
And the the main thing about this, the AI and voice control, is that unlike previous washing machines where you might have had to say, "Oh, select cycle 4." With this one, you can actually take your clothes and put them in the washer or the dryer and say, "This is my wool jumper. It's very dirty.
" and it will automatically select the right cycle for that. So you could say, "Oh, this is my silk scarf. It's very delicate. Be careful." And it will set the correct cycle for that wash. So you can actually give it sort of native English or or native speech um commands and it will understand them and interpret them and then use that information to select the correct wash cycle.
So maybe if you say, "Oh, this is very dirty." It will will do a more intense wash. If you say, "Oh, this just needs freshening up a little bit. It will do a lighter wash. It will understand wool needs to be washed more delicate. You know, cotton can have hotter water." This kind of thing. So that's really kind of cool. Unfortunately, this one here is only in Chinese at the moment.
You can only communicate with it in Chinese, which is not good for me. But they they will have a a global version which will also be able to command in English. But that is really cool. I mean this is getting to where like you know there's many times I've damaged something in the wash cuz I've set the wrong program.
But with something like this that would almost be impossible to do because it will understand all the different fabrics, all the different wash cycles, etc., etc. Really, really cool technology to to help people. This is really cool. You've got a 28 in 38x40 1280 display that literally folds into something that you can fit into your backpack.
The resolution is 3840 by 1280. So you got a massive amount of screen real estate. This is also something that feels really cool and going to be big. Right now the price are a little high but I think the price will drop a lot. But these are e- paper displays and the battery on one charge will last eight months and you can change a picture from an app or something like that.
But these are really nice. The colors are great. So this is TCL's home theater. They got um a full sound system here with a screen. You obviously won't be able to hear how good the audio is through this microphone. Wow, that's very impressive sound and vision. I'm really not sure whether that's a robot or a real woman.
It's so difficult to tell. I'm really not sure. So, we have a a company here that I saw before a Huawei event and they've got this robot that's actually folding towels. I just speaking to the guy and this is incredibly complex. I hear people like Elon Musk say that these humanoid robots will be in people's homes doing tasks in one to two years.
Well, myself and the guy I've been speaking to don't believe that. um that these will I think be uh deployed in industry first because industry you do the same task me many times whereas in a home every time the scenario the variables are different and that's incredibly difficult to train robots to do and I don't think we're there yet I think it's going to be some time more before we have this deployed in large scale in homes this is a soft tide smart bed and I've got to say it's really comfortable I must say it's good.
This bed has built-in algorithms to help you sleep better. There's a lot of people who struggle sleeping well. This is something that can help you sleep much better. So, this is really cool. When I was younger, I did a lot of caravanning with my parents and this is next level. This is a company called Sky Dream and their parent company is Dreamy.
But look at this for caravanning nowadays. You've got a double bed here. You've got built-in audio and smart panel. And then you've got a a lounge area here. And just look at this. You've actually got a real oven. Wow. You got a hob sink. You've got storage here. You've even got a full size washer and dryer.
Oh my god, this is absolutely amazing. Storage cupboard here. You've then got a single bed over here. What's this pull? Let me see what this is. Oh my god, you have a full size fridge freezer. That is just incredible. Small TV here. And then at the end here, this is the toilet and shower. You got a proper shower. Proper toilet.
Man, this has come such a long way. Oh, this is a I guess this is a wardrobe. Yes, more storage here. You got more storage up here. Even got electric blinds on on the windows. That is absolutely mad. The guy told me this is completely electric. So, you can go off-rid for up to 2 weeks. And it's got smart system that manages the power usage.
You have solar panels on the top. You got battery installed. That's just absolutely amazing. It really is. I just can't believe how far caravanning has come. Unbelievable. Criy blind me. Look at this for an ATV here, man. That is massive. Wa. That is huge. They're called Na'vi. They've got these new energy vehicles. Interesting.
Never seen these before, but they're uh they're looking pretty cool. Got some big wheels going on there. Let's just have a look inside. Oh, very uh futuristic interior on that. Oh god, they've even got some sort of um personal drone over there. I've never seen this. I would go to like motor shows in the UK many years ago and you would have companies there.
They may have a new model every like three to five years in China. These companies, you've got new companies and you've got new models literally popping up all the time. It's just it's just mindblowing really. Here's another one here. Again, it's got sort of Gwing doors on. Again, a very sleek futuristic interior on that.
