Tag Archives: Technology

Goldmund’s $500,000 Amp Is as Much a Sculpture as It Is a Machine

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High-end audio amplifiers tend to get bigger, heavier, and more expensive in the pursuit of performance headroom that most recordings will never fully demand. The formula is familiar: more transformer capacity, larger capacitor banks, thicker panels, and bigger heat sinks, all folded into a single imposing chassis. It’s an engineering approach that works, but it also introduces a fundamental compromise that most manufacturers quietly accept rather than solve.

The Goldmund Telos 9800 doesn’t accept it. For the first time in the Telos line, the power supply and amplification stages occupy completely separate enclosures, each allowed to do its single job without the electrical and mechanical interference that sharing a chassis inevitably introduces. Two interconnected volumes, one devoted entirely to power supply and one to amplification, form what Goldmund describes as the most advanced amplifier the company has ever made.

Designer: Goldmund

The power supply chassis is built around a 10 kVA transformer and a 648 mF capacitor bank, the largest Goldmund has ever engineered. That stored energy reserve exists not to push volume louder but to handle the sudden, intense current demands of complex musical passages and difficult loudspeaker loads without the amplifier flinching. The amplification stage draws from that reservoir freely, stable down to a 1-ohm load and fully galvanically isolated from its source.

Both chassis are machined from micro-blasted aluminium with 15 mm thick side panels and 40 mm thick radiator sections that function as passive heatsinks through natural convection. There are no fans, no active cooling components. A single gold plate marks the junction between the two volumes, a discreet visual signal where one enclosure ends and the other begins. Gold-plated copper terminals and screws appear at connection points throughout. The construction is available in grey or black.

The Telos 9800 is a monoblock, meaning each unit drives a single channel. A stereo pair requires two of them, bringing the combined weight to 720kg and the combined cost to approximately $1 million USD. Goldmund specifies that installation requires at least two trained technicians with appropriate lifting equipment, which may be the most understated sentence in any modern audio product launch.

At 1,367mm tall, the Telos 9800 stands in a room rather than sitting in it. The separation of functions into two physically distinct objects transforms an engineering decision into something closer to sculpture. Most amplifiers hide their internal architecture behind a single front panel. The Telos 9800 makes the architecture the design.

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ASUS Built an E-Bike Booster You Can Actually Take on a Plane

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Dedicated e-bikes have become a convincing answer to the urban commuting question, but they come with their own set of problems. They’re expensive to buy, awkward to carry on public transit, and they make the bike itself the investment rather than the ride. For anyone who already has a bicycle they like, replacing it entirely to gain electric assist has always felt like the wrong solution to a solvable problem.

The ASUS Oxiis E250G1 takes a different approach. Instead of replacing a bike, it adds to one. The unit clamps directly to the seatpost, pressing a motorized roller against the rear tire, and the friction-drive mechanism converts pedaling into electrically assisted riding without touching the existing drivetrain. Installation doesn’t require tools or a visit to a shop, and removal takes about the same amount of time.

Designer: ASUS

At the heart of the system is Adaptive Boost Technology, which reads the terrain and automatically increases power on climbs or against headwinds. Riders can also select between Eco, Normal, and Sport modes manually, either through a button on the unit itself or via the companion app on Android and iOS. Sport mode keeps range to about 10 km; Eco mode extends it to 50 km on a single charge.

That 50km ceiling comes from a 158.4Wh battery rated at 36V, which charges to full in two hours using a 100W USB-C PD connection. The battery is removable and certified as flight-safe for carry-on luggage with airline approval, which opens up a category of travel where bringing an electric bike along typically requires checking oversized bags or renting locally. A round trip on a familiar bike instead of a rental changes the experience considerably.

The anti-slip mechanism keeps the roller seated against the tire consistently, even over uneven surfaces, so power delivery stays smooth rather than intermittent under load. The unit weighs 3.7kg with the battery in place, puts out 250W rated and 500W at peak, and tops out at 32km/h. A built-in tail light uses brake detection to signal the rider slowing down to anyone behind, which is one of those small safety details that matters more in traffic than spec sheets tend to convey.

Compatibility stretches across most city, road, gravel, folding, and hardtail mountain bikes, fitting wheel sizes from 16 inches up to 700C. Full-suspension frames and carbon fiber seatposts are the noted exceptions, which rule out a portion of higher-end mountain bikes. For slick, semi-slick, and textured tires, the roller has enough grip to handle regular commuting conditions; knobby off-road tires aren’t recommended for obvious reasons.

When the ride ends and the commuter reaches their destination, the Oxiis comes off the bike and goes into a backpack. That portability reframes what an e-bike conversion kit can mean: not a permanent modification that commits the bike to one configuration, but a system that travels with the rider and attaches only when the assist is wanted. The bike stays as it is the rest of the time.

