Personal exoskeletons were everywhere at CES 2026. There were ambitious designs from newcomers WiRobotics, Sumbu, Ascentiz, and Dephy, while Skip Mo/Go was back promoting its long-overdue tech trousers. Dnsys (pronounced Deen-sis), a comparatively well established name, had some new launches to tease, Hypershell was back with its top model, and Ascentiz had us sprinting across the show floor.
An exoskeleton is a relatively new class of wearable device designed to enhance, support, or assist human movement, strength, posture, or even physical activity. The main piece goes around your waist like a belt, and from it, a pair of hinged, mechanized splints extend down over the hips to strap onto each thigh, where they provide some robotic assistance to normal movements like walking, running, or squatting.
Once only used in medical rehabilitation and in factory settings, exoskeletons are now being sold as mainstream consumer devices. It’s a rapidly emerging market, too, with reports suggesting growth from more than half a billion dollars in 2025 to more than $2 billion by 2030.
As of today, only Hypershell and Dnsys (both Chinese companies founded in 2021) have consumer exoskeletons you can buy. And, as promised, when we first reviewed the pre-launch prototype of the Dnsys X1 (5/10, WIRED Review), as soon as we could, we would race them. So, with the launch of the Hypershell X Ultra, that day has finally arrived.
Through a series of “athletic” pursuits at London’s Lea Valley Athletics Center, we went head-to-head with the $1,999 Hypershell X Ultra and the $1,899 Dnsys X1 Carbon Pro. Both are flagship products, both are commercially available, and both caused people to stop and stare, although that could have just been our astounding athleticism.
A Leg Up
Dnsys and Hypershell spend a lot of marketing budget promoting the physical benefits of their exoskeletons. Hypershell, for instance, claims its devices can lead to a 42 percent lower heart rate, 20 percent less exertion when walking, and a 63 percent increase in hip flexor endurance. Dnsys suggests wearing their devices will “decrease power demand by up to 50 percent.”
As we discovered with testing the Hypershell Pro X (6/10, WIRED Review), corroborating or refuting these claims is difficult at best, especially when the tech (and human) doesn’t always play along. Despite tracking heart rate, pace, and distance using a smartwatch, some of our efforts suggested we used more energy with the exoskeleton than without.
But there’s no denying that the exoskeletons work. They put a robotic spring in your step and positively propel you along. How much tangible benefit you get from the assistance will greatly depend on you as an individual. Chris Haslam, one of WIRED’s crack product reviewers enlisted for this test, has a 76-year-old father with one titanium hip. Chris’s dad was able to use an exoskeleton to climb a hill without his usual breather at the halfway point. Chris, however—a healthy, active 48-year-old—found them more of a hindrance than a help.
Having two different exoskeletons allowed us to compare performance and discuss perceived effort. Yes, some of the sprint races were a little tongue-in-cheek, but the more time we spent wearing each device, the clearer picture we got as to what the exoskeleton is actually doing and how it felt while it’s doing it.
The Tests
Slow and Steady: We completed an unaided, exoskeleton-free baseline run of 400 meters before repeating the same tests in each exoskeleton. Pace and distance were kept the same, so the difference in exertion could be seen clearly through a drop in heart rate.
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