Tag Archives: Appliances

The Thermostat That Finally Looks Like It Was Designed

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At some point, every well-designed room has a thermostat on the wall. And at some point, nearly every well-designed room has been slightly let down by it. That’s the quiet irony of home design. We agonize over paint colors, hunt for the perfect light fixtures, spend weekends debating sofa legs, and then right there at eye level lives a beige plastic rectangle covered in tiny buttons that no one fully understands. We’ve simply accepted it as the ugly compromise of functional living.

Uriel Electronics, a design-focused electronics brand, apparently decided that compromise is no longer necessary. Their new temperature controllers, the USH-02 and the UEH-02, make a surprisingly compelling argument that utility and beauty don’t have to negotiate a truce. They can just coexist, elegantly, without one apologizing to the other.

Designer: Uriel Electronics

I’ll be upfront: I didn’t expect to have strong opinions about thermostats. But these two pieces carry a clarity of intention that’s difficult to walk past. Both models are built around the same core idea: strip away the complexity, keep only what matters, and make it look like it belongs on the wall rather than just stuck to it. A single rotary dial. A clean display showing the temperature. A refined body that reads more like a considered object than a hardware accessory. No confusing menu navigation, no crowded button grid, no searching through a manual to figure out how to lower the temperature by two degrees.

The USH-02 is the surface-mounted version, and it’s the one with visible personality. Its translucent skeleton design lets you glimpse the hardware inside, which feels like a little gift to anyone who appreciates how things are made. The graphic detailing adds visual wit to what could have easily been a clean but flat minimalist slab. It sits on the wall in a way that makes you actually stop and look, which is a strange thing to say about a thermostat, but here we are. It doesn’t disappear into the surface; it quietly introduces itself.

The UEH-02 takes the opposite route. Flush-mounted and incredibly slim, it’s designed to nearly vanish. The profile barely protrudes from the wall, creating the kind of visual quiet that interior designers specifically obsess over. If the USH-02 says “notice me,” the UEH-02 says “I’m here, I work perfectly, and I won’t interrupt your space.” Both approaches are valid. Both are well-executed. The choice between them is really just a question of how much personality you want your walls to carry.

The discipline behind this project is worth calling out. It is genuinely difficult to design something that is both beautiful and immediately intuitive, especially in a category most manufacturers have treated as purely functional. Removing complexity rather than adding features is a confident design move, and we’re living through a moment when more is still frequently mistaken for better in tech. Seeing a product that resolves itself into a single tactile dial and a clear display feels almost like a statement. The rotary control has a satisfying physicality that touchscreens never quite manage to replicate. High-end audio equipment and quality appliances have kept the dial alive for exactly this reason: turning something to get a result is one of the most natural gestures there is. It’s a reminder that good design often means returning to what already worked, done with more intention.

The engineering side, visible in the controllers’ back panels, confirms this isn’t just a surface-deep exercise. Components are neatly organized, an Omron relay handles the heavy work, and the specs support voltages between 85V and 265VAC with a max current of 18A. The function is serious. The form just happens to be beautiful.

That balance is rarer than it should be. Home tech has long been given a pass on aesthetics in a way that furniture or lighting simply would not tolerate. Uriel Electronics is quietly making the argument that it shouldn’t. Your thermostat is on your wall every single day, in full view of everyone who walks into that room. It might as well earn its place there.

The post The Thermostat That Finally Looks Like It Was Designed first appeared on Yanko Design.

SharkNinja’s $499 Vacuum Now Comes in Colors Your Designer Would Pick

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Most home appliances are designed to be forgiven, not admired. You buy them, you use them, and when company comes over, you hope nobody notices the boxy gray robot charging in the corner or the utilitarian stick vacuum propped against the wall. That’s just been the unspoken contract between cleaning products and the people who own them: function first, aesthetics never. SharkNinja just tore up that contract.

The Shark Home Luxe Collection is SharkNinja’s first coordinated cross-category color initiative, and it’s a surprisingly considered move from a brand better known for suction power than style. The collection spans two of Shark’s most capable products: the PowerDetect UV Reveal robot vacuum and mop, and the PowerDetect Speed cordless vacuum. Both get a total of eight new colorways, split across the two products, and they are genuinely beautiful in a way that feels deliberate rather than decorative.

Designer: SharkNinja

For the robot vacuum, the shades are Espresso, Evergreen, Deep Harbor, and Ivory. The cordless gets Walnut, Oatstone, Sagewood, and Harbor Slate. Read those names and you’ll notice a pattern immediately: these are the exact same tones showing up in Japandi interiors, minimalist furniture lines, and the kind of design-forward spaces that get 400,000 likes on Pinterest. SharkNinja clearly did its homework. The names alone do half the marketing work.

Interior designer Jeremiah Brent was brought in to mark the launch, and his take on it cuts right to the point. “For so long, products in this category were designed to be hidden, when the reality is they live alongside us every day,” he said. He’s right. Robot vacuums don’t get tucked into closets; they sit in plain view on their charging docks. Cordless vacuums lean against walls in the hallway or the bedroom. They occupy space in the same rooms as carefully chosen furniture and lighting, and for years, the design language of those products has been completely at odds with everything else around them.

The Shark Home Luxe Collection doesn’t just slap a new coat of paint on existing hardware either. The finishes feel considered, the proportions haven’t changed, and the products underneath are legitimately strong. The PowerDetect UV Reveal is the first robot vacuum and mop to use UV light detection to identify hidden messes, including dried spills, pet accidents, and residue that standard sensors would otherwise miss. It vacuums and mops simultaneously, adapts in real time to different floor types, and the self-empty base holds debris for up to 45 days. Prices for the UV Reveal Luxe start at $1,299.

The PowerDetect Speed, meanwhile, is a 7-pound cordless vacuum offering up to 60 minutes of runtime, with PowerDetect Intelligence that automatically adjusts to different surfaces and cleaning directions. Its auto-empty base can go up to 45 days between empties. The Luxe version starts at $499.99.

Now, is a color refresh a radical redesign? No, and nobody is pretending otherwise. But that’s not really the point. The point is that SharkNinja is acknowledging something the design community has quietly understood for years: objects we live with daily should be held to the same aesthetic standard as everything else in our homes. A vacuum isn’t a utility hiding in a utility closet anymore. It’s furniture, essentially.

