Author Archives: Sarang Sheth

Rabbit R1’s OpenClaw Update Could Be Its Most Important Moment Yet

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There is a version of the Rabbit R1 story that ends in 2024. The device launches to enormous hype off the back of a viral CES presentation, ships to early adopters who find it half-finished and frustrating, earns a wave of scathing reviews, and quietly disappears the way most failed AI gadgets do. Humane’s AI Pin followed that trajectory almost exactly, discontinued in early 2025 after HP acquired the company. The R1 did not follow it, though the reasons why have less to do with any brilliant pivot than with stubbornness, incremental software updates, and a fair amount of luck.

By January 2026, two years of over-the-air updates had produced a device functional enough to sustain a renewed community of users and developers. Then OpenClaw arrived on the R1, and the conversation changed in a way that felt less like a product announcement and more like something clicking into place. OpenClaw, the open-source autonomous AI agent that had exploded from obscurity to 60,000 GitHub stars in 72 hours, had always carried a hardware problem at its core. The R1, as it turned out, had most of the solution already built in.

Designer: Rabbit

OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot, then Moltbot, changing names three times in a single week) is an open-source autonomous AI agent that exploded from 9,000 to over 60,000 GitHub stars in 72 hours in late 2025. Austrian developer Peter Steinberger built it as a self-hosted agent runtime that connects AI models to your local machine, messaging apps, calendar, email, and file system. You control it by sending messages through WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, or Slack, like you’re DMing a particularly capable assistant. OpenClaw can browse the web, manage your inbox, schedule meetings, summarize documents, and execute shell commands autonomously, with persistent memory that lets it remember context across weeks. The problem OpenClaw always carried was the lack of native voice interaction on dedicated hardware, and the R1 had exactly that hardware sitting in a drawer gathering skepticism.

Rabbit integrated OpenClaw in January 2026 as an alpha feature, requiring users to set up their own OpenClaw gateway and connect it to the R1. Push the talk button, speak a command, and OpenClaw executes it through your existing setup. The R1 becomes a voice interface for an agent that can genuinely act on your behalf, making the device something closer to what Lyu promised two years ago. The possibilities depend entirely on how you configure OpenClaw, which can expand through over 100 community-built skills. Security risks are real and well-documented (over 400 malicious add-ons were found on the skill hub in early 2026), but for users willing to manage that complexity, the R1 finally has a use case that feels native to the hardware rather than bolted on.

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Researchers turned Sawdust Waste and Watermelon Seeds into Recyclable Fire-resistant Panels

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Every sawmill in the world produces it. Every furniture factory, every timber yard, every construction site that cuts wood leaves behind a pile of the stuff, and globally that adds up to hundreds of millions of tonnes of sawdust every year. Most of it gets burned for energy, which is a reasonable enough fate except that burning it releases back into the atmosphere all the carbon the tree spent decades pulling out of the air. It is a material that manages to be simultaneously everywhere and underused, treated as a combustion problem when it is, by the structural logic of its wood fibers, one of the more cooperative raw materials on earth. Firestarter cubes are made from it. Pykrete, the wood pulp and ice composite once proposed as an aircraft carrier hull material, relied on it.

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have now given sawdust another role entirely. Doctoral researcher Ronny Kürsteiner spent his thesis developing a process to bind sawdust particles with struvite, a colorless crystalline mineral composed of ammonium magnesium phosphate, using an enzyme derived from watermelon seeds to control how the crystals grow into the sawdust matrix. What comes out of the mold, after two days of cold-pressing and room-temperature drying, is a composite panel stronger in compression than spruce timber, capable of resisting a direct flame for more than three times as long as untreated wood, and fully recyclable at the end of its service life.

Designer: ETH Zurich

Struvite’s fire-retardant properties have been known for a while; the problem was always crystallization behavior. Conventional precipitation methods produce small, disorganized crystallites that can’t grip wood particles, which is why earlier attempts at this kind of composite fell apart mechanically. The watermelon seed enzyme controls nucleation, producing large interlocking crystals that physically fill the voids between sawdust particles. The binder content sits at 40% by weight. Panels are cold-pressed for two days and dried at room temperature, with no elevated curing conditions required.

When heat reaches struvite, it decomposes and releases water vapor and ammonia, drawing energy from the surrounding environment. The non-combustible gases displace oxygen, starving the fire and accelerating surface charring; that char layer slows access to unburnt material underneath. Cone calorimeter tests clocked untreated spruce igniting at 15 seconds; the struvite composite takes 45 to 51 seconds. Initial projections put it in the same fire protection class as cement-bonded particleboard, the current default for interior partition applications, though full-scale tests are still pending. Grind the panels at end of life, heat them just above 100 degrees Celsius to release ammonia, and the components separate cleanly for reuse or redirect as phosphorus fertilizer.

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This 75 percent keyboard splits in two and opens up your entire workspace

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If you’ve spent any time in mechanical keyboard spaces online, you’ve probably seen someone evangelizing split keyboards as the solution to all your ergonomic problems. They’re usually right, but the barrier to entry has been high. Most split boards either require assembly, force you onto ortholinear or column-stagger layouts, or look like something out of a cyberpunk cosplay. The Jiffy75 takes a simpler approach: it’s a regular 75 percent keyboard that happens to come in two pieces.

