Bear-proof glass, glow-in-the-dark toilet seats, and more weird stuff at IBS 2016

By Nick Mokey Published January 22, 2016

From contractors to architects, designers, and even the guy who plans where gas lines should go, putting a literal roof over your head takes a lot of people. Once a year, representatives of all these groups convene in Las Vegas for the International Builder’s Show, where you can find everything from state-of-the-art appliances and solar arrays to faucets and all the latest styles of bathroom flooring.

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That’s the stuff you expect, anyway. But along the way, we bumped into more than a few oddities that made us stop in our tracks and wonder what the hell we had gotten ourselves into. These are those.

Nick Mokey

Former Editor in Chief

As Digital Trends’ Editor in Chief, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team covering every gadget under the sun, along with…

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Smart Home

Fiber vs cable internet: What’s the difference, and is it worth switching?

What Are the Benefits of Fiber Internet Over Traditional Cable?

This post is brought to you in paid partnership with T-Mobile Fiber

Home internet connections have to work a lot harder nowadays. One single connection is torn between 4K streams, video conferences, online gaming, and cloud backups. Take into account the ever-growing collection of connected devices, households are demanding a lot more from their broadband connections now.

Smart Home

Apple’s next home robot could turn its screen to follow you, but it might cost you $1,000 to do so

A smart display that pans, watches, and decides.

Remember the hopping Pixar lamp that famously squashes the letter “I” in the studio logo at the beginning of almost every Pixar movie? Apple may be building something similar, except this Pixar-inspired device won't actually hop or roll around your room.

Instead, its motorized robotic arm could swivel the screen around (basically moving it left to right, or vice versa, on an axis). According to a new report from The Information, the Cupertino giant is working on a larger, robotic version of its recently-announced HomeView smart display, and it might arrive as soon as next year.

Smart Home

Apple might be turning its HomeView into a security camera, and it makes perfect sense

HomeView's built-in camera might soon have a few more uses beyond FaceTime calls.

Apple’s recently unveiled HomeView smart display could also function as a home security camera, according to a new finding in its software. The device, which already has a built-in camera for FaceTime calls and facial recognition, could supposedly use the same hardware for motion detection, live streaming, and video recording through HomeKit Secure Video.

The feature was spotted by a Reddit user in the settings files of HomeView Software 27.2 (via TheVerge). Apple hasn’t officially announced anything about it yet, but the references suggest there are going to be a few more uses for the built-in camera.