The broader trend here is one worth watching. Brands across categories, from air purifiers to kitchen appliances to Wi-Fi routers, are starting to understand that people want technology that integrates into a home visually, not just functionally. Dyson figured this out early. Now SharkNinja is making the same argument, at a wider price range and with a much clearer design vocabulary.

Whether the Shark Home Luxe Collection becomes a defining shift in how cleaning appliances are marketed, or whether it remains a smart but limited edition palette refresh, depends entirely on how consumers respond. My instinct says the response will be warm. Because given the choice between a vacuum that blends into your home and one that doesn’t, most people will choose the one that doesn’t make the room look worse.

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5 Reasons Your Kitchen’s Range Hood Is Already Obsolete

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Steam rises at roughly one metre per second. A range hood, mounted anywhere from 60 to 90 centimetres above the cooktop, is waiting near the ceiling while a meaningful portion of what just came off the pan has already drifted sideways into the room. This is the physics problem BORA has been solving since 2007, when founder Willi Bruckbauer first patented a cooktop that captures vapors at the surface itself, before they get the chance to travel anywhere at all.

Four compact cooktop-extractor systems, each integrating induction cooking and extraction into a single unit under 20 centimetres tall, make up the newly refreshed BORA Pure Family. Sizes run from 58cm to 83cm wide, slotting into standard kitchen cabinetry without the ductwork, ceiling clearance, or fixed positioning that a range hood demands. Every kitchen designed around an overhead hood has been quietly shaped by that hood’s constraints, often without the homeowner ever realising it.

Designer: BORA

1. It Physically Blocks the One View That Actually Matters

The kitchen island took decades to become the centrepiece of domestic architecture. Open-plan layouts exist specifically to dissolve the walls between cooking, dining, and living, creating one continuous space where the cook faces the room rather than a wall. Hanging a ventilation canopy above the island’s cooktop puts a ceiling-mounted object directly back into the sightline the entire layout was designed to keep clear. The hood wins. The open plan loses.

Flush-mounted extraction at the cooktop level removes that object from the equation entirely. With the BORA Pure Family, the air inlet nozzle sits within the cooktop surface itself and the motor lives below the counter, leaving the space above the island completely uninterrupted. For island configurations especially, this means pendant lighting can hang lower, shelving can extend further, and in some cases structural changes like skylights become viable above the cooking zone. None of those options exist when a ventilation canopy is holding the ceiling space hostage.

2. That Noise Level Has Never Been Acceptable

The average range hood operates at over 70 decibels at head height, approximately the noise level of a vacuum cleaner running in the same room. For kitchens that share acoustic space with dining tables, living areas, and the general flow of a household evening, that is a sustained intrusion people have simply learned to work around rather than question. Raising your voice over the extractor fan has become so normal that most homeowners stopped registering it as a problem worth solving.

Sitting below the counter rather than above the stove, BORA’s extraction motor is integrated into the unit and acoustically separated from the living space. The result is a noticeably quieter operation during cooking, which matters considerably more in open-plan homes where kitchen noise carries into every adjacent room. Everyday sounds during a cooking session, pots simmering, oil spitting, water coming to the boil, register louder than the extraction itself under normal BORA operation. For a kitchen that is also supposed to function as a social and living space, that is a fundamental shift in how the room behaves acoustically.

3. Overhead Suction Is Chasing Vapors That Have Already Escaped

Cooking vapors and steam don’t travel in a tidy vertical column straight into a ceiling-mounted filter. They rise from the pan, spread laterally as they cool, and disperse into the room well before reaching the extraction point of a hood mounted 70 to 90 centimetres above the cooking surface. Research cited by BORA puts that lateral escape figure at around 30 percent with a standard updraft extractor, which is roughly the share ending up in curtains, on cabinet finishes, and circulating through the living areas of an open-plan home before the hood ever sees it.

Working at the source rather than above it, BORA’s cross-flow suction draws vapors downward through the air inlet nozzle before they have the opportunity to rise and spread at all. The extraction speed exceeds the one-metre-per-second rise rate of cooking vapors, meaning the system is actively outrunning the physics rather than reacting to them. The refreshed Pure Family pairs that extraction mechanism with the new eSwap Plus activated charcoal odour filter, monitored automatically by the cooktop itself, which signals replacement after 150 operating hours by displaying an “F” on the control panel. At approximately one year of regular cooking use per filter, the guesswork is removed from the maintenance cycle entirely.

4. Cleaning a Range Hood Is a Design Problem Disguised as a Maintenance Chore

Grease does not stay at the filter. It coats the underside of the hood casing, migrates into the seams between panels, and accumulates on the surface of any overhead cabinetry nearby. Cleaning a standard range hood involves removing filters that are often above head height, wiping surfaces that collect heat residue in corners and crevices, and occasionally dismantling panel sections to reach the parts that see the most buildup. The frequency at which this actually gets done in most kitchens is considerably lower than the frequency at which it should.

Maintenance on the Pure Family starts from a different premise entirely. The grease filters and air collection trays are dishwasher-safe and accessed from above the cooktop surface, without removing drawers, cabinets, or plinth panels below. The eSwap Plus activated charcoal filter swaps out through the air inlet nozzle using a grip strap and printed directional symbols on the unit itself, with no tools required. The new matt Schott glass finish available across the Pure Family adds another layer of practical intelligence here: the velvety surface texture resists fingerprint marks and minor scratches passively, keeping the cooktop looking clean between sessions without any additional intervention.

5. It Has Been Dictating Your Kitchen Layout This Entire Time

Ductwork is the invisible constraint that determines where cooktops are allowed to go. A range hood requires a duct run to the exterior of the building, travelling through cabinetry, walls, or ceiling cavities, starting at a fixed point above the stove and ending wherever an exterior wall or roof penetration is feasible. Every additional metre of that run introduces bends, friction, and measurable performance loss. In practice, the cooktop position is routinely chosen to suit the ductwork rather than the kitchen design, which is a significant inversion of how layout decisions should work.

Recirculating extraction in a BORA system requires no external duct run at all. The Pure Family models fit into standard kitchen base cabinets between 60 and 90 centimetres wide at an installation height of under 20 centimetres, meaning the cooktop-extractor combination goes wherever the cabinetry goes. The BORA S Pure, the most compact model at 580 x 515 x 199mm, is built specifically for kitchens where space is the primary constraint, sitting in the same 60cm footprint as a standard single base unit. Kitchens previously limited to wall-mounted cooktops by the absence of viable overhead ductwork become island-capable. The cooktop serves the layout. The layout no longer serves the hood.

