Our IFA 2026 Recap: Bringing Solvia 8x32 to Berlin

Five days in Berlin, countless conversations, plenty of hands-on demos, and a lot of curiosity around one question: what happens when binoculars can do more than help you see farther?

From September 4 to 8, we brought The Solvia 8x32 at IFA 2026 to Berlin, where visitors could discover our AI-powered binoculars in person, try the features for themselves and meet the MatataXplore team.

For us, IFA was about much more than putting Solvia on display. It was a chance to meet people, hear their questions and feedback, and watch them experience Solvia for the first time.

Five Days of Exploring Together in Berlin

Throughout IFA, our booth stayed busy with visitors stopping by to pick up Solvia, look through the optics and explore its smart features for themselves.

Some were already experienced birdwatchers. Some were interested in photography or outdoor technology. Others simply saw the binoculars and wanted to know what made them different.

Those conversations are one of our favorite parts of attending events like IFA.

Solvia was created around a simple idea: when something catches your attention outdoors, you should be able to keep exploring that moment.

Alongside traditional 8x32 optics, Solvia brings together photo and video capture, a built-in display and on-device bird identification covering more than 10,000 species. Instead of putting the binoculars down to reach for another device, you can observe, capture and identify while staying focused on what is in front of you.

Seeing people try that experience themselves at IFA made it feel very different from simply explaining it online.

Discovering Solvia 8x32 at IFA 2026

While we were meeting visitors at the booth, Solvia was also starting conversations beyond the show floor.

One of the perspectives we were particularly excited to see came from Forbes, which featured Solvia in a wider story about AI moving beyond software and into physical products.

The article looked at what Forbes describes as “embodied intelligence”: technology that can see, interpret and respond to the physical world around us.

For Solvia, that means bringing an intelligence layer to something people have used to explore nature for centuries.

Rather than replacing the experience of looking through binoculars, the goal is to add context to it. You spot a bird, capture what you are seeing and, when you want to know more, identification is there without taking you away from the moment.

Forbes described Solvia as another set of eyes “with a brain attached,” while also exploring the wider possibility that technology like this could encourage people to become more curious and knowledgeable about the natural world.

We couldn't have asked for a better conversation around what we are trying to build.

Read the full Forbes IFA 2026 feature

Seen From Different Perspectives

One thing we enjoyed about following the coverage from Berlin was seeing how different publications approached Solvia from completely different angles.

For Tech for Travel, the focus was naturally on exploration. Their story looked at how AI-powered binoculars can make outdoor experiences smarter by bringing observation, capture and identification together in one device.

That is very close to how we think about Solvia ourselves. Whether you are birdwatching close to home, hiking somewhere new or traveling with limited gear, we want the technology to make exploring easier without becoming the center of the experience.

Read “AI-powered binoculars make outdoor exploring smarter” on Tech for Travel

German media also picked up the story during IFA.

Berliner Morgenpost included Solvia in its IFA 2026 coverage, bringing our smart binoculars into a much broader look at the technologies visitors could discover around the show.

For us, being featured by a Berlin publication while meeting visitors in Berlin made the moment feel especially fitting.

IMTEST also featured Solvia among its IFA visitor highlights. As a German consumer technology publication focused on helping readers understand and evaluate new products, it was exciting to see Solvia included among the technologies worth discovering at this year's show.

From Looking at Birds to Learning About Them

Another part of the coverage that stood out to us was how often journalists focused on what happens after you spot something.

German technology publication IT-Boltwise highlighted the combination of binoculars, camera and digital bird guide in Solvia, describing AI as a practical part of the device rather than simply another technology label.

That distinction matters to us. The identification feature exists because of a very familiar moment: you see a bird, but you are not quite sure what it is. Instead of ending with “I wonder what that was,” Solvia can help turn that moment into a small discovery.

The same idea appeared in coverage from Hi-Tech Mail, which came to see Solvia at our IFA booth and focused particularly on offline bird identification.

Because the bird database is available directly on the device, Solvia can identify supported species without relying on an internet connection. That becomes especially useful when exploring trails, forests and other places where a mobile signal may be the last thing you can count on.

The Conversation Started Before IFA

The interest around Solvia actually began before we opened our booth in Berlin.

Ahead of IFA, Tech News Century introduced Solvia to its readers through the idea of reducing one of birdwatching's most familiar interruptions: seeing a bird for only a moment and then having to switch between binoculars, a field guide or a phone to work out what it was.

Their feature explored how Solvia brings those steps together, from viewing and capture to offline identification and sharing.

Read the Tech News Century Solvia feature

By the time IFA came to an end, we had seen Solvia covered across several countries and languages. But more importantly, we had seen the same curiosity in person at our booth.

Our Favorite Part of IFA

Media coverage is exciting, but some of our favorite IFA moments were much simpler.

Someone picking up Solvia for the first time.

A visitor realizing that bird identification works directly on the device.

A conversation about a favorite birding location.

Someone imagining where they would take Solvia next.

Those small interactions are why being at IFA mattered to us.

They gave us the chance to see how people respond to Solvia outside of a product page, video or specification sheet, and they gave us plenty of ideas and feedback to bring home with us.

Thank You, Berlin

To everyone who stopped by our booth, tried Solvia, asked a question, shared feedback or simply came over to say hello: thank you.

And to all the journalists and publications who took the time to discover Solvia and share their own perspective on what we are building, thank you for continuing the conversation beyond the IFA show floor.

We left Berlin with plenty of memories, new conversations and even more excitement about where smart outdoor exploration can go next.

IFA 2026 may be over, but there is still plenty more to explore.