Tag Archives: Technology

This Yacht is actually powered by a Detachable Jet-ski

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Jet skis rip through water with ridiculous speed and agility. They’re also terrible at everything else. Try bringing friends along for the ride, or packing anything beyond a phone in a waterproof case. Yachts fix the space issue completely, but they cost a small fortune and require actual skills to operate. Spanish designer Amor Jimenez Chito created the One 16 to split the difference: it’s a six-meter boat powered by a jet ski that detaches when you want to go full throttle solo. The design won the Golden A’ Design Award for 2025, which apparently goes to projects that solve problems nobody else bothered to address.

The engineering is surprisingly straightforward. Your jet ski slots into the hull and becomes the propulsion system for the entire boat. The plug-and-play setup works with major jet ski brands, so you can use whatever you already own or prefer. Six people fit comfortably on deck, where a convertible bow switches between table mode and sunbathing platform depending on the vibe. The hull keeps weight distributed properly so the whole thing stays stable instead of feeling like you strapped a picnic table to a rocket. You get two vehicles in one without paying marina fees for two vehicles. That’s the entire pitch, and it actually makes sense.

Designer: Amor Jimenez Chito

This kind of modularity has been tried before, usually with clunky results that looked like a science fair project gone wrong. The reason the One 16 works, at least conceptually, is that it doesn’t try to hide what it is. The jet ski integration is a core feature, not an afterthought. Chito’s background in industrial design engineering clearly shows in the execution, where the docking mechanism appears both robust and user-friendly. Making it compatible with Sea-Doo, Yamaha, and Kawasaki from the get-go is the smartest decision they could have made. It bypasses the proprietary ecosystem trap and opens the concept up to the entire existing PWC market, which is a massive advantage.

Of course, the real test is how it handles chop with a 300-horsepower jet ski bolted into its spine. The weight distribution is supposedly optimized, but there’s a big difference between a CAD rendering and a windy afternoon on the water. Aesthetically, it’s clean and inoffensive, which is probably the right call for a product aiming for broad appeal. It won’t turn heads like a Wally tender, but it’s not supposed to. The One 16 is a clever piece of problem-solving that prioritizes function over form. It’s a utility player, a waterborne multitool for people who want more options without owning an entire fleet.

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10 (More) Best Designs From 2025 That Prove We Want The Future To Look A Lot Like The Past

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If Part 1 of this list proved that nostalgia is having a moment, Part 2 is here to show you that 2025 wasn’t only about looking backward. Sure, we are obsessed with what came before, but the best designs this year didn’t just resurrect the past, they remixed it with enough modern intelligence to feel genuinely new. This is where things get interesting: when designers stop treating retro as a costume and start using it as raw material. The result is products that feel familiar enough to trust but fresh enough to justify their existence in a world already drowning in stuff.

So here are the next 10 designs that made 2025 unforgettable. Some lean hard into nostalgia. Others push so far forward they feel like prototypes from 2030. A few manage to do both at once, which might be the most 2025 thing possible. Whether you spent this year glued to design blogs or just trying to keep your head above water, these picks represent the moments when form, function, and cultural timing aligned perfectly. Let’s dig into the second half of what made this year worth paying attention to.

1. Poke-Nade Monster Ball by Takara Tomy & The Pokémon Company

Nostalgia is a fickle mistress! She shows up when you least expect her, whispers about the good old days, and convinces you to spend money on things that have no business existing in 2025. Case in point: Pokemon just dropped the Poke-Nade Monster Ball, which is essentially a Tamagotchi disguised as a Pokéball, and millennials are losing their collective minds over it. This is not groundbreaking technology. This is not solving any real problems. This is pure, weaponized nostalgia, and it is working exactly as intended.

The device takes everything we loved about late-90s virtual pets and wraps it in Pokemon branding so potent you can practically hear the theme song playing. A color LCD screen sits inside a touch-sensitive shell shaped like an actual Pokéball, letting you stroke, tap, and physically interact with your digital companion. Pet it gently and it reacts with happiness. Tap persistently and it falls asleep. The gestures unlock deeper animations as your friendship level grows, which is a clever evolution of the old Tamagotchi button-mashing routine. But let’s be honest, the innovation here is minimal. What they are really selling is the emotional real estate Pokemon and Tamagotchi occupied in our childhoods, repackaged with a slightly better screen and some capacitive touch sensors. And you know what? That is enough. Because nostalgia does not need to innovate. It just needs to remind you of a time when feeding a pixelated creature between math classes felt like the most important responsibility in your life. Pokemon knows this. They counted on it. And judging by how fast these things are selling out, they were absolutely right.

2. Wi-Fi HaLow (with 9.9 mile connectivity) by Morse Micro

And to counteract that, here’s some serious tech innovation from the beginning of the year that grabbed eyeballs. While most brands relied hard on nostalgia, Morse Micro decided to solve a problem that has plagued connectivity since WiFi was invented: range. The Wi-Fi HaLow system delivers connectivity across a 9.9-mile radius using sub-GHz radio waves, which means it can punch through walls, penetrate obstacles, and maintain signal strength over distances that would make standard Wi-Fi routers give up and go home. Traditional Wi-Fi operates on crowded high-frequency bands that struggle beyond a few dozen meters and get blocked by anything denser than drywall. HaLow operates at lower frequencies with significantly better propagation characteristics, turning your home network into something closer to a neighborhood utility than a room-specific convenience.

The implications go way beyond streaming Netflix from your driveway. You could theoretically connect to your home network from the grocery store, maintain smart home control from miles away, or create IoT networks that span entire campuses without repeaters or mesh nodes cluttering every hallway. Industrial applications become viable where they were previously impossible, rural connectivity suddenly looks feasible without expensive cellular infrastructure, and the whole concept of what a local network means gets redefined. This is not retro. This is not nostalgic. This is pure forward momentum, the kind of innovation that makes you wonder why we spent decades optimizing the wrong frequencies when the solution was sitting in a less congested part of the spectrum the whole time. If 2025 taught us anything, it is that sometimes the best way forward has nothing to do with where we have been.

3. Nintendo Wii U Revival by Brenden Sullivan

The Wii U was Nintendo’s most spectacular failure in recent memory, a console so confusing in its messaging and underwhelming in its execution that even hardcore fans pretend it never happened. Yet here comes a concept that asks: what if we took the one genuinely clever idea from the Wii U, the gamepad with the built-in screen, and rebuilt it for the Switch 2 era? This Wii U revival concept imagines a companion device that pairs with Nintendo’s next console, offering dual-screen gameplay, touch controls, and the asymmetric multiplayer experiences that made the Wii U interesting for about five minutes before everyone forgot it existed. It is nostalgia for hardware that barely had time to build nostalgia in the first place, which makes it either brilliantly contrarian or deeply misguided depending on how charitable you are feeling.

What makes this concept work as a 2025 artifact is that it refuses to let a good idea die just because the original execution flopped. The Wii U’s tablet controller was ahead of its time in some ways and catastrophically behind in others, but the core premise, that asymmetric information and split-screen interactions could create new gameplay dynamics, never got a fair shot. This concept takes that kernel and strips away everything that made the original clunky: the limited range, the single-controller restriction, the confusion about whether it was a handheld or a console accessory. By positioning it as an optional sidekick to the Switch 2 rather than the main event, it fixes the branding disaster while keeping the innovation. It is nostalgia weaponized correctly, not as pure recreation but as salvage operation, pulling the worthwhile parts from the wreckage and giving them a second chance in a context that might actually appreciate them.

4. No.1/1000 Titanium Fractal Vise by Titaner

Most tools are designed to disappear into workshops, utilitarian objects that do their job without demanding attention. Titaner’s titanium fractal vise does the opposite. It announces itself as both precision instrument and sculptural object, with a body machined from solid titanium and a fractal pattern that serves actual structural purposes rather than just looking cool. The geometry distributes clamping force efficiently while reducing material weight, which means the mathematical beauty is not decorative, it is load-bearing. Limited to a small production run, each vise is CNC-machined to tolerances that make it as much a collector’s item as a working tool, the kind of thing that sits on a workbench and makes visitors ask questions before they realize it actually functions.

What makes this a 2025 design rather than just expensive engineering porn is the way it represents a larger shift in how we think about tools and objects. We are moving past the idea that functional items need to be aesthetically neutral, that beauty and utility occupy separate categories. This vise proves you can have museum-grade craftsmanship in something designed to grip metal and take abuse. It is the intersection of maker culture, precision manufacturing, and the growing appreciation for objects that justify their cost through both performance and presence. There is no nostalgia here, no retro callback, just an argument that everyday tools can be extraordinary if we stop accepting mediocrity as the baseline. It is innovation in the form of asking why more things are not built this well, and then actually building one to prove the point.

