Tag Archives: Gadgets

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.

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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Google’s Pixel Tag is making the same ‘boring’ design mistake that Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi made

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The Pixel Tag comes in exactly one color, a grey green called Fog, wrapped around stainless steel with a G logo stamped right on the front. It’s the same script Apple wrote with the AirTag and Samsung copied with the SmartTag2. A tracker spends its entire life clipped to your keys or your dog’s collar or tucked into a backpack pocket, which makes it one of the most personal objects you own. Google, of all companies, knows how to make hardware feel less like hardware. It just didn’t bother here.

Somebody at DJI figured out that a $60 microphone could come with snap-on decals, because apparently even a tiny accessory deserves a little personality. Motorola figured out something similar with the Moto Tag, which actually ships in sage green and a soft blue instead of the usual black or white default. So it’s not like nobody in tech has thought about this. It’s just that almost nobody applies it to trackers, and now Google has joined the long list of companies that had the chance and passed.

Designer: Google

The excuse I keep hearing, and I use that word deliberately, is durability. Metal survives drops, fabric doesn’t, case closed. Except my phone survives daily abuse inside a woven case, and so does yours, and so does every rugged Kevlar sleeve sold by the millions for devices far more fragile than a coin sized tracker. Nobody worries their phone case is going to disintegrate because it has some texture on it. A tracker being too delicate for color or grip is not a real constraint. It’s a decision that got dressed up as one.

Underneath that decision is genuinely solid engineering, for what it’s worth. The Pixel Tag measures 1.8 by 1.1 inches and just 5.4mm thick, which makes it noticeably slimmer than the AirTag’s 8mm body. It runs on a replaceable CR2032 battery rated for about a year, carries an IP67 rating for dust and water, and pairs instantly over Fast Pair with any Android 9 device or newer. The headline feature is Ultra Wideband combined with Bluetooth Channel Sounding, which gives you a literal on-screen arrow and distance reading instead of a vague “getting warmer” signal, though that trick needs Android 16 and Bluetooth 6.0 to actually work. It taps into Find Hub, Google’s network of over a billion Android phones, so a lost item can get spotted even when it is nowhere near your own devices. You can share access with up to ten people, ring it from a Pixel Watch, or ask Gemini through your Pixel Buds to ring it for you. All of that ships November 11 for $29, or $99 for a four pack.

Google already knows how to wrap good engineering in an object people actually want to look at, because it solved the exact same brief years ago with its speakers. The Nest Mini gets a soft, woven top because Google understood people don’t want to display a hunk of bare plastic on their kitchen counter. The Nest Audio does the same thing, fabric front, rounded edges, an object designed to belong in a room rather than announce itself as a gadget in one. That instinct exists inside the same company that just shipped a keychain accessory in one shade of grey with a logo dead center, like it needed to remind you it’s tech.

A tracker’s entire job is to sit quietly on the stuff you actually care about. It should feel like something you chose, not something you tolerated because the tech underneath happened to be good. Find Hub integration, UWB precision finding, a battery that lasts a year, all of that is genuinely solid work. But solid engineering wrapped in a logo stamped on steel isn’t a finished product. It’s half of one, and Google, weirdly, is the company with the least excuse for stopping there.

The post Google’s Pixel Tag is making the same ‘boring’ design mistake that Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi made first appeared on Yanko Design.

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.

The post The World’s Slimmest Power Station (2.6″) Was Built for Your Fridge first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Arduino-Powered Retro Handheld Is One Anyone Can Build at Home

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DIY handheld gaming has always had a ceiling for newcomers. Most builds require custom-designed PCBs, hard-to-find specialized connectors, and at least a few evenings spent with a soldering iron before anything turns on. Results from experienced makers can be impressive, but getting there has traditionally demanded an electronics background and a comfort with tools that many people simply don’t have.

This Arduino UNO Q-based handheld console doesn’t ask for any of that. Every component can be ordered from a standard online retailer and assembled without soldering, making the build about as accessible as a maker project can get. The only parts requiring fabrication are the 3D-printed enclosure and buttons, which come together using heat-set inserts for a clean, professional-looking result that doesn’t betray its module-based origins.

