IFA 2026 in Berlin delivered plenty of practical innovation for the home and computing, but the show floor also served up a handful of products that left us scratching our heads. Amid the usual robot vacuums, pool cleaners, foldable phones and headphones, a few standout gadgets pushed the boundaries of what shoppers actually need. Here are the strangest devices we found, what they claim to do, and how useful they might be in real life.
Govee’s Mood-Reading Skylight and a Countertop Tofu Maker
Govee has built a reputation for unusual home lighting, ranging from curtains of light to lamps that resemble alien artifacts. Its latest oddity is a dome-shaped ceiling fixture designed to mimic the sky and respond to your mood. Using Govee’s AI, you can describe how you’re feeling, and the companion app suggests matching color schemes. The light can also produce a specific blue wavelength meant to evoke natural daylight and open skies.
In prior testing, Govee’s AI proved capable of generating lighting patterns from casual descriptions or a stated mood. The feature is genuinely fun, though the app already offers so many preset scenes that the mood-based approach felt more novel than practical. How well it translates to a full ceiling installation remains to be seen.
For plant-based eaters short on counter space, the Nuvell plant protein maker is an ambitious pitch. Roughly the size of an espresso machine, this bean cooker and compressor produces blocks of tofu in as little as 30 minutes and can turn out other vegan proteins depending on the legume you load in. A company representative suggested it might also handle cow’s milk to make cheese, but appeared uncertain about that claim. The unit was not running at the show, though converting soybeans into tofu is well-understood territory. The bigger question is whether a single-purpose appliance earns its place on your countertop.
Dyson’s Toothbrush With a Built-In Camera
Perhaps the most unexpected debut came from Dyson, which brought a toothbrush equipped with a built-in camera. The Dyson Camerajet uses what the company calls Gap Optical Targeting, capturing up to 28 images per second. You don’t review the footage yourself; instead, onboard AI analyzes the images and identifies interdental gaps. From there, the toothbrush directs a jet of water at the spaces between teeth for a more thorough clean.
The Camerajet’s camera captures up to 28 images per second, which AI processes to target the gaps between teeth.
