How to Reset Apple’s New AirTag 2 (It’s Not Like the Original)

How to Reset Apple’s New AirTag 2 (It’s Not Like the Original) Removing the CR2032 battery from a 2nd generation Apple AirTag to begin the reset process.

Resetting your second-generation AirTag is an essential process to prepare it for pairing with your iPhone or iPad. Whether you are troubleshooting connectivity issues or transferring ownership, following the correct reset procedure ensures the device functions as intended. This guide provides clear, actionable steps to reset your AirTag safely and effectively, with additional tips to […]

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iOS 26.6 Beta 5: What’s New and When to Expect the Public Release

iOS 26.6 Beta 5: What’s New and When to Expect the Public Release An iPhone screen displaying the iOS 26.6 Beta 5 software update available for download.

Apple has officially released iOS 26.6 Beta 5 for developers, marking another incremental step in the evolution of its mobile operating system. While this update does not introduce any major new features, it focuses on bug fixes, performance enhancements, and minor adjustments aimed at improving the overall user experience. If you’re an iPhone user, particularly […]

The post iOS 26.6 Beta 5: What’s New and When to Expect the Public Release appeared first on Geeky Gadgets.

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SwitchBot Lock Vision Series Review: Face ID for Your Front Door


PROS:


  • Fast 3D face unlock that feels truly hands free and effortless.

  • Palm vein and fingerprint biometrics add secure, contactless backup options.

  • Geo-fence auto-unlock arms intelligently and avoids accidental walk-by unlocks.

  • Three-tier battery system reduces lockout risk and long-term power anxiety.

  • Weatherproof IP65 exterior and mmWave radar help sensors last and save power.

CONS:


  • Motor noise is noticeably louder, especially near a bedroom off entryway.

  • Auto-unlock only works for owner or admin, not regular family members.

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

Face unlock finally feels like a deadbolt you forget is even there.

You walk up to your front door with both hands full of groceries. You don’t stop. You don’t shift bags to free a thumb for a fingerprint sensor. You don’t dig for keys. The door unlocks before you reach it. That’s the promise of the SwitchBot Lock Vision Series, and it’s the first deadbolt I’ve seen that actually delivers.

The Lock Vision Series has two models. The Lock Vision at $169.99 (model W9022003) gives you 3D structured-light facial recognition, passwords, NFC, auto-unlock via geo-fence, app control, and voice control. The Lock Vision Pro at $229.99 (model W9022000) adds contactless palm vein recognition and a semiconductor fingerprint sensor. Everything else is identical between them.

Click Here to Buy Now: SwitchBot Lock Vision Pro | SwitchBot Lock Vision

This is the world’s first deadbolt to use 3D structured-light facial recognition. Same core technology as iPhone Face ID. Twenty thousand infrared dots projected across your face, a camera captures the deformed pattern, a 3D map reconstructs and matches in under a second. The false recognition rate is less than 0.0001 percent. It works in total darkness because the IR projector is its own light source. It resists photo and video spoofing. It works with glasses, wigs, and makeup.

The first time it happened, I didn’t believe it. I walked up to the door, heard the bolt snap back, and walked through. Fast. Effortless. I dare say magical. That’s not a word I throw around in reviews, but there it is.

Other smart locks I’ve tested share the same bad habit: the deadbolt motor is too slow, so if you push or pull the door before it finishes retracting, the bolt catches, the lock panics, and you have to unlock it all over again. The Lock Vision doesn’t do that. The motor is quick enough that the bolt clears before you register it moving, and the sound it makes isn’t a whir. It’s a thunk. That’s the difference between a lock you wait for and a lock you forget is there.

Design, Ergonomics, and Aesthetics

The Lock Vision Series is a rectangular slab in black zinc alloy with a circular keypad integrated into the lower half and a sensor module at the top. The exterior unit measures 6.42 by 2.76 by 1.10 inches and weighs 551 grams (19.4 ounces), with an interior unit at 7.09 by 3.03 by 1.26 inches. It isn’t tiny, but it doesn’t dominate the door the way some camera-heavy smart locks do. The proportions are clean. The branding is restrained. On a dark door, it disappears visually.

