The carrying handle on Jess Wiseman’s CHEKT board is the detail that makes the design click for me. Chessboards have an awkward domestic life: leave one out and it claims a chunk of your table; put it away and playing becomes another thing to unpack. CHEKT’s board design considers that friction through a clear enclosure with a handle, while giving the familiar checkerboard a visual personality closer to a desk accessory than a formal game set.

It also addresses a smaller, relatable problem: choosing a board usually means committing to one look. The supplied images show four transparent shells with different graphic treatments, suggesting a way to change the board’s appearance without replacing the underlying object. That’s a more interesting proposition than another beautifully finished slab. I like objects that leave room for your taste to change, especially when they’re likely to spend as much time sitting around as being used.

Designer: Jess Wiseman

Underneath those shells, CHEKT has an eight-by-eight grid of black and pale peach forms. Rounded corners soften the geometry, and the raised surfaces make it look almost like an oversized keyboard. Circular details occupy the middle area, while square forms dominate elsewhere. The images don’t establish what those individual components do mechanically, so I wouldn’t call them buttons or switches. Visually, though, they give the board depth and rhythm that a printed checkerboard doesn’t have.

The clear outer enclosure makes those layers visible rather than hiding them behind a finished exterior. Small orange details along the edges interrupt the black-and-peach palette, and the slim, silver-colored handle gives the whole thing a faint briefcase quality. It’s playful without relying on a novelty shape. Sitting on a desk beside an orange mushroom lamp in one image, the board looks quite comfortable sharing space with objects chosen for their appearance.

The shell graphics are where the design becomes especially expressive. One uses yellow outlines around the squares, another introduces dark diagonal hatching, and a third has red, dot-built chess-piece illustrations. The fourth features large blue circles and angular linework. They offer different degrees of visual busyness, which matters. A graphic you enjoy looking at across the room might be less welcome when you’re trying to read a complicated position. I’d probably start with the quieter option.

One image shows a hand wiping drawn red arrows from the illustrated shell. That suggests a useful secondary role as a surface for working through moves, explaining a position, or marking an idea before clearing it away. It’s an appealing detail for casual learning because the discussion can happen directly over the board. The specific writing tools and surface compatibility aren’t established here, but the pictured interaction gives the transparent layer a purpose beyond changing the color scheme.

That ability to annotate is arguably more compelling than making a chessboard resemble a collectible gadget. You can imagine two people tracing a possible move rather than trying to explain everything through gestures. It wouldn’t replace learning the rules or recognizing positions, but it could make that conversation easier to follow. For me, this is where the graphic design starts earning its place: the surface becomes something you can use, not merely something to admire.

The packaging carries the same attitude. Oversized yellow CHEKT lettering, blue corner accents, chess-piece drawings, and diagrams of the layered board give the boxes a lively, almost hobby-kit character. The shell package explicitly labels its contents as a set of four, making the customization idea legible before anything is opened. I appreciate that clarity. Attractive packaging is more persuasive when it helps explain what the object is, rather than asking the branding to do all the work.

I’d still want to know how the shells attach, how easily their surfaces scratch, and whether the added graphics complicate play. Those answers would determine whether CHEKT feels practical rather than merely photogenic. But the design’s appeal is already clear: it gives a familiar game a place in a less formal room, with an appearance that doesn’t have to be permanent. A chessboard you can carry, customize, and potentially draw on offers several reasons to take it off the shelf.

The post CHEKT’s Chessboard Refuses to Hide Its Layered Design first appeared on Yanko Design.

Your phone can shoot video, run a demanding game, and carry an entire music library. It can also leave you holding a warm slab of glass, untangling a charging cable, or trying to photograph someone under terrible lighting. Those are the gaps worth designing for. A useful accessory should fix a specific irritation without creating three more, preferably through a mechanism you can understand before opening a thick instruction manual.

These nine selections tackle cooling, listening, cable clutter, misplaced cards, awkward camera controls, and backup power. Some attach to the phone; others give it a useful companion on your desk or in your bag. Start with the problem that actually bothers you most each day.

1. OnePlus Ice Card Mini

OnePlus has squeezed a phone cooler into a small card footprint rather than a bulky gaming attachment. The Ice Card Mini is listed in OPPO’s China store and described as a 50-gram body measuring 70mm by 53.4mm. Its thermoelectric chip works with an air-cooling system, while magnets hold the accessory against the phone. That compact packaging is the appeal: cooling becomes something you might carry alongside a cable, rather than reserve for a dedicated desktop gaming setup.

The practical tradeoff is power. The Mini draws up to 3.5W through USB-C and can run from a phone, power bank, or wall adapter. An included magnetic plate lets you attach it to phones without built-in magnets. It gives heat-conscious gamers a relatively discreet option, but drawing power from the phone adds another demand on its battery.

What we like

• Compact, 50-gram magnetic format.
• USB-C power accepts several sources.

What we dislike

• Consumes power rather than supplying it.

2. StillFrame Headphones

If earbuds bother your ears, a phone’s music library deserves another way out. StillFrame Headphones, designed by Tatsufumi Funayama, use an on-ear format with a stainless steel headband and magnetically attached fabric cushions. Circular and square geometry share the housings, with circuitry deliberately exposed. The retro reference has a practical point: you can choose headphones that sit against your ears without choosing the bulk of a conventional over-ear design for everyday listening.

Bluetooth 5.4 handles wireless listening, while the supplied USB-C cable supports wired playback. The headphones include 40mm drivers, noise cancellation, and a transparency mode; the maker claims up to 24 hours of playback. Those choices make StillFrame worth considering for desk listening or commuting when you prefer an alternative to in-ear buds. There’s one unusual operating detail: both sides need charging and separate button presses to power on. Light construction also doesn’t prove comfort or effective noise cancellation by itself.

Click Here to Buy Now: $245.00

What we like

• Low weight and removable magnetic cushions.
• Both wireless and wired playback.

What we dislike

• Both sides require charging and separate power-on presses.
• A full charge takes approximately three hours.

3. SuperCalla Magnetic Charging Cable

A charging cable shouldn’t need its own accessory just to stay organized. SuperCalla builds the organizer into the cable, placing magnets at intervals along its length. Line them up and the cable holds a coil or folded arrangement without a separate tie. The useful distinction is that these magnets manage the cable’s shape; they aren’t detachable charging connectors. For a bag that also carries keys, headphones, and adapters, keeping the loose length contained addresses a very ordinary frustration quite directly.

The manufacturer’s USB-C to USB-C listing separates a 60W, USB 2.0 version from a 100W, USB 3.1 Gen 2 option. That matters because neat storage says nothing about charging speed or file transfer performance. Choose the connector and electrical specification your phone actually needs, then treat the magnetic organization as the bonus.

What we like

• Magnetic organization without a separate cable tie.
• Multiple folding and coiling arrangements.

What we dislike

• Cable variants have different data capabilities.
• Dated shipping information needs clarification.

4. Battery-free Amplifying iSpeakers

The Battery-free Amplifying iSpeakers take a pleasingly literal approach to phone audio: put the phone in a shaped metal enclosure and let the geometry do the work. Designed by Ooi Masato and made in Japan, the accessory uses duralumin rather than a powered amplifier. There’s no Bluetooth pairing, battery gauge, or charging cable involved. For someone who wants to listen aloud at a desk, it offers a dedicated place for the phone without adding another electronic device to the routine.

The attraction is simplicity, not a promise of room-filling volume. The phone remains the sound source, so this makes more sense as a casual listening accessory than a replacement for powered speakers. Check your phone and case fit before buying, along with the position of the speaker opening. Optional +Bloom and +Jet modules redirect sound and are sold separately. It’s an appealing desk object for people who value avoiding chargers and want their phone to have a permanent desktop home.

Click Here to Buy Now: $179.00

What we like

• No battery, charging, or wireless pairing.
• Japanese-made duralumin construction.

What we dislike

• Phone and case fit need checking.
• Optional sound-directing modules cost extra.

5. MOFT Trackable Snap-on Phone Stand & Wallet

A magnetic wallet makes leaving the house with less stuff appealing, right up until you detach it and forget where it went. MOFT’s Trackable Snap-on Phone Stand & Wallet builds Apple Find My support into a folding accessory that also serves as a grip and stand. The current product listing specifies two cards and a 6mm thickness. Its usefulness comes from keeping those functions together, rather than asking you to carry a wallet, separate tracker, and stand every single day.

Find My gives the wallet a way to report its location and sound an alert, making it easier to look for when separated from your phone. MOFT claims around six months between wireless charges, and the folding construction supports portrait, landscape, and floating viewing positions. The limitation is equally clear: this is an Apple-oriented solution with room for just two cards. Its tracking battery is built in and nonreplaceable, so rechargeability is welcome but doesn’t resolve eventual battery serviceability concerns.

What we like

• Find My tracking without a separate tag.
• Wallet, grip, and stand share one folding structure.

What we dislike

• Holds only two cards.
• The tracking battery is not replaceable.

6. WUBEN E1 Magnetic Phone Light

A good phone camera still depends on the light in front of it. WUBEN’s E1 gives you another source to position, combining an adjustable ring light with a magnetic phone mounting arrangement. Brightness is adjustable, and warm, neutral, and cool settings let you choose the color of the light rather than accept whatever the built-in flash provides. The hinged support lets you redirect the light and use the assembly as a stand for your phone too.

This makes the E1 interesting for video calls, close-up filming, and selfies where a small adjustable source is more useful than simply pushing exposure higher. WUBEN rates output at up to 300 lumens, but that specification alone doesn’t establish how flattering the light will look. It recharges through USB-C and needs magnetic phone compatibility or an adapter ring. Check the selected retail bundle carefully: the product page lists the bracket separately among its variants; don’t assume the mount is included.

What we like

• Adjustable brightness and three color-temperature settings.
• Hinged mounting adds control over light direction.

What we dislike

• Adds another battery to recharge.
• Bracket inclusion requires careful checking.

7. Leica LUX Grip

Touchscreens are wonderfully adaptable until you want a control you can find without looking. Leica’s LUX Grip attaches magnetically to a compatible iPhone and adds a two-stage shutter button, two customizable buttons, and a control dial. Half-press the shutter to focus, then press fully to take the photograph. That physical sequence is the point: it brings a recognizable camera action to a device otherwise dominated by glass, giving regular phone photographers a different way to hold and operate their camera.

The aluminum housing weighs approximately 130 grams, and Leica specifies roughly 1,000 exposures per charge. There’s an important software boundary, though: the grip works with the Leica LUX app, not Apple’s built-in Camera app. Registration includes twelve months of LUX Pro, with paid access afterward if you retain the subscription. It’s a specialized choice for someone happy to adopt Leica’s workflow. It does not change the iPhone’s sensor or optics, and it cannot double as a phone-charging power bank either.

What we like

• Physical shutter and configurable controls.
• Supports portrait and landscape attachment.

What we dislike

• Limited to the Leica LUX app.
• Pro access becomes paid after the included year.

8. KUXIU D5 Charging Station

The annoyance here lives around the phone: an Apple Watch charger, an earbud cable, and adapters competing for desk space. KUXIU’s D5 gathers three compatible devices into one wireless charging station, with an adjustable phone platform and a motorized Apple Watch module that retracts into the body. The hidden watch charger is an unusually specific design decision. You only need that protrusion when a watch is charging, so the dock needn’t keep it permanently extended across your desk between sessions.

The display shows input voltage, current, and power, plus individual charging status, giving the dock more feedback than a single indicator light. KUXIU also includes an active cooling fan that can be switched off. Phone charging is advertised at up to 25W, but actual speed depends on the handset’s support. The watch module is specifically for Apple Watch, and earbuds need a wireless-charging case. For a compatible trio, the benefit is consolidation, not a guarantee that everything suddenly charges faster.

What we like

• Three charging positions in one station.
• Retractable watch module and informative display.

What we dislike

• Watch charging is Apple Watch-specific.
• Maximum phone charging speed depends on compatibility.