5. WP200 Pro Modular Smartphone by OUKITEL

Modular smartphones have been promised, prototyped, and abandoned so many times that most people stopped believing they would ever work. Then the rugged WP200 Pro from OUKITEL shows up with a detachable display that does not just disconnect, it transforms into entirely different devices. The screen pulls away from the phone body and can be reconfigured as either a smartwatch strapped to your wrist or an earbud clipped to your ear. The phone itself continues functioning with a secondary display underneath, so you are not sacrificing core functionality when you repurpose the main screen. It is the kind of absurdly ambitious design that sounds like vaporware until you see the mechanical hinges and magnetic connections that make it plausible.

This is innovation trying to solve a problem nobody asked for but might actually appreciate once it exists: the fact that we carry multiple screens doing similar jobs when one good screen could rotate between contexts. Why own a phone, smartwatch, and wireless earbuds when one modular system could cover all three? The rugged construction suggests this is built for field work, outdoor use, or situations where carrying multiple fragile devices makes no sense. It is the opposite of nostalgia, there is no retro aesthetic here, no callback to simpler times, just aggressive forward-thinking that asks whether our current device ecosystem is as optimized as we assume. Whether it ever ships is anyone’s guess, but as a statement of intent, it proves that some designers are still more interested in what comes next than what came before.

6. Kangourou Tiny Home by Quadrapol

Tiny homes have been sold as this romantic solution to housing affordability and minimalist living, but they come with one universal design flaw that nobody wants to admit: climbing a ladder to your bed every night gets old fast. Especially if you have kids, aging parents, mobility issues, or just a baseline desire to not break your neck at 3am during a bathroom trip. This family-friendly tiny home named Kangourou redesigns the entire layout to put every sleeping space on the ground floor, which sounds simple until you realize how much spatial gymnastics that requires in a structure measuring under 400 square feet. The designers pulled it off using sliding partitions, convertible furniture, and clever vertical storage that keeps the ceiling height usable without forcing anyone to sleep in what amounts to an attic crawlspace.

What makes this relevant to 2025 is that it represents tiny home design finally maturing past the Instagram aesthetic phase. For years, tiny homes prioritized looking good in photos over actually functioning as long-term residences, which is why so many ended up as glorified vacation rentals rather than permanent housing solutions. This design prioritizes livability, accessibility, and the reality that families need private sleeping spaces that do not require ladder proficiency. It is not flashy. It is not trying to reinvent architecture. It is just solving a known problem with enough intelligence that it stops being a problem, which might be the most underrated form of innovation. If the tiny home movement wants to be taken seriously as housing rather than lifestyle content, this is the direction it needs to go: less emphasis on clever lofts, more focus on whether you would actually want to live there past the honeymoon phase.

7. Pexar Starlight 15.6″ Picture Frame by Lexar

Wizarding photographs in Harry Potter had one feature that always felt unfair: they moved, waved back, captured the full motion of a moment instead of freezing it into stillness. Muggles have been trying to close that gap ever since, and digital picture frames are basically our best attempt at making photos feel alive without actual magic. The Pexar Starlight takes that idea and adds ambient backlighting, turning a 15.6-inch display into something that sits between traditional frame and mood lighting. Photos cycle through with adjustable brightness that shifts based on time of day, so your memories glow softly in the evening and stay crisp during daylight hours. It is designed to blend into home decor rather than scream “tech gadget,” which is harder than it sounds when you are essentially mounting a screen on the wall.

What separates this from the dozens of other digital frames cluttering the market is the execution of details most brands ignore. The matte finish reduces glare without killing color vibrancy. The frame itself comes in multiple finishes so it does not look like every other black-bezeled rectangle. Setup happens through a companion app that actually works instead of requiring a computer science degree to navigate, and photo uploads can be automated from cloud storage so you are not manually curating every week. The backlight feature is the real differentiator, creating depth and warmth that makes photos feel more like displayed art than screensaver content. It is not trying to replace your phone’s photo library. It is trying to give your best shots the kind of presence they deserve, somewhere between nostalgia object and functional decor, which is exactly where digital frames should have been aiming all along.

8. CAMIO Wearable by BQEYZ

Meta’s smart glasses cost several hundred dollars and lock you into their ecosystem, their frames, their design language, and their gradual feature rollout that always feels like paying for a beta test. Meet CAMIO, a $79 snap-on module from an upstart competitor that takes a different approach: it clips onto any pair of glasses you already own and turns them into recording devices with a tiny camera, built-in storage, and wireless connectivity. You keep your prescription lenses, your favorite frame style, your existing investment in eyewear. The module just adds the capture functionality without forcing you to replace everything. It records video, snaps photos, and syncs to your phone over Bluetooth, handling the basics without trying to be a full augmented reality platform or AI assistant.

The genius here is recognizing that most people do not want to replace their glasses, they just want their glasses to do more. Meta’s approach requires buying into their hardware completely, which is a tough sell when you have frames you like or prescriptions that need specific lenses. This module treats smart features as an add-on rather than a replacement, which dramatically lowers the barrier to entry both financially and practically. It is not going to match Meta’s polish or integration depth, but it does not need to. It just needs to capture moments hands-free and stay out of the way when you are not using it. For seventy-nine dollars, that is a value proposition that makes sense in a way premium smart glasses still struggle to justify. Sometimes the best innovation is not building something entirely new, it is building something that works with what people already have.

9. Small House On A Corner Lot by KOMINORU Design

Tokyo real estate operates on a completely different logic than most cities. Space is so expensive and scarce that architects have spent decades perfecting the art of making tiny footprints feel livable, even generous. This Japanese tiny home takes those spatial compression techniques and pushes them further, creating a dwelling that maximizes every cubic inch without feeling claustrophobic or compromised. The design uses vertical layering, multifunctional furniture, and strategic transparency to make a structure barely wider than a parking space feel like a complete home rather than an elaborate closet with plumbing.

What sets this apart from typical tiny home design is the cultural context. Japanese architecture has been optimizing small spaces for centuries, long before minimalism became a lifestyle trend or tiny homes became YouTube content. This design pulls from that tradition: sliding shoji-inspired partitions that reconfigure rooms on demand, sunken floors that create separation without walls, storage integrated into every surface so nothing feels like dead space. Natural light floods in through carefully positioned windows that also provide ventilation and visual connection to the exterior. The result is a home that feels intentional rather than constrained, where every design choice serves multiple purposes and nothing exists just for show. It is a masterclass in efficiency that does not sacrifice comfort, proving that small spaces stop being a limitation once you design specifically for them instead of trying to cram traditional layouts into compressed square footage. If urban density is the future, this is the blueprint for making it actually desirable.

10. Saros Z70 by Roborock

Robot vacuums have gotten really good at one thing: vacuuming. They map your floors, avoid obstacles, empty themselves, and generally handle the task they were designed for with increasing competence. But they have always had one glaring limitation: if there is a sock on the floor, a charging cable, a kid’s toy, anything that is not flat dirt or debris, the vacuum just routes around it or gets tangled and calls for help. The Roborock Saros Z70 fixes this with the most obvious solution nobody thought to mass-produce until now: it adds a robotic arm. A literal articulated arm that extends from the vacuum’s body, grabs objects off the floor, and moves them out of the way so it can continue cleaning underneath. Socks, shoes, small towels, cables, anything under a certain weight gets picked up and relocated to a designated drop zone.

This is innovation that feels overdue the moment you see it. We have had the mechanical capability to build grabber arms into consumer robots for years, but nobody committed to the engineering challenge until Roborock decided the robot vacuum category had gotten boring enough to need disruption. The arm uses vision recognition to identify objects, assess their weight and shape, and determine whether they are safe to grab, which prevents it from trying to lift furniture or drag your laptop across the room. It is not perfect, weight limits and object recognition will have edge cases, but it represents a fundamental expansion of what a cleaning robot can do. Instead of just reacting to obstacles, it actively manipulates its environment to complete its job. That is a step change in capability that makes every previous robot vacuum feel like it was solving only half the problem. If this actually ships at a reasonable price point and the arm proves reliable, it will instantly make the entire existing market feel outdated, which is exactly what genuine innovation is supposed to do.

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This Cute AI Robot Just Turned Your Car Into a 4G Hotspot

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Picture this: you slide into your car, and instead of being greeted by cold, silent technology, there’s a little spherical companion perched on your dashboard, ready to chat. That’s TOOOONY, and it’s rethinking what it means to have tech in your vehicle.

At first glance, Toooony looks like it escaped from a Pixar film. It’s got this perfectly round head with big, expressive eyes that light up on its circular screen, and honestly, you can’t help but smile when you see it. The design team at ZIZ Intelligent Manufacturing, led by Junjia Yang, Yang Shen, Yanan Liu, and Ruilin Niu, clearly understood something crucial: if you’re going to spend hours in your car, your tech companion should feel like an actual companion, not just another gadget bolted to your dashboard.

Designers: Junjia Yang, Yang Shen, Yanan Liu, Ruilin Niu

But Toooony isn’t just sitting there looking cute. This little robot is packed with functionality that genuinely changes how you interact with your vehicle. The anthropomorphic AI dialogue system means you can actually have conversations with it, not just bark commands. It responds to voice, recognizes touch, and here’s where it gets interesting: it features “tap-to-interact” functionality that lets you communicate with other Toooony users on the road.