Designer: zalmotek

The hardware list reads like an afternoon’s shopping. At the center is the Arduino UNO Q, pairing a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 processor running Debian Linux with a dedicated STM32 microcontroller for real-time input handling. Modulino Buttons and a Modulino Joystick handle the controls, an Arduino UNO Media Carrier connects an 8-inch Waveshare touchscreen and an Adafruit speaker, and a Waveshare UPS module provides battery support.

The software side is equally well thought out. The STM32 microcontroller monitors button presses and joystick movements, then passes that data to the Linux environment, where a Python daemon converts everything into standard USB gamepad commands. RetroArch handles the emulation without any complicated setup, so loading up a game doesn’t feel different from plugging a USB gamepad into a PC.

That smoothness pays off in practice. Sitting back with a handheld you built over a weekend and scrolling through titles from systems you grew up with, everything runs cleanly with proper controls and sound. It’s a bit chunkier than a commercial device, given the module-based construction, but the feel is more polished than the trade-off might suggest, especially for a build that skips custom PCBs entirely.

There’s also room to go further than emulation. The UNO Q can run the Godot game engine, which turns the same hardware into a development platform for original games. Between that and RetroArch’s support for a wide range of classic platforms, the console covers both ends of the gaming spectrum without requiring any additional hardware beyond what’s already in the build.

The full hardware list, assembly walkthrough, and complete source code are posted on Arduino Project Hub and GitHub, keeping everything open and reproducible. The documentation also frames the build as a starting point rather than a finished product, with options like swapping the display for a different size, redesigning the enclosure, or adding a Modulino Movement node for motion controls described as natural next directions.

None of that holds together without the right foundation, and the UNO Q’s dual-brain architecture provides it quietly. The STM32 handles time-sensitive inputs without lag while the Qualcomm processor manages the emulation stack, audio, and video at the same time. A software bridge connects the two, and clean communication between them is what keeps the console from feeling like a loose collection of modules.

The post This Arduino-Powered Retro Handheld Is One Anyone Can Build at Home first appeared on Yanko Design.

Wall Chargers Are Boring, but This $36 One Has a Pixel Art Display

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Wall chargers have always been the most ignored piece of any desk setup. They sit behind monitors or under tables, doing their job without asking for attention, which is exactly the problem. As charging accessories have multiplied, so has the tangle of identical black bricks cluttering power strips and nightstands. None of them give you a reason to look twice, and most people prefer it that way.

Divoom’s Dipow 35W is a direct challenge to that indifference. Built around a 64×64-pixel LED display housed in a compact, retro diving-helmet-shaped body, it makes a case for chargers that actually earn a spot on the desk rather than getting shoved behind furniture. It’s still a proper 35W GaN fast charger, so the personality doesn’t come at the expense of the performance that matters.

Designer: Divoom

The diving helmet shape goes beyond aesthetics; it gives the charger a defined body that keeps the pixel display facing outward when plugged in. It’s a small distinction, but a deliberate one. The rounded proportions and careful build make it feel less like a tech accessory and more like a desk object that earns its place alongside everything else you’ve arranged.

The display is the obvious conversation starter, but there’s more to it than a looping animation. Through the Divoom app, you can choose from over 1,000 community-created designs, draw your own pixel art, or have it cycle through 18 different clock faces throughout the day. It lights up only when plugged in, so it behaves like an accessory rather than another screen demanding your attention.

GaN technology keeps the body compact and cool even at peak output. The single USB-C port delivers up to 35W, enough to bring an iPhone 15 Pro Max to 56% in just 30 minutes according to Divoom’s own testing. Built-in safety features cover overheating, overvoltage, overcurrent, and short circuits, so it’s doing its actual job reliably while the pixel display handles the entertainment side.

