Author Archives: Sarang Sheth

You now pair your old iPod with AirPods thanks to this Motherboard swap

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When Jobs pitched the iTunes Music Store to studio execs, he pointed at Napster as the model. Napster won because it was easy, so Jobs set out to build something just as easy that was also legal. The result was a marketplace for individual tracks, or ‘singles,’ which pretty much rewired the audio business, and the iPod (already on shelves since 2001) became the pocket for it. More than two decades later, the iPod is making a comeback. Sure, the retro wave is real, and a new generation wants music without TikTok notifications, but that same crowd also wants to live through an era when music could be owned, stored, and played offline.

The catch is that an iPod plays audio just fine (if you can find a working one), but it can’t talk to Apple’s own AirPods. Sprout, a new replacement motherboard from London studio Certain Things, fixes that for the iPod 3rd generation, 4th generation, and iPod mini, and AirPods bring their noise cancellation with them. The case, screen, and wheel stay exactly as Apple made them, while USB-C charging, Wi-Fi, and a microSD slot for up to 2TB join the party. That 2TB works out to roughly 500,000 songs, which is a lot of owning. A Crowd Supply campaign is coming, with pricing still TBA.

Designer: Certain Things

Same Body, New Brain, Zero Soldering

Sprout’s board is cut to the shape of Apple’s original, a flex that tells you how much homework went into this. It measures 2.19 x 3.86 x 0.06 inches (55.5 x 98.0 x 1.6mm) on the 3rd and 4th generation, and the mini board is even slimmer. You open the iPod with a screwdriver and a plastic pry tool, lift out the old board, and reconnect the original ribbon cables to the new one. The monochrome LCD is driven natively, so the screen looks like it always did, chunky pixels included. Installed, the whole thing weighs less than the original iPod, which is a sentence nobody expects to write about a mod.

Zac Builds soldered a generic Bluetooth transmitter into an iPod Video’s headphone circuit, which works but asks for steady hands and a tolerance for tiny wires. Boxy Pixel’s kit needs hardly any soldering and keeps Apple’s motherboard in play, but its machined aluminum shell with glass panels costs $155 plus $13 for buttons and switches. The finished iPod also comes out chunkier than the original, which is a fair trade for haptic feedback and wireless charging but a hard sell for purists. Sprout takes the invisible route, where the iPod looks untouched and only the internals know what happened. For anyone who loved how these things looked in the early 2000s, that keeps the nostalgia fully intact.

Bluetooth, a Proper DAC, and Two Flavors of Sprout

Bluetooth is the headline, and it lets AirPods and any other wireless headphones or speakers pair with an iPod 3G, 4G, or mini. Wired listeners get a CS43131-class DAC from Cirrus Logic, the chip that turns digital audio into the analog signal your headphones play, feeding the original 3.5mm jack. Files drag and drop over USB-C in MP3, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, or Opus, so iTunes never gets invited to the party. The 3rd and 4th generation boards target 40 hours of continuous Bluetooth playback on a 2,500mAh cell, a full workweek of desk listening between charges. The mini aims for 20 hours on a 1,200mAh cell, and a microSD slot up to 2TB retires the aging hard drive.

Sprout Pico runs on a Raspberry Pi RP2350, a small microcontroller that wakes instantly, and plays your own library and Wi-Fi podcast downloads on all three iPods. Sprout Pi, offered for the 3rd and 4th generation, adds a Compute Module Zero, a tiny Raspberry Pi computer, for Spotify, Apple Music, AirPlay, and custom apps. The studio calls the streaming features working proofs of concept as of September 2026, so launch features may differ. The firmware is written from scratch and adds Cover Flow, a 2007 Apple trick, to a monochrome iPod, alongside Podcasts and Search. On Sprout Pi, a Linux computer hides underneath, and demo clips labeled apps show a classic Mac and a PlayStation.

