CES

CES
Information
Type	Trade show
Format	In-person, with a 2021 all-digital edition
Presenter	Consumer Technology Association
Cost	Trade-only (industry professionals 18+)
Location	Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.
Dates	Annually each January (CES 2026: Jan. 6-9, 2026)
Website	https://www.ces.tech/

CES, long known as the Consumer Electronics Show, is an annual technology trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), formerly the Consumer Electronics Association. The show is restricted to industry professionals and is not open to the general public.

CES covers the breadth of consumer technology, but it has been one of the main venues where companies introduce virtual reality and augmented reality hardware. The original Oculus Rift prototype was first shown publicly at CES in 2013, and later prototypes, smart glasses, and head-mounted displays have continued to premiere or hold prominent showcases at the event.

CES 2026 ran from January 6 to 9, 2026, drew an audited 148,392 attendees, and featured more than 4,100 exhibitors from 141 countries, territories, and regions.

History

The first CES was held June 24 to 28, 1967, in New York City, with about 200 exhibitors and 17,500 attendees. From 1978 to 1994 the show ran twice a year: the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (WCES) each January in Las Vegas and the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (SCES) each June in Chicago.

The summer event declined through the early 1990s, a decline tied in part to the launch of the video game industry's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). In 1998 the summer show was cancelled, and CES became a single annual show anchored in Las Vegas.

Numerous consumer products have made early public appearances at CES. The Philips N1500 home videocassette recorder was shown in 1970, the compact disc player was jointly introduced by Philips and Sony in 1981, and Microsoft's Xbox console was unveiled by Bill Gates in 2001. CES 2021 was held as a fully digital event because of the COVID-19 pandemic, running January 11 to 14 with the online venue remaining live for 30 days afterward.

Organization and format

CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association, a U.S. trade group. Gary Shapiro is the CTA's executive chair and chief executive. The show is held at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) and spreads across multiple additional venues. CES 2026 spanned more than 2.6 million net square feet across 13 venues and was the first edition to use the LVCC after a $600 million renovation.

Attendance is limited to people affiliated with the consumer technology industry who are at least 18 years old, with a media-only access day preceding the public exhibit days. Beyond the exhibit floor, the program includes keynotes, conference sessions, and the CES Innovation Awards, which the CTA presents to selected products before the show.

Virtual and augmented reality at CES

CES is one of the recurring stages for VR and AR hardware reveals, alongside events such as the Augmented World Expo, Game Developers Conference, and Mobile World Congress.

The original Oculus Rift prototype, a pre-production unit with a 5.6-inch display, was shown publicly for the first time at CES 2013, where it drew strong coverage and several "best of show" picks from the technology press. Oculus VR returned in following years: at CES 2014 it demonstrated the Crystal Cove prototype, which added external-camera positional tracking using infrared LEDs and a low-persistence OLED display to reduce motion blur, and at CES 2015 it showed the Crescent Bay prototype.

The HTC Vive line also used CES: HTC and Valve unveiled a near-final revision called the Vive Pre at CES 2016, on January 5, 2016. (The first Vive had been revealed earlier, at Mobile World Congress in March 2015.)

In the 2020s the show's VR/AR focus shifted toward smart glasses and lightweight AR eyewear. At CES 2024, Xreal revealed the Air 2 Ultra, a pair of AR glasses with a 52-degree field of view, a 1080p OLED display per eye, six-degrees-of-freedom tracking, and dual 3D cameras for hand tracking, priced at $699. During the same week, Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, which supports per-eye displays up to 4.3K at 90 Hz.

CES 2026 centered heavily on smart glasses and XR. Xreal partnered with Asus ROG on the ROG Xreal R1, described as the first headset with a 240 Hz micro-OLED display (1920x1080 per eye), announced a multi-year Android XR collaboration with Google, and disclosed $100 million in new funding. Optics supplier Lumus showed geometric waveguides with a 70-degree field of view, Viture demonstrated a device with 3-degrees-of-freedom tracking, and Rokid showed glasses capable of mobile payments. RayNeo unveiled what it described as the first eSIM-enabled AR glasses.

Recent and upcoming editions

Edition	Dates	Location	Notes
CES 2021	January 11-14, 2021	All-digital	Held online because of the COVID-19 pandemic
CES 2024	January 9-12, 2024	Las Vegas, NV	Xreal Air 2 Ultra and Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 shown
CES 2026	January 6-9, 2026	Las Vegas, NV	148,392 attendees, 4,100+ exhibitors, 141 countries
CES 2027	January 6-9, 2027	Las Vegas, NV	Trade-only; media access day January 5