JezailFunder, the company behind it, is running a Kickstarter campaign that’s already blown past its $5,000 goal and landed over $170,000 in pledges. The keyboard itself is CNC-machined aluminum with wood trim, fully wireless between halves and across devices, and hot-swappable so you can pick your own switches or swap them later. There’s also a programmable knob, which has become table stakes for premium keyboards at this point. Pricing starts at $199 for early backers, and shipping is planned for May if production stays on schedule.

Designer: JezailFunder

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JezailFunder’s previous product, the Cornix, found an audience in the ergonomic keyboard community, but user feedback revealed something important. People were buying it to relieve physical discomfort and strain from traditional one-piece keyboards, but the Cornix’s specialized layout created its own learning curve that made it unsuitable for everyone. That insight drove the team to build something with broader appeal, a split keyboard that keeps the familiar 75 percent row-staggered layout so the ergonomic benefit doesn’t come with weeks of retraining your muscle memory. The result is a keyboard that you can theoretically start using the day it arrives without hunting and pecking your way through your first email.

The Jiffy75’s body is CNC-machined from a single block of aerospace-grade aluminum, which JezailFunder calls a unibody construction. This approach guarantees better structural integrity and tighter tolerances than stamped metal cases, and the entire surface is anodized for a scratch-resistant finish with a subtle premium glow. A strip of natural wood runs along the top edge of each half, breaking up the metal with a warmer material accent that gives the whole thing a more furniture-like presence on a desk. Optional solid wood wrist rests come in walnut and maple, each one custom-engineered to match the keyboard’s profile with a precise slope and height calibrated to keep your wrists in a neutral position during long typing sessions.

The design philosophy here centers on the 75 percent layout, which research JezailFunder cites shows as a user favorite. Splitting that configuration relieves shoulder and wrist discomfort by allowing a more open, relaxed posture, and it also opens up the center of your workspace for tablets or other devices, which can improve workflow productivity depending on how you use your desk. That center-space argument matters more than it sounds like at first. If you’ve ever tried to reference a tablet or a notebook while typing on a full-width keyboard, you know how awkward the geometry gets. A split layout solves that by design.

Both halves connect to each other wirelessly, and the whole keyboard supports tri-mode connectivity: USB-C, Bluetooth, and 2.4GHz wireless via an included dongle. You can pair it with up to three devices simultaneously and switch between them on the fly, which makes it useful for people who bounce between a laptop, a desktop, and a tablet throughout the day. Each half houses its own 2,800mAh battery. JezailFunder rates the left module at up to 1.5 months of battery life and the right module at up to 2 months, though real-world longevity will depend on usage patterns and whether you’re running Bluetooth or 2.4GHz most of the time.

The keyboard features a remapping tool called the Jzf Hub, which allows full-key customization. Layout arrangements, rotary knob functions, and every other input can be redefined by the user. The programmable rotary encoder can handle volume control, page scrolling, or any custom function you assign to it. Hot-swap support means you can swap switches without soldering, and the campaign offers two switch options out of the box: Cloudshell White, a linear switch, and JZF Mist, a custom 37g silent switch designed specifically for users who prioritize a quiet typing experience. JezailFunder developed the Mist based on user research showing that split 75 percent enthusiasts wanted a silent typing experience with zero disturbance to others while still delivering superior tactile feel. The custom 37g silent switch was the result.

The Jiffy75’s beauty is its non-hobbyist design language. With an aesthetic that feels truly universal, JezailFunder says this keyboard’s practically for everyone. The neutral aesthetic appeals to people who love to stick to classics, while a vibrant range of colorways offers the freedom to choose a look that feels personal. Variants include ones with white, black, and pastel bodies, along with wood-accented options that lean into a Scandinavian minimalist vibe. There’s also a custom hardshell carrying case included by default, designed specifically for mobile professionals. The shock-resistant exterior shields the keyboard from impacts, the soft-fleece interior prevents scratches, and the whole thing stays compact and lightweight enough to travel with regularly.

Early bird pricing for the Jiffy75 starts at $219, and all units will include the keyboard, carrying case, USB-C cable, two backup switches, a 2.4GHz dongle, and a keycap puller. Add-ons include a keycap set for $29, low-profile Kailh switches for $39, the carrying case separately for $39, and wooden wrist rests for $99. Global shipping is planned to begin in early to mid-May 2026.

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Spigen Made a MagSafe Wallet That Looks Like a 1984 Mac and It’s Hard to Argue With

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The Macintosh 128K was a beige rectangle with vents, grooves, and a floppy disk slot. Spigen’s new MagSafe wallet is also a beige rectangle with vents, grooves, and a slot (this one for cards, not diskettes). The visual rhyme is intentional. While most accessory brands slap nostalgic graphics onto generic products and call it a day, Spigen has been translating early Apple industrial design into functional modern objects, treating the Classic LS line like a miniaturized homage rather than a costume. The iPhone case kicked off that approach, shrinking the 128K’s visual language into something that could protect a phone without feeling like a novelty item. Now the brand is applying the same logic to a card wallet, and the result feels surprisingly coherent, like someone actually sat down and asked what a 1984 Macintosh would look like if it held three credit cards and magnetically attached to your iPhone.