SwitchBot built the exterior for weather. IP65 water and dust protection means rain and grime don’t get inside. The operating range spans minus 20 to 55 degrees Celsius, and humidity tolerance runs 10 to 90 percent. Certifications hit BHMA Grade 3, FCC, IC, and ISDS.

The interior unit is where things get interesting. At 218 grams (7.7 ounces), it’s strikingly light. SwitchBot uses a combination of zinc alloy and PC+ABS. On paper you might wonder if it feels cheap. Doesn’t matter. You mount it to the door. You only touch it to lock or unlock from inside, and the knob has a click to it. Clean look, feels fine where it counts. I stopped thinking about the weight after day one.

The keypad features tactile mechanical buttons with red, white, and green LED indicators. Press and hold for 2 seconds to pair. Press and hold for 15 seconds for Matter pairing. There’s a knob for manual unlocking from the inside.

The included visual assets tell the story well. The key visual shows both models with a hand reaching for a palm scan and a face profile with a 3D wireframe overlay. Scene images show a woman with groceries (hands-free), a child using palm vein (family-friendly), and a dramatic ice-encased shot (weather resistance). All available in the Drive media kit.

Performance: How It Actually Works

I’ve been living with the Lock Vision Pro long enough to say this: everything works. The facial recognition, the palm vein sensor, the fingerprint reader, and the geo-fence auto-unlock all behave the way the spec sheet says they should. When you test as many smart home devices as I do, that kind of delivery is rare.

The auto-unlock geo-fence is the killer feature here. SwitchBot labels it beta in the app, which makes its reliability surprising. Here’s how the chain works.

You set a geofence radius around your home. When your phone crosses into that zone from outside, the lock doesn’t open. It arms. The SwitchBot app starts scanning for the lock over Bluetooth. A validity timer starts, default ten minutes. When you close to within Bluetooth range, your phone and the lock establish a connection. The bolt retracts.

No biometric step. No app interaction. You walk through.

That arming step is the design intelligence in a system that could have been a disaster. A dumb geofence that unlocked the door whenever your phone wandered into range would trigger every time you walked past your own house. SwitchBot’s version requires the inbound crossing, starts the timer, and disables itself if you don’t reach the door within that window. Leave and re-enter, a new cycle begins.

No hub required. GPS, Bluetooth, the app running in background, and Wi-Fi enabled on the phone are the only prerequisites.

The limitation worth knowing: auto-unlock only works from the home owner’s phone or an admin account. Family members and shared users with member permissions don’t get the walk-up entrance on their own devices. They authenticate at the door with face, palm vein, or a code instead. For a lock built around passive entry, that’s a real asymmetry, and it’s the first thing I’d ask SwitchBot to fix as the feature graduates from beta.

3D Structured-Light Facial Recognition

Your face becomes the key. Most smart locks with facial recognition at this price use 2D infrared cameras that a printed photo can defeat. The Lock Vision Pro does not.

A laser and IR dot projector embedded around the lens cluster fires more than 20,000 infrared dots across your face in a grid pattern invisible to the naked eye. An IR flood illuminator provides fill light for total darkness operation. An IR camera captures how that dot pattern deforms against the three-dimensional contours of your face and reconstructs a millimeter-accurate depth map. The system matches that map against your enrolled template, the same foundational principle behind iPhone Face ID, and throws the bolt if the geometry matches.

The sub-second unlock speed means you don’t pause at the door. The IR projector works through condensation and surface buildup on the housing exterior, so IP65 weatherproofing doesn’t degrade sensor accuracy over time. It works in total darkness because the IR projector is its own light source. It resists photo spoofing because a flat image can’t reproduce the spatial deformation pattern. It resists video spoofing for the same reason.