Think about that for a second. We’ve all had those moments driving where we wish we could easily communicate with another car. Maybe it’s a friendly wave, sharing traffic info, or just acknowledging a fellow road tripper. Toooony makes this possible through LoRa near-field encrypted communication, positioning itself as the world’s first cross-brand non-contact travel social device. You can connect with other drivers without switching car brands or fumbling with apps, all while keeping your communication secure and encrypted.

The circular screen serves as Toooony’s face and information hub, displaying a variety of customizable watch faces. One minute it might show you the weather with a sunset reflection, the next it’s displaying your vehicle stats or just giving you those cheerful cartoon eyes that make even traffic jams slightly more bearable. The screen adapts to different contexts, whether you need navigation info, want to control your music, or just need a visual companion during your commute.

What really sets it apart is how it blends personality with practical features. Built-in lighting creates ambiance and provides visual feedback, while the sound system handles everything from navigation prompts to music. The expressions change based on what’s happening, giving you emotional cues that feel natural rather than robotic. When you’re low on battery, the device might look concerned. Hit the road after a long day? It might greet you with a cheerful face that genuinely makes you feel less alone.

Then there’s the connectivity piece. Toooony isn’t just another Bluetooth speaker pretending to be smart. It’s equipped with 4G capability and can transform into a stable mobile hotspot that covers your entire vehicle. This means passengers can stream, work, or browse without draining phone data plans, and the connection stays consistent because it’s not relying on your phone’s tethering. For families on road trips or remote workers who treat their car like a mobile office, this feature alone justifies the device’s existence. The cross-device communication capability extends beyond just car-to-car interaction. It can sync with your other devices, creating a seamless tech ecosystem that follows you from home to vehicle and beyond. That playlist you were listening to in your living room? Toooony picks it up. Calendar reminders? They’ll pop up on that circular screen at the right time.

What makes Toooony particularly clever is that it’s designed as a customizable physical robot. This isn’t one of those “smart assistants” that’s just a speaker with lights. It’s an actual presence in your car with physical character. You can personalize its responses, change its watch faces to match your mood or aesthetic, and over time, it genuinely starts to feel like your driving buddy rather than just another piece of car tech.

The form factor matters too. Toooony sits on your dashboard without being intrusive, positioned where you can see it but it doesn’t block your view. The spherical design with what appears to be little headphone-like elements gives it this endearing character that makes sense in a vehicle environment. It’s friendly tech that doesn’t demand your attention but is there when you need it. The device brings a human touch to the driving experience when usually it seems like it’s designed by engineers for engineers. It’s functional without being cold, smart without being intimidating, and connected without being creepy. Sometimes the best innovations aren’t about cramming in more features but about making technology feel like it actually belongs in our lives. Toooony gets that balance right.

The post This Cute AI Robot Just Turned Your Car Into a 4G Hotspot first appeared on Yanko Design.

10 Best Editor-Picked Designs From 2025 Show How Nostalgia Beat Every Tech Trend

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I read somewhere that Nostalgia sells harder than Innovation and it really made me do a double-take. Does it make sense? Well, not really, considering how fast things are progressing on the robotics and AI front – but here’s where I’d like to believe that statement rings true. Take a look at culture – old music is in again, Taylor’s new album is an homage to the old. Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk made his first stage appearance in nearly a decade. What about movies, you ask? They’re shooting the next Shrek film, Robert Downy Jr. is back at Marvel, and heck, Shia LaBoeuf just announced his return to Transformers. Tech is playing the retro game very well too, whether it’s reissuing of old-style hardware, emulators, or even trends like transparency that remind us of the Nintendo GBA and the iMac G3. The grand point I’m making here, is that this last year has been an absolute pendulum, swinging between extremes, aesthetic styles, ideologies, and eras.

So we zeroed down to 20 designs (spread across two articles) that represent what 2025 gave us. These are the first half of our top picks from the year, gathering designs that we as editors loved, but also taking you, the reader into account. After all, we don’t write in a vacuum. We try to find designs and tech that genuinely impress or inspire you, and if you’ve been spending 2025 doing a bunch of other things (like surviving) apart from reading Yanko Design, here are 10 handpicked (yes, I picked them myself!) designs that encapsulate the BEST of 2025. Stay tuned for part 2!

1. Google Pixel Headphones by Sidhant Patnaik

Sometimes concept renders accomplish more than actual products ever could. Designer Sidhant Patnaik’s Google Pixel Headphones exist only as pixels and Photoshop layers, yet they have sparked more genuine excitement than most real hardware launches Google has executed in years. The design borrows visual cues from the Pixel phone lineup, clean geometric forms, two-tone color blocking, subtle branding, while integrating Gemini AI as a core feature rather than an afterthought. Imagined controls include gesture-based interactions, seamless Pixel ecosystem integration, and the kind of ambient intelligence that Google keeps promising but rarely delivers in satisfying ways. It looks credible enough that people keep asking where to buy it, which is both flattering to the designer and damning to Google’s actual product strategy.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth this concept exposes: Google has all the pieces to dominate the premium headphone market but refuses to assemble them. They own best-in-class voice recognition, industry-leading AI through Gemini, deep Android integration, and more audio patents than most people realize. Apple charges $550 for AirPods Max and can barely keep them in stock. Nothing launched Headphone (1) at $299 and sold out immediately despite being a first-generation product from a startup. Meanwhile Google sells Pixel Buds that nobody talks about and leaves the over-ear category completely vacant. The demand is screaming at them through every comment section under this concept. When a render generates this much enthusiasm, it stops being fantasy and starts being a market signal Google is choosing to ignore.

2. Concept Plumage by Jet Weng

One of the ‘best’ designs of 2025 is actually from nearly 13 years ago! Isn’t that insane?! But that’s how you define ‘ahead of its time’, I guess. Designed by Jet Weng, this absolutely genius keyboard design solves the modern-day smartphone’s BIGGEST problem – the fact that touchscreen keyboards still suck. Concept Plumage is a flip-case that integrates a full QWERTY keyboard into the back of your phone’s protective cover. When you need to type something longer than a text message, you flip the case around to reveal physical keys that give you actual tactile feedback. When you’re done, it folds back flush against the phone, adding virtually no bulk to your everyday carry. The whole system lives within the footprint of a standard phone case, which means you get BlackBerry-level typing precision without sacrificing the sleekness of modern smartphone design.

What makes this concept so painfully relevant in 2025 is that we are still dealing with the same frustrations Weng identified over a decade ago. Autocorrect still mangles sentences. Thumbs still obscure half the screen. Typing anything substantial on glass remains an exercise in patience and typo correction. The design world spent years convincing us that we would eventually master touchscreen typing, that our muscle memory would adapt, that software would get smarter. Instead, we just learned to accept mediocrity. Plumage refused that compromise, offering a solution that feels both retro and futuristic, like someone time-traveled from 2013 with the one idea we should have mass-produced immediately.

3. Public Library by Thilina Liyanage

Some libraries try to attract bookworms. This one commits to the metaphor so completely that walking inside feels like stepping between pages. Thilina Liyanage’s Public Library‘s exterior mimics an open book mid-read, with two curved structures meeting at a spine, their forms arching upward like paper caught in a breeze. Floor-to-ceiling glass panels stretch across both halves, flooding the interior with natural light that shifts throughout the day, casting reading nooks into soft afternoon glow or sharp morning clarity depending on where the sun sits.

Inside, the architect abandoned the grid entirely. Shelves curve with the walls, following the book-like contours instead of fighting them. Reading spaces cascade across multiple levels connected by flowing staircases that feel more like narrative transitions than functional infrastructure. The central atrium, positioned where the spine would be, rises through all floors and functions as both circulation hub and dramatic gathering space. Materials skew minimal and futuristic, lots of white surfaces, polished concrete, transparent railings, so nothing competes with the architecture’s bold gesture. It is the kind of space that makes you want to linger even if you didn’t come to read, which might be the highest compliment you can pay a library in 2025.

4. HubKey Gen2 by HubKey

The modern laptop gives you two USB-C ports and expects you to figure out the rest yourself. Most people end up with a drawer full of dongles, one for HDMI, another for ethernet, maybe a card reader that works half the time, all daisy-chained together in configurations that feel temporary but somehow become permanent. HubKey Gen2 consolidates that mess into an 11-in-1 hub with an unusual twist: it includes physical shortcut keys and a rotary knob on top, turning connectivity infrastructure into an actual control surface. Four programmable buttons and a central dial let you trigger macros, adjust volume, skip tracks, or launch applications without reaching for the keyboard. It treats the hub as something you interact with regularly rather than plug in once and forget about.

The headline upgrade is dual 4K at 60Hz, both HDMI outputs running simultaneously without bandwidth compromises or resolution drops. Add 100W pass-through charging, a 2.5Gbps ethernet port, 10Gbps USB-A data transfer, SD and microSD slots, and a 3.5mm audio jack, and you have covered most desk setups without needing secondary adapters. The customizable keys support complex shortcuts through companion software, which means editors can bind them to timeline controls, designers can trigger layer actions, and anyone else can just use them for Spotify and Zoom mute. It is a small addition that changes how the device sits in your workflow, shifting it from passive infrastructure to active tool. Most hubs disappear under your desk. This one earns a spot within arm’s reach.