The post ASUS Built an E-Bike Booster You Can Actually Take on a Plane first appeared on Yanko Design.

Beni Is What Sony Aibo Grew Up to Be – A $549 Camera Robot That Captures Life While You Live It

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Every camera product ever made has one thing in common: it needs you to operate it. A gimbal needs a hand to hold it. A drone needs a pilot with eyes on a controller. An action cam mounts somewhere on your body, which means it films from your body, not at it. Even the smartest AI tracking stand on the market still requires you to set it up, point it at where you’ll roughly be, and go do something interesting within its field of view. All of this adds up to a life spent maneuvering cameras instead of being in front of them, and the shots that matter most, the ones where you’re actually doing the thing, are consistently the ones you’re missing from.

Beni, from Palo Alto startup Mondo Robotics, is the robot that plays camera crew. It rides on four wheels, films in 4K HDR with 3-axis stabilization, hits 17.9 mph, and clears 10-inch obstacles mid-chase, getting itself back upright after a fall without any help from you. The team includes engineers from DJI and Tesla’s Optimus program, which explains how a 3.86-pound consumer robot ends up with hardware like that. It also has color-changing expressive eyes, a swappable hat, a name, and a personality that comes through in little nods and head shakes. That design language places Beni in a tradition Sony’s Aibo started in 1999, building robots people actually want to be around. The engineering is serious, the warmth is deliberate, and the combination puts Beni in territory most robotics products actively avoid.

Designer: Mondo Robotics

Click here to Buy Now: $549 $799 (31% off). Hurry, only 39/230 left! Raised over $2.8 million.

The choice to give a camera robot a face, a name, and a wardrobe is a design statement, not a marketing gimmick. Beni’s eyes change color and express emotions, it nods and shakes its head, and the whole body is customizable through swappable hats, ear attachments, and protection plates, in whatever combination suits you. The character design sits somewhere between a cartoon character and a precision instrument, which sounds like a contradiction and somehow isn’t. Mondo Robotics understood that emotional connection determines how often a device actually leaves the house. A robot you find charming is one you take outside. One that reads like a spec sheet stays in the drawer.

Beni measures 8.5 by 7.1 by 7.1 inches and weighs 3.86 pounds, light enough to throw in a bag. It hits 17.9 mph (28.8 kph) to keep pace with skateboarders and runners, clears up to 10-inch obstacles to handle curbs and stairs, dodges obstacles with onboard sensing, and self-rights when it tips over. The self-recovery system sounds like a footnote until you actually send Beni across gravel and watch it eat dirt, bounce back up, and continue tracking without a second of interruption. A creator who ran it through grass, gravel, trails, and concrete stairs for a full week reported footage that never stopped rolling. That kind of reliability is what separates a robot from a gadget.

The camera shoots 4K with HDR coloring that handles extreme lighting without manual adjustment. HybridFlow Stabilization combines four-axis mechanical and electronic stabilization, which keeps footage smooth even when Beni is clattering across rough terrain at full speed. Storage is 32GB internally with a microSD slot for expansion. Everything core, tracking, filming, obstacle avoidance, runs entirely on-device, and your footage stays on the robot’s local storage. The only cloud connection Beni ever makes is for the optional AI auto-editing feature, and only when you explicitly give permission. For a camera product in 2026, that’s a privacy setup worth paying attention to.

Tail tracking, side tracking, front tracking, and circle tracking give Beni four distinct cinematic modes, each producing footage that most solo filmers never actually get to see. Tail mode keeps Beni behind you at pace, a proper chase-cam shot without anyone chasing. Side mode locks it right beside you, framing you against the rushing landscape the way a Hollywood tracking rig would. Front mode has Beni reversing ahead while filming your face, which turns out to be unusually good for capturing effort and expression mid-activity. Circle mode sends it into a continuous 360-degree orbit for sweeping hero shots. The magnetic Motion Tracker, worn on your wrist or clipped to your bag, keeps Beni locked on even when you briefly move out of frame, and doubles as a manual controller for directing movement without touching your phone.

Beni’s auto-editing feature builds highlights from your raw footage using AI models that Mondo Robotics has customized, so you’re not manually scrubbing through hours of clips for ten good seconds. The company is clear that this is the only opt-in cloud feature; every other function runs locally. Pilot Mode sits at the other end of the control spectrum, letting you drive Beni manually from your phone for footage from its low-slung ground-level perspective. The vantage point is genuinely unlike anything a handheld camera can produce, just by virtue of where the lens sits relative to the ground.