9. RetroWave 7-in-1 Radio

A smartphone becomes a much less useful companion when the battery runs down, and there’s no outlet nearby. The RetroWave 7-in-1 Radio brings a modest backup battery together with things a phone shouldn’t have to supply indefinitely: a flashlight, an SOS siren, and radio reception. Its 2,000mAh battery can provide a phone top-up, while AM, FM, and shortwave listening work without an internet connection. The tuning dial also provides a direct physical control instead of another screen to navigate.

Bluetooth playback gives RetroWave an everyday role as a phone speaker, while USB and microSD playback let it handle music independently. That matters for an emergency companion: it has reasons to stay accessible rather than disappear into a drawer. Be realistic about its charging options. USB is the primary method, the hand crank is intended for emergencies, and solar charging is supplementary. The small battery won’t replace a substantial power bank, but it offers a useful reserve alongside standalone functions.

Click Here to Buy Now: $89.00

What we like

• Phone charging alongside independent radio and lighting.
• Bluetooth and offline music playback.

What we dislike

• Limited 2,000mAh backup capacity.
• Solar and crank charging are secondary options.

Buy for the Problem You Actually Have

The sensible way to choose from this collection is to start with the irritation, not the accessory. If cables are your daily nuisance, a more elaborate charging station may be unnecessary. If touch controls interrupt your photography, a grip deserves more attention than another camera specification. Match the mechanism to the task, then check the phone, case, app, and charging requirements that determine whether it will actually work for you.

The less obvious question is where the accessory belongs when you’re finished using it. Something that folds, coils, docks, or stays useful independently has a better chance of fitting into a routine than something you must keep rearranging. There’s no need to buy all nine. A phone already does enough jobs; the right companion should remove one small source of friction without giving you another object to manage every day.

The post 9 Smartphone Accessories That Solve the Annoying Problems Your Phone Still Has first appeared on Yanko Design.

Large dining tables are useful right up until you need to move one, when their reassuring weight becomes somebody else’s lifting problem. LAYER’s Ripple research table explores a lighter construction by giving thin plywood a corrugated profile instead of relying on a thick slab. That said, the project keeps a flat surface for everyday use while putting the waves underneath, mostly hidden from view.

The original table was specified at approximately 8.2 feet long and 39.4 inches wide, weighing about 19.8 pounds. That’s a generous dining surface for something intended to be moved by one person. Bringing it across a room for guests or shifting it away from the wall could become less of a coordinated household event. Its footprint, however, doesn’t shrink along with its weight.

Designer: LAYER

The material comes from a collaboration with Canadian manufacturer Corelam, using pressure lamination to form the repeating curves. LAYER specifies plywood approximately 0.12 inches thick, although that isn’t the overall depth of the assembled tabletop. The distinction matters here: the design gets its structure from a shaped sheet and layered construction, rather than pretending a thin, flat board can do everything alone.

Of course, a wavy dining surface would be a fairly annoying place to balance your coffee. Ripple covers its corrugated structure with a flat plywood sheet, leaving the waves visible below and along the edge. Plates and laptops get the ordinary surface they need, while the underside carries the more unusual geometry. The useful part doesn’t have to look particularly experimental from above.

The legs follow the same preference for shape over bulk. A refined version uses hollow triangular profiles, designed to increase rigidity in two directions. The tabletop’s underside also curves gently across its length and width. Those changes address a fairly obvious concern with lightweight furniture: being easy to pick up is only useful if the table still supports what you put on it.

The red finish keeps Ripple from disappearing into the background, even with such a thin outline. From the side, the top appears almost like a sheet balanced on four narrow supports. Along the short edges, the repeating curves reveal why that impression is misleading. The structure supplies its own ornament, without adding a carved border or a heavier decorative frame.

Using less wood is part of the environmental argument, too. The project’s original documentation claims 70% to 80% less material than a standard timber table, but doesn’t establish a defined comparison for that figure. Less material isn’t automatically a complete environmental assessment, either. Adhesives, finishing, production, and working life still matter, even when the basic idea of doing more with less is appealing.

LAYER presents Ripple as a studio research project, without a current retail price or ordering details. The construction offers an answer for people whose furniture has to move with them, though size remains a constraint. You might no longer need help with the lifting, but you’d still need a clear route through the house before taking that tabletop around a corner.

The post LAYER’s Ripple Dining Table Uses a Wavy Plywood Core to Cut Weight first appeared on Yanko Design.

Moss has been on this planet for around 450 million years, which means it predates dinosaurs, continents as we know them, and the concept of a watering schedule. The plant’s actual trick is that it has no roots and absorbs everything it needs directly through its surface, which makes it one of the most low-maintenance living things you could put in a room. Interior designers figured this out around 2015 and started installing living moss walls everywhere from hotel lobbies to coworking spaces, at which point the rest of us learned that professional moss wall installation costs roughly what a decent used car costs. A consumer-friendly version of that idea has been weirdly slow to materialize. MOSSLAB designed Moss Hexa around that natural biology, using a soil-free system that reduces day-to-day care while preserving the texture and presence of real moss.

Moss Hexa is a modular moss system using 100% real moss panels in a hexagonal format, mounting via a proprietary magnetic system called HexaLock that lets you click panels into place, rearrange them, or swap them out without tools. Three panel types handle the main use cases: Basic for pure moss texture and color, Light for integrated LED ambient lighting with an auto-dimming sensor and app control, and Wood for warmth and visual rhythm as an accent. MOSSLAB, the South Korea-based studio behind the award-winning Moss Air and Moss Echo, built all three modules to share the same mounting hardware, making the whole system genuinely expandable over time without disturbing anything already on the wall. Pricing runs from a discounted $59 for the 3-panel Basic Starter Pack, with larger configurations available at campaign-exclusive pricing.

Designer: MOSSLAB

Click Here to Buy Now: $59 $90 ($31 off). Hurry, only a few left!

Hexagonal patterns appear throughout nature because they connect efficiently, repeat beautifully, and expand with minimal wasted space, from honeycomb structures to cellular geometry in biological tissue. MOSSLAB’s choice of the hexagon as Moss Hexa’s base unit is a structural decision that determines how the system scales and how freely it grows, and it pays off. Each panel measures 8.27 × 7.09 × 1.42 inches (210 × 180 × 36 mm), and because hexagons share flat, parallel edges on all sides, tiles can cluster in multiple directions without gaps or forced symmetry. The system offers preset configurations of 3, 9, and 15 panels, but the geometry means there’s nothing stopping you from building something in between. It holds up when you pull everything down six months later and try a completely different arrangement from scratch, which is the whole point.

The Basic panel features 100% real moss that is naturally drought-tolerant, requires no direct sunlight, and needs only occasional light misting to stay at its best. Its frame is made from PC and steel, with magnetic components, and the whole panel weighs just 0.75 lb (338 g). The moss retains its color and three-dimensional texture between mistings, helping preserve the natural depth and organic character that distinguish real moss from artificial alternatives. The Wood panel uses the same HexaLock mounting footprint but replaces moss with a warm wood-finish surface, designed as a compositional accent rather than a primary surface. A mostly-moss arrangement with a few Wood panels breaking the pattern is the right call; the contrast reads as intentional interior design rather than a texture experiment that got away from you.

Each Light panel combines 100% real moss with built-in ambient lighting designed to bring out the moss’s natural depth, color, and texture while changing the atmosphere of the surrounding space. Brightness can be adjusted from 1–100%, with a maximum power draw of 7W per panel, while a built-in ambient light sensor automatically adapts the lighting as the environment changes. Light panels connect directly to one another through USB-C-to-USB-C connections, and one Control Hub & Power Adapter can support up to nine Light Panels. The Hexa App provides manual lighting control, lighting presets, and Natural Daily Rhythm scheduling, giving users more flexibility to shape the atmosphere throughout the day.

Sound absorption performance was independently measured by KCL, a KOLAS-accredited laboratory recognized under the international ILAC-MRA framework, using a Moss Echo installation made with the same real moss material used across MOSSLAB’s Moss product line. Covering nearly 11 m² with approximately 300 moss panels, the installation was tested in a large-scale interior setting. The test recorded sound absorption of 27% at common speech frequencies, increasing to 56% at frequencies associated with keyboard typing and up to 65% at higher frequencies associated with background chatter. Those results add a functional layer to real moss beyond its visual and tactile presence. Because the test was conducted using the same real moss material found in Moss Hexa, the takeaway is not that Hexa replaces dedicated acoustic treatment, but that the material itself brings measurable sound-absorbing properties into a system designed to change how a space feels.

Powered by the HexaLock magnetic mounting system, each panel snaps into place with a single click, no complicated measuring, no specialist tools, no installation experience needed. You attach the mounting guide to your chosen surface, and both screws and adhesive mounting options are included. The guide handles alignment automatically, so panels sit consistently without leveling. The key design call is that Basic, Light, and Wood panels all share the same HexaLock footprint, meaning you can swap any panel type for any other at any point without touching the wall hardware. You can start with 3 Basic panels, add Light panels as a seasonal upgrade, and work toward a 15-panel Signature Styling set across multiple additions, all from the same original wall installation. The dual mounting option, screws for homeowners and adhesive for renters, is a small detail MOSSLAB got right, and the kind of thing you only think to include if you’ve genuinely considered your customer’s actual living situation.

Moss Air earned a CES Innovation Award, an iF Design Award, and an IDEA Design Award, and MOSSLAB has also participated in an open innovation program with a major Korean conglomerate, and in 2025 was the only international startup chosen among five for Panasonic’s Electric Works accelerator program. These are production-level credentials, not concept-stage accolades, and they matter when evaluating a new product that ships internationally. The Basic Starter Pack (3 panels) will be available for $59 during the first 72 hours of the Kickstarter campaign launch, the Light Starter Pack (3 panels) at $99, and the 9-panel Basic and Light Standard Packs starting at $159 and $229, respectively. The 15-panel Signature Styling Pack, which combines Basic, Light, and Wood panels, starts at $339 during the same launch period. Individual add-ons are available at $25 for a Basic Panel, $40 for a Light Panel, and $24 for a Wood Panel, while an additional Control Hub & Power Adapter Set is $23. Estimated U.S. shipping starts at $25 for a 3-panel configuration, with fulfillment estimated to begin in June 2027.

Click Here to Buy Now: $59 $90 ($31 off). Hurry, only a few left!

The post This glowing modular moss panel system might be the coolest way to fix a boring room first appeared on Yanko Design.

In 2006, Dutch designer Joris Laarman fed a bone growth algorithm into a computer and got a chair that looked grown rather than built. His Bone Chair became a landmark of generative furniture, and every hollowed out, nature mimicking object since has lived in its shadow. Zaha Hadid’s flowing buildings, Ross Lovegrove’s organic forms, and Neri Oxman’s computational experiments all share that family tree. Chairs, buildings, and lamps have all been invited to the reunion. Keyboards, strangely, never got the invite.

Pulse One, designed by Haoyuan Lu of New York based Pulsekey, is the late RSVP. Its 3D metal printed shell was shaped through generative design and digital sculpting, fusing the palm rest, frame, and bezel into one mirror finish lattice that looks like a skeleton went to a spa. White keycaps float above clear switches, and the board runs wireless. It earned Silver in Consumer Electronics / Computer Accessories at the International Design Awards. This is the most extra keyboard ever made, and I say that with admiration.

Designers: Haoyuan Lu, Hongbin Zhang & Wendi Yu

The closest pop culture cousin is the T-1000, the liquid metal assassin from Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991. That movie made flowing chrome terrifying, and designers have been borrowing the look ever since, minus the murder. Pulse One has the same mercury sheen, and every curve catches the light and stretches it into long silver ribbons. Park it on a desk and your monitor suddenly has a reflection to argue with. I would not outrun it, but I would happily let it sit next to my coffee.