5. Switzerland Passport Re-design by RETINAA

Most passports are exercises in bureaucratic minimalism, but Geneva-based studio RETINAA treated Switzerland’s passport redesign like a cartographic love letter. The new passport centers around water, Switzerland’s most defining geographic feature, with a hydrological map of the country’s rivers and lakes spreading across the inner cover. Each page features detailed illustrations of Swiss landmarks, architectural icons, mountains, and valleys rendered in precise line work that feels equal parts technical drawing and fine art. The design draws heavily from Switzerland’s rich tradition of cartography and graphic design, honoring the country’s obsessive attention to visual detail while meeting all modern security requirements. It is rare to see a government document that looks like it could hang framed in a design museum, but this one legitimately pulls it off.

The hidden layer makes it even better. Under ultraviolet light, topographic contour lines emerge across the pages, revealing Switzerland’s dramatic elevation changes in glowing detail. The Alps materialize as layered ridges, valleys sink into shadow, and the whole document transforms into something that feels alive. Water remains the conceptual anchor throughout, a nod to the country’s hydroelectric infrastructure and the way rivers and lakes have shaped Swiss identity for centuries. RETINAA managed to make a security feature feel poetic, which is not an easy trick. This is what happens when you let actual designers loose on something usually handled by committee and compliance officers. The passport does not just represent Switzerland, it performs the country’s design ethos with every page turn.

6. Modern Apple iPod by Zac Builds

See?! This is where Nostalgia really sells harder than Innovation! YouTuber Zac Builds took a fifth-generation iPod Video and resurrected it into what Apple should have made if they had any interest in keeping the product line alive. The outside looks nearly identical to the 2005 original, same click wheel, same proportions, same satisfying tactile response. Everything else is 2025. He swapped the 30-pin connector for USB-C, added Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless audio, upgraded the storage to a modern SD card solution, and installed custom firmware that supports FLAC, ALAC, and basically every audio format iTunes ever refused to acknowledge. Most importantly, the whole thing syncs like a standard USB drive, no iTunes required, no proprietary software gatekeeping your music library. Just drag and drop files like it’s 2003 but without the artificial limitations.

The build represents everything people loved about dedicated music players before smartphones absorbed their function. No notifications interrupting an album. No battery drain from a hundred background apps. No accidental skips from a touchscreen registering phantom taps in your pocket. Just a device that plays music exceptionally well and does nothing else. The fact that it took a hobbyist with a soldering iron to deliver this rather than Apple themselves says everything about where consumer electronics have drifted. Zac’s version honors the iPod’s legacy while fixing its most dated frustrations, which might be the perfect definition of thoughtful nostalgia. This is not a museum piece. It is a working argument for why single-purpose devices still matter in a world obsessed with convergence.

7. TobenONE 6-in-1 Hub by TobenONE

HDMI cables are the cockroaches of tech, somehow surviving every wireless revolution that should have killed them off by now. We beam 4K movies through the air, charge devices without plugging them in, and send gigabytes of data across continents in seconds, but connecting a laptop to a projector still means crawling under desks hunting for the right dongle. The TobenONE T1 finally addresses this absurdity with a transmitter-receiver combo that handles video streaming wirelessly while doubling as a fully functional USB-C hub. Plug the transmitter into your laptop, connect the receiver to your TV or monitor via HDMI, and the two talk to each other over 5G Wi-Fi at distances up to 30 meters. No network required, no firmware updates, no app to download and immediately forget your password for.

What separates this from the dozens of other wireless HDMI solutions is the fact that it doesn’t just replace one cable, it replaces six. The hub side includes multiple USB-A ports, an SD card reader, and pass-through charging, which means your laptop stays powered while streaming a presentation or mirroring gameplay. It handles 1080p at 60Hz, which is not cutting-edge but plenty adequate for most use cases outside of competitive gaming or pixel-peeping design work. The real appeal here is convenience compounded, eliminating both the video cable and the separate hub most people already carry. Conference rooms, living room setups, and anyone tired of the “which adapter did I forget this time” ritual will find this particularly satisfying. It is one of those products that feels obvious in hindsight, which usually means someone should have made it years ago.

8. LEGO Snow Globes by ItzEthqn

LEGO has been mining nostalgia so effectively for years that it barely registers as a strategy anymore, it just feels like what LEGO does. But every so often they drop something that reminds you how good they are at packaging childhood wonder into adult-friendly formats. These buildable LEGO snow globes hit that sweet spot perfectly: tactile enough to justify the LEGO branding, decorative enough to sit on a desk without looking like a toy, and seasonal enough to qualify as a gift without feeling like obligatory holiday merch. Each globe contains a miniature scene, winter villages, festive characters, iconic moments, all rendered in brick form and sealed inside a transparent sphere that sits on a buildable base.

The genius is in the scale and execution. These are not massive display pieces that demand shelf real estate and explanations to guests. They are compact, self-contained, and instantly recognizable as both LEGO and snow globe, which means they work as decor, conversation starters, or stocking stuffers without needing context. The build process is simple enough to be relaxing but detailed enough to feel rewarding, which is basically LEGO’s entire value proposition distilled into a seasonal format. They tap into two separate nostalgia streams simultaneously: the childhood joy of LEGO construction and the sentimental pull of snow globes as holiday symbols. It is a perfect example of nostalgia not just selling, but selling smart, giving people something familiar enough to want and novel enough to justify buying in the first place.

9. Plus Pool by Dong-Ping Wong, Oana Stanescu, Archie Lee Coates IV & Jeffrey Franklin

New York City has not had a functional public swimming spot in its rivers for generations, mostly because jumping into the East River carries the same appeal as bathing in a toxic soup. Plus Pool fixes this with an ambitious solution that sounds too simple to work but somehow does: a floating, self-filtering swimming pool that pulls water directly from the river and cleans it in real time. Shaped like an oversized plus sign, the design allows multiple swimming zones, kids’ area, lap lanes, lounging sections, all configurable depending on how many people show up. The filtration system uses multiple straining layers to remove debris and particles, then hits everything with UV treatment for disinfection, no chlorine involved. Construction finally started in 2025 after 14 years of bureaucratic delays, fundraising hurdles, and engineering challenges.

The pool itself is a 320-ton steel structure currently undergoing testing before it gets anchored near Pier 35 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. A walkway will connect it to the shore, making it accessible without boats or special permits. Once operational, it will filter over half a million gallons of river water daily while people swim in it, turning one of the city’s most neglected natural resources into usable public space. The project represents a rare kind of urban optimism, the belief that infrastructure can do more than just function, it can invite people back to landscapes they abandoned decades ago. If it works as promised, Plus Pool will be the kind of civic landmark that makes people wonder why nobody thought to build it sooner, even though the answer is clearly that it took this long because ambitious public projects always do.

10. Dash Cam 4K T800 by 70mai

Most dash cams cover what is directly in front of you and maybe behind if you spring for the dual setup. That still leaves your sides completely vulnerable and your interior as an afterthought, which is a problem when insurance disputes or break-ins hinge on angles your camera never captured. The 70mai 4K T800 fixes this with three synchronized lenses: 4K front-facing, 1080p rear, and an interior camera that rotates 360 degrees. The front camera handles road footage with Sony STARVIS 2 sensor clarity, the rear covers tailgaters and parking lot incidents, and the interior lens can swivel to monitor the cabin or point sideways through windows to catch side-impact collisions and door dings. Together they eliminate the blind spots that turn minor accidents into he-said-she-said nightmares.

The system records all three feeds simultaneously and displays them in picture-in-picture mode on a 3-inch screen, giving you mission control visibility without needing to dig through separate files later. Built-in GPS tracks your route, the G-sensor triggers emergency recording on impact, and 24-hour parking surveillance keeps an eye on things when you are not around. At $323, it sits at the higher end of dash cam pricing, but it delivers the kind of comprehensive coverage that single and dual-lens setups simply cannot match. The logic is straightforward: if you are going to mount a camera system in your car, it might as well see everything worth seeing. This one does.

The post 10 Best Editor-Picked Designs From 2025 Show How Nostalgia Beat Every Tech Trend first appeared on Yanko Design.

Lunora Just Solved the One Thing Sleep Trackers Get Wrong

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We’ve all been there. It’s 2 a.m., you’re staring at your phone for the third time, and your brain refuses to shut down even though you have an early morning ahead. The usual advice is always the same: put away screens, create a routine, dim the lights. But what if someone actually designed a product that does all of that for you, and looks good doing it?

Enter Lunora, a sleep aid device designed by Prithvi Manoj Bhaskaran that’s honestly unlike anything you’ve seen on your bedside table. At first glance, it looks like a little sculptural figure taking a much-needed rest, complete with a glowing orb balanced on its back. That gentle lean, those smooth curves, it all feels intentional in the best way. This isn’t another gadget screaming for your attention. It’s the opposite.