The Classic LS Card Holder (Mag Fit) is officially priced at $39.99 and works with MagSafe cases on iPhone 12 models or newer. Spigen says it stores up to three cards and uses strong MagSafe magnets for a secure attachment to your phone or other compatible accessories. The wallet includes a recessed “hello” cutout that makes it easier to push cards upward and out of the holder, addressing one of the biggest usability complaints with magnetic wallets. Visually, it matches the rest of the Classic LS ecosystem, carrying over the stone finish, floppy disk accent, keyboard-style grooves, and rainbow logo badge seen on the iPhone case, lanyard, and AirPods case. If you already own the Classic LS iPhone case, this wallet looks like it was always meant to snap onto the back of it.

Designer: Spigen

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Spigen could have stopped at surface-level nostalgia and called it a win, but the wallet actually translates specific Macintosh design cues into tactile, functional features. The vertical grooves running along the side mirror the cooling vents on the original 128K, giving the wallet extra grip while reinforcing the retro aesthetic. The floppy disk accent sits where a disk drive would have lived on the old Mac, complete with a tiny embossed detail that mimics the metal shutter on a 3.5-inch diskette. The rainbow-striped logo badge is a miniature version of Apple’s iconic six-color mark from that era, and the recessed “hello” cutout references the Mac’s famous startup greeting. These aren’t decorative add-ons, they’re design choices that make the wallet feel like a scaled-down piece of computing history rather than a sticker-covered MagSafe puck.

Card access is where most magnetic wallets fail. You either pry cards out with your fingernails or shake the whole assembly like a vending machine until something falls out. Spigen’s cutout solves that problem by giving you a thumb-sized recess where you can push upward on the card stack, ejecting them far enough to grab. The wallet also features a non-slip silicone grip on the back, keeping it secure in your pocket and preventing the whole thing from sliding around when magnetically attached to your phone. MagSafe compatibility means the wallet works with any MagSafe-enabled case, not just Spigen’s own Classic LS case, though pairing it with the matching case obviously completes the retro look. Spigen lists compatibility starting with iPhone 12 and extending through current models, so you’re covered whether you’re running a 12 Mini or a 16 Pro Max.

At $39.99, the Classic LS Wallet sits in the higher end of the MagSafe wallet market, especially compared to generic Amazon options that hover around $15 to $20. Apple’s own MagSafe wallet retails for $59, so Spigen undercuts Cupertino while still charging a premium over no-name competitors. The price makes sense if you’re already invested in the Classic LS ecosystem, where the wallet functions as the final modular piece rather than a standalone purchase. If you’re not already bought into the retro aesthetic, though, you’re paying extra for design nostalgia that might not register.

Spigen lists the wallet as available now on its official site in the signature Stone colorway, SKU AFA10949. If the brand follows the same trajectory as the rest of the Classic LS line, this could be the start of additional retro-tech accessories, maybe a MagSafe stand styled like a compact Mac or a charging puck that looks like a vintage mouse. For now, the wallet completes the set, turning your iPhone into a tiny monument to the beige-box computing era, one credit card at a time.

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LPG Shortage Has Millions Unable to Cook. This Battery Induction Cooktop Never Needed Gas Anyway.

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The street food vendors of Mumbai did not negotiate the terms of the Iran conflict. Neither did the factory managers in Vietnam, the government officials in Colombo, or the home cooks across a dozen nations who depend on liquefied petroleum gas. Yet the military standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for 30% of the world’s traded LPG, is landing in their kitchens and economies with uncomfortable speed. In India, the government is rationing supply. In Sri Lanka, officials declared national holidays on Wednesdays specifically to curb fuel consumption. In Japan and South Korea, two of the world’s largest LPG importers, the primary energy artery is tightening, while European markets are bracing for wholesale gas prices to triple. A single geopolitical flashpoint is now determining whether millions can cook dinner.

Against that dystopian backdrop, the Impulse cooktop occupies a category with very little company. The appliance, which earned the Red Dot’s Best of the Best and won Fast Company’s 2024 Innovation by Design Award, builds a battery directly into the cooktop body. It draws from stored charge and the grid simultaneously to deliver a staggering 10,000 watts per burner. BLOND, the industrial design firm behind it, gave the object the physical language of a considered luxury kitchen piece. The engineers gave it freedom from every fuel supply chain that currently has Asia and Europe in a headlock. Both things matter here; right now, one of them lands with a global urgency that the designers probably never anticipated.

