The Repair Association created the “Worst in Show Awards,” to draw attention to the least private, least secure, least repairable, and least sustainable gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Many products vied to be called out by our judges—and Twitter voters—as woefully misguided, harmful, or outright wrong. But we now have our winners/losers, and the whole show is streamed live on YouTube.

Disclaimer: We’re not affiliated with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) or the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

Our judges consider five questions to select the category winners:

  1. How bad is this product?

  2. Are the problems with this gadget innovatively bad?

  3. What is the global impact if the technology is widely adopted?

  4. How much worse is this than previous iterations of similar technology?

  5. How much do the negatives outweigh the positives?

 

Repairability

A failure of repairability isn’t just a bummer for fixers, it means this product is sure to waste its resources mouldering away in a landfill.

 
 

Privacy

This award goes to the device most likely to leak your home security footage, baby photos, or just get you some alarmingly too-targeted ads.

 
 

Security

Voted most likely to be a zombie in a botnet, or to infect the rest of your Internet of Things, keep clear of this Trojan tech.

 
 

Environmental Impact

No matter how novel or well-designed, some products cost the planet and its people too much. Luckily we’ve got just the badge of shame.

 
 

“Who Asked For This!?!”

Sometimes there’s no perfect category and we just need an outlet for the collective groan we let out at a miserable product, here’s to you, voters!

 
 

Enshittification

This product is just an egregious hodge-podge of bad decisions and should not see the light of day.