Generative design, in general, works by handing a computer a set of goals and letting it propose the shape. The software piles material where a structure needs it and strips it away where it does not, which is why the results look so organic. You can see that logic in Pulse One’s shell, where big elliptical voids sit beside slim, tapering bridges of metal. Lu’s team then refined the form through digital sculpting, which is how a machine’s cold logic ends up looking this graceful. It reads as grown, much like Laarman’s chair did.

Folding the palm rest, frame, and bezel into one piece also cleans up a messy corner of keyboard design. Most boards stack a case, a plate, and a wrist rest, each with its own seams, screws, and opinions about alignment. Pulse One’s shell sweeps all of that into a single form that cradles the switches and tilts them toward your hands. A few small screws are still visible in the photos, so it is not magic, only very tidy engineering. Your wrists get a sculpted perch where a foam strip usually lives.

Under all that sculpture sits a keyboard people can actually live with. The campaign pitches it as wireless, hot-swappable, and good for weeks on a charge. Hot-swap sockets let you pull a switch and drop in another without a soldering iron, and one product photo shows exactly that, a lone switch pulled out beside a stray arrow keycap. The entry also describes the construction as modular, built for maintenance, customization, and renewal. Basically, it looks like a museum piece and behaves like a tinkerer’s board.

The post This chrome skeleton is the most extra mechanical keyboard ever made first appeared on Yanko Design.

For fifteen years, Apple was the friend who shows up to the party an hour late and then insists it brought the best snacks. Tim Cook even had a motto for it, saying Apple was perfectly fine with not being first. Then John Ternus took over on September 1, and the snack table got crowded fast. In six weeks Apple has revealed the foldable iPhone Duo, a HomeView smart display in tabletop and wall-mounted versions, and nine smart home accessories. That makes twelve fresh designs, a wild number for a company that used to agonize over one hinge.

HomeView and the foldable will get the splashy coverage, but the real fun is the smart home gear. LG Electronics and Schneider Electric helped Apple build a video doorbell, a floodlight cam, outdoor and indoor cams, a deadbolt, two thermostats, and two sensors. They start arriving in December, with prices running from $39.95 for a sensor to $399.95 for the floodlight cam. Apple’s fingerprints are all over them, from the aluminum to the black glass to the rounded shapes. I am here to tell you why that deserves a small celebration.

Designers: LG and Schneider for Apple

The ROKR Taught Apple to Keep the Design and Rent the Factory

In September 2005, Steve Jobs launched the Motorola ROKR E1, a rebadged Motorola phone with an iTunes button and a cap of 100 songs. The demo stumbled and the phone flopped. Jobs looked pained onstage, and you can see why, since Apple’s software was riding around in someone else’s hardware. Roughly sixteen months later he unveiled the iPhone. The ROKR was a stepping stone he needed, taken at exactly the moment he needed it.

Ternus gets to run that play with the lesson already learned. Bloomberg reports that Apple shaped the design, features, and engineering of the LG gear, while LG handles manufacturing and support. The ROKR was Motorola’s design wearing Apple’s software. This is Apple’s design wearing LG’s factory. Ternus joined Apple in 2001, so he watched the ROKR saga from the inside, and the LG deal likely began on Cook’s watch but ships under Ternus, which puts it in his column.

Nine Products, One Family Look From Two Different Companies

Line up the lock, camera, thermostat, and doorbell from Apple’s photo and the family resemblance is hard to miss. The Smart Deadbolt pairs a black glass keypad with a pill-shaped aluminum plate, and the Video Doorbell is an aluminum column capped in black glass. The Indoor Cam’s round head swivels on a chrome pivot that echoes the hinge on HomeView. The big 68 on the thermostat belongs to Schneider, yet it shares the same soft rounded-square body. Two companies, one look.

The Indoor Cam physically tilts down to stop watching the moment the first person gets home, which is the friendliest privacy gesture I have seen on a camera. The doorbell carries a 2.5K front camera plus a 1080p lens aimed at the doorstep for packages. The deadbolt uses Ultra Wideband (a precise short-range radio) to unlock as you walk up with your iPhone or Apple Watch, and it keeps working without internet. Everything sets up with one tap on your iPhone. There is no extra app and no extra account.

Ternus Ships What Is Ready Instead of Waiting for Perfect

Cook’s way was to wait until Apple could do it perfectly, and the home hub paid for it, slipping from spring 2025 while Siri caught up. Ternus, per Bloomberg, wants Apple to ship faster, experiment more, and spread launches through the year instead of two big events. HomeView still waited for Siri AI, so the rulebook did not change overnight. What changed is that the wait no longer stalls everything around it. The doorbell, lock, cameras, and thermostats are ready now, and Apple is shipping them.

The Home Collection starts at $39.95 for a sensor, with the lock at $349.95 and the floodlight cam topping out at $399.95. It arrives in December in the U.S. and Canada, the cameras and doorbell are also heading to the UK, and select items slip to early 2027. You can see the full lineup in Apple’s Home Collection announcement. Cook’s Apple was the friend who showed up late with the best snacks. Ternus’s Apple shows up on time, brings the snacks, and even has gluten-free options because he listened to his audience.

The post Twelve New Designs in Six Weeks: Why I Love the new Apple under John Ternus first appeared on Yanko Design.

Apple’s design team apparently raided four different family albums and stitched the best bits into one object. HomeView has the iMac G4’s floating-screen silhouette, Apple Watch-style faces, the iPad’s slab of glass, and a speaker base that recalls the HomePod. I have a soft spot for that sunflower-lamp iMac, so seeing a dome and a tilting display make a comeback in 2026 made me unreasonably happy. Somehow the pile of parts works visually. It looks like a lamp, has a tablet’s touchscreen, and doubles as a speaker.

Apple announced HomeView on October 13, 2026. It pairs a 7-inch Liquid Retina screen with a domed aluminum speaker base and a stainless steel hinge that lets you tilt the display. An A18 chip and the rebuilt Siri AI run the show, and Apple says it recognizes up to six enrolled users, each with a personalized experience. A wall-mounted version offers the same screen and core functions, though its speaker hardware differs. Both models cost $299 in the U.S., with preorders open and availability scheduled for November 13, 2026.

Designer: Apple

The iMac G4’s Dome and Personality Make a Comeback

The iMac G4 arrived in January 2002 with a 15-inch flat panel hovering over its base. Its sunflower-inspired form emerged from Steve Jobs and Jony Ive’s design discussions; Walter Isaacson’s account credits Ive with suggesting that the screen be separated from the base like a sunflower. HomeView echoes that silhouette but swaps the long swinging arm for a compact hinge, which suits a counter where nobody wants a lamp neck knocking over the olive oil. The tilt adjustment gives you some latitude on a low nightstand or a tall kitchen island.

The G4 showed how much personality a computer’s shape could carry. HomeView’s similar stance makes a box packed with a camera and microphones look friendlier, at least to my eye. A dome with a head-on-neck posture reads more like a desk pet than a gadget, which is a handy trick for something that recognizes faces. The thick black bezel is a taste call I’m happy to defend: it gives the Photos face a proper picture-frame border.

Apple Watch-Style Faces and iPad Glass Decide What You See

The screen looks like it comes from the iPad side of the family: a square slab of glass with rounded corners and a front camera for FaceTime. Center Stage adjusts the framing as people move or join the call. Apple lists a brightness range from 500 nits down to 0.3 nits, allowing the display to dim substantially at bedtime. True Tone adjusts the white balance to ambient lighting. Selected interface elements also respond to your distance, showing simpler information across the room and more detail as you approach.

The faces feel distinctly Apple Watch-like. Photos offers Portrait-style depth effects, while Flow reacts to movement in the room. Snoopy’s animations respond to the time of day, weather, and sporting events, a very Watch way of being useful and adorable at once. Home Modular puts favorite accessories on one dashboard, and Home Camera can stream up to nine video feeds at once. Fan designers were exploring this territory years ago. Justin Latham’s HomePod Nano concept, which we covered in 2023, imagined a speaker with a display running a proposed watchOS fork. It was a fan concept, not an Apple product or working software announcement. HomeView’s Live Activities surface the current song, an active timer, or an incoming Intercom message, bringing that glance-and-go logic to a household screen.

The Speaker Base Does the Heavy Lifting

The base recalls the HomePod, although Apple’s images show a perforated, color-matched exterior rather than the HomePod’s fabric mesh. Small grille holes also run along the display’s lower edge. A down-firing woofer and two force-cancelling passive radiators sit in the base, while two full-range drivers occupy the display.Apple says computational audio uses its silicon and onboard sensors to adjust loudness and bass response in real time.  The wall-mounted model has two full-range drivers but no base-mounted woofer or passive radiators, so the two versions shouldn’t be treated as acoustically identical. HomeView supports multiroom audio alongside HomePod, HomePod mini, and AirPlay-compatible speakers. Intercom also reaches HomeView and HomePod speakers elsewhere in the house.

The original HomePod was announced in 2017 at $349, when we dubbed it Apple’s “tune-busting Fabergé Egg.” Against that historical price, $299 for a speaker, screen, camera, and face recognition looks tempting on paper. You can pre-order HomeView on Apple’s site now, with both the tabletop and wall-mounted models arriving November 13. The tabletop unit ships with a color-matched USB-C cable, while the wall version relies on Schneider Home’s power mounts, which start at $59.95 and are sold separately. Siri AI launches in beta and in English, and Apple is not selling HomeView in the EU for now. Every ancestor in this object was Apple’s bet on a different decade, and HomeView is the first time they all share one counter.

The post Meet Apple HomeView: A weirdly genius combination of the iMac, Watch, iPad, and HomePod first appeared on Yanko Design.

Apple’s official answer to a smudgy MacBook screen is a $9 Polishing Cloth, which, to be fair, is ten bucks cheaper than the version everyone roasted in 2021. MacPaw has a more extravagant answer. The Ukrainian company behind CleanMyMac just revealed CleanMyMac Mist, its first physical product, a screen and keyboard cleaner dressed up as a bottle of designer fragrance. One spritz on a microfiber cloth is meant to lift the fingerprints and leave your laptop smelling like a frosty pine forest. Your candles, your hand soap and your car already have signature scents, so honestly, the MacBook was overdue.

MacPaw calls the scent Frosted Juniper, picked because juniper grows both in Ukraine, where the company was founded, and in California, where the Mac was born. That’s a little sentimental, and I’m completely here for it. The notes run from camphor, ozone and citrus up top to fir needle, cedar leaf and green apple at the base, and the brief was to smell clean without smelling like a cleaning product. Pole, a design and small-batch production studio in Ivano-Frankivsk, made the glass atomizer, its metal case, and a pink box loud enough to see from across the office. Only 100 bottles exist, and they’re up for grabs via a CleanMyMac Instagram and TikTok giveaway until October 23, so don’t go hunting for a price tag.

Designers: MacPaw & Pole

Every design choice here borrows from the perfume counter instead of the cleaning aisle. A slim glass atomizer sits inside a cylindrical metal case, and its silver-and-gray finish would sit happily next to any MacBook. The box flips the mood entirely, with a hot pink tray holding the Mist, a microfiber cloth, a small brush and a scent card, which is basically a perfume blotter for your laptop. The whole package is designed to live on your desk in plain view, far away from the Windex under the kitchen sink. Le Labo pulled a similar trick with its hand-cast concrete diffuser, treating a fragrance gadget as decor first.

Apple’s own cleaning guide warns against aerosol sprays, so the Mist uses a pump atomizer, and you spritz the cloth instead of the screen. That small habit change tackles a real problem, since one in three US Mac owners in MacPaw’s survey admitted to damaging their machine while cleaning it. The product site names the usual culprits: glass cleaners that strip anti-reflective coatings, paper towels that leave micro-scratches, and the hoodie sleeve that only feels like it’s doing something. Apple Stores reportedly keep their display units spotless with WHOOSH!, so dedicated screen formulas are nothing new. MacPaw’s twist is making the formula something you’d happily smell on your fingertips afterward, though nano-texture displays should still stick to Apple’s dry cloth.