Designer: Prithvi Manoj Bhaskaran

What makes Lunora interesting is how it approaches the whole wind-down process. Instead of tracking your sleep or buzzing you awake, it focuses on helping you actually get there. The device combines three sensory elements: a softly dimming light, gentle aroma diffusion, and low-distraction sound. Think of it as creating a mini sanctuary that guides your body from alert mode to rest mode, without any jarring alarms or bright screens interrupting the vibe.

The way it works is refreshingly simple. You start your routine, and Lunora does its thing. The light gradually dims, signaling to your brain that it’s time to power down. The aroma diffuser releases calming scents that help cut through mental clutter. And the sound component keeps things ambient without being distracting. It’s all about repetition and ritual, the kind of stuff our bodies actually respond to when we give them a chance.

For anyone juggling late-night study sessions or those particularly brutal stress-heavy days, this kind of product makes a lot of sense. You’re not adding another task to your routine or forcing yourself to follow some complicated sleep protocol. You just let Lunora do the heavy lifting while you focus on actually relaxing. It’s like having a friend gently remind you that yes, it’s okay to slow down now.

But here’s where the design really shines. That leaning posture isn’t just for show. It creates this almost human-like presence that feels comforting rather than clinical. The warm terracotta color and those organic curves make it look more like a piece of art than a piece of technology. You could absolutely see this sitting in a carefully curated room on Instagram, but it’s also genuinely functional. The glowing orb on top doubles as the light source, while the body houses the aroma diffuser, visible in those beautifully detailed close-ups.

There’s something refreshing about a product that doesn’t promise to hack your sleep or optimize your REM cycles. Lunora just wants to help you unwind at your own pace. No data tracking, no app notifications, no performance anxiety about whether you’re sleeping correctly. It’s tech that knows when to step back and let you be human.

In a world where we’re constantly optimizing, tracking, and measuring everything, maybe what we need at the end of the day is something that simply helps us transition. Something that looks friendly, feels calming, and doesn’t demand anything from us except the willingness to slow down. Lunora manages to package all of that into a form that’s both sculptural and functional, the kind of design that makes you stop and appreciate the thoughtfulness behind it.

Whether you’re a design enthusiast who appreciates objects with personality, a tech lover curious about ambient devices, or just someone tired of staring at the ceiling at night, Lunora offers something different. It’s a reminder that good design doesn’t always have to be complicated. Sometimes it just needs to understand what you need, and then quietly help you get there.

The post Lunora Just Solved the One Thing Sleep Trackers Get Wrong first appeared on Yanko Design.

Ovme Smart Mirror System Lets You See, Feel, and Fit Virtual Outfits

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The everyday “what should I wear today?” moment has gotten more complicated by online shopping. You can scroll endless outfits, but a screen cannot show how something fits, feels, or plays with what you already own. Ovme is a concept that treats the mirror as a missing link between your closet, your feed, and your actual body, closing the gap between seeing and knowing.

Ovme is an AR smart mirror ecosystem built around three objects: a full-height mirror, a sensor-laden fitting belt, and a haptic tactile table, plus a companion app. The name stands for “Own version of me,” and the system is designed to help you find new styles, feel how they fit, and touch virtual fabrics before you ever click buy or open your wallet.

Designers: Daun Park, Seyeon Park, Chawon So, Yewon Shim, Yejin Hong

The mirror acts like a personal stylist, overlaying outfits on your reflection and pulling from three sources: new looks, your existing wardrobe, and reference images you feed it. You can swipe through categories like formal, sporty, or feminine, and see complete outfits assembled around your silhouette, then save the ones that feel right into a virtual closet for later when you need inspiration or want to revisit.

The fitting belt is a flexible band with sensors that can wrap around your head, waist, or thigh. It measures circumference and applies gentle pressure, tightening or loosening to simulate how a garment would hug or hang on that part of your body. On the mirror, the virtual outfit responds in real time, turning fit from a guess based on size charts into something your body can actually sense.

The tactile table is a slim pedestal with a haptic surface that uses electro-tactile feedback to mimic fabric textures. When you place your hand on it, the system can suggest sensations like smooth silk, textured knit, or structured leather in sync with what you see in the mirror. It attempts to close the gap between seeing a material and knowing how it might feel against your skin or draped over your shoulders.

Ovme also acts as a style diary. It can scan what you are wearing today, score the outfit, and save it to a timeline called My Closet, so you can revisit past looks and see patterns in what you actually wear. A social layer called OvUS lets you browse other people’s saved styles and mood boards, turning the mirror into a place to share and borrow ideas rather than stare at yourself alone.

Ovme treats getting dressed as an ongoing design process, not a daily panic, and uses AR, haptics, and sensing to give online fashion some of the feedback loops of a real fitting room. Whether or not this exact hardware ever ships, the idea of a home mirror that helps you experiment, feel, and remember your style captures a direction that deserves attention, especially as wardrobes become more scattered across platforms and shopping becomes more remote.

The post Ovme Smart Mirror System Lets You See, Feel, and Fit Virtual Outfits first appeared on Yanko Design.

LEGO And Creality Come Together in This Incredibly Detailed Ender-Inspired 3D Printer Model

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LEGO and 3D printing occupy similar creative territory, both letting you turn ideas into physical objects through systematic processes. Yet despite this natural kinship, there’s never been an official LEGO model of the specific machine that’s currently democratizing small-scale manufacturing. This fan submission fixes that gap with a recognizably Ender-inspired design that captures both the utilitarian aesthetic and basic kinematic structure of Creality’s popular printer lineup.

The build doesn’t actually function like some ambitious LEGO projects (there’s a working LEGO Turing machine out there made from 2,900 bricks), but that’s not really the point. Someone unfamiliar with 3D printing could assemble this and understand how Cartesian motion systems work, how the hotend assembly relates to the build plate, and why those vertical lead screws matter for Z-axis stability. For people who already own an Ender or similar machine, it’s more about the novelty and nostalgia of seeing familiar hardware translated into a tabletop collectible to admire and cherish.

Designer: Guris14

Paying homage to the Ender 3 is fitting, since it was literally the first 3D printer for so many people, quite like an entire generation having a Nokia first phone. Creality sold hundreds of thousands of these things, maybe millions at this point, and the design became the default mental image of what a 3D printer looks like for an entire generation of makers. That boxy aluminum frame, the single Z-axis lead screw on earlier models (this LEGO version appears to reference the dual-screw V2), the bowden extruder setup with that blue PTFE tube snaking from the frame-mounted motor to the hotend. That characteristic black and silver color scheme with blue accent components has become as visually shorthand for “budget 3D printer” as the beige tower was for 90s PCs. Designer Guris14 scaled the model down from the Ender 3 V2’s actual 220x220x250mm build volume to something desk-friendly, but kept the proportions honest enough that you immediately recognize what you’re looking at.

What’s impressive is how the mechanical systems translate into LEGO’s vocabulary without completely abandoning accuracy. The Z-axis uses what appears to be LEGO’s ribbed hose pieces to represent lead screws, with the gantry able to move up and down the vertical supports. The X-axis gantry rides on a black beam that mimics the 2040 aluminum extrusion found on real Enders, while the hotend assembly hangs from a carriage with that signature blue bowden tube curling back toward the extruder. The build plate sits on a Y-axis assembly with its own lead screw mechanism, and there’s even a LEGO logo on the build-plate, like perfectly placed branding!

Flip the model and you’ll find representations of the motherboard and power supply tucked beneath the build plate, exactly where Creality positions them on the actual hardware. There’s that angled LCD screen mount on the front right corner, positioned just like the stock Ender setup. Even the spool holder perched on the top frame gets included, which is the kind of completeness that separates a thoughtful recreation from a surface-level approximation. You could hand this to someone who’s never seen a 3D printer and they’d walk away with a surprisingly accurate mental model of how these machines are structured.

The project currently sits on the LEGO Ideas website, where fans share their own creations and vote for their favorites. Lucky builds that hit the 10,000 vote mark move to the review stage where LEGO actually considers it for production. That’s always been the tricky part with Ideas submissions. You need a concept that’s simultaneously niche enough to excite enthusiasts but broad enough that LEGO thinks they can sell tens of thousands of units through their retail channels. A 3D printer model lives in an interesting space there. The maker community overlap is real and passionate, but you’re also asking LEGO to produce a set celebrating a technology that competes with their own manufacturing process in certain contexts.

Still, LEGO has greenlit plenty of sets that celebrate tools and technology. The Typewriter, the Polaroid camera, the various Technic construction vehicles, all of these acknowledge that people enjoy building detailed models of machines they find interesting or useful. A 3D printer fits that pattern perfectly, especially as these devices become more common in homes and schools. The educational angle writes itself: here’s a hands-on way to understand additive manufacturing without dealing with bed leveling or filament moisture. Whether that’s enough to get LEGO’s product team on board is another question entirely, but stranger things have made it through the Ideas gauntlet. The NASA Apollo Saturn V started as a fan submission. So did the ship in a bottle.

