Versatile Volvo Lifestyler trolley adapts to homeowners’ dynamic needs

Smart furniture and modern-day gadgets have made their unique space in modern living for good measure. So, how about fusing these two for a piece of furniture that’s mobile and ultra-compact?

This proposed trolley concept for Volvo, strives to inculcate a broad spectrum of options into one rig, so you don’t have to buy multiple products. One of the great advantages is space-saving aesthetics that outshine any other merit, on any given day.

Designer: PDF Haus

Conventionally Volvo would refrain from creating any sort of smart furniture, but if they reconsider, this Lifestyler trolley would be it. Focusing on work-from-home regimes keeping the environment and futureproofing in mind, the smart furniture piece comes with the brand’s focus on safety. The rig naturally blends into your lifestyle and expands the options for use courtesy of its flexible usability.

There’s enhanced work support with the Workpad to quickly take notes or manipulate the application interface with touch. This works in conjunction with the storage tray that adapts to the preset daily routines. The functionality is further expanded with a smart alarm & clock to keep a check on To-Do lists or schedules. Lighting on the trolley can also be toggled depending on the situation, such as during work, study, or creative leisure tasks such as painting.

The trolley can morph into multiple configurations, thus making it well-suited for any office, home office, or accompanying workstation desk. All the different smart modes can be toggled via a touch interface marked P, D, M and R. On the back side, there is space to keep important files and documents without any visual intrusion. The cables are also cleanly managed on the bottom rear to eliminate any visual clutter. Those bigger trays on the inside can also be configured according to need with the space separators to keep everything organized as desired.

The post Versatile Volvo Lifestyler trolley adapts to homeowners’ dynamic needs first appeared on Yanko Design.

IKEA meets Tesla in these tech-enhanced furniture designed to make your home a smart one!

I truly believe the right furniture designs make or break a home! After all, furniture is an integral part of any home, it sets the tone for it and contributes to the essence of the home. You can express your tastes, preferences, and personality via the furniture pieces you choose for your living space. They are an extension of you. Now, as pleasing as aesthetic and visually intriguing furniture designs can be, people are now shifting towards furniture designs that are more focused on function and utility (that simply put make our lives a whole lot easier) and one such interesting genre is Smart Furniture! Tech-enhanced furniture is a whole new ballgame, catering to our multiple needs, and making our daily lives more comfortable. From smart work desks that run on food waste to smart beds that charge our devices and come along with an integrated home theatre system, smart furniture is in a league of its own! They’re an explosive meeting of IKEA and Tesla! And, we’re exploring a few super innovative and unique designs today.

The Hariana Tech Smart Ultimate Bed was designed to have everything you will need to relax within your bed frame. It has an integrated reclining massage chair with a remote, a built-in Bluetooth speaker, a bookshelf, a reading lamp, an air cleaning system, an area to plug in and charges your devices, a foot-stool that opens up for extra storage, and a pop-up desk for the ultimate WFH setup, Netflix marathon or cozy reading hours. The sound system also features an SD card slot, an auxiliary port, and a USB port. Another interesting detail about the Hariana bed is a password-protected safe box for you to store your most precious belongings – for me, it would be my passport and snacks!

This table is called a Clock and I want you to keep that in mind for the rest of this story. Clock was designed to be compact and fit in the growing trend of smaller living spaces. The designer wanted to create something that seamlessly blended into our workdays (especially when working from home!) without disrupting our office hours or eating habits. The hybrid station converts food waste into energy to power itself wirelessly but also includes the systems to be plugged into a wall if needed. It is an innovative product that combines technology and functionality to sustainably manage waste and encourage more people to shift to natural/renewable energy sources. When you aren’t working, simply slide the parts back and close the product into a slim bench. In its closed state, only the power icon and energy levels are visible, simply tap the power icon to light up the panel.

