Why are there so many fast charging standards, and what’s the difference between them?
A guide to the confusing world of USB-C fast charging.
Tag Archives: accessories
Is it safe to use a USB-C laptop charger on your phone?
If you've ever wondered whether you can just charge your phone with the cable for your laptop, read on and find out how to tell.
This affordable fix may be all you need to improve earbud sound quality
You might not need to invest in a newer pair of earbuds to improve the sound quality. Here's how to upgrade your current pair for a better listening experience.
This Korean Hat Was Always Meant to Be a Lamp and Finally Became One
The gat is one of the more distinctive objects in Korean material culture. Woven from horsehair and bamboo and worn by scholars and noblemen during the Joseon Dynasty, it communicates social standing through form alone. Its silhouette, a tall cylindrical crown on a flat, wide brim, is immediately recognizable. What that shape might become in a different time is a question the GAT lamp was designed to answer.
The lamp takes its name and form from the gat, guided by the concept of Ongojisin, a Confucian idea about discovering new value through tradition rather than reproducing it. The central body replicates the gat’s tall crown, covered in fine horizontal ridging that echoes the woven texture of traditional horsehair. The broad disc below re-creates the brim as a gently expanding, dish-like volume.
Designer: SAQ Design
Ongojisin is usually translated as “warming the old to know the new.” The product title treats that not as a passive historical sentiment but as an active design instruction. Rather than styling a lamp to look vaguely traditional, the GAT takes the gat’s actual structure and recomposes it into a functioning lighting object, keeping every proportion and surface detail connected to a specific precedent.
The interior of the crown carries a lattice pattern drawn from traditional Korean window screens, invisible in ordinary light. Switched on, warm amber filters through the ribbed surface much as it once moved through hanji paper, producing the same quality of diffused, indirect glow that gave candlelit rooms their particular atmosphere. Off, the lamp holds its form as a sculptural object without needing to perform.
The wide disc does more than anchor the form. It serves as a tray, holding rings, earbuds, and whatever accumulates beside a lamp. Combining lighting with surface storage in a single object is uncommon in its category, and the gat’s broad brim is a natural vessel for it. An object worn historically to signal status is repurposed to hold what you put down at the end of the day.
A groove on the underside allows the lamp to mount on a wall. A gat hung on a wall is a familiar image in traditional Korean households; the mounted lamp reproduces that image exactly but as a functioning light. The object becomes what the mounted gat always was: something that signals presence and considered taste in a room without requiring any explanation from its owner.
The lighting module attaches by twisting into place, mirroring how a traditional gat settled on the head: placed, rotated, secured. Multiple units can be stacked together. At no point does the design lose sight of the original. The horizontal ridging, the lattice pattern inside, the brim that becomes a tray, the groove that becomes a wall hook; each element traces back to the form it came from.
A gat was historically placed over a lamp to diffuse its flame; the hat and the light were always paired. The name for what covers a flame and the name for what sits on the head are the same word. The GAT lamp closes that loop, making the act of wearing light not a metaphor but the actual, literal function of the object.
The post This Korean Hat Was Always Meant to Be a Lamp and Finally Became One first appeared on Yanko Design.
We have more details on Apple’s camera-equipped AirPods and they are pretty dang weird
Each earbud takes its own image, which is then synchronized for use by Visual Intelligence.
Nike’s most responsive running shoe with visible Air Zoom and ZoomX Foam sole is arriving August 30
If you haven’t trained in a Nike Pegasus, you haven’t experienced a running shoe as it should be. My first outing with the silhouette was the Pegasus 42. The journey was short-lived as I developed grade three osteoporosis and was ruled out of track for good, but the memories of that shoe, which I later wore for walking for a long time, have lived on with me ever since. The feel and cushioning, and now even the basic sole unit technology, have changed a great deal, and the newly launched Nike Pegasus Plus 2 is an embodiment of that.
The latest evolution of Nike’s best-selling running shoe is designed for speed training like no other shoe has ever tried. If you’re a runner and you have been looking for a fast-paced training shoe, Nike’s new Pegasus is perhaps the most exciting non-plated option you should consider. It gives you a bouncier experience in every stride without the rigid carbon plate, making running easier on your feet and legs.