Designer: BLOND

BLOND stripped the Impulse cooktop down to a precise, slab-like form with a magnetic control knob that carries the rotational weight of something deliberately engineered, and a ceramic cooking surface that reads more like high-end DJ equipment than kitchen accessories. The battery pack lives entirely inside the appliance body, with no external modules and no separate storage unit. That battery and the grid work in simultaneous tandem, together pushing up to 10,000 watts per induction zone, which is three times the output ceiling of the most powerful competing induction cooktop on the market. A standard gas burner tops out between 1,500 and 2,000 watts. A premium gas hob might hit 4,000. Impulse doubles that, through induction, from a domestic plug.

Impulse became the first battery-integrated appliance to earn UL 858 certification, the U.S. standard applied to household electric ranges, which matters because it signals a tested, production-ready product rather than a clever concept that survived the prototype stage. Most residential kitchens cannot realistically pull 10,000 watts through standard wiring without a costly electrical panel upgrade, which is the single biggest friction point in induction adoption globally. The onboard battery eliminates that bottleneck by buffering the peak load and recharging from a normal household outlet during lower-intensity cooking. The result is extreme performance on ordinary electrical infrastructure. Getting 10,000 watts into a domestic kitchen without rewiring the house turns out to be a harder problem than building a burner that can hit those numbers, and Impulse solves both in the same enclosure.

Amazon India reported induction cooktop sales jumping more than 30 times their normal volume last week as the LPG shortage deepened. That number tells you how fast behavior shifts when a supply chain snaps. The problem is that most of those units being panic-bought are budget induction plates capped around 2,000 watts, which work fine for boiling water but flounder with the kind of cooking that defines South and Southeast Asian cuisine. High-heat wok cooking, crispy dosas on cast iron, intense stir-fry; all of these demand fast, concentrated thermal output that conventional induction simply cannot generate. Impulse at 10,000 watts per zone changes that equation entirely, and it does so without a gas line anywhere in the picture.

At KBIS 2026, THOR Kitchen debuted a full induction range built on Impulse’s battery-integrated platform, and it got recognized at the show. That partnership reveals the bigger picture: Impulse Labs is positioning its engineering as a licensable platform for the appliance industry broadly, treating the consumer cooktop as proof of concept rather than end product. If that model scales, the 10,000-watt battery system becomes the architecture that a generation of kitchen appliances gets built on, with real implications for manufacturers trying to electrify product lines without sacrificing performance. Whether the business reaches that scale fast enough to meet this particular moment depends on manufacturing capacity and pricing the company has not widely publicized. But the Strait of Hormuz did not ask for a roadmap before closing, and the people queuing for gas cylinders at 3am in New Delhi are not waiting on a product launch schedule either.

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This LEGO Gear Train Takes 90 Trillion Years to Complete One Rotation

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If you’ve ever stared at one of Mondrian’s compositions and thought “this would make a great gear train,” congratulations, you think like a LEGO Ideas builder. The rest of us are just catching up. The Eternal Mosaic bridges the gap between abstract expressionism and mechanical engineering in a way that shouldn’t work but absolutely does, turning the rigid geometry of De Stijl into a functioning monument to exponential mathematics.

This 655-piece build contains a 46-stage compound gear reduction using 24-tooth to 8-tooth ratios at every step. When you compound that reduction across all 46 stages, you get a total ratio of roughly 9 billion trillion to 1. At a standard motor speed of 100 RPM, the first gear completes a rotation every 0.6 seconds. The final gear, embedded in a colorful Mondrian-inspired wall, will complete its first full rotation in approximately 90 trillion years. The universe is 13.8 billion years old. Do the math. This machine outlasts reality itself, and it does so while looking like it belongs in the Museum of Modern Art.

Designer: The Art of Knowledge

What makes this build technically fascinating is how it visualizes exponential decay in a way that your brain can actually process. The designer breaks down the timeline at key stages. Each of the 46 stages uses a simple 24-tooth to 8-tooth reduction, a 3:1 ratio that seems almost polite on its own. But compound that across 46 stages and the numbers become absurd. Stage 10 takes about 10 hours to complete one rotation, roughly a full night’s sleep. Stage 18 clocks in at around 75 years, an average human lifetime. By stage 24, you’re looking at 55,000 years, the entire span from the Stone Age to today. Stage 32 hits 4 billion years, the age of Earth itself. And then the final stage stretches out to 90 trillion years, which is 6,500 times longer than the universe has existed. Each gear is a canvas, a stepping stone through time rendered in primary colors.

The construction itself is a hybrid of LEGO Technic and System bricks. The gears themselves are pure Technic, frictionless axles and pins doing the mechanical heavy lifting. But the structure surrounding them is classic System bricks and slopes arranged in Mondrian’s signature palette of red, yellow, blue, black, and white. Each gear stage becomes a canvas, a shifting mosaic that layers industrial function with abstract art. It’s the kind of crossover that shouldn’t work but absolutely does, turning what could have been a dry physics demonstration into something you’d actually want on display.

The build uses efficient footprint design, packing all 46 stages into a relatively compact rectangular base. The gears are stacked vertically in places, layered horizontally in others, creating a dense mechanical core that feels more like a sculpture than a gearbox. The colored slopes and bricks aren’t decorative afterthoughts, they’re structural elements that support the Technic skeleton while creating that distinctive Mondrian aesthetic. It’s museum-quality kinetic art that also happens to be a functioning lesson in exponential mathematics.