The post LEGO And Creality Come Together in This Incredibly Detailed Ender-Inspired 3D Printer Model first appeared on Yanko Design.

Antigravity A1 Review: Reimagining What a Drone Feels Like to Fly

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PROS:


  • Unique immersive experience with vision goggles

  • 8K 360 capture with post-flight reframing

  • Intuitive one-hand grip controller and automated modes lower the skill barrier

CONS:


  • Several pieces to carry and manage: drone, goggles, and controller

  • First-time setup and learning curve can feel overwhelming

  • Visual observer requirements in places like the U.S. limit solo flying

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

Antigravity A1 turns flying a drone into a new point of view, and once you are inside it, the experience feels hard to put a price on.

Antigravity is Insta360’s bold experiment in what happens when a 360‑camera company stops thinking only about the camera and starts redesigning the entire act of flying. It is an independent drone brand, incubated by Insta360, built on the same obsession with immersive imaging and playful storytelling, but free to rethink the aircraft, the controls, and the viewing experience as one coherent object. Instead of asking how to strap a 360 camera onto a drone, Antigravity asks how to make the whole system feel like a natural extension of your point of view.

Antigravity A1 is the first expression of that idea. It is a compact 8K 360 drone that arrives as a complete kit, with Vision goggles and a single‑hand Grip controller that you steer with subtle tilts and gestures. You do not fly it by staring at a phone and juggling twin sticks. You put on the goggles, step into a 360‑degree bubble of imagery, and guide the drone by moving your hand in the direction you want to travel. What was the experience with Antigravity A1 like? We tested it to bring you that answer.

Designer: Antigravity

Aesthetics

Antigravity A1 presents itself more as a system than a single object. There is the compact drone with its dual cameras, the Vision goggles, and the one‑hand Grip controller. Visually, the aircraft itself is quite understated. Aside from the two opposing lenses and the leg that shields the lower camera on the ground, it looks like a neat, functional quadcopter. The drama is reserved for what the system does, not how the airframe shouts for attention.

The Vision goggles lean into an almost character-like, even bug-like look, especially when you fold up the black antennas on each side that resemble insect feelers. The front shell is white with two large, dark circular eyes, giving the whole front a slightly cartoonish face. In between and just above those eyes sits an inverted triangle-shaped grille with a subtle Antigravity logo, adding a small technical accent without breaking the simplicity.  The fabric strap and thick face padding sit behind this front mask. Wearing the goggles does look strange at first, but in a strangely cool way.


 
The Grip motion controller has a white plastic shell with buttons and a dial that uses color and icon cues to hint at their functions. On the back, a black trigger-style pull bar sits where your index finger naturally rests. There are additional buttons on each side. The mix of white body, black accents, and clearly marked controls makes the Grip look approachable rather than intimidating, which suits a controller that is meant to translate simple hand movements into flight.

Overall, the drone, goggles, and controller share a cohesive design language. They all use the same soft white shell, black accents, and gently rounded forms. The whole kit feels like a single, intentional system rather than three unrelated gadgets.

Ergonomics

The Vision goggles are where comfort really matters, and Antigravity has clearly spent time on fit. The goggles weigh 340 grams, yet the padding and strap geometry distribute that weight in a way that avoids obvious pressure points, even during longer sessions. The side that meets your face feels soft and accommodating, so the hardware never feels harsh. Once the 360-degree image appears, the headset fades faster than you might expect, which is exactly what you want from an immersive device. Optional corrective inserts mean many glasses wearers can enjoy a sharp view without wrestling frames under the band, which makes the experience more inclusive and less fussy.

Power for the goggles lives in a separate battery pack that you can wear on a lanyard around your neck. At 175 grams, it is not heavy, but over time, it can feel slightly cumbersome to have it hanging there, especially when you are moving around. Antigravity sells a 1.2 metre (3.9 foot) USB-C to DC power cable that lets you route the battery to a trouser pocket or bag instead, which makes the whole setup feel less dangly and more integrated.

You adjust the head strap with velcro, which works, but it is not perfect. A small buckle or hinge mechanism would make it much easier to put the goggles on or take them off while wearing a hat, without having to readjust the strap length every time. It is a minor detail, yet it shows how close the design already is. You start wishing for refinements, not fixes.

The Grip controller is where Antigravity’s ergonomic thinking really shows. It rests comfortably in one hand, with a form that supports a natural, slightly relaxed grip rather than a tense, clawed hold. For my hand, it is just a tiny bit on the large side, enough to notice but not enough to break the experience. This is very much nitpicking, and it actually underlines how well resolved the controller already is. When you are down to debating a few millimetres of girth, it means the fundamentals of comfort and control are in a very good place.

Performance

My experience with Antigravity A1 actually started at IFA in Berlin in early September. Outside the exhibition halls, I slipped on the Vision goggles while an Antigravity staff member flew the drone. As the A1 lifted and the IFA venue unfolded beneath me in every direction, my legs actually shivered a little, even though I like heights. Being wrapped in a live 360-degree view felt less like watching a screen and more like I was flying. That first taste was magical, which made me both excited and nervous to test the A1 myself later. I had almost crashed a friend’s drone years ago and had not flown since, so my piloting skills were close to none.

That magic comes with a setup phase that feels more like preparing a small system than turning on a single gadget. The first time you connect the drone, pair the Vision goggles, update firmware, and learn the grip controls, it can feel overwhelming. There are menus on the drone, options in the goggles, and status lights to decode, and they all compete for your attention at once. After a few sessions, it settles into a rhythm, but that initial ramp is something you feel before you ever lift off on your own.

Mobile app – Tutorial

Packing the Antigravity A1 means finding room for the drone, the goggles and their separate battery, and the grip controller, often in a dedicated case or carefully arranged backpack. This nudges the whole experience away from “throw it in your bag just in case” and toward “plan a proper flying session.” The result is that the A1 feels more like a deliberate outing than a casual accessory.

On paper, the A1 looks quite sensible. With the standard battery, it weighs 249 g, staying just under the 250 g threshold that works nicely with regulations in many places, and it offers up to about 24 minutes of flight time in ideal conditions. Pop in the high-capacity battery, and the weight goes over 250 g, but Antigravity quotes up to around 39 minutes in the air. In reality, you get a solid single session per pack and will want spares if you plan to film seriously.

Flight behaviour is also adjustable. There are three flight modes, Cinematic, Normal, and Sport, so you can match how the drone responds to the scene you are flying in. Together with Free Motion and FPV, that gives the A1 enough range to feel relaxed and floaty when you want it, or more direct and energetic when the shot calls for it.

Vision goggles menu

On top of those basics, Antigravity adds automated tools like Sky Genie, Deep Track, and Sky Path. Sky Genie runs preprogrammed patterns that give you smooth, cinematic moves with minimal effort. Deep Track follows a chosen subject automatically, so you can focus more on timing than stick precision. Sky Path lets you record waypoints and have the A1 repeat the route on its own, which is handy for repeated takes or for nervous pilots.

Safety and workflow sit quietly in the background, which is exactly where they should be. Obstacle sensors on the top and bottom help protect the drone when you are close to structures or changes in elevation, and one click Return to Home acts as a psychological parachute. Knowing you can call the drone back with a single command does a lot to calm the nerves, especially if your last memory of drones involves a near crash.

In the United States, FAA rules treat goggle-only flying as beyond visual line of sight, so you are meant to have a visual observer watching the drone while you are wearing the headset. That nudges the A1 away from solo, spur-of-the-moment flights and toward planned sessions with someone beside you acting as spotter.

On the imaging side, the A1 records up to 8K 360-degree video, with lower resolutions unlocking higher frame rates when you want smoother motion. Footage can be stored on internal memory or a microSD card, and you can offload it either by removing the card or plugging in via USB-C, so it slips neatly into most existing editing habits.

Vision goggle screen recording

The real leap, though, comes from the goggles. They are the thing that truly sets A1 apart from almost every other consumer drone. Instead of glancing down at a phone, you step into an immersive 360-degree view that tracks your head and surrounds your vision. The drone feels less like a gadget in the sky and more like the spot your eyes and body are occupying. A double-tap on the side button flips you into passthrough view, so you can check your surroundings without pulling the headset off, and a tiny outer display mirrors a miniature version of the live feed for people nearby.

That small detail turned out to be important in Bali, where a group of local kids noticed the goggles and the moving image, wandered over, and suddenly found themselves taking turns “flying” above their own neighbourhood. Their gasps, laughter, and stunned silence were as memorable as the footage itself.

Mobile app

The magic continues even after you land. Because the A1 captures everything in 360 degrees, you can decide on your framing after the flight, which feels a bit like getting a second chance at every shot. Antigravity provides both mobile and desktop apps for this, so you can scrub through the sphere, mark angles, and carve out regular flat videos without having to nail every move in real time.

Desktop app

If you have used the Insta360 app, the Antigravity app will feel instantly familiar, with similar timelines, keyframes, and swipe-to-pan gestures. Even if you have not, it is straightforward to learn, helped by clear icons and responsive previews. There is also an AI auto-edit mode that can assemble quick cuts for you, which is handy when you just want something shareable without sinking an evening into manual reframing.