As a longtime CleanMyMac user, I find the whole thing delightfully on the nose. The app launched in 2008, has racked up 29 million downloads sweeping caches, logs and leftover app files out of Macs, and MacPaw says it cleans a million machines a day. For 18 years, “clean” was a metaphor for digital housekeeping, and now the metaphor has a nozzle and a note pyramid. MacPaw handed the physical side to Pole, a design and production center in Ivano-Frankivsk with metal, wood, ceramics and biolab workshops under one roof. Pole specializes in runs of 1 to 500 units and built elements for Ukraine’s pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, so a 100-bottle drop sits right in its comfort zone.

The Mist isn’t for sale, and the only way to get a bottle is a giveaway on CleanMyMac’s Instagram and TikTok that closes at 11:59 PM EST on October 23. MacPaw will pick 10 winners on Instagram and 5 on TikTok, so the odds are slim, but every entrant still gets a 20% CleanMyMac coupon. The full scent breakdown and entry details live at cleanmymacmist.com. Millions of Mac owners already trust MacPaw with the inside of their machines, and I suspect plenty of them would buy a refill to keep the outside smelling like a snowy forest. Frosted Juniper makes a great first edition, though I’m already lobbying for a cozy sandalwood one by December.

The post CleanMyMac just made a Screen Cleaning Perfume for your MacBook that smells like a pine forest first appeared on Yanko Design.

Everyone has held a milk carton, which is exactly why CMF’s new speakers are so hard to stop looking at. CMF, the budget sub-brand of Nothing, shaped its first Bluetooth speakers like gable-top cartons, a form that toy manufacturer John Van Wormer of Toledo, Ohio, patented in 1915 as the Pure-Pak. Your brain files that silhouette under breakfast, fridge door, and home before it even registers the grille. Then the colors and a deliberately mismatched knob finish the job. Black cylinders and bricks have run the speaker aisle for a decade, so a carton is practically a plot twist.

The CMF Speaker S ($59) and Speaker M ($109) launched October 12 at nothing.tech and select retailers, in white, dark grey, turquoise, and orange. CMF’s own product pages cite a carton’s sharp geometry as the inspiration, so the resemblance is deliberate. A sloped roof carries the knob where a carton’s screw cap would sit, and the M’s top fin doubles as a carry handle. The front panel and knob pop off, which turns each speaker into a base for swapping or 3D printing. Both are IP68 too, so the carton can sit on a patio table without a worry.

Designer: CMF by Nothing

The carton’s anatomy, rebuilt as a speaker face

A carton has three recognizable parts, and CMF kept all three. The sloped gable roof becomes the top edge of a folded color panel that wraps over from the front face. The sealed top seam becomes the M’s raised fin with a handle cutout, while the S settles for a round cutout in the corner. The screw cap, a carton upgrade Elopak dates to 1991, becomes a knob you press and turn. On the orange and turquoise models, a dark grey body sits behind the panel, so the color reads like printed paperboard around a core.

The grilles do the decorating. On the turquoise model the mesh is a deeper teal, on the orange it turns brick red, and on white and dark grey it goes black, so each face is a flat field with big circles punched in. The M stacks two of them, the S gets one, and a small pixel-style cmf wordmark sits above like a tiny brand stamp. An oval button with a white light bar is the only other mark besides the knob. That is very few elements, all of them deliberate.

Pint-and-quart proportions and a color system with a mismatched knob

The S measures 5.1 by 3.3 by 1.7 inches (130.5 by 85 by 44mm). The M stretches to 8.7 inches (220mm) tall at the same 85mm width, so the pair reads like a pint and a quart of the same product. Helen Sanematsu’s 1999 AIGA Journal essay on milk packaging argued that cartons get their punch from standing in rows, with color separating the varieties. CMF’s launch imagery lines up four colors across two sizes, which plays that exact game. Put them on a shelf together and you get a dairy case designed by someone with great taste.

Each colorway gets its own knob: a black X on orange, a white ring on turquoise, a red paddle on dark grey, and a teal paddle on white. That deliberate mismatch gives every speaker a single accent, like a bright cap on a carton. Pop it off and you can mix freely or 3D print your own, a habit that follows the CMF Phone 1, whose community printed everything from Lego-friendly backs to a foam dart launcher. We once featured a fan concept for a CMF speaker that went retro radio. The carton is the braver call.

Drivers, battery life, and durability behind the carton

The S pairs a 1.8 inch (45mm) driver with two passive radiators, unpowered diaphragms that beef up bass, for 10W. The M adds a 2.8 inch (70mm) woofer and 0.6 inch (16mm) tweeter for 35W RMS, a continuous power rating. Both claim 18 hours at 50 percent volume with Ultra Bass on, enough for a workday and the commute. A 10 minute charge buys an hour while you hunt for your keys. They survive 30 minutes in nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water and passed a 30 inch (0.76 meter) drop test.

The S costs $59 and the M $109, and both are on sale now at nothing.tech and select retailers. That puts a distinctive object within impulse-buy range, which is unusual for a design this committed. It is the rare budget speaker that makes you want to rearrange a shelf. Van Wormer’s carton survived a century by being easy to hold, stack, and carry, and a portable speaker wants the same three traits. Somebody finally noticed a great speaker shape was sitting in your fridge door all along.

The post Why CMF’s New Milk Carton Speakers Are So Irresistible To Look At first appeared on Yanko Design.

Ants aren’t usually welcome around a coffee table, especially when there are snacks involved. The Colheita Coffee Table concept, however, borrows something more useful from them: the curved cuts left by leafcutter ants. Its steel surface folds downward to become its own legs, while movable wooden supports provide places for drinks. The nature reference gives the table its construction logic, rather than simply decorating it.

The body starts with a single steel sheet, cut by laser and bent so three broad sections reach the floor. Those sections remain attached, leaving openings where a conventional tabletop would be solid. Rather than adding separate legs underneath, Colheita carries the tabletop material through to its base. The relationship is easy to follow, even if the resulting silhouette is rather unusual.

Designer: Fabrício Auler

That approach is intended to reduce component count and material waste, although it isn’t a claim of waste-free manufacturing. A smaller detail helps explain how the sheet takes shape: enlarged, rounded ends on the cuts provide relief during bending. They’re there to ease stress where flat metal becomes a leg. The graceful curves have a fabrication purpose alongside their resemblance to a harvested leaf.

The wooden pieces might look like little bowls at first, but their flat tops serve as platforms rather than containers. Each hemisphere has a groove that slots onto the folded steel, allowing it to move along the edge. The wood adds a warmer color and visible grain to the dark metal, while giving a glass or small object its own resting place.

That means the arrangement doesn’t have to stay the same after you’ve chosen where the table goes. Move a wooden support closer to your seat, or spread them around when friends gather on different sides. The system is also intended to help stabilize the upper surface. These small additions therefore have a job beyond making the steel look a little less austere.

Of course, all those openings leave less uninterrupted space for whatever usually accumulates on a coffee table. A book or tray needs a solid patch beneath it, and a loose remote won’t forgive careless placement. The gaps do leave room for trailing plants and allow light through. Colheita invites you to arrange its contents more deliberately, which won’t appeal to everyone’s housekeeping habits.

The project also explores an unfinished carbon steel version, letting oxidation change the surface’s colors and patterns over time. That’s a different proposition from furniture meant to keep an immaculate, uniform finish. It gives the table a changing appearance rather than a permanent shade of gray. The project presentation doesn’t explain how to manage that aging around spilled drinks or routine household cleaning.

Colheita means “harvest” in Portuguese, a nod to the ants and to gathering around the table. It remains a concept project with fabrication work documented, rather than a verified retail offering. Dimensions and load capacity aren’t provided. Before trusting one of those platforms with hot coffee, you’d want to know how securely it stays put when someone nudges the table.

The post Colheita Coffee Table Concept Shapes Its Steel Legs With Ant-Inspired Cuts first appeared on Yanko Design.

Clocks have become so familiar that we barely think about what their hands are doing. They point to positions around a circle, a habit that Orbit keeps while removing the hands themselves. This ultra-minimalist clock concept replaces them with two magnetically held metal spheres, giving time a physical presence you can reach and remove, instead of leaving it behind protective glass.

The face is a dark circular disk with two concentric recessed tracks, each carrying a polished sphere. There’s no cluster of numerals or central pin to interrupt the surface. Instead, the grooves give the small bearings separate paths, while their reflective finish contrasts with the darker background. The clock’s relief supplies the detail that printed markings would normally provide on a conventional dial.

Designer: Liam de la Bedoyere (boredeye.design)

One sphere represents the hours and the other the minutes, preserving the basic logic of an analog clock. You still look for positions around the face, only without a pair of hands connecting those positions to the center. That makes the idea less unfamiliar than it initially sounds. Reading it doesn’t call for learning an entirely new code, although some adjustment seems inevitable.

Of course, removing all those markings comes with a compromise. Estimating the hour should be simpler than judging an exact minute on an unmarked circle. Orbit could suit a living room where a glance is enough to keep track of the afternoon. Checking how many minutes remain before catching a train might make you rather grateful for the numbers on your phone.

The more unusual part is that the spheres aren’t permanently trapped in their tracks. Magnetic attachment is intended to let you lift each one away and put it back, adding a tactile interaction to an object usually left alone. That’s a surprisingly playful detail for such a restrained design, especially when removing both markers would leave the clock with nothing to tell you.

There’s a sculptural quality to the body itself, with a rounded outer edge and circular channels that give the black surface depth. A rear keyhole slot provides for wall mounting, keeping that face upright without a separate stand. The name Orbit feels appropriate here, with two small spheres occupying rings around an empty center, rather than hands meeting at a shared pivot point.

Orbit remains a concept, so there’s no established price or availability to weigh against those compromises. Its detachable markers do suggest a rather different relationship with a wall clock, though. Reach for the face and you’re handling the things that tell the time. Just make sure those little spheres don’t end up somewhere less useful, such as behind the living room sofa.

The post Orbit Clock Concept Lets You Pick Up Its Hour and Minute Markers first appeared on Yanko Design.

Putting a laptop away doesn’t solve every problem with working from home. A video call still needs some privacy, and recording a voiceover beside the dishwasher is a negotiation nobody particularly wants. I like furniture that helps a room do more, but a folding desk only addresses half the issue. Sometimes the missing piece is a door.

FUSEBOOX, designed by Czech architect Vojtěch Kolínský of Prague studio Indivizual, proposes a home office that slides out when needed and retracts into the surrounding interior afterward. It’s a built-in acoustic workspace, presented at DesignBlok 2026, rather than another freestanding booth asking for permanent floor space. The problem it tackles is straightforward: finding somewhere to concentrate without dedicating an entire room to it.

Designer: Vojtěch Kolínský

The module has three positions. Open, it works as a desk within the larger room, so you can stay connected to whatever’s happening around you. Extended and closed, it becomes a private enclosure intended to reduce noise traveling in and out. Retracted, the workspace disappears behind its exterior panels. A custom-developed mechanism handles extension and retraction automatically, according to the maker. That’s a more useful distinction than simply calling it a disappearing desk.

In the supplied images, the interior looks invitingly domestic. Pale wood-grain surfaces, textured wall panels, a narrow shelf, and warm lighting surround a compact desk. The exhibition setup includes a microphone and a metronome, while another image shows a guitar mounted above the worktop. Those details suggest a space for practicing and making things, not merely surviving the next calendar invitation. I’d rather see that than a miniature corporate meeting room.

The acoustic ambition deserves a closer look. FUSEBOOX describes a multilayer construction with sealed contact edges that limits sound transmission, alongside treatment intended to control reflections and reverberation inside. In practical terms, keeping household noise out and reducing echo around a microphone are separate jobs, and the design aims to address both. The supplied release promises studio-quality sound, but provides no measured isolation figures or independent testing to establish that claim.

Ventilation and adjustable lighting are included, with the website specifying variable brightness and color temperature. These are sensible priorities for a small enclosed workspace. I’d want airflow and lighting considered alongside the moving panels, because a booth that looks good from the couch still has to make sense from the chair. The tall glazed side panels visible in the images also keep the enclosure from looking like an opaque cabinet.