Willi Bruckbauer filed his first patent in 2006 and opened BORA the following year with a stated aim that has never changed: the end of the extractor hood. The five reasons above are not new discoveries. The physics of overhead extraction, the noise levels, the grease dispersal, the cleaning friction, and the layout constraints have been present in every range hood installed over the past 70 years. The BORA Pure Family, with its updated matt Schott glass, tri-colour sControl+ touch interface, smartphone-connected Assist cooking functions, and four size configurations from 58cm to 83cm, is the most complete argument yet that none of those trade-offs were ever necessary to accept.

The post 5 Reasons Your Kitchen’s Range Hood Is Already Obsolete first appeared on Yanko Design.

A Designer Just Gave the Sandwich Maker the Concept It Deserved

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Small appliances are the forgotten middle children of industrial design. We obsess over espresso machines and standing mixers, but the humble sandwich maker? It usually gets whatever plastic shell a product team could push through engineering fast enough to hit a price point. That’s exactly why Dogac Can Sagirosmanoglu’s sandwich maker concept caught my attention, and I suspect it’s catching a lot more than mine.

Sagirosmanoglu is a Lead Industrial Designer based in Istanbul, and he posted this concept project on Behance, where the numbers speak for themselves: over 560,000 views and more than 4,000 appreciations. For a sandwich maker concept. That response says less about novelty and more about something the design community rarely applies to small countertop appliances: genuine intention.

Designer: Dogac Can Sagirosmanoglu

The concept is presented under the Beko name, though it exists as a portfolio project rather than an officially announced product. That distinction matters, but it doesn’t make the design any less compelling. If anything, it makes it more interesting. A designer working within the constraints of a real brand’s visual language, applying that kind of care to a product category that nobody asked him to elevate, is a different kind of creative statement than a fully unconstrained concept. It says something about what he thinks good design actually owes the everyday object.

The design itself carries the kind of restraint that only looks effortless after a lot of work. Clean lines, a minimal form language, and a clear understanding that this object will live on someone’s kitchen counter, which means it has to look right whether it’s in use or not. Most sandwich makers are things you hide in a cabinet. This one looks like it was designed to stay out. That shift in thinking, from kitchen tool you tolerate to one you actually want to see, is a more significant design decision than it sounds.

There’s also something honest about the proportions. This isn’t a concept that drifts into fantasy, all floating surfaces and materials that will never survive a production line. It feels buildable. Considered. The kind of design where you can tell the person behind it was asking whether every decision was earning its place, rather than simply asking whether it looked good in a render.

I’ll admit I’m personally drawn to small appliance design right now. We’ve reached a moment where the home, and specifically the kitchen, has become a genuine expression of identity for a lot of people. Social media has made countertops aspirational real estate. The appliances sitting on them aren’t invisible anymore, and the industry is only just beginning to catch up to that shift. Concepts like this one feel like someone who understands that change and is designing accordingly, even before the brief exists to demand it.

It’s also worth noting that this kind of work, a concept developed with real brand context and real production sensibility, is increasingly how design culture moves forward. The conversation doesn’t only happen at Milan or in the pages of Wallpaper. It happens on Behance, where a designer in Istanbul can rack up half a million views on a sandwich maker concept and start a conversation that ripples through the industry. That’s genuinely exciting, and more democratizing than most design institutions would like to admit.

The bigger question this concept raises is why we settled for so long. Kitchen appliances are touched multiple times a day. They shape the experience of a space we spend real, meaningful time in. A sandwich maker that someone put thoughtful effort into isn’t a luxury, it’s just respect for the user. And once you see a design that gets it right, the ones that don’t become very difficult to look at.

Sagirosmanoglu’s sandwich maker concept doesn’t solve every problem with small appliance design. But it makes a compelling argument that someone should be trying. Whether or not it ever gets made, that argument is already winning.

The post A Designer Just Gave the Sandwich Maker the Concept It Deserved first appeared on Yanko Design.

Eufy Just Built a Robot Vacuum With a Built-In Fragrance Air Freshener, and it’s Absolute Genius

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The champagne-bronze cylindrical base station in Eufy’s product photos does something most robot vacuum marketing images fail to do: it makes the thing look like it belongs in a well-designed home. The category has long defaulted to black plastic towers and aggressive venting grilles, the visual language of utility appliances that you hide in a laundry closet. Eufy’s Omni S2 system has clearly been styled to sit in the open, the tall dock finished in warm metallic tones that read more like a Dyson or a premium air purifier than a cleaning robot. That aesthetic ambition signals something about where Eufy wants to position this product, and it’s worth paying attention to.

The hardware underneath backs up the posturing. The S2 runs 30,000 Pa of suction through a multi-cyclone airflow system that Eufy calls AeroTurbo 2.0, pairs it with a HydroJet 2.0 roller mop that self-cleans during operation, and adds a fragrance diffuser capable of dispensing Citrus and Basil or Bamboo and Sage throughout the room as it works. The CleanMind AI navigates without a LiDAR tower, recognizing over 200 obstacle types through RGB vision, and the accompanying UniClean station handles dust collection, mop washing, drying, and refilling across a 68-day maintenance window. This is Eufy’s bid to be taken seriously at €1,499, competing directly against Roborock and Ecovacs flagships that have owned the top shelf for the last few years.

Designer: Eufy (Anker Innovations)

The fragrance diffuser deserves more than a passing mention because it represents a genuine category first. No flagship from Roborock, Ecovacs, or Narwal has shipped this feature, and the fact that Eufy built it into the robot rather than the dock is a deliberate design choice. The diffuser module is interchangeable, with three scent options available at launch, and it activates on request rather than running continuously, which is the right call. A robot that dumps fragrance into every room on every cleaning cycle would get exhausting fast. Treating it as an on-demand ambient feature gives the user control over the experience, and that restraint reflects a level of UX thinking that budget-era Eufy products rarely demonstrated.