For travel, the 90° foldable pins and protective silicone boot keep the prongs safe without adding bulk. At 44.3 × 42.3 × 41.3 mm and 86 g, it slips easily into a bag, though something this visually interesting tends to end up on a desk more often than packed away. It catches a second look at a shared workspace or coffee shop table.

The Dipow 35W retails for $35.99, available in black or white. For a fast charger that also functions as a customizable pixel display, the asking price sits close to what most plain USB-C bricks already cost. It’s a small distinction that ends up mattering more than expected once the charger is sitting in plain sight with something worth showing on its screen.

The post Wall Chargers Are Boring, but This $36 One Has a Pixel Art Display first appeared on Yanko Design.

7 Best Tech Gadgets of August 2026

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August arrives with a lineup that feels genuinely considered. Not every gadget this month is chasing a headline spec or fighting for shelf space. Some of the most interesting things landing right now are smaller, quieter, and more honest about what they actually do — a folding mouse that disappears into a shirt pocket, a bedside unit that replaces three devices at once, and a dual-screen E Ink tablet that finally treats reading and writing as a single workflow rather than two separate tasks competing for the same screen.

There’s also something larger worth paying attention to. Samsung is officially pulling back the curtain on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 this month, and what’s shaping up as a tiered foldable lineup could redefine the category’s identity. Meanwhile, Google has quietly slipped a new smart speaker onto store shelves for the first time in six years. August, as it turns out, rewards patience — and knowing exactly where to look.

1. piBrick Pocket-CM5

The piBrick Pocket-CM5 is one of those projects that reads better the longer you spend with the spec sheet. Built by Ahmad Amarullah on a custom PCB designed around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, this open-source handheld costs around $172 in parts and arrives at smartphone proportions — 80 × 145 × 19.6mm. The 3.92-inch AMOLED display runs at 1080 × 1240 and 90Hz with Asahi tempered glass over the top, which is the kind of detail that separates a deliberate design from a prototype that merely happens to work. Full-size and micro-HDMI outputs mean the same pocket device can drive an external display when a larger workspace makes more sense.

The BBQ20 keyboard with its integrated BlackBerry-derived trackpad gives the piBrick a tactile depth that touchscreen-only handhelds cannot match, and side rotary encoders plus five programmable buttons extend the input options further still. A 5,000mAh LiPo keeps everything running, NVMe SSD support in 2230 or 2242 formats handles storage, and USB 3.0 with Type-A and Type-C covers connectivity. The most quietly useful feature is USB-HID mode — plug the piBrick into any external machine and its keyboard and trackpad instantly become a functional input device, independent of the Pi entirely. For a sysadmin who shows up at a server rack without a spare keyboard, that framing changes the device from hobbyist novelty to legitimate daily carry tool.

What we like:

  • USB-HID mode turns the whole device into a USB keyboard for any external computer
  • 90Hz AMOLED at this price point and form factor is a genuinely rare combination

What we dislike:

  • Requires hands-on sourcing, PCB manufacturing, and 3D-printed shell assembly
  • The compact BBQ20 keyboard layout carries a real learning curve for extended typing sessions

2. OrigamiSwift Folding Mouse

The OrigamiSwift is a Bluetooth mouse that folds flat to 0.18 inches — thinner than most notepads — and springs back into a full-size ergonomic form in under half a second. Designed by Horace Lam and built around the geometry of traditional origami folding, it weighs just 40 grams and connects over Bluetooth 5.2, with a 4,000 CPI HD infrared sensor tracking at up to 30 inches per second. For digital nomads and frequent travelers, the appeal is immediate: full-size mousing comfort that compresses to the front pocket of a bag without any structural compromise.

Soft-click buttons and a smooth, consistent glide make it discreet in quiet environments, and the triangular origami structure that enables the folding mechanism also gives the frame enough rigidity to absorb daily use without flex. Battery life is a genuine standout — one USB-C charge lasts up to three months, which removes the disposable battery cycle from the equation entirely. At $85, it sits in a price range where compromises tend to accumulate, and the sensor performance, weight, and build quality keep most of them from appearing. It works across Mac, iPad, Windows, and Android without additional drivers, which keeps the setup frictionless wherever you end up working.