The Eternal Mosaic is currently gathering votes on the LEGO Ideas platform, sitting at 55 supporters with 58 days left to hit the first milestone of 100 votes. If you want to see this beautifully strange collision of art and engineering hit the 10,000-vote threshold and get reviewed by LEGO’s internal team, head over to the LEGO Ideas website and cast your vote. Just don’t expect to see that final gear move in your lifetime. Or anyone’s lifetime. Or the lifetime of the cosmos itself.

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Xiaomi Returns to Laptops After Four Years with a MacBook Air Rival That Outclasses It on Paper for $1,275

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The laptop market has a predictable rhythm. Apple sets the benchmark, everyone else reacts. Since the M1 MacBook Air landed in late 2020 and redrew the definition of thin-and-light computing, the entire Windows ultrabook category has essentially been running in response to that one product. Some challengers land close, most fall short on one or two crucial dimensions, and the cycle repeats. What makes Xiaomi’s return to the laptop space interesting is that the company has been watching all of this from the sidelines for four years, and the Book Pro 14 it just launched in China reads less like a desperate catch-up attempt and more like a deliberate, calculated swing at a very specific gap in the Air’s armor.

Xiaomi has just made a discreet release in the laptop segment after a four-year break, returning with the Book Pro 14, a capable thin-and-light that positions itself as a direct answer to the MacBook Air. The headline spec is the display: a 14.6-inch OLED panel with touchscreen support, 3.1K resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. Under the hood, Xiaomi equips the notebook with Intel’s Panther Lake platform, up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 358H, with 24GB RAM on the base configuration and 1TB of SSD storage. Pricing, when converted from Chinese yuan, puts the laptop at approximately $1,275, just over $100 more than a base M5 MacBook Air, and for that small premium you get a higher-resolution 120Hz OLED panel, more RAM, and a more robust port selection.

Designer: Xiaomi

You’re probably itching to ask about ports, because the MacBook Air famously doesn’t pack enough of them. The Book Pro 14 includes Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, USB-A, HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm audio jack, compared to the MacBook Air’s two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a headphone jack. That is a meaningful difference for anyone who has ever reached for a dongle mid-presentation or had to choose between charging and connecting to a display. Xiaomi’s decision to include a full-size HDMI port and a USB-A jack signals an awareness that real-world desk setups are messier than Apple’s minimalist port philosophy acknowledges. Whether that matters to you depends entirely on your workflow, but it is a deliberate product decision and one that reads as a direct response to a documented frustration with the Air.

The Book Pro 14 achieves a weight of 1.08 kg and a thickness of 14.95 mm through a chassis built from magnesium alloy with a carbon fiber lid. That actually makes it lighter than the M5 MacBook Air, which tips the scales around 1.24 kg, and the thickness is comparable. Keeping the specs cool is a three-channel cooling system incorporating a high-performance fan, a 10,000mm² vapor chamber, and graphene cooling components capable of sustaining 50W of continuous performance. That last figure matters more than it might initially seem. Apple’s fanless MacBook Air is a thermally constrained machine, and sustained workloads do cause it to throttle, a tradeoff that has been well-documented since the M1 era, and a system that can sustain 50W continuously without a corresponding weight penalty represents a genuine engineering achievement.

Xiaomi makes bold claims on the Book Pro 14’s battery life, overshooting even the latest M5 MacBook Air by nearly two hours. The 72Wh battery is rated for up to 19.8 hours of continuous use, with the 100W fast charging system capable of restoring 50% in approximately 26 minutes. The MacBook Air M5 posts similarly impressive endurance numbers in real-world use, so this will be a tightly contested dimension. The Intel Panther Lake architecture powering the Book Pro 14 is also the first Intel mobile platform in recent memory that genuinely changes the conversation around Windows laptop efficiency, borrowing a page from Apple’s playbook by targeting the sub-10W idle efficiency range that made the M-series Macs so compelling. Independent testing will be the real arbiter here, but the stated numbers are ambitious enough to take seriously.

The Book Pro 14 is currently only available in China, with no clear indication of a global release date, which severely limits its immediate relevance for the overwhelming majority of potential buyers. Xiaomi has a track record of launching products domestically and gradually expanding to other markets, and given the attention this machine has received in the first 24 hours of coverage, the commercial logic for a global rollout is hard to argue against. The question is timing. If Xiaomi moves quickly, the Book Pro 14 could arrive in Western markets before the M5 MacBook Air has fully consolidated its footprint. If the rollout stalls or gets diluted through regional variants with compromised specs, the window closes. The hardware is genuinely compelling, and the only outstanding question that actually matters is whether Xiaomi’s global distribution ambitions match what the engineering team has clearly delivered.

