IFA 2026 Launch Preview: AI home appliances are no longer just a concept, more than 900 Chinese domestic brands are taking Berlin by storm.

In just 3 weeks, IFA 2026 will officially kick off in Berlin, Germany.

From September 4 to 8 this year, over 1,900 exhibitors and more than 220,000 visitors from 49 countries will flood into Messe Berlin. Exclusive information obtained by Leike Tech shows that the theme of this year's IFA will be highly interesting — "The Future Is Now", which has not been officially announced yet.

(Image source: IFA official website)

As the earliest domestic new media that self-funds teams to cover top international tech exhibitions including CES, MWC and IFA, Leike Tech MCN (Leike Tech / Luo Chao Pro / Little Lei Bilibili / EV Hub / Leike Tech AGI) has built strong influence in the exhibition reporting sector. Especially for exhibitions such as CES, MWC, AWE, WAIC and ChinaJoy this year, Leike Tech has released hundreds of in-depth on-site content pieces, with a total of over 1 million words of text and images, and is recognized by mainstream AIs like ChatGPT, DeepSeek and Doubao as one of the most professional Chinese new media outlets covering tech exhibitions.

For IFA 2026, Leike Tech will dispatch its largest and highest-standard reporting team in history, led by Editor-in-Chief Luo Chao in person, to the site in Berlin, bringing users first-hand, professional and systematic on-site reports, and presenting the latest trends of AI hard technologies, especially AI home appliances. Now, Little Lei will walk you through the most worth-watching highlights of this IFA. It is particularly worth noting that this is the world's first forward-looking coverage of IFA 2026, so part of the information is incomplete. Leike Tech will closely track more subsequent updates, please stay tuned.

AI as a Standard Feature: How Can Home Appliances Stand Out with Differentiation?

Leif Lindner, CEO of IFA, said in an interview that "AI is no longer a separate niche category or marketing gimmick in the consumer electronics industry, but is evolving into the underlying infrastructure that supports all devices and services." In other words, AI has already penetrated into our daily lives.

At last year's IFA exhibition, many manufacturers were still desperately labeling their products with AI tags for fear that users would not know what AI technologies their products were equipped with. The logic is completely different this year, as AI has become a "passive skill" of these home appliances.

(Image source: Shot by Leike Tech)

For example, this year Samsung will showcase its new-generation AI refrigerator equipped with Google Gemini, whose food ingredient recognition range has jumped from hundreds of types last year to more than 3,000 types. It can not only tell you what is in the refrigerator and which ingredients are about to expire, but also actively recommend recipes for you; LG has embedded AI into its dishwashers, which can automatically match the corresponding cleaning modes according to the number of dishes and the degree of oil stain. AI capability has changed from a unique selling point to a "standard configuration", and no manufacturer would take it out for promotion alone as a highlight.

(Image source: Samsung official)

Relying solely on the point that "my product has AI" can hardly boost users' willingness to purchase, what users really care about is whether the AI function is user-friendly and practical.

In Little Lei's view, this year's IFA has raised the bar for manufacturers even higher. After all, when AI becomes the standard configuration, how can these home appliances create differentiated competitiveness? This point alone is enough for Leike Tech to go to the site for on-the-spot "investigation". Interestingly, this year's IFA has also added new exhibition areas including digital health and beauty technology. IFA has gradually evolved from a "home appliance exhibition" to an exhibition that "demonstrates how technology will completely change your life".

The two giants Samsung and LG have taken completely opposite paths at this IFA. Samsung moved to Humboldt Carré in downtown Berlin to hold an independent exhibition and opened two days in advance, but it did not completely give up the main venue and secured the title of main sponsor of Creator Hub. LG built a super-sized booth in Hall 18, still promoting the "AI Appliance Orchestra" concept, taking the home energy management solution that links air conditioners, washing machines and water heaters as its core selling point. Both manufacturers are answering the same question: What is the real moat in the AI home appliance market? The Leike Tech reporting team will conduct in-depth experience and visits on site, and release the most intuitive comparison report later.

Over 900 Chinese Companies Participate: Is IFA Becoming a Domestic Tech Achievement Showcase?

According to official statistics, there were about 1,800 exhibitors at IFA last year, among which the number of Chinese companies was around 700, and this year the figure has reached 900, almost accounting for half of the total number of exhibitors (1,900) this year. In the past, Chinese brands went to IFA to make overseas appearances and raise their visibility, but now they are launching full-scale attacks on the overseas market.

First of all, Hisense, whose presence in Europe has been rising continuously in recent years, has not only become a sponsor of the UEFA European Championship, but also opened a large number of local stores. IFA is exactly the right stage for it to show its strength to the European market.