In the end, A1’s performance is not just about how long it stays in the air or how many modes it offers. Those pieces matter, and they are solid, but what you remember is the feeling of lifting off inside the goggles and the ease with which you can hand that experience to someone else. It still behaves like a well-mannered compact drone on the spec sheet, yet in use it edges closer to a shared flying machine, one that turns a patch of ground into a small, temporary viewing platform in the sky.

Sustainability

Antigravity does not make any big sustainability claims with the A1. There is no mention of recycled materials or lower-impact manufacturing, and the packaging and hardware feel very much in line with a typical consumer drone. This is not a product that sells itself on being green, and the company does not pretend otherwise. 

What you do get is some support for repairing rather than replacing. The A1 ships with spare propellers in the box, which encourages you to swap out damaged blades instead of treating minor knocks as the end of the drone. Antigravity also sells replacement lenses, so a scratched front element does not automatically become a total write-off. It is a small step, but it nudges the A1 slightly toward a longer, more fixable life rather than a purely disposable gadget.

Value

The standard Antigravity A1 bundle starts at 1599 USD, with Explorer and Infinity bundles stepping up battery count and accessories for longer, more serious flying. It is undeniably an expensive system, especially compared to regular camera drones that only give you a phone view.

At the same time, what you are really paying for is the experience of being inside the flight and reframing your shots after the fact. That sense of presence and flexibility is hard to put a number on, and for me, it nudges the A1 from “costly gadget” toward something closer to a priceless experience machine, if you know you will actually use it.

Verdict

Antigravity A1 is not the simplest drone in terms of equipment. You are managing goggles, a grip controller, multiple batteries, and in some places, you also need a visual observer if regulations require it. On top of that, the price sits firmly in premium territory. In return, you get a very different kind of flying. At first, setup and piloting can feel overwhelming, but it becomes natural surprisingly quickly, and there are plenty of automated features to help you keep the drone under control and capture cool shots. Combined with 360-degree capture and post-flight reframing in the Antigravity app, it feels less like operating hardware and more like stepping into a movable viewpoint.

If you just want straightforward aerial clips, the A1 is probably more than you need. If you care about immersive perspective and shared experiences, the mix of kit, software, and feeling it delivers starts to justify the cost. It is fussy, ambitious, and occasionally awkward, yet when you are inside that live 360-degree view, it really does reimagine what a drone can feel like to fly.

The post Antigravity A1 Review: Reimagining What a Drone Feels Like to Fly first appeared on Yanko Design.

ChatGPT-Powered Desk Mic gives your Existing Laptop Realtime Translation and Agentic Powers

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The most interesting AI hardware this year might not be a new screen or headset. It might be a microphone. Powerrider frames that idea very literally. It takes the form factor of a conference mic and refits it as a GPT‑4o terminal, so the same stem on your desk that handles Zoom calls can also translate in real time, summarize a briefing, or draft follow‑up emails while the meeting is still in progress.

What makes it feel clever is how little ceremony it adds. There is no new display to manage, just a few sculpted buttons for voice input, translation, and AI control. Tap, talk, and the response appears on your existing laptop, ready to paste into a chat, a slide deck, or a script. In a single accessory you get cleaner audio for podcasting and live streaming, plus a dedicated channel that turns casual speech into an ongoing conversation with ChatGPT.

Designer: Powerrider

Click Here to Buy Now: $59 $120 (56% off). Hurry, only a few left!

The hardware itself (model M1) weighs 290 grams and stands 107 millimeters tall, machined from aluminum alloy with a 60‑degree adjustable boom so you can talk comfortably without hunching over your keyboard. The capsule is an omni‑directional condenser tuned to pick up voice across a 100 to 15,000 Hz range, with DSP noise reduction baked into the signal chain. It samples at 16‑bit/48kHz, which puts it squarely in the clean‑enough category for content work without venturing into audiophile overkill. USB‑C handles both power and data, plus there is a 3.5mm jack if you want to monitor through headphones. The base houses four physical buttons, each programmable through companion software. One button wakes the AI mode, another triggers translation, a third handles dictation, and the fourth is a rotary knob that doubles as a mute toggle and volume dial.

This is where Powerrider stops being a mic and starts being a control surface. You can map those keys to custom GPT‑4o prompts, so tapping one button might fire off “translate the last paragraph into Spanish and make it sound conversational,” while another could trigger “rewrite this email to sound less corporate.” The software supports Windows 7 and up, plus macOS 10.15 or later, which covers most setups that still get security patches. The AI functions pull from a pretty expansive toolkit: text translation, PPT generation, AI drawing, background removal, speech writing, document conversion, image analysis, code generation, reading comprehension, Q&A, writing assistance, table creation, and mind mapping. Some of those feel gimmicky (I have yet to meet anyone who genuinely wants AI‑generated mind maps on demand), but the core translation and drafting tools hit real pain points if you work across languages or spend half your day rewriting the same three types of message.

The hook here is immediacy. Most of us already talk to ChatGPT, but we do it through a browser tab or a pinned app, which means context‑switching, copying text, pasting prompts, and generally breaking flow. Powerrider tries to make that interaction feel more like push‑to‑talk in a game or on a two‑way radio. You hold a key, speak the command, release, and the result lands in your active window or in a floating overlay, depending on how you configure it. That workflow collapses a six‑step process (open ChatGPT, type or paste, wait, copy response, switch back, paste again) into a two‑step one (press, speak). If you live in tools like Notion, Google Docs, or any IDE that supports text injection, the time savings compound quickly. The software also handles screenshot translation, which is genuinely useful if you are reading documentation, design files, or research papers in another language and want inline conversion without manually copying blocks of text into DeepL.

Because the mic itself is a legitimate audio interface, you can use it in OBS, Zoom, or any DAW that recognizes standard USB microphones. The frequency response is wide enough for vocal clarity but not so hyped that you get harsh sibilance or boomy proximity effects. Think more “podcast interview” than “ASMR whisper track.” The omni pickup pattern means you do not have to aim it perfectly, which is nice if you are someone who gestures while talking or shifts around in your chair. The DSP noise reduction does a decent job of killing keyboard clatter and ambient hum, though it is not going to save you if you are recording next to a mechanical keyboard with clicky blues or a window AC unit. For meeting‑quality audio and streaming voiceover work, it sits comfortably in the same tier as entry‑level USB mics like the Blue Yeti Nano or the HyperX SoloCast, but with the GPT layer on top.

The company behind the Powerrider is positioning this as part of a broader peripheral ecosystem, which is where things get more interesting. They are also offering an AI‑powered keyboard (model K1) and an AI‑powered mouse (model S1), both of which follow the same philosophy: take an essential input device and wire it directly to GPT‑4o so you can invoke AI functions without leaving your workspace. The keyboard is a 98‑key Crater mechanical with RGB backlighting, a volume knob, and three custom macro keys dedicated to AI tasks. It supports both wired USB and wireless 2.4GHz/Bluetooth 5.0 across four channels, and the battery will run for 148 hours of continuous typing with the backlight off, or about 16 hours with the RGB cranked. The mouse is a wireless optical with adjustable DPI up to 4000, seven buttons (including dedicated AI, custom, and search keys), and a two‑hour charge time for what they claim is several days of use. Both peripherals plug into the same software suite as the mic, so you can trigger translation, text generation, or document conversion from any of the three devices depending on which one is closest to your hand.

Powerrider is live on Kickstarter right now with a few weeks left in the campaign, and the pricing is structured around bundles. A single mic starts at $59 for the super early bird tier (limited to 300 units) or $69 for the regular early bird. The full “Powerrider AI One Suite” bundle, which includes one mic, one keyboard, and one mouse, is priced at $269 (down from a claimed $608 MSRP). You can also grab the mic plus keyboard for $169 or the mic plus mouse for $149. Add‑on pricing if you are already backing is $119 for the keyboard, $99 for the mouse, and $59 for an extra mic. Those numbers put the mic roughly on par with mid‑tier USB condensers, but with the AI layer effectively thrown in as the value‑add. Whether that trade‑off makes sense depends entirely on how much friction you currently feel when bouncing between your tools and ChatGPT, and whether you are willing to let a hardware button own part of that workflow instead of a keyboard shortcut or Alfred snippet.

Click Here to Buy Now: $59 $120 (56% off). Hurry, only a few left!

The post ChatGPT-Powered Desk Mic gives your Existing Laptop Realtime Translation and Agentic Powers first appeared on Yanko Design.

How to Spot Fake AI Products at CES 2026 Before You Buy

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Merriam-Webster just named “slop” its word of the year, defining it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” The choice is blunt, almost mocking, and it captures something that has been building for months: a collective exhaustion with AI hype that promises intelligence but delivers mediocrity. Over the past three months, that exhaustion has started bleeding into Wall Street. Investors, analysts, and even CEOs of AI companies themselves have been openly questioning whether we are living through an AI bubble. OpenAI’s Sam Altman warned in August that investors are “overexcited about AI,” and Google’s Sundar Pichai admitted to “elements of irrationality” in the sector. The tech industry is pouring trillions into AI infrastructure while revenues lag far behind, raising fears of a dot-com-style correction that could rattle the entire economy.