Glasses, wigs, and makeup don’t throw it off because the underlying facial geometry the dot grid maps doesn’t change. SwitchBot claims a false recognition rate under 0.0001 percent. Across my testing period I haven’t had a single false positive or false negative in any lighting condition.

Contactless Palm Vein Recognition

Palm vein recognition is what separates the Pro from the standard Lock Vision. The technology reads subcutaneous vein patterns using near-infrared light: the unique geometry of veins inside your palm, entirely internal to your body.

You hover your palm near the sensor without touching anything. The IR emitter penetrates the skin surface and maps the vein network underneath. The lock matches that vascular geometry against your enrolled template.

This matters more than fingerprint in practice. A surface impression doesn’t work because veins aren’t on the surface. A photograph fails. The contactless method sidesteps the hygiene friction of a shared fingerprint pad, and it keeps working when your hands are slightly wet or dirty because the sensor reads through the skin rather than off it. Palm vein readers have been in high-security facilities for years. Finding one in a sub-250-dollar deadbolt is what makes the Pro worth the extra money.

Semiconductor Fingerprint Recognition

The fingerprint sensor is the third biometric layer. It’s positioned for kids and guests not in the face or palm databases, plus it works as a deliberate emergency fallback.

The semiconductor reader captures ridge patterns at the hardware level without storing images. All biometric data stays on the device, never routed to the cloud. It holds up to 90 user fingerprints and reserves 10 more slots for emergency prints.

The sensor reads quickly and reliably in dry and normal conditions. Wet fingers introduce the same challenge every semiconductor reader faces, but the palm vein sensor above it makes that edge case less relevant than it’d be on a lock without another contactless option.

mmWave Radar: The Power Manager

None of these biometric sensors stay active, and the mmWave radar unit handles that. It detects approach and wakes the recognition stack only when someone shows up. Without it, the 10,000mAh battery drains keeping a face camera awake. With it, the lock sleeps until you approach, wakes the sensors, and opens by the time you reach the handle. Across my testing it runs with no phantom triggers from passing cars or pedestrians.

The radar is separate from the auto-unlock GPS and Bluetooth chain. Auto-unlock handles the actual door opening via your phone. The radar handles sensor power management so the biometric readers aren’t burning battery scanning an empty porch all day.

A Note on Motor Noise

I’m not gonna sugarcoat this: the Lock Vision is noticeably louder than most smart deadbolts I’ve tested. The trade-off is speed. It’s the same trade-off you make with a fast garage door opener, more noise, faster movement. I’d rather have a motor that gets out of the way quickly than one that whispers and leaves me standing at the door.

That said, there’s a guest bedroom about five feet from our front door. It doesn’t get a lot of use, so most nights it’s a non-issue. When we do have guests staying over, the lock cycling is a little louder than I’d like. It’s one of the very few genuine downsides to this product, and the only people it will affect are those with a bedroom directly off the entryway.

The Access Hierarchy

The full unlock method count sits at 19, but the design intelligence isn’t in the number. It’s in how SwitchBot organized them by use case rather than technology type.

Passive biometrics, face and palm vein, for residents who should never have to think about unlocking. Fingerprint and NFC cards for recurring guests. Temporary and one-time passwords for deliveries and service visits. Geo-fence auto-unlock for the owner’s daily return. Physical key as the permanent legal fallback that requires no battery, no firmware, and no app update.

That’s a considered access hierarchy, not a feature list.

SwitchBot also built six tiers of security into the lock, and they all run behind the scenes. The alarm system records and notifies door status, ajar alerts, and tamper detection. Geo-fence auto-lock secures the door when you leave. On the unlock side, you get SOS fingerprint recognition, remote unlock confirmation, forced unlock for emergencies, and auto-lockout after repeated failed attempts. Data moves over AES-128 encryption, and every biometric stays local. Three-tier power management keeps the whole thing running with intelligent failover.

DualPower and DualBackup

Battery anxiety keeps people from buying smart locks. SwitchBot built a three-tier system.