The hidden position is the strongest part of the idea for me. Closing a laptop leaves the desk, cables, and unfinished work in view. Closing up an entire workspace could give the living room a more convincing end to the workday. That isn’t a promise of better productivity or instant relaxation. It’s a physical boundary you can see, which feels more useful than another reminder to log off.

Of course, the module doesn’t manufacture extra square footage. Its built-in portion still occupies space, and the extended enclosure needs clear floor area in front. A coffee table or an awkward circulation path could complicate the arrangement. I see it as borrowing space at different times, rather than making space disappear. That makes the surrounding room layout just as important as the mechanism.

FUSEBOOX is designed and made in the Czech Republic, with configurable layouts, materials, fittings, upholstery, and exterior finishes. The company plans to open preorders in January 2027; prices and detailed dimensions haven’t been published yet. Those omissions matter for anyone picturing it at home. A custom built-in belongs in a renovation conversation, and renters would need to discuss installation with their landlord.

I’m drawn to the restraint of the proposal. The images suggest you could finish the exterior to read as ordinary cabinetry, leaving the more elaborate engineering behind it. A home office doesn’t always need to announce itself from across the room. If the acoustics and installation prove convincing, FUSEBOOX could offer something genuinely useful: a place to work, followed by permission to stop looking at it.

The post FUSEBOOX’s Hidden Home Office Slides Away After Work first appeared on Yanko Design.

Football season turns living rooms into something closer to a clubhouse for a few hours every weekend. The right gear makes that shift effortless, pulling together sound, screen, food, and drink into one setup that actually works for a full slate of games rather than falling apart by halftime.

None of these eight picks are trying to reinvent the sport itself. They’re solving the real logistics of hosting: the can that never pours right, the cooler that goes warm by the second quarter, the speaker setup that can’t keep up with a packed room full of noise.

1. DraftPro Top Can Opener

There’s a reason the first pour matters so much on game day. DraftPro removes the entire top of a can instead of just puncturing it, turning a beer or sparkling water into something closer to a glass pour, aroma included. Designed by Shu Kanno and built in Japan, the motion is smooth and controlled, with a clean edge that’s safe to drink from directly. For you, that means handing a guest a can that actually tastes like it was poured properly, without reaching for a single glass all game.

It works for more than beer too. Drop ice straight into the can for instant chilling when the cooler’s running warm, or mix a quick cocktail right inside it with zero cleanup. Compatible with domestic and international cans, it travels well between the kitchen and the couch, and the clean cut even lets you repurpose empties into planters or pen holders once the game’s over.

Click Here to Buy Now: $60.00

What We Like

• Removes the entire top for a smooth, glass-like drinking experience
• Works as a makeshift cocktail shaker with no extra dishes to wash

What We Dislike

• Only a handful of units were listed in stock at the time of writing
• Limited to cans, so bottles need a separate opener nearby

2. PhaseTherma

A great drink setup falls apart the moment the ice turns to water. Freezill solves that with PhaseTherma, a phase-change cooling core that keeps ice solid for up to 150 hours without any external power source. For you, that means setting up the drink station once before kickoff and not thinking about it again until the final whistle of a doubleheader weekend, no refills, no plugging anything in.

At $149, it reads less like a cooler and more like premium travel gear that happens to double as game day equipment. The zero power draw also means it works just as well on a porch or in a garage as it does parked next to the couch, so the setup goes wherever the crowd ends up sitting.

What We Like

• PhaseTherma core keeps ice solid for up to 150 hours
• Needs zero external power to maintain its cooling performance

What We Dislike

• $149 is a real investment for what is, at its core, a cooler
• Premium design means it’s built for care, not for rough outdoor use

3. Battery-free Amplifying iSpeakers

Every other speaker in the room needs something: a charge, a pairing sequence, a Wi-Fi password. This one needs nothing but your phone. Designed by Ooi Masato and machined from Duralumin, the same vibration-resistant aluminum alloy used in aircraft, it amplifies a smartphone’s built-in speaker purely through acoustic geometry. For you, that means setting it down on a side table and having sound fill the room without a single cable in sight.

The chamber’s proportions were shaped using the golden ratio, which is less a gimmick and more the reason the sound comes out as focused as it does. No app, no Bluetooth, no battery to die mid-game. Just a slot for the phone and a noticeably louder room a second later.

Click Here to Buy Now: $179.00

What We Like

• Needs zero power, batteries, or pairing to work
• Golden ratio proportions make it as much a desk object as a speaker

What We Dislike

• Volume ceiling is naturally lower than a powered Bluetooth speaker
• Only works with a phone placed inside it, not as a standalone unit

4. Xiaomi Redmi Projector 5 Pro

The screen is where game day actually lives, and this one makes a big one affordable. Native 1080p scales up to 120 inches, backed by 1,000 CVIA lumens, HDR10, and a 120Hz refresh rate running at just 5ms of latency. For you, that means a crisp, responsive picture that can fill an entire wall for less than the cost of a year of streaming subscriptions combined.

A metal gimbal arm swings 150 degrees, so the projector adjusts to whatever angle the room demands without needing a dedicated mount or stand. Dual HDMI and Wi-Fi 6 round out the connections, meaning a streaming box, a console, and a laptop can all stay hooked up at once without a single cable getting swapped out between games.

What We Like

• 120-inch scaling at $281 undercuts most home theater setups by a wide margin
• Gimbal arm adjusts 150 degrees without needing a separate mount

What We Dislike

• 1080p native resolution means it’s not a true 4K experience
• HDR10 support only goes so far without a properly darkened room

5. LG xBoom Stage 501

Halftime needs its own kind of energy, and this speaker is built specifically for that shift in mood. Up to 220W of output runs through dual 2.5-inch woofers and Peerless tweeters, loud enough to carry a packed room without distortion. For you, that means the moment the game pauses, the room doesn’t go quiet; it just changes gears.

The real party piece is AI Karaoke Master, which strips vocals from any song in real time using deep learning trained on more than 10,000 songs. Built around what LG calls late-night living-room chaos, it turns a halftime break into its own event, no separate karaoke machine or backing track search required.

What We Like

• 220W output with dedicated tweeters handles a full room without strain
• AI Karaoke Master removes vocals from any song on the spot

What We Dislike

• At $499.99, it’s a serious commitment for occasional halftime use
• Karaoke feature works best with a crowd actually willing to sing

6. Death Star Popcorn Maker

Snacks are half of game day, and this one earns its spot by being genuinely good at the one thing it does. A hot air vortex pops corn with close to a 98 percent success rate, no oil or butter required, while the whole unit folds back into a Death Star display piece once the popping’s done. For you, that means a snack station that’s actually fun to look at sitting on the counter between rounds, not just a plastic appliance shoved in a cabinet.

It’s a lighter note in the lineup, a conversation starter as much as a kitchen tool, and a reminder that not every piece of game day gear needs to be purely functional to earn its place in the rotation.

What We Like

• Close to a 98 percent popping success rate without oil or butter
• Folds back into a display piece instead of looking like leftover kitchen clutter

What We Dislike

• Novelty shape won’t appeal to everyone’s kitchen aesthetic
• Limited to popcorn, so it’s a single-purpose appliance taking up cabinet space

7. Took Foldable Chair

Every host eventually runs out of couch space before they run out of guests. This chair collapses into a compact case about the size of a soundbar, with a strap handle and a one-touch hinge mechanism that opens it in seconds. For you, that means extra seating that lives in a closet the rest of the week and shows up the moment the guest list grows past what the furniture can hold.

It closes the lineup on a practical note: the kind of object that doesn’t need to be clever so much as ready, there when the room fills up and out of the way the second it empties back out.

What We Like

• Folds to the footprint of a soundbar for easy storage
• One-touch hinge means setup takes seconds, not a wrestling match

What We Dislike

• A folding chair will never match a couch for comfort over a long game
• Durability of the hinge mechanism depends on how often it gets folded and unfolded

8.WiiM Bar Soundbar

For the games that deserve real sound, not just loud sound, this soundbar fills that gap. True 3.0.2 Dolby Atmos runs through an eight-driver array, three front mid-woofers, three front tweeters, and two upward-firing full-range drivers, backed by four passive radiators for low end that doesn’t need a separate subwoofer. For you, that means commentary, crowd noise, and the snap of a tackle all land with the kind of separation a standard TV speaker can’t touch.

A 2.1-inch round touch display sits embedded in the bar’s front face, giving quick access to inputs and volume without digging for a remote between plays. It sits under the TV rather than competing for space, built for the room rather than announcing itself as the centerpiece.

What We Like

• Eight-driver array delivers genuine Dolby Atmos without a subwoofer
• Touch display built into the bar simplifies control mid-game

What We Dislike

• A setup this capable asks for a TV and source worth the upgrade
• Four passive radiators still can’t fully replace a dedicated subwoofer in a large room

The Setup That Covers the Whole Afternoon

None of these eight pieces are trying to be the loudest thing in the room. The projector and the two speaker options handle the screen and the sound, the cooler and the can opener handle the drinks, and the popcorn maker and the folding chair round out the food and seating without asking for much space in return.

What makes this lineup work isn’t novelty; it’s that each piece solves one real problem well. A host doesn’t need everything to be smart or connected. Sometimes the best upgrade is a can that pours like a glass, or a chair that disappears into a closet until the room needs it most.

The post 8 Best Gear & Gadgets of October 2026 That Turn Any Living Room Into Game Day Central first appeared on Yanko Design.

I have a theory that the beach wagon was invented by someone who never actually took one to the beach. On pavement it’s a dream, then the sand starts and you’re dragging a shopping cart through oatmeal. BougeRV’s new DuneRover is an electric wagon built around that exact misery. It folds, it hauls up to 198 pounds while moving, and it rolls on wide airless wheels with two motors doing the work. Soft sand is the whole design brief, and every part of the machine answers to it.

The handle is the smartest thing about it, and it responds to your walking instead of a throttle. Sensors measure how hard you pull and multiply that effort, so a gentle tug gets a gentle nudge and a brisk stride gets a brisk wagon. Head down a dune and it brakes for you, and the moment you let go, it holds its position. Detach the control unit and the wagon becomes a remote-controlled beach truck, rolling ahead from up to 328 feet away. BougeRV, the Houston outdoor brand known for portable fridges and solar panels, built the whole thing.

Designer: BougeRV

Click Here to Buy Now: $539 $899 (40% off). Hurry, only 120 units left! Raised over $40,000.

Airless foam wheels that float instead of dig

The rear drive wheels measure 12 by 4 inches and are made of low-density PU foam, with no air inside. That means no flats, no pressure checks, and no tire coming off the rim halfway across the beach. A patented tread spreads the load across a wide footprint, rolls smoothly, sheds water, and treats turf gently. The front pair are 10-inch airless wheels in the same material. Wide contact area is the old trick for staying on top of sand, and here it comes with motors attached.

Two brushless geared motors deliver 66 N·m of combined torque, fed by a battery with 880W of peak output. Raw power can be a problem on sand, because spinning wheels just dig a trench. DuneGrip TCS, the wagon’s traction control system, watches for wheel slip and trims torque within milliseconds to stop it. A one-tap beach mode on the handle switches it on. Top speed is 3.7 mph, a relaxed walking pace, and the range runs 5 miles or more with a 165-pound load.

A handle that multiplies your pull and brakes without being asked

BougeRV calls the system RoverDrive Dynamic Assist, and it runs on what the company calls a Multiplicative Assist Algorithm. The handle measures your pulling force in real time and scales the motors in proportion, which is why there is no throttle, no gear shifting, and no direction switch to think about. Accelerate and the wagon accelerates with you. The dockable handle houses a power button, a mode switch, and an indicator light. A trigger-release design lets you empty out the sand that inevitably works its way into the control unit.