CES 2026 is going to be ground zero for this tension. Every booth will have an “AI-powered” sticker on something, and a lot of those products will be genuine innovations built on real on-device intelligence and agentic workflows. But a lot of them will also be slop: rebranded features, cloud-dependent gimmicks, and shallow marketing plays designed to ride the hype wave before it crashes. If you are walking the show floor or reading coverage from home, knowing how to separate real AI from fake AI is not just a consumer protection issue anymore. It is a survival skill for navigating a market that feeds on confusion and a general lack of awareness around actual Artificial Intelligence.

1. If it goes offline and stops working, it was never really AI

The simplest test for fake AI is also the most reliable: ask what happens when the internet connection drops. Real AI that lives on your device will keep functioning because the processing is happening locally, using dedicated chips and models stored in the gadget itself. Fake AI is just a thin client that calls a cloud API, and the moment your Wi-Fi cuts out, the “intelligence” disappears with it.

Picture a laptop at CES 2026 that claims to have an AI writing assistant. If that assistant can still summarize documents, rewrite paragraphs, and handle live transcription when you are on a plane with no internet, you are looking at real on-device AI. If it gives you an error message the second you disconnect, it is cloud-dependent marketing wrapped in an “AI PC” label. The same logic applies to TVs, smart home devices, robot vacuums, and wearables. Genuine AI products are designed to think locally, with cloud connectivity as an optional boost rather than a lifeline.

The distinction matters because on-device AI is expensive to build. It requires new silicon, tighter integration between hardware and software, and real engineering effort. Companies that invested in that infrastructure will want you to know it works offline because that is their competitive edge. Companies that skipped that step will either avoid the question or bury it in fine print. At CES 2026, press the demo staff on this: disconnect the device from the network and see if the AI features still run. If they do not, you just saved yourself from buying rebranded cloud software in a shiny box.

If your Robot Vacuum has Microsoft Copilot, RUN!

2. If it’s just a chatbot, it isn’t AI… it’s GPT Customer Care

The laziest fake AI move at CES 2026 will be products that open a chat window, let you type questions, and call that an AI feature. A chatbot is not product intelligence. It is a generic language model wrapper that any company can license from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google in about a week, then slap their logo on top and call it innovation. If the only AI interaction your gadget offers is typing into a text box and getting conversational responses, you are not looking at an AI product. You are looking at customer service automation dressed up as a feature.

Real AI is embedded in how the product works. It is the robot vacuum that maps your home, decides which rooms need more attention, and schedules itself around your routine without you opening an app. It is the laptop that watches what you do, learns your workflow, and starts suggesting shortcuts or automating repetitive tasks before you ask. It is the TV that notices you always pause shows when your smart doorbell rings and starts doing it automatically. None of that requires a chat interface because the intelligence is baked into the behavior of the device itself, not bolted on as a separate conversation layer.

If a company demo at CES 2026 starts with “just ask it anything,” probe deeper. Can it take actions across the system, or does it just answer questions? Does it learn from how you use the product, or is it the same canned responses for everyone? Is the chat interface the only way to interact with the AI, or does the product also make smart decisions in the background without prompting? A chatbot can be useful, but it is table stakes now, not a differentiator. If that is the whole AI story, the company did not build AI into their product. They rented a language model and hoped you would not notice.

3. If the AI only does one narrow thing, it is probably just a renamed preset

Another red flag is when a product’s AI feature is weirdly specific and cannot generalize beyond a single task. A TV that has “AI motion smoothing” but no other intelligent behavior is not running a real AI model; it is running the same interpolation algorithm TVs have had for years, now rebranded with an AI label. A camera that has “AI portrait mode” but cannot recognize anything else is likely just using a basic depth sensor and calling it artificial intelligence. Real AI, especially the kind built into modern chips and operating systems, is designed to generalize across tasks: it can recognize objects, understand context, predict user intent, and coordinate with other devices.

Ask yourself: does this product’s AI learn, adapt, or handle multiple scenarios, or does it just trigger a preset when you press a button? If it is the latter, you are looking at a marketing gimmick. Fake AI products love to hide behind phrases like “AI-enhanced” or “AI-optimized,” which sound impressive but are deliberately vague. Real AI products will tell you exactly what the system is doing: “on-device object recognition,” “local natural language processing,” “agentic task coordination.” Specificity is a sign of substance. Vagueness is a sign of slop.

The other giveaway is whether the AI improves over time. Genuine AI systems get smarter as they process more data and learn from user behavior, often through firmware updates that improve the underlying models. Fake AI products ship with a fixed set of presets and never change. At CES 2026, ask demo reps if the product’s AI will improve after launch, how updates work, and whether the intelligence adapts to individual users. If they cannot give you a clear answer, you are looking at a one-time software trick masquerading as artificial intelligence.

Don’t fall for ‘AI Enhancement’ presets or buttons that don’t do anything related to AI.

4. If the company cannot explain what the AI actually does, walk away

Fake AI thrives on ambiguity. Companies that bolt a chatbot onto a product and call it AI-powered know they do not have a real differentiator, so they lean into buzzwords and avoid specifics. Real AI companies, by contrast, will happily explain what their models do, where the processing happens, and what problems the AI solves that the previous generation could not. If a booth rep at CES 2026 gives you vague non-answers like “it uses machine learning to optimize performance” without defining what gets optimized or how, that is a warning sign.

Push for concrete examples. If a smart home hub claims to have AI coordination, ask: what decisions does it make on its own, and what still requires manual setup? If a wearable says it has AI health coaching, ask: is the analysis happening on the device or in the cloud, and can it work offline while hiking in the wilderness? If a laptop advertises an AI assistant, ask: what can it do without an internet connection, and does it integrate with other apps (agentic) or just sit in a sidebar? Companies with real AI will have detailed, confident answers because they built the system from the ground up. Companies with fake AI will deflect, generalize, or change the subject.

The other test is whether the AI claim matches the price and the hardware. If a $200 gadget promises the same on-device AI capabilities as a $1,500 laptop with a dedicated neural processing unit, somebody is lying. Real AI requires real silicon, and that silicon costs money. Budget products can absolutely have useful AI features, but they will typically offload more work to the cloud or use simpler models. If the pricing does not line up with the technical claims, it is worth being skeptical. At CES 2026, ask what chip is powering the AI, whether it has a dedicated NPU, and how much of the intelligence is local versus cloud-based. If they cannot or will not tell you, that is your cue to move on.

5. Check if the AI plays well with others, or if it lives in a silo

One of the clearest differences between real agentic AI and fake “AI inside” products is interoperability. Genuine AI systems are designed to coordinate with other devices, share context, and act on your behalf across an ecosystem. Fake AI products exist in isolation: they have a chatbot you can talk to, but it does not connect to anything else, and it cannot take actions beyond its own narrow interface. Samsung’s CES 2026 exhibit is explicitly built around AI and interoperability, with appliances, TVs, and smart home products all coordinated by a shared AI layer. That is what real agentic AI looks like: the fridge, washer, vacuum, and thermostat all understand context and can make decisions together without you micromanaging each one. Fake AI, by contrast, gives you five isolated apps with five separate chatbots, none of which talk to each other. If a product at CES 2026 claims to have AI but cannot integrate with the rest of your smart home, car, or workflow, it is not delivering the core promise of agentic systems.

Ask demo reps: does this work with other brands, or only within your ecosystem? Can it trigger actions in other apps or devices, or does it just respond to questions? Does it understand my preferences across multiple products, or does each device start from scratch? Companies that built real AI ecosystems will brag about cross-device coordination because it is hard to pull off and it is the whole point. Companies selling fake AI will either avoid the topic or try to upsell you on buying everything from them, which is a sign they do not have real interoperability.

6. When in doubt, look for the slop

The rise of AI-generated “slop” gives you a shortcut for spotting lazy AI products: if the marketing materials, product images, or demo videos look AI-generated and low-effort, the product itself is probably shallow too. Merriam-Webster defines slop as low-quality digital content produced in quantity by AI, and it has flooded everything from social media to advertising to product launches. Brands that cut corners on their own marketing by using obviously AI-generated visuals are signaling that they also cut corners on the actual product development.

Watch for telltale signs: weird proportions in product photos, uncanny facial expressions in lifestyle shots, text that sounds generic and buzzword-heavy with no real specifics, and claims that are too good to be true with no technical backing. Real AI products are built by companies that care about craft, and that care shows up in how they present the product. Fake AI products are built by companies chasing a trend, and the slop in their marketing is the giveaway. At CES 2026, trust your instincts: if the booth, the video, or the pitch feels hollow and mass-produced, the gadget probably is too.

The post How to Spot Fake AI Products at CES 2026 Before You Buy first appeared on Yanko Design.