Author Archives: Sarang Sheth

PUMA Turns Its Legendary Suede Into a $300 Pikachu Tribute for Pokemon’s 30th Anniversary

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Three hundred dollars for a suede sneaker usually comes with some kind of hook, a designer moniker, a tiny production run, something to point at. PUMA skipped all of that here and just leaned on the Pikachu name, which honestly might be enough on its own. There’s no giant character graphic screaming for attention on this shoe either, which is a little unusual for a collab at this price. Instead the whole thing is built on a few small, well placed details, and that choice tells you a lot about who this release is really for.

That shoe is the PUMA Suede Pikachu, a reworking of the brand’s 1968 silhouette in electric yellow suede for Pokemon’s 30th anniversary. A two tone lightning bolt runs through the Formstrip, a glossy red heel patch nods to Pikachu’s cheeks, and a small enamel charm hangs from the laces instead of some oversized keychain. The outsole is translucent and honey colored, veined with cracked lightning lines like it’s mid charge. It releases July 25 at a pop up in Brooklyn, following a Mewtwo Suede last winter and an Espeon and Umbreon collection back in April. Whether $300 feels fair probably depends on how deep your Pokemon nostalgia runs, and I’ve got more to say on that below.

Designer: PUMA x The Pokemon Company

PUMA ditched the usual flat suede nap for something with a slightly raised, almost fuzzy texture on the upper, and it works better than it has any right to. It doesn’t look like yellow suede pretending to be Pikachu, it looks like the material itself got the memo. That’s a small manufacturing decision most people will never think twice about, but it’s exactly the kind of restraint that separates a thoughtful collab from a licensing cash grab. I’ve seen plenty of character sneakers that just print a face somewhere and call it a day. This one clearly wasn’t approved by someone in a hurry.

The suede shoe’s side stripe has been the same shape for decades, so bending it into a lightning bolt without losing the silhouette’s identity is a genuinely tricky bit of design math, and it’s the real flex of this shoe. They pulled it off by layering a mirrored silver bolt over the classic black stripe, so it catches light instead of just sitting there as a flat graphic. Then there’s the heel patch, a glossy red oval with a small bolt etched into it, which is easily the smartest detail on the whole shoe. It reads as Pikachu’s cheek without anyone having to spell it out, and that kind of subtlety is rare in character collabs that usually default to shouting. Most brands would have put Pikachu’s whole face there instead, and the shoe would have been worse for it.

The outsole is a translucent, honey toned rubber with cracked lightning veining running through it, like the sole itself is holding a charge. Paired with the enamel Pikachu charm hanging off the laces, small and flat rather than the bulky keychain treatment most collabs default to, the whole shoe reads as considered rather than merchandised. Even the packaging plays along, landing in a matte black box with a faint constellation print and gold foil branding, understated in a way that actually matches the shoe instead of overselling it. Nothing here needed to be loud to prove the license was real. That restraint is consistent from the box straight down to the sole.

PUMA opened its 30th anniversary campaign with a family sized Espeon and Umbreon collection in April, followed it with a Pikachu colored All-Pro Nitro 2 for the court, and is now closing out summer with what’s clearly the premium centerpiece of the whole run. Whether $300 sneakers with no performance tech attached are worth the price is a conversation that predates this shoe by years. But if PUMA is going to keep charging collector prices for nostalgia, this is the version of that trade that actually feels earned. The Suede has always been the brand’s most storied silhouette, and saving it for last was the right call. Whether Pokemon fans agree probably depends on how much shelf space they have left for sneakers they’ll never actually wear.

The post PUMA Turns Its Legendary Suede Into a $300 Pikachu Tribute for Pokemon’s 30th Anniversary first appeared on Yanko Design.

The $55 Hub That Charges Your iPhone, Gives Your MacBook Ports, and Powers a 4K Display Together

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Every design choice Apple made after 2012 treated the iPhone and the MacBook as separate objects that happened to share the same user. The iPhone sat face-down beside the trackpad, or propped in a stand someone bought separately, or flat on the desk gathering fingerprints between notifications. The laptop handled the serious work, and the phone handled everything adjacent. The cable that connected them eventually gave way to AirDrop and iCloud, which is elegant until you need to pull 4K footage off a device or charge a phone while shooting tethered. A generation of designers, remote workers, students, and creators quietly built a workflow where both devices run simultaneously, and the desk has to serve as a shared operating environment for all of it.