Tier one: 10,000mAh rechargeable Li-Po. SwitchBot rates it for up to 12 months at 10 lock/unlock cycles per day, and the motor handles 50,000 cycles. Tier two: CR123A backup providing up to 500 emergency unlocks with 5-year standby. Auto-activates if main battery dies. Tier three: USB-C port on the keypad surface for emergency power. Connect a power bank, unlock, go find batteries.

I haven’t had it long enough to need a recharge yet, and that’s the whole idea. SwitchBot says the 10,000mAh battery lasts up to 12 months, and so far it hasn’t dipped enough for me to notice.

When it does run dry, the CR123A backup beats what most locks offer. Some competitors make you tap a battery pack to two contacts outside the lock for one open. This one has a dedicated cell already inside, good for 500 emergency unlocks and five years on standby. Haven’t needed it yet. Glad it’s there.

The mmWave radar handles power management. The lock only activates biometric sensors when someone approaches. The app provides real-time battery monitoring, push notifications at low power, and audio alerts at critical level.

Matter-over-WiFi and Ecosystem

Connects via Matter-over-WiFi. You don’t need a separate hub. Bluetooth holds a stable connection within 16.4 feet outside the door, and WiFi manages the same range through walls. SwitchBot listed Apple Home certification as in progress at launch. I don’t use Apple Home, so I didn’t test it, and that’s not a feature I personally value on a lock. The SwitchBot app handles everything: lock status, battery level, access management, unlock logs going back six months. Voice control works through Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri if you want it. If Apple Home integration is a dealbreaker for you, verify it’s live before buying. For me, the app does everything I need.

With the Smart Video Doorbell: monitor activity outside, lock/unlock from doorbell, automate entry. With the Wallet Finder Card: tracking card doubles as NFC key. With the Hub 3: doorbell chime plus lock status display. All biometric data stays local on the device.

Installation

Installation didn’t take long. My previous deadbolt had four screws. The Lock Vision’s bolt has a specific notch that mates with the SwitchBot housing, so I did have to swap out the deadbolt that was already in the door. That added maybe an extra minute to pull the old one and slide the new one in. Everything else lines up cleanly since the dimensions are standard.

Hardware swap took about 10 to 12 minutes. Setup: pairing the lock, enrolling my face, enrolling a palm, enrolling fingerprints, all of it happened fast. Under 20 minutes total and the new lock was live. If you’ve swapped a deadbolt before, this is the same job. If you haven’t, a single screwdriver and the included instructions will get you there.

Sustainability

The 10,000mAh battery is rechargeable and rated for 12 months per charge. CR123A backup lasts 5 years in standby. USB-C emergency port eliminates lockout. All biometrics stay local with no cloud dependency. SwitchBot rates the motor for 50,000 cycles.

One detail I really like: the battery compartment comes off the top with no screws, no tools. Just lift and the battery slides out. SwitchBot clearly thought about what actually happens when someone needs to swap or charge a battery, and they made it easy. That’s the kind of ergonomic detail you appreciate six months in when you finally need to pull it.

Value

At $169.99 (Lock Vision) and $229.99 (Lock Vision Pro), SwitchBot prices against the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock, Yale Assure Lock 2, and Level Lock Plus. None of those competitors offer 3D structured-light face unlock. The facial recognition alone puts the Lock Vision Series in a different category.

The $60 Pro premium gets you palm vein and fingerprint. I’d pay it. We’ve got a front door, a back door to the garage, and a garage door into the house. If I had to redo all three, I’d spend the extra for the Pro on every single door.

Bundle pricing: Lock Vision + Video Doorbell $259.99, Pro + Video Doorbell $329.99. Canadian buyers pay CAD 229.99 and CAD 299.99 for the locks, CAD 329.99 and CAD 399.99 for the bundles. Both models sell direct from SwitchBot and on Amazon in the US and Canada.