Uphill, the wagon holds its speed without extra effort from you, and it is rated for 15-degree slopes (a 26.8% grade) even at full load. Downhill, it brakes on its own. Release the handle on a slope and fail-safe electronic braking engages instantly. That covers a toddler sprinting toward the surf, a dropped pair of sunglasses, and any moment you stop to snap a photo. I like that the safe state is also the default, so letting go is always the right move.

Remote steering from 328 feet and an app with underglow

Undocking the control unit takes one step, and it becomes a 2.4 GHz remote with a range of up to 328 feet. Point it where you want the wagon to go, which frees you to carry the surfboard while the wagon carries everything else. If the signal drops or the remote disconnects, the wagon brakes and holds itself in place. Docking the unit back onto the handle returns you to assisted pulling automatically. There is zero setup and zero menu toggling in either mode.

Through the BougeRV app, you get real-time wagon status, battery levels for both the wagon and the remote, a mileage tracker, and system health monitoring. Firmware updates arrive over the air, and you can pair the remote, set speed and mode, and drive the wagon from your phone. Then there is the underglow, a customizable ambient lighting setup. One tap switches between preset scene modes. A glowing wagon on the sand at sunset is a ridiculous feature, and I would still turn it on.

A 2-pound battery that also charges your phone

The detachable UPP-88 battery weighs 2.06 pounds and measures 7.68 by 3.58 by 1.57 inches, about the size of a large power bank. Capacity is 24,000mAh, or 88.8Wh, which keeps it under 100Wh and airline-approved, with no prior declaration needed. It can discharge at up to 10C, enough to feed the 880W peak output. Fast charging runs through USB-C or XT60 ports at up to 100W. A multi-stage vent and flame-arresting labyrinth are meant to keep a single failing cell from setting off the rest, and the pack carries an IP66 rating.

The battery doubles as a power bank. BougeRV’s figures list up to 4.2 phone charges, 3.4 gaming device charges, 2.2 tablet charges, or 1.1 laptop charges. USB-C output reaches 100W and there is a USB-A port too. A built-in MPPT solar regulator tops it up on the move through an XT60 input that accepts 11 to 28V at up to 100W. BougeRV’s flexible portable panels are compatible, but the panel is sold separately. So the same pack that hauls the cooler can keep the phones alive until sunset.

Storage, folding, and pricing

The bed holds 161.7 quarts (153 liters) inside 600D Oxford fabric, with a side frame that opens to take longer gear like surfboards, secured with an elastic cargo net. Pockets are covered too: a front pocket, inner front and back pockets, and utility hooks. The wagon weighs 50.7 pounds (23 kg) and opens to 41.5 by 23.7 by 47.5 inches. Folded, it shrinks to roughly 23.7 by 12.2 by 28.7 inches, small enough for an SUV cargo area. IPX6 protection covers the whole vehicle, motors and control hub included, so a hose-down ends the day.

BougeRV lists the DuneRover at an MSRP of $899, with launch pricing running from $396 to $539 depending on the offer. A bundle with an extra detachable battery runs $603 against a $1,097 MSRP. The box holds the wagon, battery, remote, charging cable, two wheels, and a manual. Shipping is planned for the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong, with deliveries expected to start in February 2027. Nobody packs lighter for the beach, so a wagon that keeps your pace is the sensible fix.

Click Here to Buy Now: $539 $899 (40% off). Hurry, only 120 units left! Raised over $40,000.

The post Meet the electric beach wagon with smart assist, remote control, and underglow first appeared on Yanko Design.

Japan has a stationery obsession, and the rest of the world is finally catching on. The country treats writing tools and paper goods the way it treats everything else: with an almost unreasonable level of care, precision, and quiet restraint. What looks simple in the hand rarely is. These eight pieces are proof that back-to-school shopping has a ceiling, and most of us haven’t come anywhere close to hitting it.

Every item on this list earns its place for the same reason: it solves something. Not in a Swiss-Army-knife way, but in a quietly elegant way that makes you wonder why the version you’ve been using for years never worked this well. Stock up your stationery collection with these unique essentials, and feel the difference they make to your everyday routine.

1. MagBoard Clipboard

Most clipboards are an afterthought, a plastic spring hinge you buy simply because you had to. The MagBoard is different in the way that good Japanese design tends to be: the function is unchanged, but the thinking behind it is completely rebuilt. A magnet and lever mechanism holds up to 30 sheets of paper in place without the usual clip aggression, and the hardcover backing is stiff enough to write on comfortably while standing, no desk surface needed at all.

The surface is water-resistant and easy to wipe clean, which matters when it travels between meetings, job sites, or a classroom. At A5, it fits in most bags without crowding them, and the cover opens completely flat so there’s no awkward curl mid-note. For anyone who moves through their day between different spaces and needs to take legible notes rather than just keep a surface dry, this is the clipboard that actually earns a permanent spot in the bag.

Click Here to Buy Now: $45.00

What we like

• The magnet-and-lever mechanism replaces spring clip tension without sacrificing hold, managing up to 30 sheets at once
• Water-resistant surface makes it genuinely travel-ready, not just desk-ready

What we dislike

• A5 format won’t accommodate US letter-size paper without folding, which won’t work for everyone
• At $45, it’s a significant premium over what most people expect to spend on a clipboard

2. Sonic Kakusta Portable Pen Stand

The Kakusta looks like a soft pencil case until you set it on a desk. Unzip it, fold the lid back, and the whole thing becomes a stand that props your pens at a 60-degree angle, everything visible, everything reachable in one motion. Sonic, the Japanese stationery brand behind it, didn’t add a separate stand component. The fold itself is the stand. That kind of thinking, where the packaging is the product, is what separates it from anything you’d find at Target.

The triangular cross-section when open isn’t accidental. It creates a stable base that doesn’t tip or slide even on slightly uneven surfaces, and when class or the workday ends, everything folds back into the case in seconds. For students who shift between desks, libraries, and coffee shop tables, not having to manage a separate pen holder is genuinely useful. The Kakusta doesn’t ask you to change how you work. It just eliminates one more thing to carry and set up.

What we like

• Case-to-stand transformation happens in one fold, no extra components to lose
• The 60-degree angle keeps every pen visible rather than buried at the bottom of a flat case

What we dislike

• Capacity is on the smaller side, so larger pen collections won’t fit comfortably
• The fabric exterior picks up lint faster than a hard-shell case would

3. Stalogy Editor’s Series 365 Days Notebook

The 365 Days Notebook wasn’t designed for bullet journaling that requires stickers and color-coded spreads. It was designed for editors: people who use a notebook to capture ideas, track timelines, make lists, and sketch rough diagrams all in the same session, sometimes on the same page. The cream-toned dot grid is subtle enough that it doesn’t compete with what you’re writing, and at A6 the whole thing fits in a coat pocket without any compromise.

With 368 pages, it holds a full year of daily writing without exhausting itself by October. The binding opens completely flat without tension, which means pages stay where you put them rather than creeping closed between entries. For someone who writes in transit, between calls, or at lunch, a notebook that opens flat and stays flat is worth more than any feature list could describe. This one simply gets out of your way.

What we like

• 368 pages comfortably handle a full year of daily use across writing, planning, and sketching
• Lays completely flat when open without needing a hand to hold the page in place

What we dislike

• A6 is small for anyone who writes in long form or needs room to sketch at scale
• Cream-toned paper, while easy on the eyes, shows ink colors less vividly than bright white

4. Levitating Pen

The Levitating Pen stands upright on its base without batteries, electronics, or tricks. It balances vertically through a precisely calibrated magnetic pedestal that holds the pen in a stable position, and the whole arrangement is quiet enough that it reads as a desk object rather than a gadget. Picking it up takes a half-second more than reaching for a pen lying flat on a desk, but that pause changes how you think about the act of writing. It feels deliberate in a way that cheap ballpoints never do.

Write with it, and the ballpoint performs exactly as expected: smooth, consistent, without drama. The benefit isn’t in the ink delivery. It’s in what the pen does to the space around it. A desk with a Levitating Pen on it looks considered, and that visual cue tends to set a tone for the work that follows. For someone who moves between focused writing sessions and longer thinking stretches, having a tool that signals “this is where the work happens” is worth more than most productivity hacks.

Click Here to Buy Now: $79.00

What we like

• Balances upright through a magnetic pedestal with no electronics or batteries required
• Functions as a smooth ballpoint and a distinctive desk object in equal measure

What we dislike

• The base adds desk footprint that might not suit a minimal or already-crowded setup
• The levitation effect can become a distraction in a shared or open-plan workspace

5. King Jim Visual Bar Timer (VBT10)

Most timers count up or display numerals. The King Jim VBT10 does something simpler and more useful: it shows a row of large LCD segments representing remaining time, and as the countdown progresses, segments disappear from right to left. No digits to read, no beeping at intervals, just a visual progress bar legible from across a room at a glance. It’s the kind of design decision that seems obvious once you see it, but that no Western manufacturer thought to build first.

For anyone who works in timed blocks, whether that’s the Pomodoro method, writing sessions, or class periods, having a physical timer rather than a phone or laptop notification means focus stays on the task rather than the device. The VBT10 sits on a desk without demanding attention, and the countdown is readable enough to track peripherally. For students and remote workers who need structure without constantly checking a screen, this is a more disciplined option than anything most productivity apps currently offer.

What we like

• Visual bar display reads instantly from a distance without requiring you to parse numerals
• Physical format keeps attention off screens during timed work or study sessions

What we dislike

• Pricing and availability vary outside Japan, and shipping times can stretch considerably
• LCD has limited visibility in direct sunlight or high-glare environments

6. Shachihata Consolidated Number Stamp

Shachihata makes the Consolidated Number Stamp as a set of individual pieces: 31 dates and 7 days of the week that snap together along two different axes to build any calendar configuration you need. The stamps connect cleanly, ink together evenly, and produce a compact, legible date block that a printed sticker or pre-made date stamp can’t match, because those are fixed and this one isn’t. You build the date you need, stamp it, then rearrange for the next entry.

It’s a genuinely analog solution to a problem most people solve with digital tools or pre-printed labels, and it’s more satisfying than either. For planners, journal keepers, and anyone who archives physical documents by date, having a stamp that adapts rather than repeating the same fixed format is a meaningful upgrade. The ink is self-contained in each piece, and the stamps align precisely enough that the resulting date block looks intentional rather than assembled. That precision is classic Shachihata, and it shows.

What we like

• Modular design lets you configure any date on demand without a fixed preset format
• Self-inking pieces snap together and align precisely, producing clean, legible date blocks every time

What we dislike

• Keeping 38 individual stamp pieces organized requires more discipline than a single fixed stamp would
• Not suited for high-volume stamping where speed matters more than customization

7. Lihit Lab Firm Book End

A book end that holds books upright when neighbors are present is not a remarkable product. One that lets a single book stand on its own without leaning against anything is. The Lihit Lab Firm Book End achieves this through a gravity-activated stopper that flips down when the book end is upright, supporting the book from behind. Remove the book and the stopper lifts back up, held out of the way by the book end’s own weight. Nothing to adjust manually.

The mechanism means you can remove a single book from a shelf without the rest collapsing, a small but real frustration that anyone who uses bookshelves regularly will recognize immediately. At A4 scale, it handles textbooks and binders as well as standard books, making it useful for student desks and office shelves alike. For people who work daily with physical reference materials and are tired of the toppling-book routine, this is one of those objects that solves a problem so quietly you forget it ever existed before it arrived.

What we like

• Gravity-activated stopper lets a single book stand independently without any manual adjustment
• Handles books, binders, and textbooks up to A4 scale across home, office, and student setups

What we dislike

• Availability outside Japan is currently limited to the brand’s own site, adding shipping time and cost
• The stopper mechanism can feel stiff during early use before it settles into regular operation

8. ITO BINDERY × YANKO DESIGN Drawing Pad

ITO Bindery has been making books by hand in Hachioji, Tokyo since 1938. The Drawing Pad that came out of its collaboration with Yanko Design carries that lineage in the details: binding glue applied by hand with a specialized brush, microperforations inspected sheet by sheet by experienced craftspeople, and a construction that holds through daily use without stiffening at the spine. Each size is limited to 100 individually numbered pads, available exclusively through YD Select, making it as much a document of craft as a writing surface.