The IKEA STARKVIND air purifier comes in two variants, a floor-standing model (in black and white) or a side table version (in a dark or light finish) – costing $129 and $189 respectively. Mind you, to have access to all the smart functions via the compatible app, the $35 smart home hub needs to be purchased as well. The air purifier will hit the IKEA stores from October 2021 in the U.S., so keep an eye on this one. While their form factor is a bit different depending on the intended use-case scenario, on the inside they contain the same three-filter system. This layered filtering system captures bigger particles like hair or dust, 99.5 percent of small airborne particles measuring 2.5 micrometers, pollutants, dust, pollen, and even bad odors are not spared.

Meet the COMODO shoe closet that doubles as a pouf to sit on while you wear your freshly cleansed pair of sneakers for the weekend basketball game. The name is derived from the Spanish word “Cómodo” which means convenient and pleasant in Spanish. Design Studio Designer Dot and designer Hyeona Cho have ideated a cool shoe closet loaded with new-age sanitization tech to keep your pair of shoes moisture-free and free from any bacterial or fungal build-ups. Taking inspiration from modern multifunctional furniture that has compactness and minimalism at its core, the shoe closet solves a very basic but important purpose.

Meet the Duoo Bed designed by Andrei Mogila for Zegen which brings a pragmatic approach to winding down after a long day’s work. The aesthetically crafted furniture piece combines minimalism, smoothness, and geometry of lines to appeal to anyone. Duoo is the result of prime attention to detail when it comes to design aesthetics. Usability-wise, the bed brings the convenience of charging mobile devices or battery banks right from the headboard. Plus it has dedicated led night lights on each side for late-night readers which bring the convenience of privacy without bothering your mate. Keeping comfort and visual neatness at the core, Andrei has managed to strike the right balance of form and function.

Designed for use by the public, both the Fluid Cube and the City Snake primarily function as city benches with the same technical attributes. The Fluid Cube is a 9 cubic meter cube structure that partially encloses two parallel benches with an overhead roof for shelter during bad weather. The City Snake, a 7.5-meter outdoor bench that curves and bends to provide unique sitting options to travelers looking for a bit of respite. While the two structures provide seating for the public, they also come equipped with solar panels that generate power for some of the structure’s more technical features. Raised parts of the City Snake accommodates traditional solar panels, while solar cells are overlaid on the Fluid Cube’s glass roof. The solar panels on both of the structures yield power to use the built-in USB charging outlets, the WiFi hotspots, as well as the benches’ lighting systems.

Dubbed the Coway Icon Air Purifier, this is a reworked and modified variant of the plasticky box-like utilitarian purifiers. It boasts a smaller and flatter form factor to sit along a wall, presenting users with more flexibility in room placement. The quiet and powerful Icon integrates smart technologies to be more than a simple box doing its chores – it comes with its own smartphone app that can be used to control the functions of this air purifier remotely. The app also provides a status report of the air quality and its lifecycle, informing when cleaning or replacement is necessary.

Equipped with a built-in 4K projector that can be synced with a series of devices to binge-watch movies/TV shows on a 70-inch retractable screen, the HiBed by  Fabio Vinella (for Hi-interiors) is the epitome of in-bed relaxation. A built-in surround sound system with invisible speakers makes the bed feel more like a movie theatre. The bed is connected to an app and monitors our sleep patterns and movements, adjusting the temperature according to our comfort. It also records body weight, air quality, and noise level to provide a foolproof check on our health. Some good news for the late risers, the HiBed comes with an inbuilt smart alarm system that wakes us up with loud recitations of the weather and daily news.

Designed by Modern Sprout, the Smart Landscape Growframe is a minimal frame that can be mounted on any wall on your home, and whose functionality is more complex than its simple looks! It nourishes all kinds of plants – from ones that seek low light, to ones that seek bright light. Once mounted on a wall, you can slide your favorite plants into the Growframe, and connect to the Modern Sprout app. The app is a complete godsend! The app features an on/off switch and can be used for customizable programming and pairing recommendations for partial shade, partial sun, and full sun plants. You can easily select and switch between light settings.