A custom magnetic coil in the Twopan T11’s top surface wirelessly charges MagSafe-compatible phones while the hub simultaneously expands the connected laptop’s ports, treating both as part of a coordinated workstation rather than separate gadgets competing for desk space. The hub folds around a built-in braided USB-C cable, collapsing to a palm-sized squircle with seven active ports: 4K/60Hz HDMI, 100W PD 3.0 input with 80W pass-through to the host device, simultaneous SD and Micro SD reading at up to 104MB/s, and two 5Gbps USB-A ports that also deliver charging to additional peripherals. Creators shooting on camera and phone simultaneously can transfer both cards at once without swapping. Plug-and-play compatibility covers Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS 17, and Android 9 with no drivers. Which feels nice – a bridge between two perpetually used devices, no barriers, no walled garden, no port-restrictions. All in the size of a puck small enough to fit in your pocket, or snap onto your phone/laptop.

Designer: Twopan

Click Here to Buy Now: $55 $115 (52% off) Hurry! Only 195 units left at offer price.

The magic of the T11 is in that simple magnetic snap. It provides a satisfying, perfectly aligned connection that holds the phone upright, transforming it from a passive screen into an active dashboard. Suddenly, it’s a dedicated place for Slack messages, a Spotify controller, or a live feed from a security camera, all while drawing power wirelessly. This thoughtful integration solves the persistent problem of accessory sprawl, where a phone stand is one object, a wireless charger is another, and the USB-C hub is a third, all competing for space and creating a small thicket of cables. The T11 consolidates these functions into a single, elegant unit that understands its primary job is to organize and empower a workflow, not just to add ports.

That commitment to organization extends to the product’s own form. One of the most common design failures in the portable hub market is the permanently attached, dangling cable. Twopan’s engineers addressed this by designing a custom central slot that seamlessly houses the durable, braided USB-C cable. When it’s time to work, the cable deploys effortlessly for immediate use. When you’re done, it tucks neatly back into the magnetic frame. This ingenious storage solution maintains the hub’s sleek, ultra-compact profile and ensures it travels as a single, self-contained object, without a loose cable rattling around in a bag like a forgotten secret.

Of course, a hub is only as good as its I/O, and the T11 is built for demanding, modern workloads. The HDMI port delivers a crisp, stable 4K resolution at a fluid 60Hz refresh rate, which is the sweet spot for everything from video editing to smooth scrolling on an external monitor without any stutter or lag. This is complemented by a dedicated USB-C Power Delivery 3.0 port that supports a massive 100W power input. Through intelligent power allocation, the hub reserves the necessary energy to drive all its connected peripherals and then passes a rapid 80W of charging directly to the host device. This means a power-hungry machine like a MacBook Pro can run a 4K display and external drives while still charging at nearly full speed.

For data management, the T11 is a true powerhouse. It moves beyond a simple port count by integrating dedicated SD and Micro SD card slots that support simultaneous reading. This is a critical feature for creators who juggle multiple devices; a photographer can offload files from their main camera’s SD card and their drone’s Micro SD card at the same time. The hub supports professional standards like SD, SDHC, and SDXC formats, along with SD3.0 UHS-1 and DDR200, delivering swift transfer speeds of up to 104MB/s and handling card capacities up to 2TB. The two high-speed USB-A ports run at 5Gbps, perfect for external SSDs, keyboards, and other peripherals, and are also engineered to support simultaneous power output for charging smaller gear like earbuds or a smartwatch.

The physical object itself feels considered and premium. It’s a compact squircle (whether you love that shape or hate it is entirely up to you), small enough to rest in the palm, with a silver aluminum body for durability and heat dissipation, and a textured top panel that houses the magnetic coil. The design is minimalist but functional, right down to the included braided lanyard that gives it the feel of a portable gadget rather than a simple computer accessory. It’s a small detail, but it speaks to a design philosophy centered on portability and ease of use.

While the magnetic charging is most immediately recognizable to Apple users, the T11 is engineered for absolute simplicity and universal compatibility. It delivers true plug-and-play functionality right out of the box, with no drivers or complex software installations required. It works seamlessly with Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS 17.0+, and Android 9.0+ systems. This broad compatibility ensures it can bridge the gap between a work-issued Windows laptop, a personal MacBook, and an Android tablet, adapting instantly to whatever device you connect it to. The T11 isn’t just adding ports; it’s adding intelligence to the workspace.