Click Here to Buy Now: $85.00

What we like:

  • Three-month battery life on a single USB-C charge is genuinely exceptional for a wireless mouse
  • 40 grams means you stop noticing it’s in your bag until the moment you actually need it

What we dislike:

  • 4,000 CPI ceiling may not satisfy users working on high-resolution or multi-monitor setups
  • Stock is currently very limited, with only a few units available in the shop

3. Divoom FlowToo

The Divoom FlowToo costs $99.99 and replaces three things that have been quietly cluttering nightstands for years — a Bluetooth speaker, a white noise machine, and an alarm clock. It runs through a 10W amplifier with a 45mm full-range driver, which is enough to fill a bedroom at a respectable volume without the sound becoming harsh at the high end. More than 90 built-in sounds cover the categories people actually reach for at night and during focus sessions, from rain and ocean ambience to forest and calming tones, and the Divoom app handles everything from alarm scheduling to sound selection directly from your phone.

The 2.26-inch smart display is the part that makes the FlowToo feel like something designed with some care rather than assembled from a parts list. It cycles between multiple clock faces, music visualizers that react to whatever’s playing, sleep scene animations, and mood lighting depending on the mode and the time of day. The wake-up sequence replaces a jarring alarm tone with natural sounds that build in volume while the display gradually brightens — a small change that makes a real difference to how the first few minutes of a morning feel. Available in White and Black, the form is clean, rounded, and scaled well enough to sit beside most beds without dominating the surface.

What we like:

  • A 10W full-range driver makes this a real speaker, not just an alarm clock with Bluetooth bolted on
  • The gradual light-and-sound wake sequence is a meaningfully better way to start the morning

What we dislike:

  • Dedicated white noise machines and standalone speakers will each outperform the FlowToo in their respective categories
  • Full feature access requires the Divoom app, which adds dependency to a device built around simplicity

4. Portable CD Cover Player

The Portable CD Cover Player brings album artwork back to the physical center of the listening experience at a time when streaming has reduced most music libraries to a scrollable grid of thumbnails no larger than a postage stamp. The form factor is slim and designed to echo the proportions of a CD sleeve — built for the kind of listening that happens away from a desk, on a commute, in a hotel room, or anywhere else a record player cannot reasonably follow you without significant planning.

There is something the CD format offers that streaming still hasn’t managed to replicate — intentionality. You chose this album. You put it in. You listened front to back, the way it was meant to be heard. The Portable CD Cover Player leans into that ritual rather than treating it as an inconvenience to be engineered away. At a moment when cassette players and vinyl decks have staged a credible commercial comeback, there is a real and growing audience for physical music hardware that does not apologize for existing in 2026. For anyone rebuilding a CD collection or looking for a reason to use the one they never threw out, this is the device for it.

Click Here to Buy Now: $199.00

What we like:

  • Restores album artwork as a physical, tactile part of the listening experience rather than a compressed thumbnail
  • The intentionality of the CD format is something streaming genuinely cannot replicate

What we dislike:

  • The price requires an existing or rebuilt CD collection to justify the investment
  • Stock is tight, with only a few units currently available through the Yanko Design shop

5. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8

Samsung confirmed the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Unpacked event for July 22 in London, and what’s taking shape is arguably the most architecturally ambitious foldable lineup the company has attempted. Three models appear to be in play — the standard Fold 8 at 4.1mm unfolded, the wide-format Fold 8 Wide at a remarkable 3.9mm, and the Fold 8 Ultra, which is where the S Pen is making its return after being stripped from the Fold 7 to achieve that device’s headline thinness. Reports point to a titanium-plus-carbon-fiber construction for the Ultra, a material combination that works more naturally with the digitizer layer the stylus requires than the pure titanium backplate the Fold 7 used.