I would imagine you got a lot of carbon fiber on the bottom of the doors here. I would imagine this is not a production yet. I guess these are sort of prototypes, but imagine this kind of car, man. Unbelievable. Check this out. What the heck is this? Holy moly. Actually, I did a whole post on these um sort of personal flying machines.
You can check that out. Um I'll leave a link in the corner if you want to look, but Oh god. What? What the heck? This is a company called Move Ahead. Oh wow. Look at that. Just nuts. So I met this company Moa and I've noticed this 3D printer. And at first I was like, well, what's so special about this? And after talking to the girl from marketing, she explained to me that it's up to a 12 filament changer.
And they're using very different technology to other printer manufacturers who change the color. They're actually using a nozzle swap. And if you can see here right at the back, these are actually 12 nozzles in a holder. When they change the filament, they actually change the nozzle. And from what the girl says, each nozzle change takes between 40 and 45 seconds.
And there is no waste at all because they leave the nozzle with the filament in. They have a six filament feeder here. You can load into six different colors. Um but only two filaments feed into the printer. What they do, they sense what color will be printed next and they autoload that into here. So when the filament changes, it only goes from here to the print head.
I'd be really interested to keep an eye on this brand because that's a technique that as far as I'm aware other brands of 3D printer are not using. So I think it'd be really interesting to keep a close eye on on this brand. It's kind of strange how the same company is bringing a 3D printer to market and an EV.
I just that's mind-blowing. So this is Tesla stand. Actually, Teslas still sell very well. The Model 3, the Model Y still sell very well in China despite the stiff competition. I see a lot of them on the road. This behind me is Cyber Truck. It's actually a lot bigger than I thought. Um, Cybertruck currently isn't officially available in China, but there's a few people who've gray imported them, but as it's on the stand here, I suspect they're probably readying to start selling in China maybe. But it's a very interesting um
concept. There are a couple of Chinese companies who are doing something quite similar now. But yeah, I think um Elon was very bold in pushing something completely new into the market. And I believe it sells pretty well in the US, but as I say, it's not available yet in China. This is Tesla's humanoid robots.
It's very interesting to me that at a big event like this, they are not actually doing a live demo of something the robot can do. I walk around this exhibition, I see numerous Chinese companies having their humanoid robots actually doing things, giving demonstrations, but Teslas is here just sitting behind a piece of glass.
I'll be really interested to know what you think. So, leave a comment down in the comments below why you think Tesla are not actually demonstrating why their robot is not doing something here at the exhibition. So, this is Hire. They're a massive Chinese company. They're into everything, but this area is about their smartome.
So, we're going to have a look at what sort of stuff they've got going on in smart home appliances here at Hire. This is something pretty cool that I've never seen before. This is basically your own miniature salad farm in your home. So what they're doing here, you have an app on your phone and you put this is it's all grown hydroponically which means in water.
The roots are in water. Basically what it does, it controls the environment within the cabinet. So that's the light, the humidity, the temperature and you can actually grow fresh salad in your home. Now I think that is pretty cool. like you just go to your cupboard, you go, "Oh, I'll have some lettuce or I'll have some whatever, you know, celery or whatever." That's pretty cool.
That's very innovative. So, here we have AI being applied to a refrigerator. Now, the way this works, the refrigerator has cameras both on the outside and the inside, and it monitors what food you take in and out. So, for example, if you put some apples in there, it will record when you put those apples in and you have an app on your phone as well as this on screen here that can actually tell you um how long it's been in there.
It will give you warnings on the app that maybe you should use this food because it's getting old. It's been in there like a week or something like that. And again, I think this kind of thing is is really really useful. I think it will take people a while to adapt to to this kind of thing, but I think that's useful because personally I will put things in the fridge and I completely forget about them and I get them out and they're old or moldy or something.
I have to throw them away. So, it's very wasteful. So, I do think if I had an app, it's le you put this steak in there 3 days ago, you need to be using it or apples or cheese or whatever. I think that's a really good thing and it's good to see that um companies are using AI in these kind of ways.
These are also very very common in China. I don't see them so common in other places. It's um a door lock. Basically, it will either use your face. Um you can probably use a thumb print or a fingerprint or you can use a a code. And uh these are becoming more and more popular now within China. And uh it's really good. You can connect some of them to NFC.