Battery life runs 1.5 hours per charge, with a swappable design that stretches to 4.5 hours across three batteries. The Standard Combo, including Beni, Motion Tracker, hat, chest protection plate, and one battery, is available at $549 (discounted from the $799 retail price). The Explore Combo adds three batteries, a charging hub, and off-road wheels for $699. Individual add-ons, including extra batteries at $59, off-road wheel pairs at $9, ears and hats packs at $9, and protection plates at $9, are available separately. Every unit comes with a 12-month limited warranty from the date of activation, and global customer support is available at mondorobotics.com. Shipping covers the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, with customs fees included on a flat $10 shipping fee.

Click here to Buy Now: $549 $799 (31% off). Hurry, only 39/230 left! Raised over $2.8 million.

The post Beni Is What Sony Aibo Grew Up to Be – A $549 Camera Robot That Captures Life While You Live It first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Collapsible Mouse Is So Flat It Shares a Sleeve With Your Laptop

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Traveling with a mouse has always carried a specific low-level inconvenience. Full-size mice claim too much space in a slim bag, compact mice often sacrifice comfort for portability, and both still need their own compartment to avoid getting lost or damaged. The usual answer is a palm-sized wireless mouse that needs to be packed with some thought and unpacked with intention at every new stop along the way.

The Portronics Toad Fold approaches that directly. Rather than making a mouse smaller, it slides down in half with a magnetic snap mechanism, collapsing to a profile flat enough to slip into the same laptop sleeve as the laptop itself. At just 38g, it barely registers in a bag, and the snap closure means it doesn’t need a separate case or a dedicated compartment to stay protected during the commute.

Designer: Portronics

Connectivity covers both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz wireless, and multi-device pairing allows the Toad Fold to work across several devices without swapping dongles or going through re-pairing every time. Moving from a laptop to an Android tablet becomes a matter of switching, not reconfiguring. The included USB receiver handles the 2.4 GHz side for scenarios where a stable, lag-free connection matters more than portless convenience.

Opening the mouse reveals an ergonomic curved shape designed for extended use, with DPI adjustable up to 3,200 for precision across different tasks. The curve sits more naturally against the hand than most ultra-compact mice allow, since that category usually forces a nearly flat profile that gets tiring through long sessions. A matte black finish keeps the surface neutral and fingerprint-resistant without demanding any particular attention.

The built-in battery charges via USB-C, removing the need for replacement batteries, and an auto sleep mode stretches battery life during idle periods. That combination handles a full workday without needing to charge mid-session, which is the relevant concern for anyone moving between locations rather than sitting at a fixed desk with easy access to a charging cable at all times.

The Toad Fold is designed for a kind of worker who treats the mouse as the last thing to pack rather than the first. Students sharing library tables, remote workers bouncing between coffee shops, and professionals moving between offices all share the same friction with conventional mice, which tend to be an afterthought in bag organization despite being essential to how work actually gets done on a laptop every day.

Compatibility covers Windows, macOS, and Android, which handles most combinations of laptop and tablet a person might carry across locations. Multi-device pairing means a single mouse can stay connected to a laptop and tablet at the same time, reducing the friction of shifting between screens during a day that moves between different setups without a fixed home base. It’s a mouse built around the idea that the best portable peripheral vanishes into an existing bag without adding to the mental overhead of packing.

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This $549 QWERTY Android Phone Was Built to Give You Your Day Back

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Smartphones have never been smarter, but they’ve also never been more demanding. Bigger screens, algorithmic feeds, and relentless notifications aren’t design oversights. They’re deliberate, built to keep you engaged for as long as possible. The prevailing logic is that longer screen time is better, and most phones are optimized around that, pulling you back in every time you try to put them down.

The Minimal Phone 2 is a different kind of proposition. It’s a modern 5G Android phone built around the opposite idea: that a phone should serve you and then get out of the way. It pairs a compact AMOLED display with a full physical QWERTY keyboard and a custom OS called Minimal OS, designed to make daily interactions faster, more deliberate, and less compulsive.

Designer: Armen Youssefian

Click here to Buy Now: $599 $699 ($100 off). Hurry, only 657/1000 left! Raised over $1,009,000.

The keyboard is the phone’s most striking feature, and also its most considered. It’s a full QWERTY board integrated directly into the phone, about 69mm wide, with backlit keys whose legends are laser-etched into the keycap surface rather than printed on top, so they won’t fade with use. Each row fans outward slightly, and the keycaps are sculpted to guide your thumbs naturally.

What a physical keyboard really changes is the relationship between picking up your phone and doing something on it. When the keyboard is always there, typing becomes the default instinct instead of scrolling. You reach for the phone with something in mind, do it, and put it down. That shift sounds subtle, but over the course of a day, it changes how the device feels.

Minimal OS reinforces that instinct with its command bar, which lets you do most things without opening an app at all. Start with a symbol, type what you want, and the OS handles the rest. Typing “@jason on my way” sends a text. Typing “#lauren” places a call. A hyphen adds a to-do, an asterisk creates a calendar event, and an exclamation mark saves a note.