Each sheet tears away cleanly along the microperforation, leaving the page intact and ready to pin up, share, or arrange alongside other work in progress. For designers, illustrators, or anyone who treats drawing as a thinking tool rather than a performance, a pad that separates cleanly and doesn’t fight the process is exactly the right kind of equipment. The paper handles pencil, pen, and light marker work without bleed-through. At this build quality and limited-edition scale, $40 is an argument for paying more attention to where your tools come from.

Click Here to Buy Now: $40.00

What we like

• Hand-crafted by ITO Bindery, founded in 1938, with construction quality visible from the very first page
• Microperforated sheets tear cleanly without damaging the sketch, making each page easy to display or share

What we dislike

• Limited to 100 numbered pads per size means stock won’t last once the list picks up attention
• Not suited for wet media or heavy-wash work; designed for dry and light-marker use only

Buy Less. Buy Better.

What makes Japanese stationery worth attention isn’t the aesthetic. It’s the reasoning. Every product here started with a specific problem and arrived at a solution that feels like it was always obvious, even when it clearly wasn’t. The attention to material, mechanism, and user behavior that goes into something as ordinary as a clipboard or pen stand reflects a standard of care that changes what you expect from your tools.

None of these require a lifestyle overhaul or a dedicated setup. They slot into how you already work and make that work feel slightly more resolved. Back-to-school season is usually about quantity: more notebooks, more pens, more highlighters. These eight argue for the opposite. One good clipboard beats five bad ones. One pad that holds together properly lasts longer than anything that falls apart by Thanksgiving. Buy less. Buy better.

The post 8 Japanese Stationery That Make US Back-to-School Supplies Look Boring first appeared on Yanko Design.

A small room rarely gets to do just one thing. The table that holds your laptop during the day might host dinner a few hours later, while the chair beside it becomes your reading spot before bed. The problem is that lighting often stays fixed while everything else changes. An overhead fixture can feel harsh at dinner, and a decorative table lamp may be lovely but useless when you need to see what you’re doing.

That is a more interesting way to look at the Infinite Solas Lamp than simply calling it a cordless desk lamp. Its height, direction, brightness, and color temperature are adjustable, so the same object can play different roles as a room changes throughout the day. I like the idea of a lamp that adapts to the space you have, rather than asking you to find space for another lamp.

Click Here to Buy Now: $325

Picture a table on a weekday morning. You pull the Solas taller and angle its head toward a notebook or the project in front of you. Later, you lower it and soften the light for dinner. By evening, it can move beside a chair and become a reading light. None of those uses is particularly dramatic on its own. Together, they make a persuasive case for a lighting object that doesn’t belong to one corner of the home.

The mechanics behind that flexibility are pleasantly straightforward. The Solas adjusts from 8.9 to 19.7 inches tall, while a magnetic ball-joint head lets you redirect the beam without shifting the whole lamp. Its LED light can be dimmed, with color temperature adjustable from 2500K to 4000K. Those choices matter because a change in angle can be just as useful as a change in brightness. Sometimes you want to see the pages in front of you. Sometimes you want the room to feel a little softer.

I also appreciate that the design doesn’t insist on looking like equipment. Machined aluminum with an anodized finish gives it a composed, minimal shape, and it comes in black or warm champagne. Either could sit on a shelf or side table without making the room feel like an office. That matters in a smaller home, where every object tends to be visible from almost everywhere else. A lamp can be useful, but you still have to enjoy looking at it when it’s off.

Of course, movable lighting is not a new idea. IKEA has helped make portable table lamps feel familiar as everyday home accessories. The Solas asks for a more specific kind of attention: not just where you can carry a lamp, but how much you can change its height, aim, and warmth once you set it down. I wouldn’t say that makes it the right choice for everyone. If all you want is a gentle glow on a shelf, a simpler lamp may do the job beautifully. The Solas makes more sense when one surface has several jobs.

That flexibility does come at a considered-object price. The Solas is listed at $325, which is a lot to spend on a lamp if you need light in only one place. It also still needs charging: the listed runtime is six to seven hours at full brightness, or up to 70 hours at its lowest setting, with a recharge taking approximately four hours via USB-C. Those numbers are worth knowing before imagining it as a fixture you can leave on indefinitely.

For me, the appeal isn’t the promise of owning one lamp and never buying another. It’s the smaller, more believable improvement of having one good lamp that can follow the way a room is actually used. When furniture has to work harder, lighting should be allowed to change its job too. The Infinite Solas Lamp understands that a home doesn’t hold still from morning to night. Its best trick is making those transitions feel a little easier.

The post Your Small Room Secretly Needs Fewer Lamps, Not More first appeared on Yanko Design.

At baggage claim, a good suitcase can have one frustrating flaw: it looks like everyone else’s. Rows of black and gray cases roll past, and the bag you chose for its clean design becomes surprisingly hard to pick out. Color seems like an easy answer, until the options swing too far the other way. Not everyone wants their luggage to look like a highlighter.

RIMOWA’s new Umber and Ultramarine collection offers a more considered choice. Umber is an earthy brown; Ultramarine is a deep, saturated blue. Both give the brand’s familiar luggage a distinct presence without asking travelers to trade a design they like for a novelty print. The colors extend to bags and accessories, too, so someone building a travel setup has more to choose from than a single suitcase.

Designer: Rimowa

I’m drawn to Umber because brown is an unusual choice for a hard-shell case. It has the warmth of an old leather travel bag, but on RIMOWA’s grooved Essential silhouette, it feels sharper and more contemporary. It’s a color for someone who wants to move away from black without feeling conspicuous at the hotel desk. I can imagine it looking just as right on a short work trip as it would on a longer vacation.

Ultramarine makes a different case for itself. It has enough depth to feel substantial, but it won’t disappear into a lineup of dark luggage. RIMOWA’s campaign connects the shades to historical pigments, drawing Umber from earth tones and Ultramarine from the blue associated with lapis lazuli. That backstory could have felt overly precious. Here, it gives the colors a useful design logic: these are rich, recognizable hues, not shades chosen just because they photograph well this season.

The execution matters as much as the palette. On the Essential suitcases, the color carries across the hardware for a monochromatic finish. That keeps the eye on the shape of the case and the rhythm of its grooves, rather than breaking it up with contrasting details. It’s a small decision, but one that makes the suitcases feel designed as complete objects instead of existing models dipped in new paint.

There’s also an appealing restraint to the wider collection. RIMOWA has brought the colors into its Groove bags, including a Mini Shopping Bag offered in both shades, while select smaller pieces come in Umber. That gives frequent travelers the option of a coordinated set, but it doesn’t demand one. I’d be more inclined to choose one piece I’d use often than to make every bag I own match my carry-on.

That’s where this release has a practical payoff. A more distinctive suitcase may be easier to recognize when bags are coming off the carousel, and a color you genuinely enjoy carrying can make familiar travel routines feel a little less anonymous. Neither benefit needs to be exaggerated. Umber and Ultramarine won’t create more packing space or make a delayed flight arrive sooner. They solve a quieter problem: useful luggage doesn’t have to feel interchangeable.

Of course, color is only part of a buying decision at this price. RIMOWA lists the Essential Cabin in Ultramarine at $990, so I’d still choose the size and configuration that suit my trips before choosing a shade. The collection is most compelling if you already like the Essential suitcase or want one of the smaller bags on its own. A beautiful color can make the right purchase more satisfying; it can’t turn the wrong suitcase into the right one.

For me, the success of Umber and Ultramarine is that they let two different personalities inhabit the same recognizable design. Umber feels calm and adaptable. Ultramarine has more energy, but enough depth to avoid feeling like a passing gimmick. That’s a good way to think about luggage you’ll live with beyond the excitement of buying it: not whether it looks striking in a campaign, but whether you’ll still be glad to spot it when it comes around the carousel.

The post RIMOWA’s 2 New Colors Quietly Solve the Baggage Claim Problem first appeared on Yanko Design.

Pickleball has officially escaped the court. At some point in the last two years, it stopped being ironic and became a lifestyle: parking lots of suburban rec centers filled up, TikTok feeds followed, then came the celebrity investors, the professional leagues, the branded paddle drops, and the kind of mainstream saturation that tells you a sport has officially graduated from niche to undeniable. Getting turned into a Wii-style digital pastime is, at this point, a rite of passage for any sport that has truly made it. Tennis got there. Golf got there. Boxing, baseball, bowling. MegaShot Pickl+ is the moment pickleball collects that particular badge, and it does so with an actual sensor-embedded pickleball racket for authentic gameplay, not some generic rectangular controller.

The smart paddle pairs with your phone, tablet, or laptop over Bluetooth and sends the game to your TV (via an included cable) for big-screen play, mimicking your real swing movements on screen and firing haptic feedback through the handle on every hit. A split-screen mode lets you play multiplayer on the same screen too, making it a great family entertainer. No court reservation, no weather to negotiate with. The Wii taught an entire generation that swinging something in your living room could feel surprisingly real. Pickl+ is betting that a generation raised on that premise is ready to do it again, this time for the sport that has genuinely taken over the world, and without an extra console to add to the mix. The Starter Edition is on Kickstarter now for $175, down from a planned retail price of $249 and the campaign has been backed 500% in just 24 hours! Pickl+ will be compatible with sports like tennis, ping pong, and badminton with more racket sports planned for the same smart-paddle platform.

Designer: MegaShot

Click Here to Buy Now: $175 $249 (30% off). Hurry, only a few left!

Under the hood, Pickl+ is built around a 9-axis sensor that reads the angle, speed, and arc of every swing for precise motion tracking. The haptic feedback responds distinctly to different kinds of hits, making the on-screen action feel genuinely tied to what your arm is actually doing. The paddle weighs around 300 grams, carries a 2000 mAh battery rated for up to five hours of continuous play, and charges over USB-C. Bluetooth 5.2 handles the wireless pairing, while an MHL cable connects your phone to the TV when the living room demands a proper screen. The app runs on Android 14+, iOS 18+, Windows, and macOS. Setup is as minimal as it sounds: download, charge, pair, connect, play. Unlike the Wii, Switch, or the Meta Quest, no extra console or hardware needed.

Most gaming hardware asks you to adapt to the machine: learn the buttons, the gestures, the control scheme. Pickl+ goes the other direction. You know how to hold a paddle, and you know what a swing feels like. Rather than turning a conventional controller into a sports accessory, Pickl+ turns the sports object itself into the controller. The technology is essentially trying to disappear into the physical experience, which is part of what makes it a more interesting object than just a clever game controller.

Ten-plus game modes ship at launch, including Streak, Practice, Split Mode, Career, Local Multiplayer, Target, and Beach Mode, with more already in the pipeline. VIP unlocks exclusive virtual courts, daily bonus challenges, glowing paddle effects, custom ball trails, and profile cosmetics.

Before the Kickstarter campaign went live, the beta version of the paddle was showcased at New York Toy Fair, where people across different age groups, including gaming enthusiasts and industry experts, got hands-on time with the motion tracking, gameplay, etc. It gave MegaShot an early real-world read on how quickly people understood and enjoyed the experience. Motion gaming can look impressive in a controlled demo; the real test is whether someone can pick up the paddle, understand what to do, and immediately have fun. New York Toy Fair gave MegaShot that read before asking anyone to back the campaign.

MegaShot arrived at this with receipts. Before Pickl+, the company built a smart bat, which sounds hyperlocal until the numbers land: 100,000+ units sold worldwide, 2,700+ Amazon reviews, and ratings above 4.5 across Google, Amazon, the Play Store, and iOS. The Smart Bat earned the team a spot on Shark Tank India, coverage across major publications, and placement on Walmart shelves. Cricket was a demanding proving ground, the kind of sport where precision hardware lives or dies by real player feedback. That foundation gave MegaShot a validated tech stack, a battle-tested supply chain, and the track record that earns trust going into a bigger, more globally ambitious launch.

