The Verge Awards: the best of CES 2013

We came, we saw, we got lost in a virtual world. And now we’re back. The show that was supposed to be the last of the biggest — the end of the best — actually turned out a little differently than the critics predicted. A show that could have limped instead of leapt in places. A show that could have declined seemed to rise instead. But it rose in all kinds of interesting directions. Towards hardware startups funded by the crowd, towards connected devices that actually seem to make sense, to televisions that offered a logical next step instead of a gimmick. This year’s show offered a glimpse of what may not just be the New Thing at this CES, but the heart of CES for years to come — the indie hardware maker, a new kind of force in the industry that is quickly changing our perceptions of what can be done and how it has to be done. It’s exciting on many levels.