The Ultra is the model worth watching most closely. A 5,000mAh battery — the largest in the Fold line since the third generation — marks the first meaningful capacity upgrade the series has seen in years, and the S Pen’s return shifts the Fold 8 Ultra from a premium hardware story into something with actual software depth for power users. Samsung is also reportedly developing a digitizer-free stylus solution for future generations, which would eventually decouple S Pen functionality from physical bulk entirely. If the Ultra ships as the leaks describe, it becomes the first Z Fold that stops treating its own productivity features as a problem to be engineered around, and starts treating them as the reason the device exists.

What we like:

  • S Pen returns on the Ultra alongside the line’s largest battery to date
  • A tiered lineup lets buyers choose between thinness-first or capability-first without compromise

What we dislike:

  • Splitting S Pen support exclusively to the Ultra positions it as a premium within an already premium product line
  • Three distinct SKUs risk diluting the design identity that made the Fold recognizable in the first place

6. Google Home Speaker

The Google Home Speaker is the company’s first new standalone smart speaker since the Nest Audio launched in September 2020. Nearly six years is a long time to leave a product category untouched in consumer electronics — Apple refreshed AirPods three times in that window, Sonos shipped new hardware, redesigned its app, and broke it, and still found time to come back. Google’s return is framed almost entirely around Gemini, now built directly into the speaker and positioned as the primary reason to put it on your kitchen counter rather than any particular advancement in audio engineering.

The hardware reads clean — small, rounded, and available in the kind of understated colors Google’s design teams have always been good at selecting. It features 360-degree audio, faster processing for more fluid conversational responses, and a new light ring that signals when Gemini is listening, thinking, or responding. Whether this launch represents a genuine recommitment to the smart home category or simply Google finding Gemini another product surface to occupy is a fair question to ask. The speaker is back on the counter after six years. Whether the company chooses to stay in the room this time is the harder and more important question.

What we like:

  • Gemini integration makes this the most conversationally capable Google speaker the company has ever shipped
  • Six years of hardware and processing advancement mean the gap over the Nest Audio should be substantial

What we dislike:

  • Google’s well-documented history of deprioritizing smart home hardware makes long-term software support a legitimate concern
  • The launch narrative frames the speaker as AI infrastructure first, and as a designed product second

7. Inkleaf Foldable Dual-Screen E Ink Notebook

The Inkleaf is a foldable dual-screen E Ink tablet with two 10.3-inch Carta panels that open side by side — one for reading, one for writing, simultaneously. That single feature solves a problem researchers, students, and writers have been navigating awkwardly for years, usually by propping a tablet next to a paper notebook or toggling between apps and losing their place each time. Designed by Kameron Yu, it closes to 8.4mm and 480 grams, thinner than a standard paperback, and each open panel measures 4.2mm — slimmer than the reMarkable 2 at 4.7mm, the Kindle Scribe at 5.4mm, and the Boox Note Air4 C at 5.8mm. None of those fold.

The cast aluminum body and precision-machined hinge barrel lay perfectly flat at 180 degrees when open, tactile page-turn buttons sit exactly where your thumb expects them, and the pressure-sensitive stylus ships in the box with no subscription fee attached. Android handles the OS with support for PDFs, EPUBs, MOBI, and TXT files, and an AI-powered handwriting search can surface any phrase across every notebook you’ve filled. First units are expected to reach founders in August 2026. At around $450, it is a serious financial commitment, but one the form factor and the problem it actually solves manage to earn.

What we like:

  • Dual-screen setup genuinely resolves the read-and-write-simultaneously problem that every comparable single-screen device ignores
  • 4.2mm per panel open is thinner than any single-screen E Ink device currently on the market

What we dislike:

  • The price point requires a real commitment to the E Ink workflow to justify
  • Android on an E Ink display still carries limitations in app responsiveness and screen refresh speed

August Belongs to the Gadgets That Get Out of the Way

August’s lineup doesn’t follow a single theme, which is part of what makes it worth paying attention to. The piBrick and the Inkleaf both treat computing as something that should fit your actual workflow rather than just your desk. The OrigamiSwift and the FlowToo make the case that the best everyday tech is the kind that removes something from your bag or your nightstand rather than quietly adding to it. The Portable CD Cover Player is a reminder that intentional listening never actually went away — it just needed hardware worth using again.