The Twopan T11 is currently available for a pledge of $55, with shipping scheduled to begin in November 2026 and estimated delivery in December. Each box includes one T11 Hub and a user manual. Demonstrating confidence in their build quality and engineering, all brand-new Twopan products are backed by a comprehensive 18-month warranty that covers any defects in materials and workmanship, ensuring the hub remains a reliable centerpiece of your workstation for years to come.

Click Here to Buy Now: $55 $115 (52% off) Hurry! Only 195 units left at offer price.

The post The $55 Hub That Charges Your iPhone, Gives Your MacBook Ports, and Powers a 4K Display Together first appeared on Yanko Design.

This 2,200-Piece LEGO Moth Kit Is Basically Taxidermy Without the Guilt

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Butterflies get all the credit. They show up on tattoos, greeting cards, and garden murals, while their nocturnal cousins get treated like the moment a moth flutters near your porch light is a minor household emergency. It is a genuinely lopsided reputation, because moths are just as varied and, frankly, just as beautiful, with wing patterns that range from delicate lace to full on gothic warning labels.

RiinaBuilds seems to agree, and has built a quiet rebuttal in brick form. Framed Moths gathers three real species, the eerie death’s-head hawkmoth, the pastel green Luna moth, and the crimson banded Glover’s silkmoth, and mounts each one in its own frame like a piece from a natural history collection. It is a small, focused idea, but the kind that makes you stop scrolling.

Designer: RiinaBuilds

What sells the whole set is that the frames are not interchangeable. Each one is designed to match the personality of the moth inside it, and that is where the build earns its keep as a piece of actual design thinking rather than just three insects glued to boards. The death’s-head hawkmoth gets a spiked, bat winged black frame that leans full Victorian gothic, appropriate for a moth whose skull shaped thorax marking made it a horror movie mainstay long before LEGO got involved (you have almost certainly seen it staring back at you from the Silence of the Lambs poster). The Luna moth sits in gilded baroque scrollwork that would not look out of place in a palace hallway, while the Glover’s silkmoth gets a warm, wood grain chevron frame, a nice touch given that silkmoth caterpillars spend their entire early lives eating the stuff.

None of these moths are actually glued down. Pop one loose from its backing board and you get a fully realized, freestanding insect, complete with legs, antennae, and a posed body, built to stand or be handled on its own. The frames themselves are doing serious structural work behind the scenes too, with a surprising density of brackets and pins bracing each moth at the correct wing angle, which explains why a set that reads as flat wall art actually adds up to around 2,200 pieces. The wings themselves are built from smooth, studless curves rather than jagged brick edges, letting those looping color bands read as organic rather than blocky, and each frame finishes with a small engraved nameplate in cursive script, bearing the moth’s proper Latin name like a specimen tag in a museum case.

Framed Moths is still early in its LEGO Ideas run, currently sitting at 135 supporters with 425 days left to hit the first major milestone of 1,000 supporters, the threshold that would push it further along the review pipeline. It is a slow climb, but a worthwhile one for anyone who has ever wanted actual taxidermy aesthetics on their wall without any of the ethical baggage. If you want to see these three make it to a real box set, you can head to the LEGO Ideas page and cast your vote here.

The post This 2,200-Piece LEGO Moth Kit Is Basically Taxidermy Without the Guilt first appeared on Yanko Design.

This PlayStation Controller Sofa Was Built for Co-Op Gaming Marathons

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Sofas and game controllers are a match made in heaven. Nothing quite screams ‘relaxing gaming sesh’ like a vacant controller lying on an empty sofa, waiting to be picked up, only to be put down hours later. Meanwhile, you start a gaming session on your sofa seated, inching lower and lower till you’re practically laying down in a position only your spine understands (and contends with). Sofas and game controllers truly are an iconic duo… and Muddycap mashed them into the most brilliant piece of furniture any gaming den could ask for.

Meet the Controller Sofa, the name is self-explanatory, as are the visuals. Inspired by the DualShock controllers from yesteryears, Muddycap decided to make the most ultimate gaming furniture ever. It seats two, perfect for mano-a-mano or co-op gaming, and absolutely looks the part. The sofa features a massive D-pad on the left, action buttons on the right, joysticks at the bottom, while the grips double as legs. The entire thing in black, because you can’t wipe dorito-dust or wear week-old hoodies on white furniture.

