Shoealls, a functional footwear brand based in South Chungcheong Province, unveiled its AI smart shoes at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held at the Las Vegas Convention Center through January 9.
The company introduced its next-generation model, the Smart Geneva, at the Chungnam Pavilion at CES. The shoes integrate the patented Medicio non-powered vibration terminal and a self-generation system based on energy harvesting. Shoealls said this marked the first time the model had been unveiled.
Cheonggeun Lee, chairman of Shoealls , visited Los Angeles on January 4 in conjunction with the CES exhibition to accelerate the company’s expansion into the U.S. market, based on its first LA City Center store. “We are demonstrating at CES an AI-integrated functional shoe that has received medical device GMP certification and manufacturing certification for medical magnetic generators,” Lee said.
The product was jointly developed through the Jump Program of the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency with the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), Pusan National University, and Pusan National University Hospital.
According to Shoealls , the KITECH research team designed the shoes with a total of 40 plantar pressure sensors placed across the heel, midfoot, and forefoot to enable precise analysis of pressure distribution during walking.
Lee said the shoes support 24-hour motion monitoring, fall detection, and location tracking for elderly patients with dementia. He added that gait analysis may also help with the early detection of stroke, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. The company plans to reduce the product’s weight following CES and aims to launch what it describes as the world’s first self-powered wearable smart shoes by the end of this year.
Lee entered the footwear industry in 2002 and founded Shoelz in 2011. The company currently operates 165 stores in Korea and reports annual revenue of approximately 700 billion won. Shoealls offers more than 200 product types, priced between $160 and $350.
Dongmuk Lim, head of Shoealls’s Los Angeles branch, said, “Shoelz commercializes technologies that have won awards at international invention exhibitions in countries such as the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. Proven technology is our competitiveness.”
Shoealls operates overseas stores in the United States, China, and New Zealand, and is planning store expansion this year into Orange County, San Diego, Las Vegas, Arizona, Houston, and Virginia.
“Through CES, we aim to showcase Shoealls’s technology to the global market and grow into the Hermès of the functional footwear industry,” Lee said. “We want to develop made-in-Korea functional shoes into a global brand.”
By Eunyoung Lee lee.eunyoung6@koreadaily.com