Open Source Gives Sprout Legs

Schematics, board layouts, and the bill of materials (the full parts list) will be released under CERN-OHL-S v2, while firmware lands under MPL-2.0 and documentation under CC BY 4.0. That documentation includes reverse-engineering notes on the iPod’s display, click wheel, and headphone connectors, so the next tinkerer starts with a map. All of it is due on GitHub before the campaign ends, so anyone can poke at it. Guy Dupont’s 2021 sPot is the obvious ancestor, a Raspberry Pi Zero W inside a 4th generation iPod that streamed Spotify but kept only the case and click wheel. Sprout keeps the original monochrome screen and a working headphone jack, which turns a clever one-off into a repeatable design.

Moonlit Market’s Classic Connect 2 covers the 5th, 6th, and 7th generation, so the 3rd, 4th, and mini finally get their own project. Sudo, the $249 player betting on a wheel and a library you own, is a new device built to feel old, while Sprout is an old one made to behave new. You supply the iPod (cheaper in these overlooked generations), and no price or ship date has been announced. Launch updates are available through Sprout’s Crowd Supply page, where the project is listed as launching soon. Jobs sold the world on easy, legal music you could own, and the best way to keep that promise now might be an old iPod with a new brain.

 

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Someone Turned the Beats Pill Into a Diglett, and Now the Official Pikachu Version Looks Boring

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Pokémon turned 30 this year, and every brand with a product page seems to want a slice of the cake. Polaroid’s Pokémon cameras and the Fitbit Air Pokémon Sleep edition came first, and now Beats has joined in with a Pill. The speaker launched October 15 at $149.99 with Pikachu and Mimikyu across the grille, a gray body, and a Poké Ball charm on a matching lanyard. It’s a perfectly nice object. I’ll confess, though, that I looked at that gray capsule and thought a better Pokémon was sitting right there.

Courtyard.io shared a concept that makes the case, and it turns the Pill into Diglett. The brown grille wears glossy black eyes and a raised pink nose, and the whole thing rises out of a sculpted pile of gray rocks like it just popped out of a tunnel. A second render stacks three Pills into a Dugtrio on one shared mound. Diglett has been a capsule with a face since 1996, so this is the rare mashup where nobody has to squint. Consider this my case that the Pill’s best Pokémon was Gen 1 all along.

Designer: Courtyard_io

Diglett already has the Pill’s silhouette

Diglett is a head on a mound, which makes it a capsule with a face. Courtyard.io’s render keeps the Pill’s rounded cylinder untouched and wraps it in a clay brown grille, so the perforated mesh reads like packed soil. The Beats “b” sits low on the body in copper, just above the rocks, and the three-quarter shot shows the lighter tan side band running down the edge like a seam in the dirt. Nothing about the form had to bend to fit the character. That almost never happens in a collab, and it is the reason this concept looks so convincing at first glance.

The official Pokémon x Beats Pill takes the opposite route. It keeps a gray body, prints Pikachu and Mimikyu on the grille, and adds a Poké Ball charm, the first charm Beats has ever bundled with a Pill. That is a graphic on a speaker, and a handsome one. Beats has also done character Pills before, a history Apple’s Oliver Schusser cited when the 2024 model launched. A Diglett Pill would simply bring that idea back with a Pokémon attached, which is a much shorter walk than it sounds.

The glossy eyes, the pink nose, and a rock base that doubles as a stand

The grille is matte and finely perforated, while the eyes and nose are glossy, raised pieces that catch the light like a vinyl toy. That sheen difference gives the face a collectible-figure look without a single printed graphic. The rock base adds a third texture, a pebbly gray sculpt that gives the speaker something to stand in and sells the burrow illusion. Courtyard.io embossed its name into one of the boulders, which is a tidy way to sign your work. Every surface has a job, and none of them are shouting.

Picture the real hardware under that mesh. The 2024 Pill claims 24 hours of battery, so a Diglett could play through a full backyard party and still have juice for the next morning’s coffee. Its IP67 rating means dust-tight and able to survive a dunk in about three feet of water for 30 minutes, which suits a Pokémon that lives in dirt. At 680 grams (about 1.5 pounds), it is light enough to carry out to the garden. A speaker that hangs out in the flowerbed makes more sense to me than a gray one with a Poké Ball dangling off it.