Verdict

The Lock Vision Series is the first smart deadbolt I’d put on my own door. The 3D facial recognition works in the dark. The battery system covers every failure mode. Matter-over-WiFi means no hub on your nightstand. And when the battery dies, there’s a key in your hand. Two of them in the box.

But it isn’t for everyone. Apple Home certification hadn’t gone live as of my testing. Not every home qualifies without power tools on the door compatibility front. And I want to live with the 218g interior unit for a month before I trust the long-term build.

It’s a lock that just works, no matter how you get it open. Face, palm vein, fingerprint, code, phone, NFC, geo-fence, and yes, a physical key. Comes with two. When the tech is optional and the brass key still turns, that’s a lock I trust.

Click Here to Buy Now: SwitchBot Lock Vision Pro | SwitchBot Lock Vision

The post SwitchBot Lock Vision Series Review: Face ID for Your Front Door first appeared on Yanko Design.

Deflatable drone capable of flying over 10 hours could be the next big leap in operational efficiency

The DJI Mavic 4 Pro can fly for around 50 minutes before needing a recharge, but are those numbers sufficient for a drone tasked with surveillance of hundreds of kilometers of pipeline or sensitive zones spanning miles? Nor is there any viable solution for monitoring disaster-struck areas that are too risky for manned flights. The next best option is low-flying unmanned airplanes or VTOLs, but the costs involved are way too high for such tasks.

This prompted French aerospace startup Celeste Ecoflyers to design an inflatable fixed-wing aircraft drone that comes tagged with the promise of superior safety and efficiency. Christened daS10, the 8-meter fixed-wing aircraft has a “pressurized textile envelope” and a pneumatic wing that generates lift thanks to the inflated structure. The design ensures the drone can stay in the air for longer without taking up a lot of energy.

Designer: Celeste Ecoflyers

The unmanned craft can be deflated and stored easily in flat form, which makes it highly deployable in any kind of situation. This unique idea comes from the CEO, engineer, and founder Olivier Manette, who happens to be a licensed ULM flight instructor. daS10 is currently in the development stage and recently conducted the initial low-altitude flight tests that lasted a few seconds. More tests are scheduled for Q4 of this year, which will bring it closer to the intended results. When fully operational, the fixed-wing drone can cruise at speeds of up to 50 mph for more than 10 hours in a sortie. That surpasses the JOUAV CW-30E, which can operate for around 480 minutes with a range of 200 kms from base.

This 8-meter fixed-wing drone is targeted towards commercial operations that require safety and more sustainable logistics. For instance, surveillance of pipelines or energy grids requires a more affordable approach than current solutions. Just for reference, a helicopter flight to inspect a pipeline costs around $2,500 per hour, and this doesn’t include the costs of the pilot or fuel. Also, bad weather and pilot availability can cancel one-fourth of the scheduled flights, hampering the overall operations. This aircraft, capable of generating aerodynamic lift sans any buoyant systems and carrying a payload of 11 lbs, is the ideal replacement for traditional options.

The biggest USP of the daS10 drone is the deflatable wing, which can fold and compress into a smaller volume for easy transportability. That will come in very handy for military operations as well, which require movement of logistics in remote regions. Though it is still early days for the drone, and a lot more engineering challenges lie ahead when it comes to fully scaled flights, the results could be revolutionary for the aviation industry heading towards automation.

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This 48-Sq-Ft Tiny House by A Canadian Charity Strips Shelter Down to Its Purest Form

There is a version of shelter that asks nothing of you — no monthly mortgage anxiety, no utility juggling, no lease renewal dread. It is just four walls, a roof, a bed, and warmth. Tiny Tiny Homes, a Canadian tiny house builder and charity, has built exactly that with its 48-sq-ft model: a towable dwelling so stripped of excess that it forces you to reconsider what a home actually needs to be.