The bigger stories — Samsung’s Fold 8 and Google’s long-overdue speaker — tell you something meaningful about where two of the industry’s largest companies have landed on the question of what smart hardware is actually for. One is restoring capability it arguably should never have removed. The other is making up for six years of silence with an AI pitch and hoping nobody checks the calendar. Both are worth watching this month, for very different reasons.

The post 7 Best Tech Gadgets of August 2026 first appeared on Yanko Design.

DIY Writing Devices Get Expensive Fast, So This One Costs Almost Nothing

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The writerdeck movement has one recurring irony: devices built specifically to cut through digital distraction have a tendency to get expensive. Custom keyboards, purpose-built screens, and precision-machined enclosures can push a DIY writing build well past the cost of a regular laptop, which rather defeats the point. The more interesting entries in the space tend to be the ones that solve the accessibility problem, not just the distraction one.

The Whale Writer is an open-source, foldable, DIY writing device designed to be as cheap and portable as possible. It’s the second writerdeck design from its creator, after Bee Write Back, built specifically to address the two most common criticisms of the first: it didn’t fold, and it cost too much. Both problems are solved here through a combination of 3D-printed parts and off-the-shelf electronics.

Designer: Simon Shimel

Folding is what separates this from most of the writerdeck category, where non-folding chassis designs are common. When closed, the Whale Writer flattens into a form that can travel in a bag without a full keyboard and screen sticking out at different angles. A device that sits on a café table can fold up and slide into a jacket pocket for the commute.

Central to the hardware is an unusual display choice. Rather than a backlit LCD, the Whale Writer uses a Waveshare RLCD, a reflective liquid crystal display that reads using ambient light instead of a power-hungry internal backlight. The result is a screen that mimics paper readability and extends battery life considerably, with an ESP32-S3 microcontroller already built into the module so no separate computing board is required.

The keyboard is the most accessible component here: a standard cheap Bluetooth keyboard is fully disassembled, and its PCB, key matrix, and flex cable are repurposed inside a custom 3D-printed chassis. Four printed parts complete the build: a base plate with a print-in-place hinge, a locking plate that holds the keyboard in position, a battery cover, and a screen bezel with three button cutouts.

Power runs from an 18650 battery cell, and builders have two configurations to choose from. The simpler path keeps the keyboard’s original battery running independently from the main cell, requiring no soldering. The more involved route splices the keyboard’s power input directly to the RLCD board’s output, running everything off a single 18650, which means one battery to charge instead of two.

Software is deliberately left open. A basic word processor was built as a functionality test using an AI coding assistant, but the creator frames the Whale Writer as a hardware platform, not a finished product. The ESP32’s onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth leave the door open for everything from a minimal plain-text editor to a wireless draft-syncing terminal, depending on what firmware the community eventually writes.

None of what the Whale Writer does is entirely new, and it doesn’t try to suggest otherwise. The category already knows what it’s supposed to be: a device that only lets you write, without anything else competing for the same moment. What this build adds to that premise is a sincere attempt to make the experience available to people who want it but have been priced out of building one.

The post DIY Writing Devices Get Expensive Fast, So This One Costs Almost Nothing first appeared on Yanko Design.

Google Built a Translation Device That Doesn’t Need Google’s Own Cloud

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Real-time translation has quietly become one of the most useful things AI can do, and most of the solutions doing it well are deeply dependent on cloud infrastructure. The phone apps and earbuds that translate conversations on the fly are continuously routing audio through remote servers, which works fine until the network doesn’t. Travel to areas with spotty coverage, use a device that can’t roam internationally, or simply value keeping your conversations off someone else’s server, and the whole pipeline collapses at the exact moment you need it most.

The Gemma Translator is a direct answer to that. It’s a handheld voice translation device that runs its entire AI processing pipeline locally on a Raspberry Pi 5, with no internet required after the initial setup. There’s no cloud to route audio through, no API key to maintain, and no service that can be discontinued. You speak into it, and it translates and speaks back, all on the same pocket-sized device.