The Dugtrio render and what Pokémon collabs could learn from it

The Dugtrio render stacks three Pills on a single rock mound, each with its own startled face and copper “b.” Beats currently pairs two Pills at a time, in Amplify Mode for more volume or Stereo Mode for left and right separation, so the third head would need a firmware update and a little optimism. At the official Pill’s $149.99, three speakers come to $449.97, which is one and a half pairs of the PUMA Suede Pikachu at $300 each. Dugtrio’s whole identity is being three Diglett, which makes it the one Pokémon where buying three speakers feels like a feature. I’d happily make that trade for a bookshelf trio that gets guests asking questions.

Most of the recent Pokémon collabs work by decoration. Polaroid wrapped a camera in Poké Ball patterns, Fitbit added a sleeping Pikachu label, PUMA bent a Formstrip into a bolt, and Beats printed two characters on a grille, all of it charming and most of it surface treatment. Courtyard.io’s Diglett goes the other direction by letting the object’s own shape do the talking, and the renders live on Courtyard.io’s X page for anyone who wants a closer look. The franchise has had a capsule-shaped character since 1996, and Beats has had a capsule-shaped speaker since 2012, so this introduction was overdue. Pikachu will always sell, but Diglett would get the laugh.

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HOZO said hobby knives were dead, then built their best one yet

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A little over a year ago, HOZO basically wrote a eulogy for the hobby knife. Their NeoBlade came in swinging with ultrasonic vibrations, promising an end to blades that snag, skip, or crack a delicate print, and our headline covering it literally started with “RIP Hobby Knives.” Well, plot twist. HOZO just built a hobby knife, and it turns out the eulogy was less “rest in peace” and more “watch this.” It wasn’t supposed to be their next project at all. They were trying to expand NeoBlade’s blade lineup, saw a hobby knife online that looked ridiculously good, bought one, and the real thing was a serious letdown.

HOZO’s tenth product arrives after nine years of the Hong Kong brand making measuring devices, ultrasonic cutters, and detail sanders for the maker community. The Hobby Knife is a compact precision craft knife with a spring-loaded one-press blade change, paired with a case that unfolds into a portable cutting mat. Six flat profiles carry over from NeoBlade, joined by four new specialized tools, of which the U-Gouge and V-Gouge also fit the NeoBlade, giving eight blades shared across both handles. HOZO aimed it at leatherworkers, cosplayers, paper crafters, Gunpla builders, and jewelers. They started making it because they bought someone else’s version and felt let down, a starting point with a certain internal logic to it.

Designer: HOZO

Click here to Buy Now: $59 $79 (25% off). Hurry, only a 605/1000 left! Raised over $195,000.

A round hobby knife handle rolls off any slanted surface, and nobody seemed to care enough to fix it until HOZO came along. The Hobby Knife body is full aluminum, hexagonal in cross-section, and that geometry sits flat by physics alone without needing a clip or a desk stand. The textured grip zone and raised rings at the balance point add tactile registration for long sessions without making it feel overengineered. At 6.3 inches (160mm) with the blade cap on and 26 grams total weight, it sits in the hand more like a technical pen than a knife. The material breakdown covers stainless steel at the collet, aluminum alloy through the body, and a nylon and glass fiber blend for the button, so it’s light without being fragile.

Pressing the spring-loaded button on the body releases the blade in one motion, replacing what used to require two hands, a twisting routine, and at least one moment of lost grip. The stainless steel collet has a magnet built into it that holds the blade in place, so pressing the button loosens the grip rather than firing anything out or letting it drop free. HOZO describes the inspiration as the familiar ease of a ballpoint pen, and the comparison is more accurate than it sounds. That magnetic hold keeps fine cuts free of play, and the internal spring locks everything tight again the moment a new blade seats. The whole swap takes under a second, and the mechanism feels more deliberate than the twist collet on any comparable knife in this category.