Communication is pulled together in something called the Minimal Hub. Swipe right from the home screen, and you get a single, unified list of everything that’s come in: emails from every account, texts, missed calls, voicemails, and calendar invitations. You can read and reply without opening a separate app, which makes a full inbox feel like clearing a short list rather than bouncing between five different places.

Two quieter features round out the software side. The Activity Bar puts 24 dots on the home screen, one per hour. Each turns white when your time stays focused, and red when the hour slips into social apps or media. The notification LED lets you assign colors and patterns to specific contacts and apps, so a glance at your desk tells you what’s actually waiting.

The hardware underneath makes it a credible daily driver. A 3.92-inch AMOLED at 1080×1240 pixels and 90Hz, a MediaTek Dimensity 8300 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB or 512GB of storage make up the core. Connectivity covers 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, and NFC. The rear camera is 50MP, the front has a 20MP shooter, and there’s both 27W wired and 15W wireless charging, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The phone sits in an aluminum frame measuring 122.6mm x 72mm x 9.48mm, in three finishes. Pearl is a brushed light alloy in a warm off-white. Onyx is an anodized alloy in a deep near-black. Ember is an anodized minimal orange, offered as a launch exclusive. The design language is restrained throughout, with nothing calling for attention except the keyboard, which announces itself plainly.

What’s interesting about the Minimal Phone 2 is that its restraint doesn’t feel punishing. It still runs full Android, so banking apps, navigation, music, and messaging are all there. What changes is how you arrive at them. Rather than a phone that sprawls into your day uninvited, this one waits to be needed, which in a landscape of devices competing for attention, feels unusual.

Click here to Buy Now: $599 $699 ($100 off). Hurry, only 657/1000 left! Raised over $1,009,000.

The post This $549 QWERTY Android Phone Was Built to Give You Your Day Back first appeared on Yanko Design.

Streaming Took Something From Us. The ENSA T1 Wants It Back

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Do you remember the last time music actually demanded something of you? Not just your attention while you scrolled, but your hands. The deliberate pull of a record from its sleeve. The small, mechanical click of a CD case. The unhurried ritual that came before every song, every mood shift, every late-night session on the floor with the volume just loud enough. Vladimir Dubrovin remembers. The California-based multidisciplinary designer has been quietly building a case for returning physicality to the act of listening, and with the ENSA T1, his latest concept design, the argument gets considerably harder to dismiss.

The T1 is the newest addition to Dubrovin’s ENSA line, an evolving design series that began with the ENSA P1, a portable audio player concept that reimagined what a music device could look and feel like in the post-streaming era. The P1 introduced Dubrovin’s concept of C-NAND cartridges: small, disc-shaped, solid-state storage units where each cartridge holds one complete album. There are no moving parts, no spinning mechanisms. They’re fully digital in how they handle audio, but they exist in the physical world the way vinyl does. You pick one up, turn it over, look at it, choose it. The act of choosing your music becomes deliberate again, and that matters more than it sounds.

Designer: Vladimir Dubrovin

Where the P1 was built for portability and kept its design trim and pocketable, the T1 feels like the next chapter. Visually and conceptually, it carries the same DNA: clean, considered industrial design with an aluminum body and restrained detailing. But the T1 reads as something more anchored, a device you set somewhere permanent and return to, rather than slip into a bag. It’s a design that seems to understand the difference between music you consume and music you actually sit down for.

Aesthetically, Dubrovin’s approach has always felt less like tech product design and more like furniture-level thinking. The ENSA devices belong to the same visual conversation as early Braun electronics or a Dieter Rams concept sketch, where every detail either earns its place or gets removed entirely. The T1 continues that restraint. Its form doesn’t shout, which is precisely why it catches your eye. In a market saturated with speakers shaped like pebbles and smart displays with glowing rings, an audio device that looks like it was designed by someone who genuinely thought about what it means to own a piece of music is genuinely refreshing.

The broader question Dubrovin keeps posing with the ENSA project is one worth sitting with: what did we actually lose when music went weightless? Streaming solved convenience so completely that most of us never stopped to notice what the tradeoff cost. We gained access to everything and lost the kind of focus that comes from committing to a single album, from having music you could see, hold, or lend to a friend. The ENSA T1 is not trying to compete with Spotify. It’s asking whether the experience of music could mean something again, even if you have to build an entirely new format to get there.

It’s a concept project, not a product you can buy, and the realist in me knows that’s a significant caveat. Building out a new physical media format in 2026 is an uphill proposition at best. The infrastructure alone, manufacturing cartridges, convincing labels, and getting devices into homes, would require a level of industry commitment that’s difficult to imagine right now. But design concepts don’t have to ship to matter. The best ones articulate a desire most people feel but haven’t named yet, and the ENSA T1 does exactly that. The desire for music that has weight, that takes up space, that gives you something to do with your hands before the first note plays.

