Gadget Trends For 2025
It’s a prolific time for gadget innovation, as the tech that powers new features becomes exponentially smarter, faster and cheaper. While the last couple of years saw problems in chip supply, this limiting factor seems to have righted itself, and now we’re seeing a breadth of companies pop up to challenge the big players.
That’s all great news for us, consumers who want to buy cool stuff that makes our lives easier. In 2025, we can expect plenty of that. From more environmentally-friendly tech to nifty new wearables, here’s how our crystal ball sees tech develop in 2025.
More advanced wearables
AI and wearables are a match made in heaven. It’s where we’ve seen the best use of this emerging tech, and it will be a rich area of innovation in 2025. As an example of just how far AI and wearables can go, the ‘Friend’ medallion is a device powered by AI that acts as a companion to offer emotional support.
Though it will be some time before many of us can own one, headsets and smart glasses like Apple Vision and Meta Smart Glasses look set to get a great deal of investment, so we can expect some nifty new capabilities in 2025. But the aspect of this trend that many of us will feel first is when Apple Intelligence rolls out across its devices, like the Apple Watch. Expect to have in-depth, helpful chats with your watch soon.
LLM-powered voice assistants
Apple Intelligence will make Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, become much smarter. That’s set to lead the pack in this trend for 2025. Whichever voice assistant you use, expect to have more natural conversations with it, and you’ll likely find it more helpful as the training data it uses not only increases, but it works out how best to perform the tasks we ask of it. In addition to Siri, Alexa and Google, ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode will help give voice assistant functionality to things that might not otherwise have it.
Better security
As more of our world goes digital, security and privacy are increasing in importance. Tech companies are responding to that by thinking of new ways to outsmart thieves and scammers. Expect to see expanded use of biometrics (one of the safest options for security), smarter encryption, and new features. For example, Android’s Theft Detection Lock will roll out fully next year. This will “automatically recognize suspicious signals and proactively protect your data on the device”. So if your device recognises a “common motion associated with theft” – like a quick yank and then a quick getaway, it will lock automatically. If the feature was wrong, you just need to unlock it as normal to carry on with what you were doing.
More affordable multi-screen displays
We’ve seen dual-screen phones for a while and in 2024, they continued to increase in popularity, plus we saw the first tri-fold screen. Traditionally, they’re found at a very high price point, so only tastemakers can afford them. But that could well change soon. Now that the folding technology is established, it could be that the focus will shift to growing the market – which means lowering the price to attract more phone buyers. If that’s the strategy, while we have been paying a four-figure sum to own something like the Samsung Galaxy Folds or the Google Pixel Folds, this could creep down to three figures by the end of 2025. With luck, the benefit of a pocket-friendly phone with lots of real estate could become a reality for many.
Sustainable design
As consumers, we’re increasingly driven by environmental concerns. And over the years, the problems of the gadget industry – namely, lots of plastic and lots of rare metals mined in questionable ways – have become apparent. Happily, manufacturers are improving their design to address this. For example, Apple have promised to use 100% recycled cobalt in its batteries by the end of 2025. Electronics are becoming more efficient, helping to cut on energy needed to power all the tech we have in our homes. And gadget design has become more modular, so we can replace batteries, screens or parts as they wear out – this saves us having to replace them, and makes them more recyclable if we do decide to upgrade. That’s great news for us, and great news for the planet.
If you’re looking to protect your gadgets, whether that’s a phone, smartwatch or headphones, take a look at Switched On’s great value Gadget Insurance range. You can cover multiple gadgets on one policy and you get two months free if you pay annually. Find out more on the Gadget Insurance page of our website.