This year’s IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin is celebrating its first centenary and is hosting a showcase of innovative products that have passed through its halls and transcended its boundaries to become everyday technology.
‘IFA 100 Years The Exhibition’ welcomes visitors entering through the north entrance to the fair and celebrates this event as a driving force of technology and creativity that has changed people’s lives.
IFA has been a first contact with innovative products that were pioneers in their time, such as the first portable video game console, Game Boy, along with the game Tetris (1989), by Nintendo; the first CD player, the CD-100 by Sony; and what is considered the origin of all smartphones, the Nokia 9000 Communicator (1996).
Also devices that have facilitated communication between people for decades, such as one of the first pocket transistor models, RT 10, by Siemens (1960), and the “legendary” local receiver OE333, by Loewe.
And those that have made people’s lives more comfortable, as is the case with household appliances. Washing machines, vacuum cleaners and televisions, among others, have passed through its halls over these last hundred years, which show the evolution that everyday products have undergone. An example of this evolution is the first electric hairdryer, manufactured by Sanitas Berlin (1910), which also passed through the German city.