That’s why Dubrovin’s work keeps getting attention. The ENSA line isn’t nostalgic in the way that feels defensive or retrograde. It’s just honest about the fact that we traded something real for something convenient, and it’s asking, politely but persistently, if we’d like it back.

The post Streaming Took Something From Us. The ENSA T1 Wants It Back first appeared on Yanko Design.

Honor Robot Phone Hands-on: Bold Phone With A Moving Camera Few Can Buy

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After many teasers and demos, the Honor Robot Phone has finally and officially launched in China. It is also staying exclusive to the Chinese market for now, with Honor not planning an international release at this stage. That alone will make it a frustratingly out-of-reach device for many, because this is one of the rare smartphones that feels genuinely different at first glance.

Part of the reason the launch has drawn so much interest is that Honor first revealed the Robot Phone at MWC earlier this year, where it quickly became one of the event’s biggest conversation pieces. Even in a show packed with concept hardware and camera claims, this was the device that made people stop, stare, and ask how it actually worked. Now that it has moved from trade show reveal to commercial launch, the Robot Phone still feels just as unusual.

Designer: HONOR

Rather than chasing attention with another familiar camera bump or an incremental spec upgrade, Honor has built a robotic gimbal directly into the phone itself. The result is a camera system that can physically move, track, tilt, and stabilize in ways a conventional flagship simply cannot. After spending time with the device, it is clear the Robot Phone is not just trying to be another premium handset with a long feature list. It is trying to pitch a new idea for what a creator-focused smartphone can be.

The big story is movement, not just megapixels

The core pitch behind the Honor Robot Phone is easy to understand once you see it in person. Honor has integrated what it calls a 4DoF Titanium Agile Gimbal into the phone, effectively turning the camera into an active moving system rather than a static sensor setup. The company says the module is 65 percent smaller than traditional gimbal solutions while also offering a 200 percent increase in structural strength, allowing it to fit inside a premium smartphone body without turning the device into a bulky experiment.

That change in hardware philosophy is what makes the Robot Phone immediately stand out. In practice, the moving camera module is meant to deliver smoother stabilization and more dynamic motion than a normal smartphone can manage on its own. Honor is also building in multiple movement modes, including Tilt Lock, First Person View, FPV Vertical, and AI SpinShot, all of which are designed to make mobile footage look more deliberate and more cinematic.

Honor is aiming this squarely at creators

The second half of the launch story is imaging. Honor says the Robot Phone is the first major product from its Cinematic Imaging Partnership with ARRI, bringing selected elements of ARRI Image Science and professional cinema workflow ideas into a smartphone. That includes ARRI LogC3 recording in ARRI CINEMA mode on the main gimbal camera, alongside ARRI Wide Gamut 3 and ARRI Looks.

On paper, the camera hardware is also extremely ambitious. The rear setup pairs a 200MP Agile Gimbal Main Camera with a 1/1.28-inch sensor and F1.6 aperture with a 200MP periscope telephoto camera using a 1/1.4-inch sensor and 2.7x optical zoom. A 50MP ultra-wide camera completes the setup. Honor is also claiming AI noise reduction improvements, up to 14 stops of dynamic range, and a video pipeline designed to preserve more usable information for post-production.

That is a lot of technical language, but the broader message is straightforward. Honor does not want the Robot Phone to be seen as a novelty. It wants this to be taken seriously as a compact filmmaking and creator tool.

Hands-on: The Honor Robot Phone feels different right away

The most striking thing about the Robot Phone in person is that its main feature is visible. So many smartphone launches revolve around internal improvements that are difficult to appreciate without extensive testing. Here, the big idea is immediately obvious. The camera module moves. It tracks. It gives the phone a sense of physical intention that most handsets simply do not have.

That makes the Robot Phone more memorable than most new flagships before you even get into image quality. Instead of relying entirely on software stabilization and fixed hardware, Honor is trying to introduce actual camera movement into the smartphone experience. In a short hands-on session, that makes the device feel less like a standard phone with a flashy camera and more like a compact production tool that happens to fit in your pocket.

The tracking and movement features are also easier to appreciate in person than they are on a spec sheet. AI Live-Tracking, gesture controls, and voice-directed movement all sound abstract on paper. Once you see the phone physically following a subject or repositioning itself, the concept becomes much easier to understand. Whether that turns into something essential in everyday use is a bigger question, but as a first impression, the idea lands more convincingly than I expected.

Using the on-screen virtual joystick, I was able to adjust the gimbal with surprising precision. The interface crams in a lot of features, so it does take some time to learn. Even so, the gimbal feels very responsive, which helps the controls feel more intuitive once you settle in.