Designer: Muddycap

Muddycap’s mind is a truly wonderful place, looking at any object and saying ‘will it sofa?’ Past attempts have included traffic lights, martini glasses, even a battery icon. Those are just on our blog – their IG page has even more attempts (1,117 to be precise). All of them have a signature visual template – a sofa against a fairly plain background, allowing the sofa’s design to do all the talking.

This one feels like it speaks to a very specific crowd, and my only real gripe with it is that it isn’t a real sofa – just a 3D model for now. That being said, Muddycap’s represented the controller with stunning detail. Apart from being slightly more horizontally elongated compared to other controllers (but that’s only to accommodate 2 people comfortably), every other detail is spot-on. Including even the trigger buttons at the back, which could be storage compartments if you ask me. Nothing elevates a game-controller-inspired sofa more than an ice box packed into its design, for a few cold sodas or brewskis while gaming!

The post This PlayStation Controller Sofa Was Built for Co-Op Gaming Marathons first appeared on Yanko Design.

Ergonomic chairs rarely account for taller, broader users. LiberNovo built one, and it’s on discount for a week

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Ergonomic chairs may finally be having their XL moment. For years, the category has obsessed over lumbar dials, mesh backs, and posture-perfect adjustability, while a basic fit issue kept slipping through the cracks. Taller and broader users still end up with headrests that fall short, seats that cut off thigh support, and backrests that narrow right where fuller shoulders and wider frames need them most. Fashion learned long ago that fit changes everything. Office seating has taken its time getting there.

LiberNovo’s Maxis brings that shift into focus with proportions aimed at bigger frames, including an ultra-deep seat, a broader backrest, a longer-range headrest, and a controlled recline system built for steadier support. With the first-launch offer now in its final 7 days, the Maxis arrives at exactly the moment when ergonomic design feels ready to stop treating larger bodies like an afterthought.

Designer: LiberNovo

Click Here to Buy Now: $809 $1299 ($490 off). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

LiberNovo’s thinking with the Maxis starts with a premise that should have been more common in this category much earlier: bigger bodies carry different ergonomic demands, and scaling up a standard chair does not address them. The seat runs 52cm deep, enough to deliver full thigh support and put an end to the floating-leg issue that taller users deal with on most office chairs. The back frame spans 430mm at the shoulder and 520mm at the waist, covering the kind of broader build that standard backrests tend to taper away from at precisely the wrong moment. The chair targets users between 5’10” and 6’7″ and up to 399 lbs, a range that has historically been left to sort through limited options in a category that treats average proportions as a universal fit.

A U-shaped headrest with 140mm of vertical travel and 120mm of horizontal adjustment tackles one of the more persistent frustrations for taller sitters: the headrest that lands somewhere around the neck rather than behind it. The adjustment range gives users with longer torsos the clearance to place support where it actually belongs. The Arc Armrests follow a curved path outward, keeping broader frames from feeling squeezed in and addressing the kind of side compression that builds quietly across a long session without ever quite announcing itself as the source of discomfort.

Six springs run through the recline mechanism, producing a progressive lean-back that holds its composure under bigger bodies. The gap between this and the standard recline on most office chairs is felt rather than measured. Under heavier loads, an underdeveloped recline either locks up too rigidly or releases too suddenly. The Maxis builds a more graduated response into the system, so the lean-back feels deliberate and controlled through the full range of motion.

Choosing between the Manual, Electric, and Airflow is the first real decision for anyone looking at the Maxis, and the differences between them are substantial enough to take seriously. The Manual keeps things mechanical and intentional, using a physical dial for lumbar adjustment. It suits users who prefer a set-and-go approach and have no interest in adding electronics to their seating. The Electric introduces motorized lumbar control alongside OmniStretch, a spinal decompression cycle built into the chair that guides the lumbar support through a stretch-and-release sequence designed to reduce the compression that accumulates during extended sitting. That is a genuinely useful feature for anyone logging serious desk hours. The Airflow takes everything the Electric offers and adds active seat ventilation through a centrifugal fan embedded in the cushion, managing heat and moisture for users who run warm or regularly sit through long, uninterrupted sessions.