Designer: Nike
What really sets the new Nike Pegasus Plus 2, engineered as a “tempo trainer,” apart from any other silhouette in its own lineup, or outside in the competition, is the curved Air Zoom and full-length ZoomX foam forming its sole unit. According to the press information, Nike says the combination of the tech makes this running shoe 18 percent springier in comparison to the Pegasus Plus, which featured the ZoomX foam without the Air unit.
Therefore, the Pegasus Plus 2 is a lightweight and effective pair for runners who want speed but with consistency. Designed for “speed without sacrifice,” as the company puts it, the shoe comes with the curved, visible Air Zoom unit in the forefoot for additional propulsion, and a bouncy ZoomX midsole making each stride light and quicker. The Air unit underfoot has been left completely visible to make more room for it to expand and contract so it can absorb and return energy in each step during speed and tempo training.
With the combination of a novel sole unit and precision-engineered Flyknit material upper, which ensures breathability and comfort, Nike intends to market the Pegasus Plus 2 as one of its most responsive speed trainers ever made. Interestingly, the Pegasus Plus 2 features a fine-tuned MD10 2.0 last, which was introduced in the Pegasus 42, with a more accommodating forefoot and toe box. On the opposite side, the elevated materials around the ankle and a modern waffle outsole make the cushiony and supportive shoe more attractive. Nike is slated to make the Pegasus Plus 2 available for purchase starting August 30. The speed trainer will be priced at $165, which is cheaper than its predecessor, the Pegasus Plus.
The post Nike’s most responsive running shoe with visible Air Zoom and ZoomX Foam sole is arriving August 30 first appeared on Yanko Design.
This Face Massager Also Does Your Scalp and Neck Without Swapping Tools
The gua sha routine, for all its appeal, has always come with a quiet inconvenience. A flat jade stone for the face. A ridged roller for the scalp. Something else entirely for the neck and shoulders. Most people who commit to the practice end up with a small arsenal of tools, each optimized for a single body area and all sitting in a bathroom drawer they have to rummage through before getting started. The RE2AL by GENIERR asks whether all of that needs to be separate in the first place.
The RE2AL is a dual-function gua sha built into a single compact object. One end carries a stainless steel roll-on ball for facial work; the other is a ceramic protrusion head shaped for the scalp, neck, and body. The two halves separate cleanly at the midpoint, with the upper cap housing and protecting the roll-on when it isn’t in use. What looks like one small, rounded form is actually two distinct massage tools sharing the same silhouette.
Designers: Yezin Shin, Dongmin Chung, Dohui Kang, Taeyeon Kim for GENIERR
The facial end uses stainless steel deliberately. The material conducts temperature efficiently, so the ball arrives cool against the skin and stays that way through the session. That cooling effect reduces puffiness and enhances the lifting quality of the massage, especially around the eye area and jawline where gua sha tends to make the most noticeable difference. There’s no ice pack required, no refrigerator step before the routine begins.
The ceramic lower section handles everything below the neck, and the material logic is just as intentional. Ceramic’s natural weight gives the massage a substantive feel without the user having to press hard, while its inherent coolness extends that same calm, unhurried tactile quality to broader muscle work. The protrusions themselves went through iterative refinement to land on a curvature and density that stimulates circulation without irritating skin, which is the particular balance that mass-market scalp tools tend to get wrong.
The form is unified entirely in soft pink with a matte finish, which means the ceramic head and the coated body read as one object rather than two different components sharing space. A silicone loop at the top of the cap makes it easy to hold during the facial pass and doubles as a travel-friendly hanging point. The whole thing is compact enough to keep on a bathroom counter without visually cluttering the space, or slip into a bag without needing a separate case.
For GENIERR, the dual tool also serves a larger purpose. The brand’s shampoos, essences, and serums address hair and skin separately, but a single ritual tool that moves between scalp and face gives users a physical through line connecting those products into one practice. The RE2AL doesn’t just reduce clutter; it gives the daily routine a more coherent shape.
Most beauty tools are designed for one moment of a routine and then set aside. This one travels with you from the scalp down to the face without stopping to swap instruments, and that uninterrupted continuity turns out to be a more meaningful improvement to the self-care experience than any single material upgrade could have been on its own. The RE2AL makes the argument that the most useful tool is the one that’s already in your hand.