The CleanMind AI system powering the S2’s navigation is equally notable for what it eliminates. Removing the LiDAR turret, that rotating sensor tower that sits on top of most premium robots, was Eufy’s defining engineering bet with the S1 generation, and it paid off both aesthetically and practically. The S2’s low, angular profile fits under more furniture than competitors with turrets, and the RGB-based vision system now handles over 200 object categories, up from roughly 100 in the S1 Pro. The second product image Eufy released shows this in action: cables, slippers, cups, and folded towels each flagged with category icons as the robot plots its path around them. The visual is almost diagrammatic in its clarity, and it communicates the system’s capability faster than any spec sheet would.

The generational jump from the S1 Pro to the S2 is substantial on paper. Suction goes from 8,000 Pa to 30,000 Pa, the mop system gains additional pressure and rotation speed, the dock expands from 10-in-1 to 12-in-1 automation, and the maintenance interval stretches to 68 days. Eufy received a CES 2026 Innovation Award Honoree for the S2 before it had even launched commercially, which at minimum confirms that the industry was paying attention. Whether real-world performance matches the specification sheet is a question only extended testing will answer, and early reviews from European outlets suggest the mopping performance is genuinely competitive while obstacle avoidance still has occasional gaps with small or low-contrast objects.

At €1,499, the Omni S2 is priced squarely against the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra and Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni, robots that have held the premium conversation for the better part of two years. Eufy’s strongest argument is not that it out-specs those competitors in every category, but that it packages competitive cleaning performance inside a system that looks like it was designed for the room it operates in, adds an ambient experience layer nobody else offers, and maintains that 68-day hands-off window that turns a high-maintenance appliance into something that actually recedes into the background. The robot vacuum category has spent years chasing full automation as its north star. Eufy’s move is to ask what happens after you get there, and the answer, apparently, smells like bergamot and lychee.

The post Eufy Just Built a Robot Vacuum With a Built-In Fragrance Air Freshener, and it’s Absolute Genius first appeared on Yanko Design.

Xiaomi’s $80 Air Fryer Can Steam, Sous Vide, and Air Fry, Giving You A Crisp Outside and Juicy Inside

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There is a reason professional bakers spray water into their ovens right before a loaf goes in. Steam in the early stages of baking keeps the crust elastic long enough for the bread to fully rise before it sets, and then as the moisture burns off, the outside crisps up hard and crackly while the inside stays open and soft. Xiaomi applied that same principle to an air fryer, which sounds obvious in hindsight but somehow took the entire appliance industry a decade to get around to trying. The result is the Mijia Smart Air Fryer Pro Steam and Bake Edition, a 6.5-liter machine that launched on Youpin in March for around $80.

We covered Smeg’s steam-equipped air fryer concept out of Milan Design Week back in April, and the reaction told us something useful: people are genuinely ready for this idea. The hardware behind Xiaomi’s take is straightforward but well thought out. A 1.5-liter water tank sits on top of the unit and feeds a 900W steam generator capable of reaching 130 degrees Celsius, with enough output to run seven continuous dishes before needing a refill. Combined with a conventional 1,850W heating element and a 360-degree hot air circulation system, you get a machine that can switch between dry heat and humid heat within the same cooking cycle. The 304 stainless steel interior handles the moisture without corroding, and the fluorine-free non-stick basket makes cleanup considerably less painful than you might expect from something that gets regularly steamed.

Designer: Xiaomi

Steam-fry and sous vide are the two modes that actually push past what any conventional air fryer can do, rather than just relabeling the same hot-air cycle with a fancier name. Steam-fry layers humid and dry heat in sequence, holding just enough moisture in the chamber to slow surface dehydration while the heat pushes deeper into the food, which is exactly how you get chicken wings that crack rather than just brown. The sous vide mode holds a low, stable temperature over a long period using the water tank as its medium, something a dry-heat machine physically cannot fake its way through. The full temperature range runs from 30 to 230 degrees Celsius with NTC precise control, which in practice means the same machine handles yogurt fermentation at the low end and a proper sear at the high end, a spread that no single-mode appliance on its own can match.

A 234mm horizontal interior sounds like a spec sheet abstraction until you realize it fits a whole chicken, 24 wings, or nine steamed buns in a single load, and the dual-layer rack splits that cavity between two dishes cooking simultaneously at different heights without either one stealing heat from the other. The 1,850W heating element drives the hot air side of things hard enough to cut sausage cooking time to eight minutes versus the twenty-odd you’d wait in a conventional oven, and the 360-degree circulation keeps that heat moving evenly rather than pooling at one side of the basket. Scheduling a cook 24 hours out through Mi Home, or pulling from a library of over 100 cloud recipes, means dinner can be running before you’ve even thought about what you want to eat. The OLED interactive knob handles everything manually for anyone who’d rather just twist a dial than pull out a phone, which is the kind of small considered detail that keeps a smart appliance from feeling like a chore.

The Mijia Pro is crowdfunding in China at 559 yuan, around $81, with a planned retail price of 749 yuan, roughly $109. Smeg’s steam air fryer, by contrast, is a concept with no confirmed price and a launch window no earlier than late 2026. Dreame’s Feast DS50, which takes a different approach to the same problem through dual-zone independent airflow rather than steam, is priced at $229 for its North American launch. Xiaomi is delivering a technically comparable answer to the same cooking challenge at a fraction of that price, in a machine that is already shipping in China and building toward a global rollout. The steam air fryer category is real, it has momentum, and the most affordable entry point currently has a Xiaomi logo on it

The post Xiaomi’s $80 Air Fryer Can Steam, Sous Vide, and Air Fry, Giving You A Crisp Outside and Juicy Inside first appeared on Yanko Design.

10 Best Kitchen Tools and Appliances Designed to Live on Your Counter, Not in Your Cupboard

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The kitchen counter is prime real estate. Most appliances waste it, sitting there looking generic and visually forgettable until they get pushed to the back and eventually into a box. A smaller category of kitchen objects earns that space differently. They are worth looking at, whether in use or not. The ten products here belong to that category, and each one makes a quiet but convincing case for staying exactly where it is.

The question has never really been about function alone. It is about form meeting function so completely that putting the object away would feel like a loss. A Dutch oven with architectural presence. A kettle that handles like nothing you have owned before. A grater shaped like a curled sheet of paper. These are not kitchen tools that happen to look good. They are objects that happened to end up in the kitchen and have no intention of leaving.