There is still a full flagship wrapped around the concept

Outside the headline camera hardware, Honor is still treating the Robot Phone like a proper premium device. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, backed by a custom cooling system that is meant to keep performance stable during longer recording sessions. There is also a 7060mAh silicon-carbon battery, with support for 120W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

The rest of the hardware sounds suitably high-end too. Honor is using an all-metal unibody design paired with a 6.31-inch LTPO OLED display, an adaptive 1 to 120Hz refresh rate, and a claimed peak brightness of 6800 nits. On paper at least, this is not a concept phone built around one attention-grabbing trick. Honor is trying to package an experimental camera idea inside a full flagship experience.

China-only for now, and that is a shame

For now, the Honor Robot Phone is launching only in China, where it might be staying indefinitely. Honor is not planning to release the device outside China at this stage, which means this unusually creator-focused phone is set to remain a domestic-market curiosity rather than a broader global play.

That is disappointing, because the Robot Phone feels like exactly the kind of launch the smartphone market needs more of. It may not be for everyone, and there are obvious questions about durability, long-term usefulness, and whether creators will trust a built-in robotic camera system over dedicated gear. Even so, it is difficult to dismiss because the concept is so easy to understand once you see it in action.

Early thoughts

After a brief hands-on, my early take is that the Honor Robot Phone feels niche but genuinely fresh. The robotic gimbal is not just a visual gimmick for launch-day headlines. It changes the way the device presents itself, and potentially the way some people shoot with it. Whether that translates into a truly great camera phone will need more time to answer, but as a statement of intent, Honor has made one of the boldest smartphone moves of the year.

The bigger frustration is that, for now, it is a bold move that most of the world will only be able to watch from a distance. First teased at MWC earlier this year and now officially on sale in China, the Robot Phone is not about to become the next mainstream global flagship. Still, even as a limited-market release, it stands out as one of the most unusual and ambitious smartphones to arrive this year.

The post Honor Robot Phone Hands-on: Bold Phone With A Moving Camera Few Can Buy first appeared on Yanko Design.

This tiny $74 device turns an old tablet into a smart dashboard for cars that never had one

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Somewhere in your house right now, there is a perfectly good iPad/Android Pad doing absolutely nothing. Maybe it is the one you replaced two years ago when the new model came out, or the one your kid borrowed and never gave back, now sitting on a nightstand charging for no reason. It has a great screen, solid processing power, and more capability than most factory-installed car infotainment systems from the last decade. The problem was never the tablet. The problem was always that nobody made a convincing way to put it in a car and have it behave like an actual car display, CarPlay and all. HERMIX NANO is a credit-card-thin wireless bridge device that finally does exactly that.

Roughly the shape and size of an iPod Classic, the HERMIX NANO is a compact wireless hub that sits in your car, pairs to your phone, and turns your mounted tablet or phone into a fully functional smart car infotainment display. It supports wireless CarPlay for iPhone and wireless Android Auto for Android, designed for vehicles without a built-in display, or for drivers tired of slow and outdated factory systems. Plug in the included 1080p backup camera and the tablet automatically switches to a reverse view the moment you shift into reverse, no manual tapping required. Who knew that a $74 device could transform your existing car and tablet into a new car experience that you’d otherwise pay tens of thousands of dollars for.

Designer: Hong Kong Hermes Technology Limited

Click Here to Buy Now: $74 $99 (25% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $68,000.

Mounting an old tablet PC to your dashboard and opening Google Maps already works, technically. But a tablet stuck in a car still behaves like an iPad or Android Pad, which means you are dealing with a regular tablet interface, regular apps, regular notifications, and a screen layout that was never designed around driving. HERMIX NANO changes the operating system experience entirely by turning that tablet into a proper CarPlay or Android Auto display, with the simplified app grid, large touch targets, voice-first controls, and glanceable navigation layout people already know from newer cars. That shift is the whole point. Instead of juggling a tablet UI meant for the couch, you get a driving interface built around quick inputs, cleaner menus, easier media control, and maps that make sense when your eyes need to get back on the road in about half a second.

Setup involves installing the device, connecting the power, and downloading the HERMIX NANO app, and the whole process requires no tools, no rewiring, and no dashboard modification of any kind. You power on the HERMIX NANO, find it in the app, connect via Bluetooth, pair your phone, and you are done. After that first pairing, the connection happens automatically every time you get in the car. iPhone users get wireless CarPlay with Siri, navigation, music, calls, and every app Apple has approved for CarPlay, while Android users get wireless Android Auto with Google Assistant, Google Maps, Waze, Spotify, and the rest. Whether you are on Android or iOS, the Hermix Nano app is available free on Google Play and the App Store, and unlocks all features immediately.

