CES is the tech world's big coming-out party for the New Year — a supersize circus of gadgetry that both follows major trends in tech and creates them. It’s never the same year to year, but it’s always a showcase of what’s to come in consumer technology.

The problem with CES is that it shows you everything — not just innovative products and ideas, but also the irrelevant, the mundane, the been-done-already. You need to sort through enormous ballrooms of dross to get to the true shiny objects.

Luckily, we’ve done that. The Mashable Tech Team has been there for the announcements and the demos, and walked the halls of CES 2016 to find the standouts-in-waiting. This year’s show has seen both car technology and virtual reality rise to new prominence. Turntables made a surprise comeback. And after an inconsistent year, smart devices were still able to bring the “wow.”

These are Mashable’s Top Picks for the best tech at CES 2016.