1. Smeg Air Fryer + Steam

Smeg’s origins are in enamel technology, not the candy-colored kitchen appliances the brand became famous for. At Milan Design Week 2026, the Italian company debuted a concept air fryer that brings genuine cooking innovation to a form that could hold its own in any design-forward kitchen. The fryer opens from the top rather than the front, its lid ejecting at the press of a button to reveal a 7-liter basket, an exposed heating coil, and a tinted black visor that lets you see inside while it works.

What separates it from the broader category is a built-in steam function. A removable water cartridge feeds moisture into the basket via a top-mounted nozzle, creating an environment where food crisps on the outside while retaining moisture within. Chicken wings come out with a fried texture and no oil. Bread develops the kind of crust usually reserved for a professional oven. Currently a concept with no confirmed launch before 2027, it already sets the benchmark for where the category is heading.

What we like

  • The steam function produces results that no standard air fryer can replicate
  • The top-opening form and enameled body make it worthy of permanent counter placement

What we dislike

  • Not available to purchase, with no confirmed launch before 2027
  • Bold color options lean maximalist, which won’t suit every kitchen aesthetic

2. Playful Palm Grater

Most kitchen tools that try to be playful end up decorative and useless. The Playful Palm Grater avoids that completely. Designed to look like a sheet of paper curled at one corner, its form solves the ergonomic problem that plagues standard graters: it sits inside the palm of your hand, keeps knuckles clear of the surface, and contains what you are grating rather than scattering it across the counter. The object makes a strong aesthetic case while being entirely serious about its purpose.

At $25, it is the price anchor of this list and arguably its sharpest surprise. Guests who pick it up typically ask what it is before they realise it is a grater, which is the clearest signal that the design is working at the level it intends to. Hard cheese, citrus zest, ginger, chocolate: it handles all of it without protest. It also stores flat, so the playfulness does not come at the cost of practicality.

Click Here to Buy Now: $25

What we like

  • Palm-hold grip makes grating more controlled than any flat or box grater alternative
  • A genuine design achievement delivered at a $25 price point

What we dislike

  • Compact surface area limits it to small-quantity grating tasks
  • Not suited for bulk preparation, where a larger, fixed grater would serve better

3. Mitsubishi Bread Oven

The Mitsubishi Bread Oven exists at the opposite end of the appliance spectrum from multi-function, multi-mode, multi-button. It does one thing: toast a single slice of bread to a standard that no conventional toaster approaches. It’s a sealed, thermally insulated chamber that locks moisture in during the process, producing a slice that is crisp at the edges and genuinely fluffy at the center. The boxy silhouette and matte finish make it look less like a toaster and more like an object recovered from a mid-century Japanese archive.

For anyone serious about morning rituals, it rewires the relationship between bread and appliance entirely. One slice goes in, and a considered, unhurried result comes out. Its compact footprint occupies less counter space than most four-slice toasters while commanding considerably more visual presence. The Bread Oven is the kind of appliance that prompts questions from anyone who enters your kitchen, not because it looks complicated, but because it looks so deliberately, confidently simple.

What we like

  • A sealed thermal chamber produces toast that no pop-up toaster can replicate
  • Minimal Japanese form earns counter presence through restraint rather than spectacle

What we dislike

  • Limited to a single slice at a time, which doesn’t suit households cooking for multiple people

4. BØYD Espresso Machine

The BØYD Espresso Machine is a coffee machine that reads as modern sculpture before it reads as equipment. Its smooth curves and pure lines result from stripping the object back to what the design actually requires. No panel clutter, no unnecessary controls. Just form shaped around the daily ritual of pulling a shot, and a counter presence that justifies every centimeter it occupies.

It belongs to a growing movement of coffee equipment that treats the counter as an extension of living space rather than a working surface. BØYD understands that an espresso machine is often the first thing reached for in the morning and the last object you look at before leaving the kitchen. Making that object worth looking at is not superficial. It is the point. For a home barista who cares as much about the counter as the cup, BØYD answers both without compromise.

What we like

  • Sculptural form elevates the morning coffee ritual beyond the purely functional
  • Minimal interface keeps the countertop visually clean and uncluttered

What we dislike

  • The stripped-back aesthetic works best in kitchens that can match its visual confidence
  • Design restraint offers little warmth for kitchens that lean more traditional in character

5. FineLine Aluminum Chopsticks

Chopsticks are rarely considered as design objects in Western kitchens, which is precisely the space the FineLine Aluminum Chopsticks occupy. Machined from aluminum with a finish that sits somewhere between tool and instrument, they bring the same material confidence to the table that a well-made knife brings to the counter. For everyday use, the grip is secure and the balance calibrated enough that switching from wooden chopsticks feels immediately like a step worth taking.

Left beside the matching chopstick rest, they form a composition rather than a cutlery arrangement. That distinction makes them worth the counter space: they are objects you would display even without daily use. Aluminum resists staining and absorbs minimal heat, so hot dishes do not require the caution that some metal utensils demand. The design is one of those cases where the material logic and the aesthetic argument arrive at the same answer.

Click Here to Buy Now: $30.00

What we like

  • Machined aluminum delivers a material precision and weight that wooden chopsticks cannot match
  • The finish reads as a considered object rather than a utensil, earning a counter display

What we dislike

  • Aluminum conducts heat, which can be uncomfortable with very hot food over an extended period of contact
  • The refined finish requires careful washing to maintain its quality over time

6. Kenwood Go Compact Stand Mixer

The stand mixer has always been a counter occupant by necessity rather than by design. They are large, heavy, and most look like they belong in a professional bakery. Kenwood’s Go Compact reframes the category. It packages the performance of a full stand mixer into a footprint small enough to coexist with everything else on a compact counter without requiring the kitchen to reorganize itself around one machine.

Its value is in the everyday bake rather than the occasional showpiece production. It handles the mechanical work of mixing dough, whipping cream, or folding batter without demanding that the kitchen dedicate itself to the task. That restraint in form, paired with Kenwood’s track record for motor reliability, makes it a counter object rather than a stored appliance. Compact proportions mean it stays where it sits, ready for the next session, without becoming a visual intrusion between uses.