The post This Face Massager Also Does Your Scalp and Neck Without Swapping Tools first appeared on Yanko Design.
The Power Bank You’ll Actually Have When Your Phone Hits 1 Percent
Most people who carry a power bank don’t have it when they need it. It’s in the other bag, on the counter, or still plugged into the wall. The problem isn’t that people don’t want backup power; it’s that a power bank asks too much of them. It’s a separate object with its own place in a routine that’s already too crowded, and the more something demands to be remembered, the more reliably it gets forgotten.
That behavioral friction is the design problem the Twelve South PowerClip is built to solve. Rather than starting with capacity or charging speed, the design starts with a simpler question: what would it take for a person to actually have this on them every day? The answer, apparently, is making it small enough and clipable enough that it attaches to what’s already in your pocket.
Designer: Twelve South
At 45g and roughly the footprint of a dental floss container, the PowerClip is designed to live on a keychain, a bag strap, or a belt loop via a zinc-alloy carabiner. It disappears into daily carry so completely that Twelve South’s own marketing describes the intended experience as: you stop thinking about it entirely, until the moment it saves you. That’s an unusually honest design brief for a consumer product.
The integration extends to the cables. There’s no cord to pack or lose, because the USB-C cable is built directly into the unit. One side handles both input and output; a second port allows pass-through charging, so you can top up the PowerClip and a device simultaneously without interrupting either. The four LED indicators tell you the battery level at a glance. None of this requires setup, configuration, or carrying a separate adapter.
The 2,000mAh capacity is modest by the spec sheets of larger power banks, and deliberately so. The PowerClip isn’t trying to be a replacement for the bigger unit sitting in your desk drawer; it’s an emergency charge that gets your phone from 1% to enough to get home, make a call, or pull up a boarding pass. That scope defines the form rather than limiting it. Giving it more capacity would make it heavier, bulkier, and harder to justify clipping onto a set of keys.
Five matte finishes, including Dune, Slate, Mint, Fuchsia, and Teal, let it function as an accessory rather than a utility. A limited-edition collaboration with Alpaka even produced a coordinated Micro Tote for carrying the PowerClip alongside small everyday essentials, treating the power bank as something worth designing around rather than stashing.
The PowerClip costs $39.99, which sits above the baseline for cheap power banks but below the premium tier of larger, feature-loaded alternatives. That positioning reflects the product’s design logic: it occupies a category that most manufacturers haven’t prioritized, not highest capacity or fastest charging, but highest likelihood of actually being with you when the battery dies. The specific insight here is that a power bank nobody carries isn’t worth much, and that solving the carry problem is a more interesting design challenge than chasing another thousand milliamp-hours.
The post The Power Bank You’ll Actually Have When Your Phone Hits 1 Percent first appeared on Yanko Design.
This Attack on Titan Blind Box Has a $25 Gamepad You Won’t See Coming
Blind box collecting has always run on a specific tension: you hand over money, you get a sealed package, and you don’t know what’s inside until it’s open. The appeal isn’t just the object, it’s the ritual, the anticipation, and the drive to complete the full set. That formula has worked for figures, keychains, and accessories for years. The Drakong PixelByte applies it to a gamepad.
The PixelByte Controller is a keychain-sized Bluetooth gamepad from Drakong, a gaming hardware brand under the Hyperkin umbrella. Each unit comes sealed in a blind box with no external indication of which character design is inside. Alongside the controller, every box includes a matching Chibi character charm and a collectible card. The first series is fully licensed around Attack on Titan, covering seven distinct designs across the lineup.
Designer: Drakong by Hyperkin
Those seven designs include Eren, Mikasa, Levi, Hange, Sasha, and Titan, plus an ultra-rare variant that appears in only one of every 30 boxes. Standard designs arrive at 1:6 odds per box, and a full case of six comes with no repeats across the common lineup. The ultra-rare replaces the common counterpart in those boxes, which means completing the set involves genuine unpredictability even when buying in bulk.
The controller works across iOS, Android, PC, Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, Mac, Steam, Linux, and Raspberry Pi via Bluetooth. Three switchable modes let it function as a gaming controller, a hybrid mouse-keyboard for productivity tasks like advancing slides or triggering PC hot keys, or simply as a fidget device between sessions. The D-pad can be remapped to replicate a thumbstick, and Turbo Mode is built in for rapid-fire inputs.