At 48 square feet (4.46 sq m), this is not a tiny home in the aspirational Instagram sense. It sits on a single-axle trailer, measures roughly 6 feet in length, and arrives on site ready to shelter someone immediately. The exterior is clad in insulated metal panels, painted blue and white, and features a small folding deck at the entrance that folds flat during transport. That last detail alone speaks to the level of considered design packed into something this compact.

Designer: Tiny Tiny Homes

Inside, the single room is finished in metal panels. A bed and daybed occupy the primary footprint, with storage tucked underneath. A long storage unit runs alongside. Overhead, a skylight pulls natural light into what would otherwise feel suffocating. An optional window-mounted air conditioning unit and an electric heater handle climate year-round — a non-negotiable for deployments across Canada’s winters. There is no kitchen. There is no bathroom. And that is entirely intentional.

The 48-sq-ft model is conceived as emergency accommodation for people experiencing homelessness, positioned as a step above roughing it in a tent rather than a replacement for a conventional home. It is installed alongside shared facilities — communal kitchens, bathrooms, support services — which is what makes the stripped-back interior not a compromise, but a design decision. A pair of these units were recently delivered to the Seeds of Hope Farm Project, a transitional housing development in Toronto.

What Tiny Tiny Homes has achieved here is a lesson in design clarity. When the brief is pure shelter rather than lifestyle, every square inch earns its place. The skylight is not a luxury; it is a psychological necessity. The folding deck is not an amenity; it is a threshold between inside and outside that gives the dwelling a sense of arrival.

The organization also produces a 96-sq-ft sibling model that adds a desk and a kitchenette for situations where a more self-contained setup is needed. But the 48-sq-ft version, precisely because it does so little, says something more honest about what design is for — not to impress, but to protect.

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Huawei’s $229 FreeClip 2 S Earbuds Pack Spatial Audio In an Open-Ear Design, Case Doubles as a Jewelry Box

Pop open the case of the FreeClip 2 S and the first thing you notice has nothing to do with earbuds. There is room in there. Real, usable room, enough that Huawei is telling people to drop in a ring or a small pendant alongside the buds themselves. It sounds like a gimmick until you remember how much time people spend fumbling through bags looking for both their earbuds and their jewelry, and how rarely any company bothers to solve two small annoyances with one redesigned object.

Speaking of space, Huawei found room inside the earbuds too, in the form of spatial audio with dynamic head tracking. It is a feature typically reserved for sealed designs that can isolate sound and rebuild a convincing sense of space around it, and pulling it off on an open-ear bud is a genuinely difficult engineering problem, one most competitors have sidestepped rather than solved. That sits alongside dual 10.8mm drivers, an AI NPU handling adaptive sound, tri-mic call noise cancellation, and IP57 water resistance. Priced around 229 euros globally, with a discounted window running through August 21, 2026, the FreeClip 2 S treats itself as jewelry first and tech second, at least in how Huawei wants you to see it, while quietly pushing open-ear audio further than most of its rivals have dared.

Designer: Huawei

The case redesign alone signals a shift in how Huawei thinks about this product category. Gone is the AirPods style shell that defined the original FreeClip 2, replaced by something almost spherical, larger, and finished in a mirrored metallic coating that photographs like a compact rather than a charging dock. Huawei says the new shape offers 20 percent more internal volume, and rather than leave that space empty, the company built a whole marketing angle around filling it with small accessories. The bundled partnership with French costume jewelry brand Les Néréides makes that pitch explicit, pairing the earbuds with an actual piece of jewelry for buyers who opt into the launch bundle. It is an unusual move for an earbuds case, treating it as a personal object rather than a functional afterthought.

Underneath that redesigned shell, the earbuds themselves got quieter but meaningful updates. Huawei softened the C-bridge by 25 percent and smoothed out the grooves that ran along its surface, chasing a cleaner look and a gentler fit against the ear. The Comfort Bean shape carries over from the original FreeClip 2, still built using data pulled from over 10,000 ear samples worldwide. Each earbud weighs just 5.1 grams, light enough that the open-ear format keeps its core promise of all day wear without the fatigue that sealed buds can cause after a few hours.