The HERMIX NANO also packs a 1080p HD backup camera that mounts to the rear of your car – the moment you shift into reverse, HERMIX NANO automatically wakes the camera up, with no manual operation needed, instantly turning the tablet into an HD large-screen rearview mirror that gives a clear view of every blind spot (again, something your existing iPad or Android Pad wouldn’t do). A backup camera that routes to a full tablet screen is a meaningfully better experience than one squeezed onto the three-inch display of a typical aftermarket head unit. Shift back out of reverse and the infotainment interface returns immediately, with no settings menu and no manual switching. The result is a clearer view of blind spots and greater confidence when parking. For anyone navigating tight urban lots daily, this alone is a compelling reason to pay attention.

On the tablet version of the HERMIX NANO app, a dedicated split-screen feature unlocks a more flexible display experience, with multiple customizable modes including HUD Mode. HUD mode gives a simplified navigation view for distraction-free driving, Mini Map mode delivers a real-time compact navigation display, and Family Album mode showcases selected photos and videos for a personalized in-car screen experience. The HERMIX NANO features five customizable physical buttons on the device body, allowing you to personalize controls based on your driving habits. Easily access frequently used functions such as volume adjustment, track switching, phone calls, and map launch. A long press of the “OK” button allows manual rear camera activation, providing safer and more convenient control while driving.That last one is genuinely useful if you want to check what is behind you while parallel parking without actually putting the car in reverse. The display also auto-rotates based on how the device is mounted, whether portrait or landscape, adapting instantly with no manual setup required.

For global compatibility, the system supports left-hand drive and right-hand drive modes, letting users switch the UI layout according to their vehicle setup for optimal visibility and comfort. The HERMIX NANO interface automatically switches between Light and Dark Mode according to surrounding brightness, providing optimal visibility and a comfortable viewing experience during both daytime and nighttime driving.Firmware updates push wirelessly through the app, meaning the device can improve over time without any physical servicing. By combining automotive-grade hardware, seamless wireless connectivity, and deeply integrated software, HERMIX built a compact smart hub that transforms devices people already own into a complete in-car smart experience. The obvious audience is anyone driving a vehicle more than five years old, but it is equally relevant for drivers whose factory systems simply never matched the software quality of modern CarPlay and Android Auto.

The HERMIX NANO is priced at $99 retail, with early pricing at $74 for a single kit that includes the device, a 1080p HD rearview camera, a USB-Type C cable, a Type C-to-C cable, and a user manual. A two-pack runs $138 and a three-pack $178 at early pricing, and a tablet car holder add-on is available separately for $9. Shipping is estimated to begin in October 2026, covering the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and most other major markets. The Hermix Nano app is already live and free on both the App Store and Google Play.

Click Here to Buy Now: $74 $99 (25% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $68,000.

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A Goat-Headed Robot With a Chainsaw Is Actually a Great Idea

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The first time I saw Threehalves, I did a double take. Seven feet tall, four-legged, with a horned goat head and glowing eyes, it looks less like a piece of modern engineering and more like something conjured from ancient mythology. It’s the kind of design that makes you laugh and feel slightly unsettled at the same time. Which is probably why, when images of the robot surfaced online last month, the internet absolutely lost its mind over it. But here’s the thing: behind all the viral chaos and sleep-paralysis-demon jokes, Threehalves is one of the most thoughtfully reasoned robot designs I’ve come across in a while.

Developed by Satyress, a small startup out of Auburn, California, Threehalves is described as a “superhumanoid general purpose robot.” Its creator, Beau G., spent about four years building the concept, inspired in part by the wildfire-prone foothills of the Sierra Nevada where he lives. The premise is simple and, frankly, hard to argue with: some jobs are too dangerous for humans, but they still need doing. Threehalves is designed to be the one doing them.

Designer: Satyress

The centaur form factor isn’t a gimmick. The humanoid upper body and arms were deliberately chosen so the robot can operate tools designed for human hands, things like chainsaws, impact guns, and other heavy equipment that most existing robots struggle to interface with. The four-legged lower body provides stability on rough terrain, which is no small feat in environments like wildfire zones, collapsed buildings, or toxic sites. The quadruped base uses friction-braked joints, which means it consumes no power just to stay still. That’s a practical engineering decision that speaks to how seriously Satyress is thinking about real-world deployment.

The operation method is equally considered. Threehalves is teleoperated using a joystick controller, similar to a gaming setup, which dramatically lowers the skill barrier for the people using it. Beau describes the controls as abstracted: the joystick tells the robot where to go, and the robot handles its own balance. Think of it like modern autopilot. The operator focuses on positioning and task execution rather than the physics of movement. That’s a genuinely smart approach to making a highly capable machine accessible to tradespeople and emergency responders who don’t have engineering degrees.