The Maxis does the heavy lifting for bigger builds, but LiberNovo is rounding out the same launch window with two additions aimed at standard-size users who want something more specific from their seating. The Omni Pro brings motorized lumbar support, OmniStretch, and active seat ventilation to the existing Omni platform, making it the performance-oriented pick for users who want the full feature set without the larger Maxis frame. The Omni SE takes the opposite approach, pairing the same ergonomic architecture with a manual lumbar mechanism for a cleaner, simpler setup that rewards users who prefer comfort without a control panel. Both carry LiberNovo’s same core philosophy of support that responds to movement, just packaged around different priorities and price points.

Seven days is not much runway, so if you have made it this far, it is worth heading over to LiberNovo’s storefront. Each Maxis version comes with bundle options, including StepSync Footrest bundles, while the Electric and Airflow models also offer premium bundles with an extra battery. The current pricing brings the Maxis Manual down to $809 from $1,299, the Maxis Electric down to $1,049 from $1,799, and the Maxis Airflow down to $1,239 from $1,859. The Omni Pro and Omni SE are also discounted as part of the same first-launch window, starting at $909 and $569, respectively. The first-release offer closes on July 31st across the board, which makes this week the last real opportunity to get into any of these chairs at launch pricing.

Click Here to Buy Now: $809 $1299 ($490 off). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

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AirPods Max 2 Finally Get Custom EQ in iOS 27 Beta

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Apple has a playbook for innovation that often involves letting a feature mature elsewhere before adopting it, gift-wrapped, as a profound breakthrough. Widgets appeared on the iPhone long after becoming an Android signature, presented not as a catch-up but as a thoughtful redesign. A calculator app on the iPad took nearly 15 years to become reality. Multitasking came years after Android got it, packaged as Stage Manager. Even the simple act of circling an item to search for it, a trick already familiar on other platforms, is being framed as a new kind of magic. That same playbook is now being run on the AirPods Max 2’s equalizer, a feature that was conspicuously absent when the $549 headphones launched four months ago but has now arrived with the July 14 public beta of iOS 27.

The implementation is classic Apple. The new Equalizer screen is lush and responsive, with an animated waveform that pulses to your music under three simple drag handles: Low, Mid, and High. It feels intuitive, and it looks alive on the screen. This is also a stark contrast to the multi-band or parametric controls that have been standard on flagship headphones from Sony and Bose for years. Just as with Widgets and Stage Manager, Apple has delivered the feature on its own terms and on its own timeline, handing users a beautifully designed tool that prioritizes aesthetic simplicity over the technical depth many owners of a $549 headphone were actually waiting for.

Designer: Apple

That polish, though, also reveals the limit of Apple’s ambition here. Three bands is enough to boost bass, pull back mids, or brighten the top end, but it is still a blunt instrument compared to the multi-band and parametric EQ controls that rivals like Sony and Bose have offered on flagship headphones for years. For casual listeners, that may be perfectly fine. Most people do not want to think in frequencies, Q values, or narrow corrective cuts. They want vocals clearer, bass deeper, and harshness reduced. Apple’s interface serves that audience beautifully.

The problem is that Apple has spent real effort positioning the AirPods Max 2 as a premium audio product for creators, podcasters, and Logic Pro adjacent workflows. In that context, a three-band EQ feels less like a full correction and more like the minimum viable answer to a very public complaint. Reviews at launch repeatedly called out the absence of manual EQ, and this update finally closes that gap. What it does not do is move the AirPods Max 2 into the same conversation as tools built for more serious sound shaping.

That leaves the update in a very Apple place: fashionably late, classically elegant, and strategically simplified. The custom EQ finally gives AirPods Max 2 owners control they should have had from day one, but it also reinforces the company’s longstanding instinct to decide how much control its users really need. For some buyers, this will feel like a thoughtful refinement. For others, especially anyone spending $549 on over-ear headphones with professional aspirations, it may feel like Apple arrived to the party with a beautifully wrapped gift everyone else opened years ago.

The post AirPods Max 2 Finally Get Custom EQ in iOS 27 Beta first appeared on Yanko Design.

Sennheiser’s $200 Clip-On Buds Defeat Bose Ultra Open on Battery — And Skip the US

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Clip-on earbuds were always going to go mainstream; the category just got there in the east first. Huawei’s FreeClip became roughly as ubiquitous as AirPods in Chinese cities, building an installed base for open-ear wearables that Western brands are only now beginning to seriously contest. The appeal is not complicated: a form factor that keeps the ear canal open, lets ambient sound in naturally, and eliminates the sealed pressure that makes conventional in-ears uncomfortable after long sessions. Asia ran that experiment at scale, and the results were settled long before the Western audio press started treating it as a breakthrough.