Battery life runs to approximately 12 hours per charge via USB-C. The integrated keychain loop clips onto bags, belt loops, console cases, or a set of keys, making it as carry-friendly as it is functional. The Chibi charm included in every box extends the collecting experience beyond the controller itself, giving fans two separate pieces to display alongside or separately from the hardware.
Drakong has confirmed additional series beyond Attack on Titan, spanning anime, games, and TV shows, without revealing which licenses come next. That open-ended roadmap is as central to the product’s long-term appeal as any single series. The blind box format was designed for repeat buying, and each new theme brings fresh character designs, new pull odds, and a fresh reason to try your luck again.
The Attack on Titan PixelByte Controller is priced at $24.99, or €24.99 and £19.99, and is available for pre-order through Drakong’s website, the Hyperkin store, and Amazon. That price point sits well within impulse-buy territory, which is almost certainly the point. For a collectible that clips to your bag and plays your games, the only downside is not knowing which character you’re taking home.
The post This Attack on Titan Blind Box Has a $25 Gamepad You Won’t See Coming first appeared on Yanko Design.
Xiaomi Built a $29 Speaker That Snaps to Your Phone and Stands It Up
The compact Bluetooth speaker category has been fighting the same battle for years. Every new entry promises to be louder than your phone, smaller than a can of soda, and tough enough to survive a bag. Most deliver on those basics reasonably well, and most of them occupy the same category of objects that you put next to your phone rather than on it. That distinction tends to go unexamined, and it’s the one Xiaomi decided to question with its latest accessory.
The Xiaomi Bluetooth Speaker Magnetic Edition attaches directly to the back of a smartphone. The connection is magnetic, and a built-in Hall sensor detects the moment it locks on, triggering the speaker to power on automatically. No button to find, no pairing ritual to repeat. You put it against your phone and it starts. Pull it off and it stops. The whole interaction is designed to be immediate enough that the speaker stops feeling like an accessory and starts feeling like part of the phone itself.
Designer: Xiaomi
The stand function is the idea that makes this more than a magnet trick. Rather than simply hanging on the back while the phone lies flat, the speaker’s base props the phone upright at a comfortable viewing angle. That solves two things at once: you get a better listening experience than the phone’s own speaker provides, and you get a hands-free viewing position without hunting for a stand or balancing the phone against something that will slide the moment you look away.
The audio hardware is modest by design. A 1.5-inch full-range driver running at 3W isn’t built for a living room, and the 200Hz to 20kHz frequency response tells you this is tuned for clear, near-field playback rather than bass-heavy output. For someone cooking in the kitchen and wanting to follow a video without holding their phone, or listening at a desk without headphones, that kind of output is exactly right. The speaker isn’t competing with a dedicated tabletop Bluetooth speaker; it’s competing with a phone’s built-in speaker, and that bar it clears comfortably.
RGB lighting rings the base of the speaker and syncs its colors to the audio playing, adding some visual presence in lower light and keeping the device from reading as purely utilitarian when it’s sitting on a desk as a stand. The 650mAh battery powers the speaker independently from the phone’s own charge. Bluetooth 6.0 handles the wireless connection with AAC and SBC codec support, and the pairing typically carries over automatically each time the speaker is magnetically attached.
Two color options are available, with dark gray confirmed. Priced at 132 yuan during the Xiaomi Youpin launch period, with a suggested retail price of 199 yuan, roughly $29 or €25, it sits in a price range where the two-in-one premise doesn’t need to be flawless to be worth trying. That’s a meaningful advantage for an accessory built around a function that most people are currently meeting with improvised solutions anyway.
Most desk setups already include an accidental phone prop. A charging pad, a book corner, a keyboard edge, something doing the job that wasn’t designed for it. The Xiaomi speaker makes the argument that the prop might as well be a speaker too, and that at this size and price, consolidating both into one small object costs nothing in practicality and improves the experience every time you sit down to watch something, take a call, or simply want your hands back.
The post Xiaomi Built a $29 Speaker That Snaps to Your Phone and Stands It Up first appeared on Yanko Design.