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A GameCube Controller on the Nintendo Switch 2? Meet Abxylute’s Deck-style Joy-Con Alternatives

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When the Nintendo Switch 2 arrived in June 2025 at $449.99, it came with a 7.9-inch display, a faster processor, and a Joy-Con that doubles as a mouse. What it didn’t come with was a comfortable way to hold it for long sessions. The handheld form factor has always been a compromise between portability and ergonomics, and for players who log serious hours, that compromise starts showing up as wrist fatigue, awkward thumb angles, and a nagging wish for something with a proper grip. The accessory market has tried to fill that space for years, with results ranging from decent to deeply uninspiring.

Abxylute’s answer comes in two forms: the N6 and the N9C, both deck-style controllers purpose-built for Switch 2 play. The N6 wraps the console in a full-size ergonomic grip with Hall-effect joysticks, native 9-axis motion control, a dedicated C Button for GameChat, and adjustable vibration levels the player can cycle through without leaving a session. The N9C leans into personality, drawing from GameCube design DNA with mechanical buttons, trigger switches, and a capacitive joystick system paired with swappable gates.

Designer: Abxylute

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Joy-Cons were engineered for flexibility: detachable, shareable, usable solo or in pairs, functional as individual controllers for two-player sessions on a single console. That versatility comes at the cost of ergonomics, because a controller small enough to slide into a rail and function independently will never offer the grip depth, trigger travel, or palm support of something purpose-built for extended solo play. The N6 and N9C abandon that modularity entirely in favor of doing one thing exceptionally well, which is making handheld Switch 2 sessions feel like you’re holding a full-size controller instead of a tablet with thumbsticks glued to the sides. The tactile feedback is immediate and familiar, the kind of responsiveness you get from hardware designed around sustained single-player sessions rather than multi-function compromise. Both controllers connect via wired USB-C, skipping wireless pairing lag entirely, because when the target is solo handheld performance, eliminating variables takes priority over flexibility.

The N6’s open-top design is the first thing people will argue about online, and they’ll mostly be wrong. The Switch 2 stands over 11 cm tall, and a fully enclosed grip pushes that height further, putting your palms in the kind of awkward hover position that builds exactly the fatigue you were trying to avoid. Abxylute held the grip height at 8.5 cm, matching full-size controller proportions, so your palms have something to rest against rather than squeeze. The 7-inch grip width sits narrower than the console body deliberately, keeping your hands at a natural, relaxed spread instead of forcing them wide across a bulky frame. The physics of holding something for two hours straight are pretty straightforward, and this design reads those physics correctly.

Hall-effect joysticks solve a specific, measurable problem that standard potentiometer sticks fundamentally cannot. Potentiometer sticks use resistive contact that physically degrades over repeated use, which is why drift rates climb after a year or two of regular play. Hall-effect reads joystick position magnetically, with zero physical contact between moving components, and the N6 bumps the stick travel angle to 23 degrees compared to 18 degrees on Joy-Con, giving your thumbs more range for fine-grained inputs. A POM anti-wear ring around each stick handles mechanical stability without adding stiffness or noise to the movement. It’s a small detail, but the kind that separates purpose-built hardware from a generic controller with a different shell. On a device you use daily, that engineering choice compounds in your favor in a way that contact-based sticks simply never will.

Inputs across the N6 break down by material type, and the distinctions matter. ABXY buttons use conductive rubber for cushioned presses that reduce finger fatigue; the D-pad uses tactile switches for sharper directional accuracy; shoulder buttons deliver tactile clicks for faster responses in action-heavy play; and the linear digital triggers provide a genuine 0-100% input range rather than binary on/off clicks. That trigger range matters considerably in racing games and anything relying on gradual pressure inputs. Vibration adjusts at four levels, 0%, 40%, 70%, and 100%, switchable via button combo directly on the controller, bypassing the game-by-game settings adjustment that the Pro Controller requires. The grip’s internal structure forms a resonance chamber that redirects the Switch 2’s speakers forward and reinforces bass by around 10%, which you’ll register in a quiet room as fuller, punchier audio than bare Joy-Cons produce.

The N9C is doing something more niche and, honestly, more interesting. Where the N6 chases Pro Controller parity, the N9C chases the GameCube controller’s specific feel, complete with a centered A button and asymmetric face layout, rebuilt for a modern console using mechanical micro-switches and ALPS tactile shoulder buttons. Capacitive joysticks sidestep magnetic interference entirely, and the swappable 8-way and circular gate rings mean you can dial in a tight directional gate for fighters and swap to a smooth circular gate for platformers. A built-in battery hatch holds two replaceable batteries that reverse-charge the Switch 2 directly during play. Most grips on the market ignore battery life almost entirely, and a reverse charge system that powers the Switch 2 directly from the controller is a differentiator almost nothing else in this category offers.

The N9C carries four programmable rear buttons, two per side compared to the N6’s one per side, and each supports the same macro-recording system that chains directional inputs and actions into a single trigger. Switch 2 system-level button remapping works natively, requiring no third-party software, so a custom layout travels across every game without reconfiguring anything. An integrated rear stand sets the N9C apart from virtually every grip in this category, giving the Switch 2 a propped tabletop angle without relying on the console’s own kickstand. The primary connection is wired USB-C for ultra-low latency, with BLE available for configuration only, keeping the input chain clean during actual play. Every N9C ships with both C-stick and ring-style joystick caps in the box, so players can dial in the stick feel before the packaging hits the trash.