Spatial audio remains the headline feature, and for good reason. Dynamic head tracking works best when a sealed fit lets software control exactly what the listener hears, which is why brands like Apple and Sony have largely kept the feature locked to their isolating designs. Huawei pairing it with dual 10.8mm diaphragm drivers and reverse sound wave technology, aimed at cutting down on audio leakage, suggests an attempt to close that gap without sacrificing the open-ear comfort that made the FreeClip line popular in the first place. Whether the tracking feels responsive in real use is something only hands on testing will confirm.

Huawei launched the FreeClip 2 S globally out of Malaysia alongside the Pura 90s series, positioning both as flagship efforts rather than incremental updates. At roughly 221 dollars, the earbuds undercut several open-ear rivals while adding a feature set that reads more like a premium sealed bud’s spec sheet. If the head tracking holds up under real world use, Huawei may have found a way to make open-ear audio feel a lot less like a compromise.

The post Huawei’s $229 FreeClip 2 S Earbuds Pack Spatial Audio In an Open-Ear Design, Case Doubles as a Jewelry Box first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Amica Collection Finds Poetry in Paper, Clay, and Glow

The Amica lighting collection brings together organic form, traditional craft, and sculptural illumination in a way that feels quiet, warm, and carefully considered. Made up of pendant, table, and wall-mounted lights, the collection treats lighting as more than a practical object. Each piece has a sculptural presence, shaping the mood of a room through material, texture, shadow, and glow.

Much of Amica’s character comes from the contrast between its materials. Earth-toned ceramic bases give the pieces weight and grounding, while the paper forms bring softness, translucency, and movement. The ceramic surfaces are ridged, irregular, and slightly imperfect, giving them a handmade quality. Set against them, the paper elements feel light and delicate, glowing gently when illuminated and revealing the craft behind every fold, wrap, and curve.

Designer: Christopher Merchant and Kawabi

The collection takes inspiration from natural and familiar forms rather than strict geometry. Pods, fans, lanterns, vessels, and ceremonial objects seem to echo through the work. These references make the lights feel approachable, almost recognizable, but still unusual enough to hold attention. They sit somewhere between functional objects and quiet domestic sculptures.

A few pieces from the larger collection show this language especially clearly. The Standing Legume Lamp is one of the more playful examples. Inspired by the curves of leguminous pods, it stacks two illuminated modules vertically above an offering tray. The form feels like a small gesture toward food, harvest, and ritual. It has a simple presence, but the reference gives it warmth and personality. Rather than reading as a conventional lamp, it feels closer to a small domestic monument.

The Relic I Lamp moves in a more poetic direction. It reimagines the folding fan as a light sculpture, with pleated paper opening out in sweeping arcs. Held upright by a totem-like wood base and anchored by a cast concrete block, the piece captures the feeling of motion paused mid-gesture. There is a sense of air, shadow, and light moving through it, even while the object remains completely still.

The Legume Pendant Horizontal, Double continues the collection’s organic vocabulary. Inspired by strung beans, it turns pod-like curves into a suspended paper illumination system. Its modular structure gives the form flexibility, while the handmade details keep it grounded in craft. Regionally sourced Japanese kozo paper, Shaker-style bentwood caps, and hand-hammered nails bring a sense of material honesty to the piece.

The Souvenir Sconce offers a quieter but equally expressive moment. Mounted to the wall, it shows the undulating paper form from one of its most graceful angles. The construction is minimal, but the silhouette is soft and full of movement. It celebrates pleated lantern craftsmanship with restraint, making a bold statement in a gentle voice.

These works are only a portion of the broader Amica collection. Across its many forms, the collection continues to explore the same relationships between ceramic weight, paper softness, organic silhouettes, and careful detailing. The pieces feel connected, but not repetitive. Each one has its own proportion, gesture, and mood.