What we like

  • Compact footprint genuinely rethinks the stand mixer for smaller kitchens without sacrificing performance
  • Kenwood’s motor reliability means the scaled-down size doesn’t compromise on results

What we dislike

  • Smaller bowl capacity limits batch sizes for high-volume or professional-scale baking sessions
  • Can feel less stable than full-size alternatives when working with particularly stiff doughs

7. JIA Inc. Rolling Mortar

The mortar and pestle have been functionally unchanged for roughly 35,000 years, which is either a testament to the design or an invitation to rethink it. JIA Inc., a Taiwan-based design brand, chose the second view. Their Rolling Mortar replaces the vertical pounding motion with a rolling action: a stone sphere moves across a curved ceramic base, grinding herbs and spices through rotation rather than force. The gesture is more intuitive, considerably less tiring, and far more interesting to watch.

On a counter, it reads as a sculptural object long before it reads as a kitchen tool. The sphere and base form a self-contained composition that earns its space whether in use or not. Fresh pesto, ground spices, crushed garlic: the results are consistent, and the process is more enjoyable than the traditional method. It also cleans easily, which is the practical detail that tends to close the case for anyone still on the fence.

What we like

  • The rolling mechanism reduces the physical effort of traditional pounding significantly
  • The sphere-and-base composition is sculptural enough to justify permanent counter display

What we dislike

  • Slower than traditional methods for particularly coarse or hard spices, requiring significant force
  • The sphere needs adequate clearance to move freely, demanding more counter space during active use

8. Toru Kettle

Nendo’s design work is consistent in one quality: it takes a familiar object, finds the assumption buried inside it, and quietly dissolves it. With the Toru kettle for Alessi, that assumption is how a kettle is held. Rather than a handle attached to the side, a black tube runs through the body of the stainless-steel vessel, becoming the grip itself. Toru means “through” in Japanese, and the name describes the design principle with complete accuracy.

Alessi’s metalworking precision is evident in the finish, and the contrast between the brushed steel body and the matte black tube creates a tonal balance that reads as sculpture before it reads as kitchen equipment. On the counter, it occupies the same visual register as a considered ceramic object or a well-made vase. Boiling water in it feels slightly ceremonial, which is not incidental to the design. Nendo and Alessi intended the daily ritual to feel like one.

What we like

  • The through-handle design transforms a routine gesture into something worth noticing every morning
  • Alessi’s metalworking gives it a material quality that mass-market kettles cannot replicate

What we dislike

  • The unconventional grip takes some adjustment, particularly when pouring with precision
  • The stainless and matte-black palette, while refined, can feel cool in warmer-toned kitchens

9. Hesslebach Dutch Oven

The Dutch oven is the kitchen’s most honest piece of cookware. It travels from stovetop to oven to table without changing character, and the finest examples improve with use rather than degrade with it. HK Kim’s Hesslebach takes that functional lineage and applies a design sensibility that treats the vessel as an object worth placing rather than simply setting down. Its counter presence communicates something deliberate about the kitchen it occupies, a quality very few pieces of cookware achieve.

A well-made Dutch oven retains and distributes heat in a way that makes slow-cooked dishes genuinely superior in result. Braises develop deeper flavor, bread develops a crust that rivals a professional deck oven, and soups reach a depth of reduction that stovetop-only pots rarely match. The Hesslebach is built to that standard, and its form carries the confidence of its material. Left on the counter between sessions, it functions as an aesthetic anchor for the kitchen space around it.

What we like

  • Heat retention and distribution deliver cooking results that lighter cookware simply cannot match
  • A form confident enough to remain on the counter between uses without apology

What we dislike

  • Weight and material density demand more deliberate handling than lighter everyday cookware
  • The investment required places it well above casual kitchen upgrade territory

10. FineLine Chopstick Rest

The chopstick rest is the punctuation mark of a table setting: small enough to be overlooked, significant enough to shift the character of everything around it. The FineLine Chopstick Rest is machined from the same aluminum as the chopsticks it accompanies, creating a material consistency across the table that reads as intentional rather than assembled. Its form is architecturally proportioned, a precisely angled piece that holds the chopsticks cleanly off any surface.

What it does for the FineLine chopsticks is what any well-designed accessory does for its counterpart: it completes the object. Chopsticks left flat on a table look forgotten. Placed on a form machined to hold them, they look arranged. That distinction carries through to the counter, where rest and chopsticks together become the kind of small arrangement that makes a kitchen feel curated rather than accumulated. Very few objects at this price point deliver that quality of visual return.

Click Here to Buy Now: $20.00

What we like

  • Machined aluminum matches the FineLine chopsticks precisely, creating a coherent tabletop object
  • The angled form elevates the chopsticks from a utensil to a display piece between uses

What we dislike

  • Designed specifically around the FineLine chopsticks, which limits pairing with other styles
  • The minimal form is unforgiving if placed on a visually cluttered or busy surface

The Objects That Stay

A kitchen that looks considered doesn’t happen through a single purchase. It accumulates through a sequence of decisions, each one small enough to seem insignificant until the room starts to reflect them. The ten objects here span different categories, different price points, and different materials. What they share is a refusal to be hidden away. Each one earns its counter space not through function alone but through the integrity of its form.

The Smeg fryer shows where cooking technology is heading. The Mitsubishi Bread Oven shows what happens when a brand stops trying to do everything. The Toru Kettle shows that the most familiar object in a kitchen can still be entirely rethought. The rest follow the same logic: that good design and daily use are not competing priorities. They are, at their very best, the same thing.

The post 10 Best Kitchen Tools and Appliances Designed to Live on Your Counter, Not in Your Cupboard first appeared on Yanko Design.

The LUMO Grill Cooks With Light, Heats in Seconds, and Brings Charcoal Flavor Without the Smoke

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The George Foreman Grill sold more than a hundred million units, which tells you everything about how badly people want to cook without the setup, the smoke, and the outdoor requirement. What that number fails to explain is why, after thirty years of competing products, the fundamental problem remains unsolved. Every electric contact grill since 1994 has operated on the same basic principle: a hot plate pressing food against another hot plate, dripping grease onto a heating element, producing varying degrees of smoke and varying degrees of disappointment. The category has iterated endlessly on that geometry, adding digital timers and non-stick coatings and fold-flat designs, without ever questioning the physics underneath. Hong Kong startup COZYTIME is questioning them with the LUMO, a grill that cooks with focused far-infrared light instead of contact heat, and the approach changes the smoke problem by addressing it at the source.