Kuube comes in three different sizes, each of which offers the same services to varying degrees. The Kuube Nano, their mid-sized bench, is solar-powered and accommodates up to four people, complete with a WiFi hotspot, two USB chargers, two wireless Qi chargers, and a single display screen, which provides environmental information like weather, air quality, and UV index. For the makers behind Kuube, adapting their conceptual design process to help mitigate the current global climate crisis in micro mobile ways (i.e.; city bikes, electric scooters) was their top priority. On the choice to generate each smart bench with solar power, the designers behind Kuube say, “Living in the times of climate crisis we believe it is very important to achieve sustainability in as many ways as possible…Our goal is to achieve sustainable smart cities [through] micro-mobility.”

The post IKEA meets Tesla in these tech-enhanced furniture designed to make your home a smart one! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This smart shoe closet keeps bad odor away while easily merging with your home furniture

A must-have shoe closet that keeps your dirty, smelly shoes in the moist months of the year free from any germ build-up and the dreaded smell that is so hard to get rid of.

I’m sure, there isn’t a soul on this planet who likes dirty smelly shoes – they are so gross, to say the least. More so in the rainy and moist seasons of the year when after a hard day’s work you don’t feel like taking them off – they smell so bad. And when you want to wear them the next day, the situation is even worse – that smell just won’t go even if you wash them with detergent. Since sanitation has been such a hype in the last year or so, why not have a dedicated sanitization appliance that keeps smelly shoes as fresh as new?

Meet the COMODO shoe closet that doubles as a pouf to sit on while you wear your freshly cleansed pair of sneakers for the weekend basketball game. The name is derived from the Spanish word “Cómodo” which means convenient and pleasant in Spanish. Design Studio Designer Dot and designer Hyeona Cho have ideated a cool shoe closet loaded with new-age sanitization tech to keep your pair of shoes moisture-free and free from any bacterial or fungal build-ups.

Taking inspiration from modern multifunctional furniture that has compactness and minimalism at its core, the shoe closet solves a very basic but important purpose. I still can’t get the smelly memories of those damn shoes in the monsoon season – ever the more reason for me (and perhaps all of you) to take a keen interest in this conceptual product that needs to see the light of day pretty soon in the future.

The much-wanted appliance comes with HEPTA filter (seen on most air purifiers), UV lamp (for effective germ protection) and scent filter (to make you want to wear those shoes) – and not dread wearing them each time in the morning. The flexible air shoetree gives the user option to place the shoes as desired, and also makes them comfortable to take out. The touch display gives all the options to tinker around with the UV cleaning, drying and fragrance options. Would I want to have this smart shoe closet in my living room? Absolutely yes!

Designer: Designer Dot and Hyeona Cho

These smart city furniture uses solar panels, creating WiFi hotspots + charging outlets for the urban environment!





Industries across the globe are steadily moving toward a smart future. A handful of public schools in Hungary went so far as to host a competition called “Smart School,” which gave designers creative freedom to conceptualize smart public furniture for schoolyards and city centers. For Smart School, Hello Wood, an architecture and design studio, designed and created the Fluid Cube and City Snake, two pieces of smart public furniture currently located in Hungary’s schoolyards.

Designed for use by the public, both the Fluid Cube and the City Snake primarily function as city benches with the same technical attributes. The Fluid Cube is a 9 cubic meter cube structure that partially encloses two parallel benches with an overhead roof for shelter during bad weather. The City Snake, a 7.5-meter outdoor bench that curves and bends to provide unique sitting options to travelers looking for a bit of respite. While the two structures provide seating for the public, they also come equipped with solar panels that generate power for some of the structure’s more technical features. Raised parts of the City Snake accommodates traditional solar panels, while solar cells are overlaid on the Fluid Cube’s glass roof. The solar panels on both of the structures yield power to use the built-in USB charging outlets, the WiFi hotspots, as well as the benches’ lighting systems.

Based in the bustling city of Budapest, Hello Wood designs and builds site-specific, public installations almost entirely from wood. City centers are known for travelers, commuters, busy workdays, and long walks. With smart technology outfitting most modern appliances and furniture, public furniture is getting revamped with smart features. Since a charger and WiFi are almost always needed throughout the day, Hungary’s smart, public furniture has both.

