Repair.org, the repair industry trade association, announced the 2026 Worst in Show awards today, annual anti-awards that spotlight the most harmful, invasive, wasteful, and unfixable tech on display at CES.
Worst in Show is produced by the Right to Repair organization Repair.org with support from a coalition of consumer and tech advocacy organizations. The awards are hosted this year by Simone Giertz, the inventor, maker, and YouTuber known for building delightfully impractical robots and poking fun at tech hype.
This year’s winners include: an “open sesame” refrigerator that puts complexity (and ads) between you and your leftovers, a doorbell ecosystem expanding surveillance in all directions, a smart treadmill that shrugs at basic security assurances, a disposable electronic lollipop (yes, really), and two Bosch products that turn everyday convenience into subscription bait and lock-in. Voting for People’s Choice is still underway, and the People’s Choice award will be presented by Back Market and NowThis Editor-in-Chief Michael Vito Valentino.
PRIVACY WINNER: Amazon Ring AI
Presented by Cindy Cohn, Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Cindy Cohn awarded Worst in Show for Privacy to Amazon Ring AI for expanding the reach and ambition of consumer surveillance, through new AI features debuting on their cameras and doorbells. EFF cited a growing menu of capabilities including facial recognition, deployable mobile surveillance towers, and an app ecosystem that could invite even more invasive third-party features.
As Cohn put it, this kind of expansion reinforces the idea that “more surveillance always makes us safer,” even as consumers are left with bigger questions about where the data goes and how it is used.
SECURITY WINNER: Merach UltraTread Treadmill with AI Fitness Trainer
Presented by Paul Roberts, Founder, Securepairs and President, Secure Resilient Future Foundation
Paul Roberts awarded Worst in Show for Security to Merach for its connected home treadmill line featuring a conversational AI coach. Roberts emphasized that internet connectivity, sensors, and large language model features raise the stakes when devices collect sensitive data, including biometrics and behavioral inferences. What pushed Merach over the line was the company’s own admission in its privacy policy: “We cannot guarantee the security of your personal information.” For products designed to live on home networks and gather high-value data, Roberts argued that this is not an acceptable baseline.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT WINNER: Lollipop Star
Presented by Nathan Proctor, Senior Director, Campaign for Right to Repair, PIRG
Nathan Proctor awarded Worst in Show for Environmental Impact to Lollipop Star, a candy lollipop with built-in electronics that transmits sound through jaw vibrations, marketed as “Music you can taste.” Proctor contrasted CES’s constant flood of disposable battery gadgets with the very real hazards those batteries create in the waste stream, including thousands of fires at U.S. waste facilities each year.
The product is both non-rechargeable and single-use, turning a moment of novelty into yet another hard-to-handle piece of e-waste.
REPAIRABILITY WINNER: Samsung Family Hub Smart Fridge
Presented by Kyle Wiens, Co-Founder, iFixit
Kyle Wiens awarded Worst in Show for Repairability to Samsung’s AI-powered Family Hub refrigerator, citing an overengineered design that adds failure points without delivering meaningful durability or serviceability. Voice-controlled door operation, a large embedded touchscreen, and a poor track record supporting their increasing software dependence all raise the likelihood that a basic kitchen appliance becomes an unreliable service problem. Wiens summarized the concern bluntly: “I would not trust a Samsung fridge farther than I could throw it.”
ENSHITTIFICATION WINNER: Bosch eBike Flow App
Presented by Cory Doctorow, EFF Special Advisor and Author
Cory Doctorow awarded Worst in Show for Enshittification to Bosch for e-bike “parts pairing” and lock-in behavior connected to its eBike ecosystem. Enshittification is the process by which products and services get worse over time as companies tighten control, extract more value, and reduce user choice, often through software gates and restrictions that can be changed after purchase.
In this case, the judges warned that pairing motors and batteries to an authorization system can convert routine repairs into permissioned events, with legal risk layered on top via Section 1201 of the DMCA. Doctorow’s core warning was simple: “They can change the deal later.” Doctorow recently expanded the concept in his new book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.
“WHO ASKED FOR THIS?” WINNER: Bosch 800 Series Personal AI Barista
Presented by Justin Brookman, Director of Technology Policy, Consumer Reports
Justin Brookman awarded “Who Asked for This?” to Bosch’s Personal AI Barista for injecting voice assistants, subscriptions, and planned feature decay into something people mostly want to operate before their brain turns on. Brookman noted that even buyers who pay a premium for voice control may end up with a degraded experience or outright feature removal if integrations are discontinued. The core objection was summed up in one line: “many people don’t actually wanna have a conversation with their coffee maker.”
PEOPLE’S CHOICE: Lepro Ami AI “Soulmate”
Presented by Michael Vito Valentino, NowThis with Back Market
For the People’s Choice award, the community overwhelmingly voted for the Lepro Ami AI Companion, for having the audacity to suggest that an AI video surveillance device on a desk could be anyone’s soulmate. Though the device comes with a physical camera shutter, people were unsettled by the idea of a desktop camera and microphone marketed as “always on.”
OVERALL WORST IN SHOW: Samsung Family Hub Smart Fridge
Presented by Gay Gordon-Byrne, Executive Director, The Repair Association (Repair.org)
Gay Gordon-Byrne awarded Overall Worst in Show to Samsung’s “open sesame” refrigerator, emphasizing the mismatch between what a fridge is for and what this fridge demands from users. The judges argued that adding voice control, fragile actuators, connectivity dependencies, and ad-driven “sponsored content” creates new ways for a core household appliance to fail, frustrate, and become uneconomical to service. Gordon-Byrne put it plainly: “the one thing a refrigerator should do is keep things cold.”
About Worst in Show
Worst in Show is an annual anti-awards series produced by Repair.org that highlights technology at CES that undermines privacy, security, sustainability, and repairability. The awards are supported by a coalition of organizations including iFixit, EFF, PIRG, Securepairs, Consumer Reports, Back Market, and NowThis.
About Repair.org
Repair.org, also known as The Repair Association, is a nonprofit and trade association representing the repair industry and advocating for the Right to Repair.
9 Comments
I would like to see the smart lollipop run DOOM
Matthew Yang - Reply
Notice how many of these "winners" also feature AI?
brandiweed - Reply
Ah, for the olden days, when I could tear down a VW flat four in the morning and put a working version back in the customer's car in the late afternoon.
A few years later I moved on from gas, grease and rubber and bought a flat board that came with a bag of parts and a piece of paper showing a schemo, a parts location diagram and a little line on the bottom: 'good luck'.
Turned it into a CP/M machine and wrote my graduate engineering thesis on it using Wordstar. Monitor came out of a Uniwhack [sic] mainframe control console found partly scrapped on a loading dock.
No licenses, no AI, just tech - and a DIY bent I've had since childhood.
Good for the brain, no $@$*!
Warren Buckles - Reply
Nice one! I can relate to all of that.
John S -
The battery powered lollipop "music you can feel" thing has been done. The product was called "Sound Bites." Maybe this one is better somehow, but I doubt it's so much better that it's worth it. There were also "Tooth Tunes," a toothbrush from the early 2000s that played around 2 minutes of music as you brushed your teeth, to encourage kids to brush their teeth longer.
MarVellJones - Reply