Four precision reflectors focus infrared energy at food from multiple angles simultaneously, creating 360-degree heat coverage that cooks evenly from edge to center while retaining moisture, unlike hot-air convection heating, which dehydrates food. The side-mounted heating elements keep grease physically separated from any heat source, so drippings fall into a grease tray rather than the heating tube, preventing smoke from forming at the source. No filters, no fans, no workarounds. An AI system called CookPilot uses AI Vision and two built-in sensors to automatically detect food type, thickness, surface area, temperature, and weight, then selects the ideal cooking program from a library covering over 40 food types. A swappable Flavor Module lets you add authentic smoked taste to any cook by loading pellet fuels into the module, inserting it into the LUMO, and switching to Indoor Smoker Mode, where the enclosed chamber traps and circulates smoke around the food while a tight seal keeps the home clean. COZYTIME is pricing the LUMO at $329, against a retail price of $499. This pricing is exclusively available to crowdfunding backers, and the campaign will end on May 23! If you’re interested in LUMO, pledge now before it’s gone!

Designer: COZYTIME

Click Here to Buy Now: $329 $499 (34% off). Hurry, only 159/500 left! Raised over $344,000.

We covered LUMO hands-on at CES 2026 and came away calling it “genuinely novel in a category that’s seen mostly incremental tweaks for decades.” Far-infrared radiation transfers energy directly into food molecules rather than heating surrounding air first, which is how the LUMO reaches cooking temperature in a fraction of a second, using four precision reflectors to deliver full surround heating from multiple angles, cooking up to 4x faster than traditional appliances, without long preheat times or outdoor setups. Traditional contact grills heat the plate and then conduct that energy into the protein surface, a fundamentally different thermal pathway that drives more moisture out of food in the process. COZYTIME claims the infrared approach locks in 76.6 percent of natural food juices compared to conventional methods, a figure that, if it holds in real kitchen conditions, represents an actual cooking outcome improvement rather than a specification exercise. The four-reflector geometry is the physical enabler: each reflector focuses infrared energy at the food surface from a distinct angle, eliminating cold zones and removing any need to flip.

The unit handles thick steaks, skewers, quick snacks, large dinners, and even pizza, thanks to its TriForma StateShift System that allows for three different grill modes. In Indoor Smoker Mode, enclosed heating circulates warmth evenly to a maximum of 230°C (446°F), mimicking a full oven capable of pizza, casseroles, and slow-roasted steaks, and pairs with the Flavor Module for authentic smoked dishes like tender beef brisket. Fast Grill Mode hits a maximum of 270°C (518°F), where the semi-open lid concentrates heat for rapid grilling and juice-locking, delivering steakhouse-quality flavor in minutes, ideal for weeknight meals when time is short but standards aren’t. Flat Grill Mode opens to 180 degrees, creating two independent heating zones, so you can grill steaks on one side at high heat while roasting vegetables on the other, with no batch cooking and no waiting, which makes it particularly suited to dinner parties. Two heat zones running independently in a single countertop footprint is the kind of practical design decision that sounds obvious in retrospect but rarely makes it into a consumer appliance.

LUMO’s most compelling trick may be how seriously it treats flavor, because this is one of the more thoughtful attempts yet at bringing authentic charcoal-style cooking indoors. Plenty of indoor grills promise grill marks, very few deal convincingly with the taste itself. COZYTIME approaches that problem with a dedicated Flavor Module that burns pellets inside the unit’s enclosed chamber, allowing smoke to circulate around the food while the side-heat architecture keeps grease from hitting the heating elements and creating unwanted kitchen smoke. That separation is what makes the idea work. You get the smoky, grilled character people actually associate with charcoal cooking, without turning the room into part of the process. With the Flavor Module attached, the Heat Slider heats wood pellets to release rich smoky flavor during cooking, and when slid out with the griddle plate, it doubles as a high-heat searing surface for deep browning, crisp crusts, and smaller tasks like melting cheese or simmering sauces. LUMO also uses AI Vision to recognize different meats and automatically adjust heat and cooking time to match preferred doneness, from blue rare to well-done. Food-contact surfaces are made exclusively of premium food-grade stainless steel.

The LUMO app adds a layer of control that makes the grill feel more like a connected cooking platform than a standalone appliance. It offers three recipe paths, including curated official recipes from a cloud library, fully custom recipes with adjustable time and temperature for each step, and one-click AI-generated recipes created by CookPilot, with any recipe shareable through a code or posted to the LUMO community. From the app, users can track cooking progress and food status in real time, adjust temperature and timing remotely, and get notified when food is ready. That flexibility extends to the accessory ecosystem too. COZYTIME currently offers nine add-ons in total, including six cooking accessories and three additional accessories designed to broaden what the LUMO can do day to day. On the cooking side, there’s a wireless meat thermometer for real-time core temperature tracking, flavorwood pellets for smoke infusion through the Flavor Module, an extra stainless grill grate for back-to-back cooking, a fine mesh grill grate for smaller foods like shrimp and asparagus, and a Heat Slider griddle plate for intense high-heat searing up to 450°C.

Outside the cooking accessories, COZYTIME also offers a travel bag for transport and storage, plus extended coverage options for added peace of mind. Cleanup remains refreshingly low-friction, with food only touching stainless grill grates and grease trays that lift out for a quick wipe or rinse, while detachable parts are dishwasher-safe and the side-heat architecture keeps grease away from chamber walls, minimizing residue elsewhere in the unit. At 14.3 pounds, the LUMO is still portable enough to move between kitchen counter, balcony, and dining table without feeling like a project.

Retail pricing sits at $499, with the current order price at $329 – that’s a 34% reduction off the MSRP.Every unit ships with the LUMO itself with built-in Heat Slider, a region-appropriate power cord, a user manual, two stainless steel grill grates, the Flavor Module, two detachable grease trays, and a grill grate lifter. Shipping is free across the United States (excluding PR, HI, and AK), Canada, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe starting July 2026.

Click Here to Buy Now: $329 $499 (34% off). Hurry, only 159/500 left! Raised over $344,000.

The post The LUMO Grill Cooks With Light, Heats in Seconds, and Brings Charcoal Flavor Without the Smoke first appeared on Yanko Design.