So when you get closer with your phone, the NFC will open the door for you. It just makes it more seamless, you know. It's hard to believe. But this whole hall is higher. They they have many subbrands and they're just into absolutely everything. You can see here more refrigerators, washing machines, just so big. This is quite interesting here.
This is another small robot that's been developed by hire and this is basically to assist elderly people potentially people living alone that maybe they let's say they have a fall and they can't reach a phone or something like that. This AI can inform one of their family relatives that they've fallen or they're in some sort of trouble and it can summon help and that's really that's really quite cool.
It can remind them to take tablets and things like this. This is where I think AI is really really useful in in helping people who could possibly be in danger. There's many old people in the UK that have fallen and actually died because nobody's known that they've fallen over or or can can come and help them because they don't know.
Whereas this, it can be set up to detect various scenarios and inform a family member or a relative or a neighbor to let them know that the older persons has a problem and can respond. As well as the things I've just talked about, it can also act as a companion. So you can talk to it as well as controlling other home appliances like open the curtain, switch on the TV, this kind of thing.
So it become a really help to sort of older or disabled people and that's in my eyes really good thing. It appears we're in a hall now with a lot of um western brands and say Seammens which Seammens along with Bosch are some of the the most respected um brands in domestic appliances. I had when I was in the UK I had a number of Bosch appliances.
They're very very good. I didn't own any Seammens but I had some Bosch. We have Panasonic. So, it's not just Chinese brands at this show. It's a lot of worldwide brands. That's because they obviously want to be in the Chinese markets. The Chinese market, the domestic market here is absolutely huge. And uh, you know, foreign companies also want a piece of that. And China's very open to that.
You know, you look at Tesla for example, they're selling a huge amount of cars here in China. Although they have fierce, fierce competition from domestic brands of cars, Tesla is still doing very well. And a lot of these foreign brands, although they're a lot more expensive in many cases than Chinese brands, Chinese people who have money will will buy these brands if they think they're value for money.
I'm really surprised to see Morphe Richards here. And when I was growing up, Morphe Richards was one of the most popular household brands in the UK. Many houses would have either a Morphe Richards kettle, a Morphe Richards toaster. They were on sale in all the high street everywhere. Now, just talking to the guy, it turns out that a Chinese company's actually purchased the brand.
Maybe Morphe Rich has got into trouble or it got sold off, but Chinese companies bought the brand and now using that brand to become a worldwide exporter under that brand name. Very interesting. So, this is High Sense, another huge Chinese company, and they have a very similar uh washing machine to that we saw on the other booth.
Again, you can put your clothes in. You can say, "Oh, this is really dirty. It's wool, but wash it at 7:00 or wash it at 11:00 p.m. when electricity is cheaper." So, again, it's a laundry products that you can command with natural language and they will understand your commands and execute those commands.
So, this type of um washing drying device I'm seeing becoming more and more popular in China. I've never actually seen this in the UK, but this allows you to have So, for example, this one here, this one here is specifically for washing shoes or trainers. So, it has this extra like brush thing with it that you put in the drum.
And then these here, these are kind of small drums. So, if you only have like one garment or one pair of pants or something to wash, you can put them in here and this will wash and dry. And the beauty about this is unlike just putting one or two garments in the main drum, which will just waste a lot of water, waste a lot of energy.
This is only a very small drum. Um, what's the weight of this small drum? 1 kilo. Okay. So, you just put one up to 1 kilogram of garment in here and it will wash it. And that's really great from an energy efficient point of view. I think this is a really cool idea. It's something I think that uh I I think I'd like to get, but unfortunately we've just bought a new washing machine, so probably going to be a few years before we buy something like this.
But I do think it's really really cool. So this here is Skyworth. And check that out. That's 163 in TV. Now you need a big room to put that in. It's almost like having a cinema in your lounge. Skyworth are very interesting company actually. They they started just doing um TV screens but now they seem to have morphed into lots of other things.
They have not just displays they have home appliances, air conditioning, cars. They even have an electric truck which is just mindblowing. You can see some of their their air conditioning here. Their home appliances here. Look, they've got Skyworth washers and dryers. And this is something absolutely unbelievable.