Ten interchangeable blade types come with the knife, a range the standard No. 11 scalpel system never really offered. Six flat blades inherited from the NeoBlade lineup cover Standard, Long, Chisel, Mini Chisel, Curved, and Double Edge profiles for paper, leather, film, and soft wood. HOZO expands the system with U-Gouge and V-Gouge attachments, the first for rounded grooves and the second for sharp defined lines. A fine saw handles tougher material and a metal file refines edges once the cutting is done, pushing the tool past slicing into actual finishing work. Eight of the ten fit the NeoBlade ultrasonic cutter as well, so the blade drawer serves both handles instead of splitting into two incompatible piles.

All blades are quenched 420 stainless steel, rust-resistant without oil, and finished with rounded non-cutting ends that make handling safer when fishing them out of the auto-feeding dispenser. That dispenser is translucent, so the remaining blade count reads at a glance instead of requiring a shake test. The case carries a disposal slot that keeps spent blades contained rather than loose in a bag, aimed at anyone who has ever reached into a tool roll and found a used No. 11 point first. Blade handling is where most hobby knife systems stay stuck in 1960, loose cardboard sleeves and a bin you hope nobody reaches into. HOZO treating storage, feeding, and disposal as design problems rather than packaging afterthoughts is the part of this product I find most convincing.

HOZO embedded a PVC cutting mat directly into the knife case, solving the most annoying problem in portable craft work: arriving somewhere ready to cut and realizing the mat is at home. The case folds through four modes, from slim closed carry to flat open mat to a propped desktop angle to a fully extended layout that doubles the 5.2 by 7.6 inch (133 by 192mm) working area. Mat and leather case are a single piece, and the tool body holding the knife and blades is what attaches magnetically to that case. Pouch and mat replace together when the surface wears out, and they come in different colors. NeoSander’s 13,000-SPM action slots into the next stage of the same workflow for anyone doing finishing after the cutting.

The base Hobby Knife Set is $59 (MSRP $79), including the knife, the Knife Case with Pouch and Cutting Mat, 01 Knife Blades, and the 10-in-1 Blade Refill Set. The Premium Set steps up to $129 (MSRP $219), including the Regular Blade Set for blade types 1 through 8. Replacement HOZO Knife Pouch and Cutting Mat units are available at $15.90 each, and blade refill sets run $9.90. The All-In Combo, bundling the Hobby Knife with both the NeoSander and NeoBlade, runs $489 (MSRP $739). The blade system is HOZO-proprietary rather than compatible with standard No. 11 blades, so ongoing supply runs through their store, and the cutting mat tops out at 7.6 inches, compact by design and worth knowing before you commit.

Click here to Buy Now: $59 $79 (25% off). Hurry, only a 605/1000 left! Raised over $195,000.

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Xbox finally made a Nano controller that fits in your hoodie pocket

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The Xbox controller is one of the best things ever put in a human hand and one of the worst things ever put in a backpack. Those big grips and that two-AA battery bay feel great on the couch and ridiculous on a train. 8BitDo worked out the pocket problem a while ago, and its wired Ultimate Mini squeezed the Xbox layout into a $35 body weighing about 6.7 ounces (189.6 grams). Microsoft’s answer is the Xbox Nano Controller, a little over 5 inches long and just 3.5 ounces (99 grams). It keeps all 18 standard inputs and swaps the AA bay for a built-in rechargeable battery.

At $49.99, the Nano undercuts the $64.99 standard controller by $15 but still costs more than the $30 to $35 pads from CRKD and 8BitDo. Native Xbox Wireless and a programmable Action Button for screenshots and clips are the premium on offer. I am happy to pay it, mostly because Xbox under CEO Asha Sharma has been on a listening streak. She took over Microsoft Gaming in February, lowered Game Pass pricing, and reportedly spends a few hours a month answering player support tickets herself. A pocketable pad for kids, commuters, and small hands looks a lot like that listening turned into plastic. It ships November 4 in the US and 35 other markets.

Designer: Xbox

A landscape slab with stub grips and a familiar face

The Nano looks like the Xbox Wireless Controller after a dictionary fell on it. The face is a single inset plate with a visible seam, the grips are short stubs, and the shell in Microsoft’s images is the same Robot White as the standard pad. Everything else stays familiar, from the staggered stick layout and faceted hybrid D-pad to the textured stick caps and glossy black ABXY buttons with colored letters. Shrinking a controller usually means redrawing it, and Xbox mostly shrank the drawing it already had. Colors beyond white have not been announced, though the May leak showed a black model too.