Mass production kicked off in March 2026, with shipping expected between April and June. Super Early Bird pricing runs $79 for the N6 (retail $110) and $89 for the N9C (retail $120), with a bundle sitting at $159. Nintendo’s own Pro Controller for Switch 2 retails at $79.99 and carries none of the Hall-effect sticks, programmable back buttons, or turbo functionality. Abxylute has shipped over 120,000 units across more than 20 projects to 100,000-plus customers, so the production infrastructure exists. What they’re solving for is specific: handheld Switch 2 play that performs at Pro Controller level without forcing players to accept the Joy-Con’s ergonomic ceiling as permanent.

Click Here to Buy Now: $79 $110 (28% off) Hurry! Only 10 days left.

The post A GameCube Controller on the Nintendo Switch 2? Meet Abxylute’s Deck-style Joy-Con Alternatives first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Shargeek 300 is a Cyberpunk-style Power Bank that can charge two MacBook Pros

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Power banks have spent years being boring on purpose. Black rectangles, white rectangles, the occasional textured finish. The category settled into a kind of utilitarian invisibility, as if the industry collectively decided that anything carrying electrons should look like a bar of soap. SHARGE never got that memo. The Shargeek 300 looks like a prop from a near-future thriller, with transparent panels revealing glowing circuitry beneath, RGB light bars running along its flanks, and a CNC aluminum body that catches light the way expensive things tend to. It belongs on a desk you’d actually want to show people.

Founded in 2020, SHARGE built its identity around the conviction that charging hardware deserves the same design attention as the devices it powers. The original Shargeek 100, launched in 2021, was the proof of concept: a transparent, display-equipped power bank with DC charging that found a devoted audience almost immediately. The Shargeek 300 is what four years of that bet looks like fully cashed in. It pushes 300 watts of total output, enough to charge two 16-inch MacBook Pros simultaneously while still fast-charging a smartphone on a third port. The 24,000mAh battery lands at 86.4Wh, sitting just under the 100Wh threshold airlines enforce for carry-on batteries. Recharge time from flat to full is 75 minutes with a 140W input. The whole unit is roughly the size of a 330ml can of cola. SHARGE spent 40 months getting here, and the result makes most rivals in the category look underprepared.

Designer: Sharge

Click Here to Buy Now: $159 $199 ($40 off) Hurry! Only 6 days left.

That meticulous attention to detail is most obvious in the physical construction. The main body is a matte silver CNC aluminum frame, which is then given a 180-grit sandblasted, anodized finish for a smooth, premium feel. The company’s head of production is even quoted as personally comparing the feel of every unit to an iPhone to ensure they are equally premium. The signature transparent casing is not just a window, but a piece of safety equipment, made from V0 flame-retardant, UL94-certified polycarbonate that resists both scratches and heat. The dual RGB light bars are fully customizable, allowing users to adjust brightness, change colors, and cycle through effects via the onboard display, turning a functional object into a piece of personalized desk art.

Inside that striking shell is technology that sets a new benchmark for portable power. The Shargeek 300 is the first power bank to use the same Full-Tab Battery Cell technology pioneered by Tesla. This design significantly lowers internal resistance compared to conventional cells, a change that unlocks faster charging speeds, higher sustained output, and superior heat dissipation. This internal efficiency is the key to how a device this compact can safely manage a 300W total output without overheating or degrading quickly. The advanced battery structure results in a longer-lasting, more stable power source that can handle the demanding, continuous power draws required by high-performance laptops and other professional equipment, putting truly next-generation power in your hands.

This power is routed through a versatile array of four output ports designed to handle nearly any device. The stars of the show are the two USB-C ports, both of which support the Power Delivery 3.1 standard to deliver a massive 140W of power each. This is what allows the Shargeek 300 to simultaneously fast-charge two 16-inch MacBook Pros at their maximum charging speed. A third USB-A port provides up to 20W for legacy devices and smartphones. The fourth and most unique port is the adjustable DC barrel port, a feature carried over from the Shargeek 100. It now supports up to 140W and its voltage can be manually set between 5V and 28V, unlocking compatibility with a world of gear that USB-C cannot serve, from professional camera equipment to high-performance drones. The 24,000mAh capacity provides enough energy for approximately one full charge of a modern MacBook Pro, six charges for an iPhone 16 Pro, or two charges for an iPad Pro.

The user experience is managed through a 1.9-inch IPS display, which is 60% larger than the screen on the previous model. It provides a level of control that is unheard of in this category. Beyond showing real-time input and output wattage, the display allows you to monitor battery health, track charging cycles, and check internal temperatures. You can use it to precisely adjust the DC output voltage, set a custom welcome message, and configure the RGB lighting. This smart display transforms the power bank from a simple battery into an intelligent power hub. This intelligence extends to its handling of delicate electronics. A dedicated Low-current Mode ensures that devices like earbuds, smartwatches, and fitness trackers receive a safe, optimized charge, preventing the overcharging that can damage the small batteries in those devices.