What makes Amica compelling is the way it balances opposites: heavy and light, earthy and translucent, structured and organic. The pieces do more than brighten a space. They change how the space feels. Even when unlit, they hold their own as objects with texture, rhythm, and presence.

Amica feels contemporary without losing its connection to older craft traditions. Paper, ceramic, wood, and concrete are used in a way that feels both familiar and fresh. The collection invites slower looking, asking the viewer to notice the ridges, folds, shadows, and small handmade details that give each piece its character.

At its core, Amica is a collection about softness with structure. It turns natural references and crafted processes into luminous objects that feel intimate, expressive, and quietly theatrical.

The post The Amica Collection Finds Poetry in Paper, Clay, and Glow first appeared on Yanko Design.

This LEGO Godzilla Skeleton Set Has Movable Limbs and Jaw, Built From LEGO’s Dinosaur Fossils Kit

Godzilla has spent seven decades stomping through movie theaters, but only recently has he stomped his way into an actual LEGO box. Builder Matthew Esposito’s Monsterverse-inspired Godzilla cleared the 10,000 vote threshold on LEGO Ideas and got the official nod from LEGO’s review team in 2025, meaning a real retail set is somewhere on the horizon. It is, by any measure, a long overdue arrival for one of pop culture’s most enduring monsters.

Across 35 plus film appearances, Godzilla has been a metaphor for nuclear anxiety, a wrestling opponent for King Kong, and an occasional force for good against even worse monsters. What he has rarely been is dead long enough to leave a skeleton behind. That oversight has now been corrected, and fittingly, it happened not through an official LEGO release but through the kind of scrappy fan ingenuity that keeps this hobby interesting, a build that arrives just as his living, roaring counterpart prepares for brick immortality of his own.

Designer: LaurensPosthuma

Unlike our usual LEGO Ideas coverage that proposes completely new bricksets, this one actually repurposes an existing set. It’s an alternate build for LEGO’s own Dinosaur Fossils set (21320), meaning every one of its 477 pieces comes straight out of a box most AFOLs already have on a shelf. Swap the T-Rex, Triceratops, and Pteranodon skeletons for this hunched, roaring Godzilla, and suddenly a paleontology playset becomes a kaiju shrine. No new molds, no rare parts hunt, just clever reassignment of an existing inventory into something the original designers never imagined.

Godzilla stands roughly 37 centimeters long, 12 centimeters wide, and 27 centimeters tall, anchored to a stable 10 by 12 stud base that keeps his hunched, forward-leaning stance from tipping over under the weight of that long, curling tail (a tail that, fittingly, needs its own separate support post, exactly like the fossil kit’s original dinosaurs). The head, arms, and tail are all fully articulated, letting you pose him mid-roar, mid-swipe, or crouched and ready to pounce. My favorite detail, though, is the jaw. It actually opens and closes, and paired with that jagged double row of teeth, it turns a static display piece into something you want to keep fidgeting with long after the build is done.

LaurensPosthuma built the instructions using Stud.io, LEGO’s official digital design software, and packaged them as a downloadable PDF rather than a physical retail kit, which is how most fossil-kit alt-builds make their way to fellow builders. “The feedback has been amazing and I love doing more skeletons,” the designer notes, a line that suggests this won’t be the last monster to get the bare-bones treatment.

There is something genuinely satisfying about a build like this landing in the same year Esposito’s fleshed-out Godzilla is being greenlit for retail shelves. One version gives you the King of Monsters in full menacing color, the other gives you what’s presumably left of him after a rough night in Tokyo Bay. Together they would make an absurdly good display duo, assuming LEGO ever decides an official skeleton variant is worth the tooling. Until then, this one is available now as PDF instructions for €6.50, buildable entirely from parts you already own if Dinosaur Fossils is sitting in your collection.

The post This LEGO Godzilla Skeleton Set Has Movable Limbs and Jaw, Built From LEGO’s Dinosaur Fossils Kit first appeared on Yanko Design.