If CES is the tech industry's Super Bowl, IFA is like the NCAA Football Bowl. Not quite the trendsetting tech event of the year, but still worth getting excited for.

Held annually in Berlin, Germany, IFA is essentially Europe's version of CES with one big key difference: It's open to the public and not just industry folks. Also in attendance: Mashable. We'll be bringing you all the major tech news from the proceedings all week.

Here's what we expect to see at this year's show.

More wearables

It's been a quiet year for smartwatches. The usual tech suspects -- LG, Motorola, Huawei -- haven't announced new Android Wear models. Is that a sign that smartwatches are a fad, and the fad is fading? Doubtful.

Fitbit just announced two new fitness trackers. Asus may launch a new round Zenwatch, per leaked images. And Samsung's expected to announce its Tizen-powered Gear S3.

The wearable (smartwatch and fitness trackers) industry continues to grow, but it's becoming clearer by the month that there are considerable challenges to making a wearable people would actually want to wear.

As it stands, smartwatches are still accessories and most are dependent on a connection to a phone in order to be useful. Perhaps at IFA we'll see more smartwatches with built-in cellular connectivity, a feature that makes them more like devices in their own right as opposed to just a wrist-based window to your smartphone.

Smart-home redux

The smart home and so-called "Internet of Things" remain tough sells. There are still too many competing platforms and no universal hub that connects them all.

Amazon's Echo/Alexa, Google's Nest, Apple's HomeKit, Samsung's SmartThings, WeMo, Philips and a dozen other connected home product makers haven't made the smart home easier for consumers to figure out.

Alexa's surprisingly great voice commands surprised everyone last year, and since then we've seen many smart home gadgets adopt Alexa integration. The trend is continuing: Sonos just announced Alexa will come to its audio systems in 2017. And Triby, the first non-Amazon device with Alexa, came out in the spring.

It's a safe bet we'll probably see more Alexa-integrated devices at IFA. And maybe we'll hear about some partnerships with Google's upcoming Echo rival, Google Home? Oh, and I'm sure there will be tons of connected home appliances that nobody will ever really need.

Mobile VR gets serious

Though the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (and soon PlayStation VR) are available, the headsets haven't exactly taken the world by storm. That's not shocking, since they require expensive gaming PCs to work and entire rooms for truly immersive room-scale experiences. Rift doesn't even have its fancy Touch Controllers yet.

Where VR is seeing rapid growth is in mobile. Samsung's Gear VR with Oculus Store content continues to lead the way in mobile VR experiences. But its dominant poisition is threatened by cheaper mobile VR headsets from the likes of Alcatel and Homido and many Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi and Huawei.

Also in the mix is Google Daydream, the search giant's attempt to establish a new standard in mobile VR. Google is enlisting many phone makers to build what will essentially be Gear VR killers. Smartphones certified for Daydream will need to meet certain requirements -- high-resolution screens, powerful processors, new headsets and controllers -- in order to provide a good mobile VR experience.

It's possible a phone manufacturer or two already have some phones with 4K displays made for Daydream. And we hope there will be a couple of VR headsets and controllers to gawk at, too.

Autonomous car tech

IFA is not a car show, but as we've seen with CES over the last few years, the show has attracted newfound car tech-related announcements.

Whether we like it or not, cars are increasingly incorporating computers and AI for sophisticated self-driving capabilities, cellular connectivity, integration with our phones through Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and more.

It's unlikely there will be any major car tech news, but we'll be on the lookout for whatever is dripped out for us.

Everything else

As I learned during my first IFA last year, it can boring to see the usual banal spec bumps in things like TVs (they're bigger, sharper and display more colors... just like every year) and speakers and storage and iPhone accessories.

While getting a first look at products that you'll be able to buy is great, I also like being surprised. I like all the weird and stupid and prototype concept stuff that dare to think outside the box.

Looking back, IFA 2015 had some far-flung futuristic tech that you'd only see in sci-fi movies. Things like Sony's funky smart home concept involving projectors and light bulbs with built-in speakers, a double-sided TV, a magic mirror that applied digital make-up to your face, a smartwatch with a projection screen inside of it and a LEGO-style stackable mini PC all made the trip worth it.

I'm hoping we'll see more stuff like this at IFA this year. Who knows, maybe the entire show will just be USB-C dongles and accessories.

Mashable will be reporting live from IFA starting on Aug. 30. For up-to-date happenings of everything happening on the show floor, streets of Berlin and in the many cabs we'll be riding in order to get to the Messe Berlin center, be sure to follow me on Twitter @raywongy and Stan Schroeder at @franticnews and Mashable on @mashabletech.