Sennheiser enters the conversation on July 23 with the Accentum Clip, a product priced at £149 that brings Bluetooth 6.0, LDAC support, IP54 protection, and 36-hour total battery life to a category where Bose has been setting the reference point at a higher price. The launch covers the UK, EU, and Canada. For US consumers, the Accentum Clip joins a lengthening list of globally significant products that simply will not be available at their local retailer, a pattern this publication has been tracking across categories as diverse as electric vehicles, smartphones, and now, apparently, open-ear audio.

Designer: Sennheiser

The Accentum Clip earbuds promise nine hours of playback on a single charge, with the case providing a total of 36 hours. This is a deliberate and significant advantage over the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which offer around 7.5 hours per charge and a total of 27 hours with their case. In a category built for all-day wear, that extra nine hours is a direct appeal to users who want to leave the charging cable at home.

The Accentum Clip uses a 12mm dynamic driver, but the more interesting detail is its support for the LDAC codec. Including a high-bitrate codec like LDAC is a bold choice for an open-ear design, which by its nature lets sound escape and ambient noise in. It signals a confidence in the driver’s ability to deliver a detailed audio experience, even if it is not a closed, isolating one. Paired with Bluetooth 6.0, which promises more stable multipoint connections, the package is technically robust for commuters and office workers who need to switch between devices seamlessly.

Sennheiser opted for a flexible silicone bridge to connect the driver unit and the battery component, quite like Bose’s offering. At 6.8 grams per bud, the design focuses on a gentle, secure clamping force that distributes weight evenly around the ear’s cartilage. The goal is a “barely there” feeling that encourages leaving them on for hours, which aligns perfectly with the product’s impressive battery life. The IP54 rating for dust and splash resistance makes them durable enough for workouts, even if they are not explicitly marketed as fitness gear.

These engineering choices culminate in a fairly reasonable price tag. At £149 or €179 (around $200 USD), the Accentum Clip is positioned aggressively beneath the Bose Ultra Open, which launched at $299. Sennheiser is not trying to create a new category; it is trying to win the one Bose popularized by being a better value on paper. It is a classic challenger strategy: arrive a little late to the party, but bring a better spec sheet and a more accessible price. For European and Canadian buyers, the choice between the two just became much more interesting.

Which brings us back to that curious launch map. The decision to omit the United States, the world’s largest single market for high-end audio, feels a lot like a symptom of a broader shift in the tech industry. Whether due to the complexities of FCC certification, a desire to test the product in smaller markets first, or the simple fact that the US is becoming a harder place for global brands to operate, the absence is loud.

The post Sennheiser’s $200 Clip-On Buds Defeat Bose Ultra Open on Battery — And Skip the US first appeared on Yanko Design.

After MouthPad, Augmental unveils Vox, a privacy-focused wearable mic that lets you whisper-to-type

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The most interesting interface ideas often begin where conventional gadgets start to fail. Voice assistants want you to speak up, microphones capture the whole room, and public dictation still feels awkward in the age of AI. Augmental’s latest product, Vox, approaches that problem from a very different angle, placing a speech interface on the chest where it can listen closely to the wearer and stay nearly invisible under a shirt.

When Augmental introduced MouthPad, it showed how assistive technology could evolve into something far more refined than a visible workaround. The in-mouth interface gave users hands-free cursor control through a custom dental form factor, and now together, MouthPad and Vox begin to outline a new computing language built around the body. One handles navigation through subtle tongue gestures, the other captures quiet speech for dictation and commands, recreating the familiar logic of mouse and keyboard in a wearable, deeply personal form.

Designer: Augmental

Tomás Vega sat down with Yanko Design to show us Vox, but he started by talking about the success of MouthPad. Over a hundred users now rely on it for daily computing, with some logging up to 16 hours of use in a single day. One user, he mentioned, started her undergraduate degree with the device and is now finishing her studies in mathematics. Another told him how it freed him from his wheelchair-anchored setup, letting him work from the comfort of his bed. These stories ground Augmental’s work in real human impact, which makes the arrival of Vox feel like a natural next chapter.