Pickleball is the entry point for something larger. The same paddle hardware is designed to eventually support tennis, badminton, table tennis, and squash, with the VIP Pass carrying across sports as they are added. That roadmap turns Pickl+ from a single-sport product into a platform for multiple racket-sport experiences, which changes the value calculation considerably. The most globally accessible racket sport of this decade is also, as it turns out, the perfect vehicle for a company that built its credibility in one market and is now ready to find out how far a smart paddle can travel.

The Starter Edition, one smart paddle and an MHL cable, is available at its $175 Kickstarter launch price, versus a planned $249 retail price. Duo packs start at $275 for two paddles with a cable, while the Starter VIP Duo Pack, which throws in a VIP Pass, runs $315.

The Signature Edition, the premium single-paddle option, comes in at $349. The Signature Duo Edition bundles two premium paddles with cables, a VIP Pass, and protective sleeves for $499. Worldwide shipping begins in early 2027, covering the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, and India.

Click Here to Buy Now: $175 $249 (30% off). Hurry, only a few left!

The post This $175 Wii-style Smart paddle turns your TV into a pickleball court first appeared on Yanko Design.

Apple has a long habit of handing last year’s brain to this year’s regular iPhone. The iPhone 15 shipped with the A16 chip while the 15 Pro got the shiny new A17 Pro, and nobody stormed Cupertino with pitchforks. It works because people shop for cameras and battery life, and nobody has ever asked a store clerk about die size. The iPhone 18 is about to run the same play with a twist. This time the regular model gets a brand new A20 chip, except it arrives months after everyone else’s.

The chip is the A20, and a leaked solder ball map analyzed on Weibo by user 白饭炒白米饭 (reported by Notebookcheck on October 1) suggests it is a slimmed down sibling of the A20 Pro. That Pro chip already powers the iPhone 18 Pro, starting at $1,199, and the iPhone Duo, starting at $1,999. Both reportedly use TSMC’s 2nm process, but the standard version supposedly keeps the AI hardware and trims the GPU, cache, and clock speeds. The base iPhone 18 is expected in spring 2027, and Apple has announced no price or date. So what does Apple cut when it wants a cheaper 2nm chip, and what does it refuse to touch?

Designer: Demon’s Tech

A Smaller Die Than Last Year’s Chip, on a Pricier 2nm Node

The standard A20’s bare die is estimated at 70 to 80 mm², which would make it smaller than the A19 at 82.8 mm² and well under the A20 Pro’s 98.8 mm². A die is the actual slab of silicon, and every square millimeter you shave off means more chips per wafer and a lower bill. On 2nm the savings count for more, since Notebookcheck’s report notes those wafers cost significantly more than earlier nodes. Our own look at the base iPhone 18 pegged its body as basically an iPhone 17 in disguise, so there is no fresh industrial design to pay for either. Apple looks to be spending the budget on silicon instead.

Apple reportedly gets there by halving the cache. The standard A20 is expected to carry 8 MB of L2 cache for its two super cores and 4 MB for its four efficiency cores, which is 50% less than the A20 Pro. Cache is the small, ultra fast memory sitting right next to the processor cores, so a smaller helping can mean slightly more trips out to slower memory under heavy load. It is also one of the most direct ways to shrink a die, because SRAM, the circuitry cache is built from, has scaled poorly on recent chip nodes. Honestly, it is the smartest corner to trim, since you will never see a cache spec on a phone box.

Why the A20 Pro Gets Fancy Packaging and the A20 Skips It

The A20 Pro reportedly uses WMCM, short for wafer-level multi-chip module, which places the processor and its memory side by side instead of stacking one on the other. That layout lets the chip connect straight to the vapor chamber, the cooling plate Apple introduced with the iPhone 17 Pro. Apple says the new Pro design delivers up to 40% better sustained performance than the 17 Pro. The standard A20 is expected to stay with traditional package-on-package, where the memory sits on top of the chip like a hat. A hat is cheap and compact, but it also traps heat right where you do not want it.

Packaging is how Apple reportedly gets the A20 Pro to 4.93 GHz, a figure from the leak analysis that Apple has never confirmed. The standard A20 is expected to clock considerably lower, so it likely does not need the same cooling tricks. Pair that with an expected 5-core GPU against the Pro’s 7 cores, and the gap could show up in a long gaming session. Past base chips trailed their Pro siblings by one GPU core, so a two-core deficit would be wider than usual. The vapor chamber stole the show in the iPhone 17 Pro teardown we covered, and the leak says nothing about the base model getting similar cooling.

The AI Hardware Apple Keeps, and What Spring 2027 Looks Like

The AI side of the chip reportedly survives the cuts largely intact. The leak says the A20 keeps the same dual 16-core Neural Engine as the Pro, the dedicated block that handles on-device AI tasks, along with its own 4 MB cache. The system-level cache, a shared pool of memory every part of the chip can tap, may grow from the A19’s 12 MB to 16 MB. The memory bus is also expected to widen to 96 bits, matching the Pro, which means more data can flow to the chip per second. In real life that means live translation and photo cleanup running on the phone instead of waiting on a server.

The iPhone Duo (the one with the open and close animation we gushed over) runs the same A20 Pro, so Apple’s fall lineup now shares one chip. The base model is expected to follow in spring 2027 with a lighter version of that platform. Apple has confirmed no date, price, or chip for it, so every number here is a leak. The iPhone 17 started at $799 and the Pros just rose $100, so the base model’s price is the number to watch. Back in the A16 days the hand-me-down chip was a consolation prize, but this time the regular iPhone gets a fresh 2nm brain with a little muscle trimmed, a deal I would happily take.

The post Apple’s iPhone 18 is getting a ‘cheaper’ A20 chip to keep the overall phone affordable first appeared on Yanko Design.

Elgato unveiled a little box of 15 LCD buttons in 2017, priced at $149.95, and it quietly rearranged how streamers sat at their desks. The Stream Deck got so popular that Corsair bought Elgato’s gaming business in 2018. Then the obvious question hung around for years: what if the buttons were just a screen? A screen can be any button, any dial, any chart, or any chat window, and it never runs out of room for one more shortcut. Anyone who has maxed out a 15-key pad knows that pain. Corsair eventually got around to answering.

The answer is the Xeneon Edge, a 14.5-inch touchscreen with a 2560 x 720 panel and a 32:9 shape that sits under your main monitor like a very ambitious soundbar. It runs Elgato’s Stream Deck software, so your old button grid gets a much bigger canvas. Fourteen magnets, a detachable stand, and two ¼-20 threads let it live on a desk, a steel panel, or inside your PC case. It lists at $249.99 and is currently $199.99 at Corsair in the US, in all five colors.

Designer: Corsair

A 32:9 strip built for the stuff you only glance at

Think of 32:9 as two 16:9 monitors glued side by side, then shrunk until they fit beneath your main screen. The body measures about 14.6 by 4.7 by 0.8 inches (372 x 120 x 20mm) and weighs roughly 2.2 pounds (1 kg). That works out to about 183 pixels per inch, tighter than the 163 you get on a 27-inch 4K monitor, so small text stays crisp. At 720 pixels tall, the screen is shallow enough to tuck under a monitor without crowding your view. It also rotates to portrait, which turns it into a tall column beside your main display.

On a typical Tuesday, Spotify, Discord, a calendar, and your GPU temps all want a window, and your main screen is busy with actual work. Park them on the Edge and they stay put, one glance away, while you do your thing above. Video calls can live there too, so a meeting you only half-care about stays visible without eating your spreadsheet. Nothing needs alt-tabbing, and nothing gets lost behind a browser with 40 tabs. It’s the same idea as a phone propped next to your keyboard, except it’s wider, brighter, and plugged into your PC.

Fourteen magnets, two threads, and a 360mm radiator slot

Fourteen magnets sit under the plastic shell, so the Edge sticks to any steel surface without scratching it. That includes a steel desk, a PC side panel, a monitor stand, and yes, a fridge, if the cable is long enough. Inside a case, it takes the place of a 360mm radiator, a slot built for three 120mm fans, and it’s thinner than a regular case fan, so clearance is rarely an issue. Corsair also sells an LCD kit that mounts it into the side panel of the Frame 4000D and 5000D cases. Your build’s best view just got a clock and a temperature gauge.

Two ¼-20 threads on the back, the same screw size camera gear uses, let you hang the Edge from Elgato Multi-Mount hardware or any standard AV arm. That mount-anywhere thinking echoes the Elgato accessory support on Corsair’s Platform:6 desk, which we covered at its Gamescom reveal. Corsair also posts free 3D-printable accessories on Printables, including a taller stand that raises the screen behind a keyboard. The community has jumped in too, and Corsair has spotlighted a modular adapter mount from a creator named Naaackers. If you can think of a place for a screen, someone has either printed a bracket for it or soon will.

Widgets in iCUE and the Elgato Marketplace

Plug it in and Windows treats the Edge as an ordinary second monitor, touch included. Corsair’s iCUE software for Windows adds widgets on top: a clock, a calendar, weather, news headlines, a task list, and system sensors showing CPU and GPU temps. Each widget lands on a grid you arrange yourself, so your layout can look as busy or as clean as you like. Since May 2026, widgets live on the Elgato Marketplace, where anyone can download or build one. Corsair’s developer docs even point to AI coding tools as a shortcut, which means a custom widget can start as a plain-English wish.

The widget that matters most for old Stream Deck fans is the native Stream Deck widget in iCUE. It drops a full grid of tappable keys onto the Edge, and you add actions in Elgato’s Stream Deck software exactly as you would for a physical deck. Resize the grid and you get more keys than any 15-button pad ever offered. Launch a game, mute your mic, switch an OBS scene, or toggle your desk lights, each with one tap. Because the screen is still a screen, the same strip can show your calendar or GPU temps right next to the keys.

A bright 2560 x 720 panel and touch that behaves like a phone

The panel is AHVA, Corsair’s version of IPS, so colors and viewing angles hold up even when you’re looking at it from the side. It runs 2560 x 720 at 60Hz with 350 nits of peak brightness, plenty for a desk lit by a window and a lamp. Touch is 5-point capacitive, the same technology as your phone, so tapping, swiping, and pinching all feel familiar. A single USB-C cable with DP Alt Mode (video over USB-C) can carry picture and power when your PC supports it. HDMI 2.0 covers everything else, and Corsair includes cables for both in the box.

Not every shell is black, either. Colors include black, white, and the translucent Atomic Purple, Crystal, and Smoke, which channel the see-through plastic of late-90s gadgets. We’ve seen that look return in a fully transparent Game Boy Color mod and Analogue’s Game Boy Color-inspired Pocket, and it suits a desk accessory just as well. Translucent plastic also makes the stand look like part of the design, not an afterthought. Pick whichever matches your keyboard, or your mood, or your last impulse buy.

Price, rivals, and where the Edge fits on your desk

The Xeneon Edge lists at $249.99 and is currently $199.99 at Corsair in the US, across all five colors, with a three-year warranty and a zero-dead-pixel guarantee. For comparison, Elgato’s 15-key Stream Deck MK.2 lists at $149.99, and the 32-key Stream Deck XL lists at $249.99. The Edge costs the same as the XL and brings an actual display to the party. ASUS makes the closest rival, the ProArt PA147CDV, a 14-inch 32:9 touchscreen with a physical dial and pen support, but it runs a lower 1920 x 550 resolution and sells for roughly twice the Edge’s list price. Cheap no-name touchscreens exist too, but most skip the magnets, the threads, and the Stream Deck tie-in.

The Stream Deck taught desks that a small control room beside the keyboard beats hunting through menus. The Edge keeps that lesson and swaps the plastic keys for pixels that can become anything. It mounts where you want it, shows what you need, and gets better as the widget library grows. It’s available now at Corsair’s site for $199.99 in the US while the current sale runs, with $249.99 as the regular price. Fifteen buttons were a good start. A 14.5-inch strip of pixels is a much better sequel.

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