Each side of the top edge carries a single pad labeled LB over LT or RB over RT, which puts bumper and trigger in one compact housing, with the USB-C port and pairing button sitting between them. The back is smooth and matte, with a recessed label panel and four round recesses whose purpose Microsoft has not explained. How independently the bumper and trigger move is something only hands-on time can settle. The overall rectangle will look familiar to anyone who has browsed 8BitDo’s catalog, and Engadget said the leaked version looked like something that company would make. 8BitDo spent years proving the shape works, and Microsoft is borrowing the proof.

Eighteen inputs, one new button, and a few blanks

All 18 standard gameplay inputs made the trip, and the one addition is a programmable Action Button that appears to sit below the Xbox logo. Through the Xbox Accessories app it can fire off screenshots, gameplay capture, or other shortcuts, and the same app handles button remapping. It also seems to take over the job of the standard pad’s Share button, which has no obvious twin on the Nano’s face. Microsoft has not shared battery life, rumble or Impulse Trigger support, or whether a headphone jack exists. Those answers will decide how the Nano stacks up against the cheaper pads in its aisle.

Connectivity runs on Xbox Wireless for consoles and Bluetooth for Windows PCs, iOS, Android, and select smart TVs. A USB-C cable handles charging and is sold separately. Tecnoblog’s May report on Brazilian Anatel filings described a compact cloud-focused pad that looks a lot like the Nano, with Wi-Fi 6 and a 500 mAh battery, but Microsoft’s launch post mentions only Xbox Wireless and Bluetooth, so the Wi-Fi part stays unconfirmed. The cloud angle still shows up in the bundles, since Samsung’s Gaming Hub streams Game Pass titles and select Samsung TVs and Meta Quest headsets carry holiday Nano offers with two months of Game Pass Ultimate for new US members. That is a lot of screens for 3.5 ounces.

Where $49.99 lands among the pocket pads

The $49.99 price parks the Nano between the $30 to $35 pocket pads and the $64.99 standard controller. 8BitDo’s wired Ultimate Mini offers Hall effect sticks and triggers, a 3.5 mm audio jack, and an RGB Fire Ring for $35, which is a lot of spec per dollar. The Nano answers with first-party Xbox Wireless, a built-in battery, and zero cable tether, though Microsoft has not said what sits under its sticks. So the choice comes down to whether you value a plug-in spec sheet or a cord-free pad that speaks Xbox Wireless natively. Microsoft is also leaning on Minecraft Dungeons II, which supports four players, as the obvious reason to own a few.

Designing for hands the standard pad does not fit is familiar territory for Xbox, which built the Xbox Adaptive Controller, first glimpsed as the Project Z leak in 2018. The Nano takes that instinct and points it at small hands and small pockets. It also fits the Sharma era’s pattern of making Xbox cheaper to join and easier to carry. Grips this short will get their real verdict in a three-hour session, and I am curious to run one. 8BitDo drew the map. Xbox just showed up with the logo.

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Acer’s new 5G phone comes with a microSD slot, a headphone jack, and a display on the back

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Some phones look like slabs, some look like jewelry, and the Acer Sospiro A70 looks dressed for a wedding. A black glass camera module runs across the top of the back and ends in a pointed V, exactly like the flap on a blazer pocket. I love it. It gives the phone an instantly recognizable silhouette in a market where most rivals share one camera island and one personality. The V points down the back like an arrow, as if the phone is gesturing at its own camera and saying, look at this. Anyone who keeps a phone in a blazer pocket will feel right at home.

The A70 comes from Senwa Global, the Mexican company that licenses the Acer name for phones sold across Latin America. Tucked into that module is a 1.88-inch second screen that works as a viewfinder, so you can shoot selfies with the 64MP main camera instead of the 16MP front one. Under the hood sit a Unisoc T8200 chip (two fast cores, six frugal ones), 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, 5G, and a headphone jack. Pricing and a launch date are still unannounced. Sadly, the A70 isn’t sold in the US, so this one is admiration from a distance.