This combination of raw power and intelligent control is backed by a comprehensive suite of safety features, including overvoltage, undervoltage, short-circuit, and real-time temperature protection. This commitment to safety extends to its travel-readiness. Crucially, the power bank’s 24,000mAh capacity is engineered to a rating of 86.4Wh, keeping it comfortably under the 100Wh limit imposed by airlines for carry-on luggage. This makes it one of the most powerful charging solutions that can be legally carried onto a plane, a critical detail for mobile professionals. The low standby power consumption is another practical benefit, allowing the Shargeek 300 to retain over 90% of its charge after 15 days of inactivity. For anyone who has pulled a power bank from a bag after weeks only to find it unexpectedly dead, this is a genuinely valuable feature.

The Shargeek 300 starts at $199 but is available at a discounted $159 price for earlybird backers. Cobble together $209 and you can get the power bank along with its companion Pixel 140W PD 3.1 wall charger from Sharge with its adorable pixel-matrix display. The Shargeek 300 comes with a 12-month warranty, and ships globally as early as May 2026.

Click Here to Buy Now: $159 $199 ($40 off) Hurry! Only 6 days left.

The post The Shargeek 300 is a Cyberpunk-style Power Bank that can charge two MacBook Pros first appeared on Yanko Design.

Stay Classy, San Diego: This LEGO Anchorman Set Recreates the Entire Channel 4 Newsroom in 1,500 Bricks

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Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy turned twenty in 2024, and somehow, the film has only gotten funnier with age. What started as a Will Ferrell comedy about a hilariously fragile male ego navigating the very real 1970s newsroom gender wars became one of the most quoted, most meme’d, most endlessly rewatchable comedies in modern American film history. “I’m kind of a big deal,” “I love lamp,” “60% of the time it works every time” – the lines are so deeply embedded in pop culture at this point that people quote them without even knowing where they came from. San Diego’s most legendary fictional anchor deserves better than a passing reference in a listicle, and LEGO Ideas builder footonabrick clearly agrees.

The result is a just-over-1,500-piece MOC (My Own Creation) that reconstructs the Channel 4 News Team’s world with an almost obsessive attention to detail, covering the broadcast studio, the newsroom offices, and even the KVWN news van parked out front. The studio section is immediately recognizable: a curved tan backdrop wall, three wall clocks ticking away above the anchor desk, dual blue Channel 4 News Team screens flanking the set, and the full team seated behind that iconic brown desk with their Channel 4 mugs. It looks like a freeze-frame from the film, and that’s entirely the point.

Designer: footonabrick

The broadcast desk is the centerpiece, and footonabrick nails the warm tan-and-brown palette of that gloriously dated 70s newsroom aesthetic. Ron and Veronica sit front and center behind their Channel 4 mugs, with Brian Fantana, Champ Kind, and Brick Tamland flanking them across the curved desk. The curved wall behind them is one of the trickier builds to pull off cleanly in LEGO, and the segmented panel construction keeps it looking smooth without losing the layered depth of the real set. Camera equipment on the studio floor, a boom-arm mic stand, and a vanity mirror station on the side round out the production floor detail beautifully.

Turn to the office areas and you’ll find a bunch of details and easter eggs. Ron’s private office has his nameplate desk, a glass of scotch rendered in a transparent amber round piece, and a “Missing” poster for Baxter tucked onto a side shelf. Brian Fantana’s cologne closet, one of the film’s most beloved gags, is recreated with an open cabinet stocked with colourful brick-built bottles, with a “Brian Fantana” book sitting on his desk for good measure. The hallway outside features a glass-panel wall looking into Ron’s office, and a Ron Burgundy door nameplate that even Veronica would have to respect. My favorite detail, though, is the row of four team portrait tiles mounted on the exterior office wall, each one a miniature LEGO-art-style illustration of the Channel 4 crew. Tiny, considered, and completely unnecessary in the best way.

The eight minifigures are pitch-perfect. Ron arrives in his burgundy suit with a jazz flute and a scowl that says “I have many leather-bound books.” Brick Tamland, naturally, comes with his trident. Champ has his signature cowboy hat, Fantana carries what appears to be a cologne bottle, and Veronica is rendered in her pink suit with that particular expression of someone perpetually tolerating Ron’s nonsense. Baxter the dog is included as a separate figure, and there’s even a bonus Ron on a tiny red bicycle, which is exactly the kind of specific deep-cut that separates a good MOC from a great one.

footonabrick’s Anchorman set is currently gathering votes on LEGO Ideas, the community platform where fan-created MOCs (My Own Creations) need 10,000 supporters to trigger an official LEGO review and potential retail production. With 344 votes on the board and 421 days left on the clock, there’s plenty of runway. If you want to see this land on store shelves, head to the LEGO Ideas page and cast your vote. You stay classy.

The post Stay Classy, San Diego: This LEGO Anchorman Set Recreates the Entire Channel 4 Newsroom in 1,500 Bricks first appeared on Yanko Design.