The core problem Vox tackles is that voice technology assumes everyone has a strong, clear voice and is comfortable speaking aloud. That isn’t always true. For users with speech impediments, weakened voices, or lost lung function, standard microphones just don’t work well. Even for those who can speak clearly, privacy is a real concern; private computer access is a right everyone should have. Vox was built for these constraints, but the solution ends up having much broader appeal. It even helps people who stutter, including Tomás himself, because whispering can reduce stuttering and make voice AI more accessible.

The logic behind Vox is pretty clever, drawing inspiration from a doctor’s stethoscope. It sits against the skin under your shirt and is optimized to capture the low-volume speech that travels through your body. An acoustic horn inside the device gathers the subtle vibrations and air displacement from your skin and channels them into a super-sensitive MEMS microphone that is tuned specifically for human speech. The raw audio sounds a bit like hearing someone talk underwater, but Augmental’s signal processing cleans it up to isolate exactly what the speech-to-text model needs. Because the mic is facing your body instead of the room, it’s a personal microphone designed for you and only you.

The relationship between the two products is what makes the whole system click. As Tomás puts it, MouthPad is the mouse, and Vox is the keyboard. Together, they offer full computer control that is both private and hands-free. MouthPad handles all the navigation with tongue gestures on its trackpad, and its radial menu turns complex actions like copy-and-paste into a single, simple gesture. Vox then adds the speech layer, which can be activated with a button press or through the MouthPad itself. The idea is that you put it on in the morning and forget it’s there, always available but almost entirely invisible.

Looking at it next to the MouthPad, you can immediately see the family resemblance. Vox is a circular, transparent pendant on a simple white cord, with its internals visible enough to look engineered but not so much that it feels cold or clinical. The three colored buttons on the side, orange, black, and gray, can be remapped to do whatever you want, whether that’s firing up a specific AI agent, switching devices, or just controlling your music. The long-term vision is even more integrated, with Tomás imagining a future of “skinware” where these functions might one day live in a smart tooth or a small skin patch.

For now, Vox is launching as a beta, with the first wave limited to a few hundred units priced at $200. This is a deliberate choice to learn from early users before scaling up. The MouthPad, for comparison, is $1,400, a price that reflects the complex custom-fit process, which involves a 3D scan at one of Augmental’s hundreds of partner dental centers across the US. The Vox pendant has a battery that lasts about eight hours, with enough power for around two hours of straight transcription time, which is more than enough for a full day of dictation. You can learn more and get yours over at augmental.tech.

The post After MouthPad, Augmental unveils Vox, a privacy-focused wearable mic that lets you whisper-to-type first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Only Thing Missing From This LEGO Coffee Set Is the Smell

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LEGO fans are obsessive. Coffee fans are obsessive. Somewhere at the exact intersection of those two fandoms sits ModularManiac’s Coffee Collection, a build that exists purely because someone looked at their pour-over setup one morning and thought it deserved to be immortalized in bricks. Five separate builds, one shared obsession.

The set nails the process end to end: a gooseneck kettle mid-pour, a dripper loaded with grounds, a finished cup topped with latte art, even a coffea arabica plant growing berries nearby. Steam curls off the cup in brick form. The only thing this build can’t replicate is the smell, that first hit of fresh grounds and hot water that makes the whole ritual worth doing in the first place.

Designer: ModularManiac

Start with the pour-over, because it’s the mechanical centerpiece of the whole collection. The dripper’s pleated white filter might be the only non-lego element here, but I honestly can’t think of an alternative. It sits inside a transparent cone that shows LEGO pellet coffee grounds inside. Below it, a glass carafe holds a pool of translucent brown pieces standing in for brewed coffee. A gooseneck kettle accompanies the build, giving you exactly the right kind of hardware a coffee-nerd would expect from this build. Everything’s scaled to match each other, so you could even mimic your pouring pattern with this brickset… Yes I know you absolutely will.

A tiny cup sits on a saucer and comes with interchangeable latte art discs, built from gold and cream pieces arranged into foam-art patterns you can swap in and out depending on whether you want to mimic an espresso, a doppio, a cortado, or a macchiato. It’s a genuinely clever mechanism dressed up as a novelty, since the whole cup assembly pulls apart to let you customize the design sitting on top. Next to it, a small spoon rounds out the tabletop scene, presumably for stirring in sugar, and the coffea arabica plant stands off to the side with berries built along posable stems, giving the whole collection a quiet nod to where any of this actually comes from.