Designer: Google

The hardware is deliberately approachable. A Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of RAM powers the whole thing, paired with a 480×320 touchscreen, a microphone, a speaker, push-to-talk buttons, and a rotary encoder for selecting languages. Everything fits inside a 3D-printed enclosure in yellow and black, and the STL files for printing it are included in the open-source repository, so anyone with a printer can replicate the physical build exactly.

The software stack is what makes the offline operation genuinely work at useful speeds. Translation runs on Google’s Gemma 4 E2B model via LiteRT-LM, hitting around six tokens per second on the RPi 5 while using under 1.5GB of RAM. Speech recognition uses Moonshine, which is reportedly up to five times faster than Whisper Tiny. Text-to-speech output runs through Kokoro. The result is a complete speech-in, speech-out translation loop that stays on the device from start to finish.

The interface was designed specifically for face-to-face conversation rather than solo use. Two modes let the device handle either one person managing both sides of the exchange or two people independently operating their own microphone and language selection. Physical buttons keep recording controls tactile, which matters when you’re trying to have a conversation rather than navigate menus.

The privacy argument is almost incidental to how useful the offline capability turns out to be in purely practical terms. Field researchers in areas without reliable networks, travelers moving through places where international data is expensive, and anyone working in a sensitive conversation context all get the same thing: a translation device that doesn’t require a connection to keep working. The fact that none of the audio ever leaves the device is simply a consequence of building something that had to work without one.

The post Google Built a Translation Device That Doesn’t Need Google’s Own Cloud first appeared on Yanko Design.

This flexible mouse works in both standard and vertical configuration without breaking a sweat

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Most of us content creators have to juggle between two different types of mice for specific tasks. A normal mouse is the default choice for competitive gaming, graphic design, or video editing for its fast movements and better control for pixel-level accuracy. On the other hand, a vertical mouse is the ideal choice for office workers, coders, and writers like me who have to constantly deal with strain in the arms and shoulders.

Anyone who has to work on their PC for long hours has to either choose one of them or keep both handy for different working styles. Won’t it be better if there was a mouse that could perform double duty? This concept lets us believe so with an intuitive design that lets the user decide what configuration of the mouse to utilize for specific tasks.

Designer: Taehyeong Kim

Rightly called the DUO flexible mouse, the modular peripheral is designed to adapt to different usage styles with a foldable form factor. Just by folding or unfolding the rear of the device, a standard mouse shape or a vertical configuration is achieved. This adaptable form responds to the wrist angle and the grip level of the hand for the most comfortable ergonomic positioning. Extra sensors are placed on one side of the mouse to enable the vertical working position, which relieves strain by keeping the hand in a natural handshake posture.

DUO comes with an in-built rechargeable system to eliminate the need for disposable batteries, while keeping the overall weight down. This is important because having a disposable AA or AAA battery inside can offset the balance while working in the vertical position. The mouse also gets a magnetic system for the flexible leg to easily detach the old component and attach the new one when it goes rouge; thereby making it highly repairable. That’s a mindful design addition as eventually the folding and unfolding action will wear down the magnetic parts and the outer plastic shell.

The vertical position of the mouse can be adjusted for ergonomic grip, as the flexible leg can be folded up until the level it feels just right for use. The standard mouse configuration, however, doesn’t have that liberty, as the fully folded position makes the mouse flat from the bottom, which is crucial for smooth operation on any kind of surface. The only apprehension I have as a neutral user is how much physical damage the mouse will sustain being in the vertical position, being dragged on the working surface over time.

Other than that, the overall concept design is highly practical and valid enough to be labelled a daily driver for power users like me. Although it is still in the concept stage, the idea is a good bet for PC accessories makers like Microsoft who’ve tinkered with the idea of a flexible mouse in the past.

The post This flexible mouse works in both standard and vertical configuration without breaking a sweat first appeared on Yanko Design.