This actually a vanity unit for cosmetics that has refrigeration, which is really pretty impressive. Um, and then just moving on down here, they have fridge, freezers, refrigerators. You got integrated air conditioning. That's something you don't see very often in China in Shenzhen is a radiator. But they've just got so much different stuff. This is their 10H Pro.
It's a 3840 by 2160 resolution. They have um Bluetooth speaker here. Oh, that that's an excellent picture quality. It really is. Let's see if it works. Oh, there we go. Look, he's picking it up, putting in a little bag for me, and then it's going to give it to me. Yeah, this is for you that's kind of cool.
This is again another example of how these robots can be used in industrial situations where a repetitive task needs doing. So I've got my little um uh gift here and uh just so you know this company is named T. Where where are you based? Where's your company in Shanghai? It's in Shanghai. Ah, okay. Okay.
So, it's a it's a Shanghai company. Thank you very much. So, I've always thought these kind of bases as opposed to legs are much better for industrial scenarios than legs. Legs are very very slow. These can move much faster. You see the wheels there? They kind of can move this platform by like 360°. So, it can pivot on its own axis.
This is perfect kind of scenario for industrial applications. Uh because in industrial applications, robots actually don't need legs, you know, because they're not going to dance. You can see this is in a maybe a warehouse situation where it's moving um cartons. It actually has um grips specifically designed for these cartons here, which is really kind of cool.
And you can see how this moves up and down to change the height of the robot to adapt to different shelf heights. That's a much better design for industrial processes. So that's very very cool. So I was just speaking to the engineers and I was talking about the the battery life. The battery life is currently 4 hours but they're developing wireless charging.
So the charging coils will actually be in the floor. So it'll be continuously charging as it's being used. So Life are a company that are into sort of personal hygiene products. This is a shaver. It'd be interesting to see if it copes with uh foreigners beards cuz a lot of Chinese guys, they don't have a lot of facial hair, but I grow quite a lot of facial hair.
Currently, I have a Philips. Um, but it'd be interesting to see how good these perform on a foreigner's facial hair, but they they they do a lot of personal care products, toothbrushes, hair dryers, shavers, all this kind of thing. This is one of their hair dryers. They're very stylish um designs. means you got a air intake here. And um yeah.
Oh, it's actually switched on. Yeah. Very good. Actually really like their their designs. And here shows you all the internals. Toothbrushes are very stylish, aren't they? Wow. I like that. Oh, I might have to get myself one of these. I like that in that kind of light gray. That's really nice. That's very stylish. Wow.
They've even got like a wireless charging base. Has a little bit of magnet on there. Put it on there and uh it charges. That's That's pretty cool. Nice. So, in China, live streaming to sell products is massive. And uh some of the top live streamers can make really serious money, a lot of money live streaming.
But I just noticed this area here that's been set up. And this is all live streamers and they're selling like all these companies products on live streams. There's another one over here. Wow. It's just like just crazy. I've never seen this in any other country but China. So, we did attempt to go and look at the Dreamy stand.
Now, Dreamy is a very interesting company. It was founded just in 2017 by uh Hao and he was a graduate from Chinua University in aeronautical engineering and he started the company to take on Dyson. He developed a digital motor which is one of Dyson's strong uh things in their products and he actually developed a digital motor and started um manufacturing vacuum cleaners using that digital motor to to to challenge Dyson's lead in that area.
But in the eight or nine years the company's been going, Dreamy have ventured and and expanded into many many products. They have phones, they have home appliances, they have domestic appliances, they have such a massive range of products now, even a car. Unfortunately, you need to wait an hour to get into the hall that Dreamy have.
So, unfortunately, we're not going to be able to show you, but maybe we can find some B-roll of their products that we we can show you here. But it's just a fascinating story that this sort of company that's only been around eight or nine years has got so big in such a short space of time. And that's the power of Chinese companies. Chinese companies just grow incredibly large incredibly quickly.
Now we're at Shangai Eastern Hub and it's the first year that AW have actually split the exhibition into two. So they have the main one and then they have the Eastern Hub. So, let's take a bit of a look around the Eastern Hub and see what's here. So, we got Uni Tree's booth here. Now, Uni Tree are probably one of the biggest humanoid robotics companies in China and uh they're doing some really cool stuff.
In fact, it was Uni Tree that was featured on the Chinese New Year gala at this new year and that post kind of went viral across the world. Pretty amazing really. They've got a boxing mat set up here and they've got some of their other robots on the stand as well. And over here we have AR.