Altogether the build runs around 1,400 pieces across those five objects: kettle, pour-over, plant, spoon, and cup. None of it is enormous individually, but staged together on a shelf or a desk, it reads as a complete scene rather than five disconnected models, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.

The set has already picked up a Staff Pick badge on LEGO Ideas, the platform where fan designers submit builds like this one for the community to vote on. Cross 10,000 supporters and LEGO’s internal team reviews the project for a possible retail release. The Coffee Collection currently sits at 2,242 supporters with 590 days left to hit its first checkpoint of 5,000, so there’s time to help push it along. If your desk is missing a coffee ritual that never actually needs refilling (or if you’re a recovering caffeine addict who wants their fix without breaking their streak), you can cast your vote on the LEGO Ideas page here.

The post The Only Thing Missing From This LEGO Coffee Set Is the Smell first appeared on Yanko Design.

Canon scrapped its most ambitious vlogging camera ever… Here’s what the patent reveals

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Canon has filed three separate patents chasing a handheld vlogging camera, five years apart, and each one solved a completely different problem than the one before it. The version everyone read about this spring is a fixed lens gimbal with a smart shutdown sequence, built to compete with the Osmo Pocket 4, and it traces cleanly back to a 2024 filing. Its real ancestor sits further back, in a December 2020 patent that rarely gets mentioned in the same breath, and it deserved better than being forgotten. That filing wasn’t a gimbal camera at all, despite early reports calling it exactly that. It was a pistol grip built around an interchangeable lens mount and a motorized head that only pans and tilts, aimed at creators who wanted a real sensor and real glass in something you could frame with one hand. Had Canon actually built it, this would have been the most ambitious vlogging camera the company ever attempted, not the fixed lens compromise it eventually shipped toward instead.

DPReview had to rewrite its own coverage once it worked through the Japanese documents, since the initial assumption of Osmo style stabilization didn’t hold up against what the patent actually claimed. Control came from a rear touchpad and a front trigger for preset framing points, with the display flipping automatically depending on lens orientation. Canon even filed a follow up patent for a lock to stop the lens twisting free mid motion, evidence of how much engineering went into a product that never left the drawing board. The mount in the drawings lines up with EF-M, a system Canon has since confirmed is finished, lenses gone and shipments halted for good. Comparing that abandoned idea to this year’s fixed lens gimbal makes one thing obvious, Canon already had its most ambitious vlogging camera worked out on paper years ago, and simply never pulled the trigger.

A 360 degree pan and roughly 270 degrees of tilt let the lens swing from a landscape shot to a selfie without repositioning the grip. A rear touchpad aimed the head, a front trigger locked preset framing points, and two buttons handled recording and playback. The camera also read its own orientation, flipping the display when the lens rotated backward and switching to vertical when the grip turned ninety degrees. A hot shoe up top took a mic or a light. None of it needed a phone paired over Bluetooth, unlike most gimbal cameras built since.

Patent application 2021-004930 would have added a lock to stop the lens releasing by accident, since a lens on a motorized head has nothing solid to brace against while you twist it free. CanonNews and DPReview both read the mount as EF-M based on the tab position in the drawings, backed by a separate filing for an add on grip and adapter meant for larger lenses. Canon’s own documents admit the tradeoff, since a bigger adapted lens would have limited the head’s pan and tilt range, while a compact EF-M prime would have kept full motion. It is a rare case of a patent documenting its own compromise instead of pretending the idea scales cleanly. EF-M is gone now, with Canon USA confirming shipments in the region have ended, so this camera never got the chance to grow into a second generation of lenses.

Canon’s April patent takes the opposite bet, a fixed lens gimbal with a folding head and a shutdown sequence smart enough to know when nobody is holding it. That is a sensible answer to the Osmo Pocket 4, though a smaller idea than the one Canon shelved earlier, since a fixed lens will never accept a wider prime the way an EF-M mount could have. Canon spent five years learning that practicality sells better than ambition, and this year’s patent proves the lesson stuck. Somewhere in Tokyo sits the version of this camera that would have actually mattered to people who own lenses, and Canon decided it was too complicated to build. Whatever ships next will be more reliable than the 2021 concept, but it will also be the safer camera, worth remembering next time Canon calls something a first for creators.

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