At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, some of the thousands of innovations being unveiled are recognizable at first sight. But as our Adam Balkin explains, others take some time to figure out.

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Not everything at CES is a TV, tablet, camera or phone. Lots of the innovations here are either hybrids or just plain can't be categorized neatly under any one descriptive term. The Solowheel is a perfect example. It’s an electric, self-balancing unicycle.

“So it has gyro sensors that sense when you're leaning forward or back and that's how it keeps balance. It's also how it moves. You lean forward, you accelerate, you lean back to slow down. It's kinda like a bicycle in that it starts out weird and then ends up really easy,” said Ywanne Chen.

This also starts out weird until you realize how easy it could make your life. A portable charger that requires you just add water or, and this is the weird part, even your own urine in a pinch, to make it work. It's SIGNa Chemistry's Hydrogen Fuel Cell.

“We have a power called sodium silicide and you basically add any water to that system: Salt water, river, lake, potable, non-potable, doesn't really matter. It reacts with the powder, creates hydrogen gas, combines with air in a fuel cell and generates electricity and water vapor as the byproduct,” said Michael Lefenfeld.

Another device that could be good in a pinch, the WOWee ONE speaker that turns any surface you place it on into a sub-woofer.

“It has a conventional top end speaker which gives you your mid and high-range frequencies and the gel audio driver uses transverse speaker technology to drive the bass into the surface it's on,” said Magnus Hannick.

Now all over the floor we're seeing new ways to control your TV through wands, gestures, your eyes, well how about controlling it with your brain waves?

“This headset reads the brain waves from sensors on the headset and determining the brainwave activity as it increases, certain things will happen,” said Kenji Higa.

And though now it is just for controlling specialized video games, developers say they're working on a way for you to eventually do things like change the channel or the volume on your set just by willing it to happen.