This AC Does 5 Jobs at Once and Looks Like Furniture on Your Wall

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The split air conditioner is one of the least loved objects in any home, which is a strange thing to say about something most people couldn’t live without. It works, technically, but it tends to make its presence known in all the wrong ways. The air is too direct, the noise is a constant background irritant, and the plastic box on the wall rarely belongs in any thoughtfully designed interior.

From that frustration comes WellFlow, a concept that reframes what air conditioning is supposed to do for the people living around it. Rather than engineering a better cooling box, the designers built something closer to a wellness device. It’s a concept that received validation through the iF Design Award in 2026 and was first revealed at IFA Berlin 2025.

Designer: Merve Nur Sökmen, Zehra Sarıarslan

The most immediate shift is in how air actually moves. Conventional units push output in one direction, landing directly on whoever is in the room. WellFlow uses four-way diffusion to spread conditioned air from all sides without targeting anyone in particular. Sensors also monitor occupancy and steer airflow accordingly, so the unit quietly adapts to the room rather than expecting the room to tolerate it.

Beyond airflow, the system also handles humidity, air purity, ambient lighting, and sound. A built-in humidifier balances moisture levels rather than leaving the air artificially dry, which is one of the most common complaints about running a conventional unit through the night. Circadian lighting and integrated speakers complete the picture, creating conditions that support sleeping, concentrating, or quietly winding down, depending on what the moment calls for.

All of this adjusts automatically. The system continuously monitors temperature, humidity, and air quality, then fine-tunes its output without any manual input. A baby’s room needs different conditions than a home office or a gym corner, and WellFlow is designed to recognize those differences. Its behavior was shaped through user research spanning new parents, older adults, and people with respiratory sensitivities, groups that conventional air conditioners routinely fail to address.

The physical form is just as deliberate as the behavior. Most air conditioners are conspicuously technical, with plastic housings that fight against any interior aesthetic. WellFlow uses a woven textile front panel with rounded corners and a matte finish, giving it a material quality far more associated with furniture than appliances. An ambient light halo behind the unit softly signals its presence on the wall without demanding any attention.

A pull-out front filter makes maintenance visible and intuitive, addressing something the design team identified as a recurring trust issue with conventional units. People often aren’t sure when or how to clean their filters, and that uncertainty quietly chips away at confidence in the device. WellFlow removes that ambiguity. For a machine designed around human comfort, even that seemingly small detail ends up mattering quite a lot.

The post This AC Does 5 Jobs at Once and Looks Like Furniture on Your Wall first appeared on Yanko Design.

Fellow Just Designed the Espresso Machine Beginners Always Wanted

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While I really do love coffee, I do not have the tools at home to experiment with different espresso pulls and make my own espresso-based drinks. So I always end up just buying drinks from my favorite coffee shops. Every time I get the urge to actually buy my own machine, the fact that machines seem so complicated stops me from building my own home coffee bar.

The Espresso Series 1 by Fellow, the first home espresso machine from the coffee equipment brand, is positioned as a premium semi-automatic machine that bridges the gap between professional-level performance and approachability. This means that whether you are a beginner in the home coffee game or you are an expert, you will be able to appreciate the features that this machine brings.

Designer: Fellow

Before we even talk about what it does, let’s talk about what it looks like, because this machine is genuinely beautiful. Fellow has always been known for its clean, minimal aesthetic, and the Espresso Series 1 is no different. It comes in a sleek matte black finish with a painted ABS outer wrap, and the portafilter features a real wood accent that gives it a warm, premium feel. The three piano-style buttons for brew, steam, and hot water sit flush against the front panel, keeping things looking uncluttered and intentional. There is also a rubberized cup-warming mat on top, which is a small but thoughtful detail that makes it feel more like a café machine than a home appliance. With dimensions of 12.4 inches wide, 11 inches tall, and 17.25 inches deep, it has a compact footprint that would sit beautifully on any countertop without overwhelming the space.

One thing that I appreciate about this machine is that the full-color LCD display will walk you through your entire brewing process. It can tell you if your shot ran too fast or too slow and can even suggest grind adjustments you can make. As a noob, this would be truly helpful if I ever got something like this. It also gives you customizable profiling including pressure, pre-infusion, brew temperature, and steam pressure, so as your skills grow, the machine grows with you.

Another feature worth highlighting is its patented Boosted Boiler system. It has a three-part heating system: a flow-through heater, a 225ml boiler, and a dedicated group head heater. This system works together to give you to-the-degree temperature stability and near-instant transitions between brewing and steaming. The warm-up time is also impressively fast at under two minutes, so you are not standing around waiting for your machine to be ready before your first morning cup.

Speaking of steaming, the steam wand comes with auto-purge and auto-stop functions, which are features typically found in high-end café machines. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of steaming milk, which is something that intimidates a lot of beginners (myself very much included). Whether you are going for a flat white, a latte, or a cappuccino, having a wand that practically guides you through the process is a huge plus.

The Espresso Series 1 also connects to Wi-Fi and syncs with the Fellow app, where you can save, download, and share espresso profiles with other users. You can download brewing profiles built specifically for certain coffee roasts, which is incredibly useful when you are still learning how different variables affect your shot. It turns espresso-making into something closer to a community experience, where you can learn from other home baristas and experiment with profiles without having to start from scratch every time.

From a materials standpoint, Fellow did not cut any corners. The boiler, portafilter, and baskets are all food-grade stainless steel, the water lines are reinforced silicone, and the entire machine is BPA and PFAS-free throughout. For anyone who is conscious about what their beverages come into contact with, this is a meaningful detail that is genuinely worth calling out. The machine also uses a commercial-standard 58mm portafilter, which means it is compatible with a wide range of third-party baskets, tampers, and accessories. So as you go deeper down the espresso rabbit hole, you have the freedom to upgrade and personalize your setup without being locked into proprietary parts.

Priced at $1,499, the Fellow Espresso Series 1 is definitely an investment. But for everything it offers, from guided brewing and app connectivity to professional-grade temperature control and a genuinely beautiful design, it makes a compelling case for itself. If you have been putting off building your home coffee bar because espresso machines have always felt too intimidating or too technical, this might just be the one that finally changes your mind. It certainly has me reconsidering my morning coffee shop run.

The post Fellow Just Designed the Espresso Machine Beginners Always Wanted first appeared on Yanko Design.