Designer: Acer

Selfies Finally Get the Good Camera

Front cameras are the budget cut nobody advertises. The A70’s 16MP selfie shooter is fine, but the 64MP rear sensor is the one Acer actually bragged about. The 1.88-inch rear screen (240 x 284 pixels) lets you flip the phone around and frame yourself with that better camera. No more guessing where your forehead ended up. The same panel shows the time, notifications, and incoming calls, which suits a face-down phone on a cafe table. At roughly 198 pixels per inch it’s softer than the main display, but for checking your hair that is plenty.

Xiaomi started this whole idea in 2021 with the Mi 11 Ultra, which carried a 1.1-inch AMOLED beside its camera and sold in Europe for €1,199. The Xiaomi 17 Pro and Pro Max grew the screen to 2.7 and 2.9 inches in 2025, starting at CNY 5,000 and CNY 6,000 (roughly $700 and $850). Those are flagship prices, and the phones launched in China first. The A70’s 1.88-inch panel lands between those two generations in size and keeps the same logic, minus the flagship bill. Nobody had a licensed Acer down as the one to carry the trickle-down torch, myself included.

The V Does the Branding

On the red and graphite versions, the module is a black glass band spanning the full width of the back, with a chevron lower edge pointing down the body. The lens rings are tinted to match each body, so the red gets red rings, the white gets silver, and the graphite stays dark. A vertical flash strip sits beside the lenses, and the rear screen fills the right half of the module in Acer’s renders, with a gradient clock and a flower wallpaper overlapping the digits. A small 5G badge sits right at the V point. It is a tidy composition for a phone in this class.

The graphite finish is my favorite, a speckled texture with a faint sparkle that Acer photographed against a slab of rock for maximum drama. The red is glossy and loud, and the white pairs a silver frame with a white module for a cleaner look. Green accents on the side keys add a pop of color in the renders. Back to the pocket flap, though. I would argue a distinctive camera shape does more branding work than the Acer logo, which sits modestly near the bottom. Even from across a table, that V says Acer Sospiro louder than any badge.

Sensible Specs, Zero US Availability

The rest of the spec sheet reads like a practical friend. A 5,000mAh battery is the usual all-day size, and the box includes a charger, cable, case, and screen protector, which saves you a trip to the accessory aisle. The 6.67-inch screen is only 720 x 1600 pixels, but it runs at 120Hz (120 refreshes per second), so scrolling stays smooth even if small text is not razor sharp. Storage is 256GB with a microSD slot for cards up to 1TB, so your vacation clips have somewhere to go. The 3.5mm jack and FM radio are on board, and IP64 handles rain but not a pool.

Pricing and a launch date are unannounced, and the A70 isn’t sold in the US, so American readers will need a Latin American friend or a lot of patience. The nearest thing on US shelves is a midrange Samsung Galaxy A phone or a Google Pixel A model, and neither has a second screen on the back. Senwa’s lineup of Acer-branded phones has mostly been budget fare, which makes this one a clear step up in ambition. Xiaomi proved the rear screen could be a flagship feature, and Acer’s licensee is betting it can be a mid-range one. If it works, the cheap seats get the coolest design detail first.

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This glowing modular moss panel system might be the coolest way to fix a boring room

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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!

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This chrome skeleton is the most extra mechanical keyboard ever made

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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.

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Twelve New Designs in Six Weeks: Why I Love the new Apple under John Ternus

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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 lets someone else carry the cooler.

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Meet Apple HomeView: A weirdly genius combination of the iMac, Watch, iPad, and HomePod

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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.

 

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This 9-in-1 folding titanium ruler can draw circles, slice paper, and eject your SIM card

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Measure twice, cut once is solid advice that skips a few steps. Somewhere between the measuring and the cutting you also need a pencil, a square, a knife, and usually a level, and they are never in the same place. Every maker knows the shuffle of patting down pockets for a stub of graphite. It is the least glamorous part of any project, and nobody has bothered to design around it. MakerPi did.