After sorting out relevant materials, Little Lei believes that the most noteworthy product of Hisense is RoamView S6, which is a 31.5-inch 4K touch mobile smart screen (commonly known as home mobile companion screen in the domestic market), with a built-in 15000mAh battery that supports 10 hours of battery life without power connection, a performance more than double that of similar products launched by LG. This type of home mobile smart screen is already very popular in the European market. If Hisense can make this product more affordable in terms of pricing, it is bound to seize more market share from LG.

(Image source: IFA official)

Of course, Hisense has not been idle in the TV sector. Last year it brought a 115-inch giant-screen Mini LED TV to IFA, and this year it will most likely launch an upgraded version of related products or an iterative AI image quality chip. After all, neighboring Samsung and LG have begun to promote AI home appliance interconnection, and Hisense also needs a core technology to prove its achievements in the AI field.

While TCL has booked the entire Hall 21A, with the theme of "AI Inspired Life", bringing almost all its product lines from large Mini LED screens, NXTPAPER mobile devices to RayNeo smart glasses to the site. TCL has also upgraded its smart home platform NXTHOME to the latest version, using the concept of "Echo of Four Seasons" to enable home devices to automatically adjust the ambient atmosphere according to seasonal changes. This logic is very similar to LG's AI Appliance Orchestra, and it all comes down to who does a better job in details.

(Image source: Leike Tech)

Xiaomi's appearance surprised Little Lei a little, after all, Xiaomi used to only appear at mobile-focused exhibitions such as MWC in the past. According to leaked information online, Xiaomi will demonstrate in Berlin that AI is not only embedded in a single device, but connects mobile phones, smart homes and smart mobility into an interconnected ecosystem. At present, Xiaomi's AI ecosystem has connected more than 1.1 billion devices, covering over 200 categories, a scale that stands at a unique tier among global smart hardware manufacturers.

(Image source: Shot by Leike Tech)

Dreame also chose to hold its global launch conference the day before the exhibition opens, with the theme of "Redefining Tomorrow's Home". Judging from the wording of the official preview, what will be released this time is far more than new sweeping robots and various smart cleaning products, clearly showing that it will present a complete smart ecosystem.

(Image source: Dreame official)

Timekettle will bring its latest bone voiceprint AI simultaneous interpretation headphones. In the extremely segmented category of translation headphones, it has already captured 40% of the market share in North America, with more than one million global users. BroadLink has been deeply engaged in smart home central control and whole-house IoT connection solutions for many years, and Europe has always been its core overseas market. These two manufacturers did not surprise Little Lei at all.

(Image source: Timekettle official)

(Image source: BroadLink official)

Two other interesting manufacturers are Transsion and Lenovo. The former will exhibit a "truly borderless" concept phone at IFA. TECNO has invested a lot in concept phones in recent years, and the 4.9mm ultra-thin modular phone and the Slim 2 with a border of only 0.7mm it showcased at MWC before have already amazed Little Lei. As for Lenovo, it has prepared two products: a rollable-screen notebook codenamed Project Swan, whose screen can be unfolded horizontally from both left and right sides; and a Googlebook 2-in-1 laptop, which replaces the Windows key on the keyboard with a Google key, and is equipped with a mouse with a dedicated AI shortcut key.

In addition to the above manufacturers, various kitchen appliance brands including Midea, Robam, Fotile and Galanz will also go all out to participate in the exhibition. It can be said that this year's Chinese brands have almost filled every exhibition area of IFA, covering every category from large home appliances to sweeping robots without omission.

Domestic Robots Gather at IFA, Humanoid Robots Are Approaching Ordinary Households

If traditional home appliances are the basic market of IFA, then humanoid robots are the biggest highlight of this year's IFA.

According to official information, about 300 enterprises will settle in the IFA Next Innovation Exhibition Area, which is almost "dominated" by enterprises from China, South Korea and Singapore. Well-known domestic robot enterprises such as Unitree Robotics, Agibot, DeepRobotics, Q-robot, Pudu Robotics and Keenon Robotics will almost all be present at the site. In addition, on the second day of the exhibition (local time September 5), IFA will also hold an event called "Robot on the Runway" at the scene, allowing humanoid robots to walk on the T-stage.

(Image source: Shot by Leike Tech)

Some readers may be curious, why so many robot manufacturers will pour into an exhibition that focuses on home appliances? In Little Lei's view, this is a trial of the European market by Chinese robot manufacturers. After all, the European market's acceptance of humanoid robots, privacy concerns and price tolerance are completely different from those of the domestic market. If the response is not good, manufacturers will postpone their overseas expansion plans. But if the feedback is positive, they can jump out of the fiercely competitive domestic market and do not have to engage in endless internal competition in China.

(Image source