BERLIN—The sprawling IFA tech show here draws in a vast universe of gadgets. Most of these represent incremental advances on existing devices that anybody could have predicted would show up here. But some have come from a different, far less predictable place.

Consider these seven items I found on show floors and product exhibits here.

Acer Predator Thronos

Acer saved its oddest IFA news for the end of its press conference here Wednesday morning: the Predator Thronos. A nearly 5-foot tall “motorized cockpit” that incorporates an Acer gaming rig, a padded chair that vibrates and rumbles to match the action in the game and an overhead arm that suspends three 27-inch LCDs. You climb in, press a button to lower the screens, slap on some headphones and press another button to recline the assembly as far as 140 degrees.

Acer hasn’t announced a price for the Thronos, but if you’ve already set up a game cave with enough room for this contraption, price may not be an object anyway.

Lenovo Yoga Book C930

This two-in-one laptop can be folded up for use as a tablet or left open like a laptop, but instead of a keyboard, its bottom half features an electronic-ink, or e-ink, display. At 10.8 inches across, the e-ink screen can display a keyboard or be used as a drawing surface. The difficulty of typing on that surface without the usual tactile feedback of a physical keyboard suggests this would work best when used for reading rather than writing.

Listening to music and videos, however, will be an issue. The company opted to ship this €999 device without a headphone jack. Memo to the gadget industry: This is an idiotic habit you’re developing. Please stop.

Sony Aibo

If the prospect of having to carry dongles to keep using your existing wired headphones has you grumpy, maybe a cute little robot dog can cheer you up? A dozen years after discontinuing the original Aibo, Sony announced in August that it was rolling out a new and improved Aibo. Due to go on sale in September at an initial price of $2,899, Aibo is quite the cutie. It’s got mechanized ears, a tail that wiggles if you scratch him on his back or below the chin and OLED displays in his eyes that let him look at you.

He comes programmed to respond to basic commands, and can learn his owner’s face and his home’s surroundings over time.

Motorola One

The One in this phone’s moniker refers to its status as an Android One phone, meaning it ships with a stock version of the Google-powered (GOOG, GOOGL) operating system, and will get its updates direct from Google instead of making users wait for delivery from the phone vendor.