The Tiruler 2.0 is a folding ruler from MakerPi in Hong Kong, built from Grade 5 titanium and brass. Its two 3.94-inch (10 cm) arms carry a magnetic pencil, a magnetic knife, a pocket caliper, a curve-measuring wheel, and a bubble level. A row of holes along one arm turns it into a compass, which is a party trick I did not expect from a ruler. The hinge also stops at 45, 90, and 180 degrees. All of it comes to 2.2 ounces (63.3 g), a little more than a large egg.

Designer: MakerPi

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $148 (33% off). Hurry, only 215/500 left! Raised over $140,000.

A titanium body with scales you can actually read

Most of the Tiruler 2.0 is Grade 5 titanium, the Ti-6Al-4V alloy aerospace engineers rely on, shaped into two folding arms. Brass scale plates add the warm gold you see against the gray metal. One arm reads metric and the other reads imperial by default, which ends the mental conversion game. All-metric and all-imperial versions are offered for people who live in one system. Titanium also resists corrosion, so a tool that rides in a pocket or a bag should wear well.

The scale markings are now chemically etched and filled with black ink. The original Tiruler laser-engraved its brass scales, and users found some marks hard to read once grime built up. MakerPi made the change after feedback on that first version. The result is crisp, high-contrast numbers that read well from different angles. It is a technique familiar from instrument dials, and I like seeing it on a pocket tool. A ruler you cannot read is a stick.

Angle stops, a curve wheel, and a caliper that reads to 0.1 mm

The pivot end of the Tiruler 2.0 handles angles and curves. A brass dial measures an angle and lets you draw it directly, with stops at 45, 90, and 180 degrees so common corners click into place. The same end works as a measuring wheel, where one full rotation equals 3.94 inches (100 mm). A click sounds each time the wheel passes zero. For anything longer, you count the clicks and add the current reading, which is old-school arithmetic that works fine on a bottle or a bike frame.

The pocket caliper slides out of an arm and reads down to 0.1 mm using a vernier-style scale. Pierre Vernier published that clever scale back in 1631, and it still works the same way. Outside measurements cover cylinders, bottle caps, rings, and model parts. New this generation are inside measurements, taken with two 1.5 mm pins across a range of 0.12 to 2.17 inches (3 to 55 mm). You add 3 mm to the brass scale reading, so 11 mm becomes 14 mm, a small tax that still beats a trip to the toolbox.

A magnetic pencil that doubles as a compass, plus a blade

The pencil sits in a magnetic slot and pulls out with no latch to fight. Its replaceable everlasting tip is water-resistant and needs no sharpening. Unscrew the top and a fine pin appears, which works as a SIM ejector, a toothpick, a tiny hole punch, or a pick for small parts. That same pin is the pivot for the compass function. Plant it, drop the pencil into one of the holes along the arm, and rotate the ruler around it, with the scale telling you the circle size. I love it when one small part gets two jobs.

The knife lives in its own magnetic slot, backed by an extra retention feature so it stays put when the tool gets shaken or carried around. It accepts standard #11 scalpel blades, so replacements are cheap and easy to find. Paper, cardstock, and tape are the intended targets. MakerPi says plainly that it does not replace a dedicated cutting tool, which I appreciate. Measuring, marking, and slicing along the same edge without setting anything down is the point.

Glow tubes, engraving, and what it costs

A bubble level is built in, handy for installation, positioning, and model making. Two mounting holes take tritium tubes or glass glow tubes, which makes the tool easy to spot in dim light. Tritium glows continuously without charging, while glass tubes charge under UV light and slowly fade. There is also an optional engraving area that takes up to 20 characters, ideal for a name or a mark. A genuine leather case is available as an add-on for protection and storage.

Early pricing for the Tiruler 2.0 starts at $99, against a planned retail price of $148. The default build pairs a metric arm with an imperial arm, and all-metric or all-imperial versions are available. Each unit includes the magnetic pencil and knife, while the leather case, glow tubes, and custom engraving are optional add-ons. MakerPi ships worldwide and import and export taxes are already baked into the price, so US buyers should not face a customs bill. Shipping is expected to begin in March 2027.

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $148 (33% off). Hurry, only 215/500 left! Raised over $140,000.

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