Now this is really really interesting. They're a spin-off company from Xiaoong Xpang. Basically you have this vehicle here which you can drive and then in the back so you can drive somewhere. Then the back opens up and out pops a personal drone. So you can have a personal transportation drone and that's uh what we see over here. So basically this here fits in the back of that car.
So literally you've got your own personal transportation. Now, although this is still in development, I actually can see this being a thing that a lot of more wealthy people will actually buy because it is really, really cool. So, that's quite interesting. I've just spoken to the guy and they're estimating delivery in the second half of this year.
So, they're pretty far along the way. It's not just a prototype. They're they're almost ready to go into production, which that's pretty amazing. And this is a very interesting company. This is Leewan Tech and a few years ago um America put a lot of sanctions on China trying to slow them down in semiconductors. But hello but this company a proof that China are innovating and innovating at speed.
This is a range of GPUs here that are built on their own technology and these will rival, you know, your Nvidas, your AMDs, their competition. And it just shows how China is getting a domestic supply chain, semiconductor supply chain built in spite of all the pressure that they're receiving from the USA. So, this is really interesting. This company are building a companion humanoid robot.
And this is very friendly. You can see it's got screens for its eyes so it can display motion. Has a camera here. Has touch sensors on here on its head. You can you can see it reacts when I I stroke its head. Now, what's really really interesting is if you look at this here, this is a more industrial kind of humanoid robot, but they've actually taken a lot of the technology from here and combined into here to make this a little walking talking friendly companion robot, which I actually think that would be really cool to have in
your home, help play with the kids, you know, just just as a for single people as a companion. I think that will be great and it'll be really interesting. I actually think this market will be a huge market in the future. It will evolve and evolve and I think this is going to be big. Currently, this is not in production yet.
It's prototype, but I do see this being very big in the very near future. So, this is really pretty cool. It's um like a virtual display cabinet and you put an object inside. You can first of all get all the information about the object. Then you can have this this interactive view. Look how cool this is. You can actually move it around in in 3D space.
You can make it smaller. You can zoom in to detail on it. That is really really cool. I really like that. That's uh such a smart idea for place like museums and that so people can actually look inside of items and and things like that without actually touching it. That's very very cool. So behind me is Jing Dong's booth and um they're featuring a lot of the uh 3D printers from Chinese manufacturers and Chinese are very very dominant in the 3D printing space and so let's go have a quick look.
So, we got Bamboo Lab, which are one of the leaders. We have Creality. We have Any Cubic. I'd actually quite like to get my hands on one of these printers. It's an entry- level printer. It retails about 1,800 R&B, but it's apparently very, very good. I actually have three any cubic printers. But here is something that's super interesting.
This is a Flash Forge um tool changer. I didn't actually know flash forward were were doing this. This not available yet. It'll be available in May or June, but it uses four tool heads to change colors. So, it can print in four color without wasting any filaments. But just over here is the Snap Maker. This is the one I actually want to get my hands on.
This is already available. This actually was one of the most successful Kickstarters ever. They raised a huge amount of money and it's still not easy to get hold of one, but I've been told Jing Dong actually have them in stock and they're just under 5,000 RMBB with a coupon. I really might have to think about picking one of these up for myself cuz this is something I've been wanting to get hold of for a long, long time.
I currently have three any cubics, but this is a proper tool changer. And actually, I think SnapMaker actually really changed the game in the 3D printing industry. Bringing this technology at such a competitive price is flipping amazing. I think with exhibitions like this, there is just so much to see. The innovation is just off the scale.
They they constantly constantly thinking of of new ways to integrate technology into everyday life. And that's something that's uh something I I don't see so much in other countries. I just feel Chinese people are so much more open to accepting technology in their lives than than many other countries. I you know it's just blow mindblowing.
That wraps up our visit to AW 2026 here in Shanghai. And something that really strikes me is the way China and Chinese companies actually are using AI in real world scenarios. They're not unlike some other countries just chasing frontier models. They're actually applying it to improve people's everyday life.
And I think that's where the the power of AI will be. Not necessarily just in frontier models where they can rewrite a paragraph, but actually using it in things that will generally help people in their daily life. Anyway, as always, for now from Shanghai, take care.
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