The design also carries a kind of radical honesty with it. The Satyress website lists the robot’s limitations openly, including the fact that Threehalves struggles to fit through a standard American doorway and cannot turn around in a narrow hallway. Larger horns can even be fitted to prevent it from passing through pedestrian doors altogether. It’s a rare thing in the robotics industry, an upfront acknowledgment that this machine is built for wide-open, unpredictable environments rather than office corridors or domestic spaces. That kind of transparency does more for the brand’s credibility than any polished launch video could.

One thing Beau said has stuck with me since I first read it. The tagline on the Satyress website reads: “No job is worth your health, safety, limbs, or life. That doesn’t mean a job isn’t worth doing.” It’s the clearest articulation of why this design exists, and it reframes the whole conversation. We tend to discuss robots in terms of what they’ll replace, but Threehalves is asking something different entirely. What if the real goal was to keep human bodies out of harm’s way while keeping human expertise firmly in control?

As for the goat head and the horns? Apparently intentional in their strangeness. “If we had nefarious goals, we probably wouldn’t have made it look like that,” Beau told Fox Weather. It’s the kind of quote that sounds like a joke until you realize he means every word of it, which is exactly the energy you want from someone building a chainsaw-wielding centaur robot for disaster zones. Threehalves is still in prototype stage, but the conversation it’s started feels long overdue. Not all humanoid robots need to walk through your front door or pass for human. Some of them just need to go where humans can’t, and do what humans shouldn’t have to.

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The World’s Slimmest Power Station (2.6″) Was Built for Your Fridge

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Backup power is one of those things most people don’t think about until they absolutely have to. You lose electricity during a storm, open the fridge out of habit, and then spend the next few days doing an anxious mental calculus on whether the leftovers are still safe to eat. It’s a frustratingly universal experience, and for all the innovation happening in home tech right now, it’s remarkable how little of it was pointed directly at the refrigerator. Jackery apparently noticed that gap too.

The FridgeGuard is a dedicated refrigerator backup battery, and the first thing that sets it apart is how thoroughly it was designed for the space it actually occupies. At just 2.6 inches thick and weighing around 23 pounds, Jackery calls it the world’s slimmest power station. Visually, you believe it. It looks less like industrial equipment and more like something an architect might quietly approve for a kitchen renovation. You can mount it on the wall behind your fridge, prop it vertically beside it, or lay it flat on top. That flexibility isn’t a minor feature; it’s a design decision that understands most people are not trying to add a bulky, yellow generator to their kitchen aesthetic.

Designer: Jackery

The technical side is where it gets genuinely interesting. The FridgeGuard runs on a 1,024Wh battery capacity and delivers power through a single 110V outlet, which sounds limiting until you remember this thing exists for one appliance and one appliance only. It delivers up to 1,600 watts of compressor-ready power, which is exactly what you need for a refrigerator’s startup surge. Jackery calls their system FridgeSafe Technology, and it covers the practical details: a switchover time of under 10 milliseconds so your fridge doesn’t even notice the grid went down, a Delay Start to protect the compressor, and surge protection built right in. Standard runtime is estimated at around 15 hours on a full charge, which doubles to roughly 30 hours if you pair it with the optional expansion battery that brings total capacity to 2,048Wh.

The lifespan claim is the detail that sticks with me. The battery cells are rated for 6,000 cycles, which Jackery projects translates to up to 16 years of use while retaining 70% of capacity. For context, most portable power stations don’t come close to that kind of longevity. It reframes the FridgeGuard from being a reactionary purchase after a bad storm to a genuine long-term home investment. That shift in positioning matters, and it’s the kind of thinking that tends to change who buys into a product category.

Cold weather performance deserves a mention too, especially for people in northern climates, remote cabin owners, RV users, or anyone planning to store the unit in an unheated garage. The FridgeGuard can both charge and discharge at temperatures as low as -20°C, a spec that puts it well ahead of many competitors that restrict operation in colder conditions. For a product meant to function year-round in unpredictable situations, that’s a more meaningful detail than it might initially seem.

Is it perfect? Not entirely. The single AC outlet means if you need to run anything else alongside your fridge during an outage, you’re out of luck. And since an average full-sized refrigerator draws roughly 1,300Wh per day, the standard battery alone won’t cover a full 24 hours without the expansion add-on. These are real constraints worth knowing before you buy.

But the bigger picture here is that Jackery figured out something the home backup industry has been surprisingly slow to grasp: people want solutions that fit their lives, not ones they have to build their lives around. The FridgeGuard doesn’t just solve a problem; it does it in a way that respects the space it lives in. That combination of smart form, solid function, and genuine forward-thinking is exactly the kind of product design worth paying attention to, whether you’re in the market for one or not.

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