Designer: Hello Wood

The Fluid Cube’s roof provides a sheltered space for city-goers caught in the rain.

Featuring two parallel benches, the Fluid Cube primarily functions as a meeting place for sitting.

The Fluid Cube was almost entirely constructed from sustainably harvested wood.

Solar panels line the Fluid Cube’s roof to provide power for WiFi and the bench’s charging outlets.

The City Snake appears as more of a traditional city bench, with raised edges and panels for reclined sitting.

The City Snake powers up its WiFi hotspot and charging outlets from its solar panel.

IKEA meets Tesla in these tech-enhanced furniture designs: Part 3

Furniture is an integral part of any home, it sets the tone for it and contributes to the essence of the home. As pleasing as aesthetic and visually intriguing furniture can be, people are now shifting towards furniture designs that are more focused on function and utility, and one such interesting genre is Smart Furniture! Tech-enhanced furniture is a whole new ballgame, catering to our multiple needs, and making our daily lives more comfortable. From smart work desks that run on food waste to smart beds that charge our devices and come along with an integrated home theatre system, smart furniture is in a league of its own! And, we’re exploring a few super innovative and unique designs today.

The Hariana Tech Smart Ultimate Bed was designed to have everything you will need to relax within your bed frame. It has an integrated reclining massage chair with a remote, a built-in Bluetooth speaker, a bookshelf, a reading lamp, an air cleaning system, an area to plug-in and charges your devices, a foot-stool that opens up for extra storage, and a pop-up desk for the ultimate WFH setup, Netflix marathon or cozy reading hours. The sound system also features an SD card slot, an auxiliary port, and a USB port.

This herb garden design named Home Garden takes care of all these minor inconveniences while making sure your plants thrive! The design lets you have access to fresh greenery 365 days a year without sacrificing any counter space or causing a mess. It is compact and works wonderfully for small urban apartments or big suburban houses. What makes this herb garden unique its compactness because it makes it invisible in your kitchen space. Designer Igor Abakumov drew inspiration from his own life experience for this. “My mom is a real culinary virtuoso and she often complains about the lack of specific greens in the store. And then I got the idea to design a home garden that will be built into the kitchen and will delight with greenery all year round,” he explains.

Kuube comes in three different sizes, each of which offers the same services to varying degrees. The Kuube Nano, their mid-sized bench, is solar-powered and accommodates up to four people, complete with a WiFi hotspot, two USB chargers, two wireless Qi chargers, and a single display screen, which provides environmental information like weather, air quality, and UV index. For the makers behind Kuube, adapting their conceptual design process to help mitigate the current global climate crisis in micro mobile ways (i.e.; city bikes, electric scooters) was their top priority. On the choice to generate each smartbench with solar power, the designers behind Kuube say, “Living in the times of climate crisis we believe it is very important to achieve sustainability in as many ways as possible…Our goal is to achieve sustainable smart cities [through] micro-mobility.”

The Nanoleaf Shapes are infinitely customizable, like a jigsaw puzzle with no real end-goal. You can create the shape or graphic that you want, and the smart LED panels do the rest of the work. The panels can light up in as many as 16 million different colors and can be customized within their smartphone app. The LayoutDetect™ feature allows the individual LED panels to identify the shape and layout of your design, and enables them to work in tandem with each other, behaving as a singular lighting unit. Once connected, you can use the panels as mere ambient lights, although they’re capable of much more.

The NordicTrack Vault comes in and literally aids you with the training at a professional athlete’s level thanks to the iFit trainers enrolled with the platform. This smart home workout equipment combines technology, practical usage, and professional challenges only a trainer can throw at you to get fitter by the day. The freestanding smart mirror comes with storage space inside for all your dumbbells, kettlebells, resistance bands, and anything else for which space is left. You can call it an all-in-one smart fitness studio with an integrated 32-inch HD touchscreen cum mirror. So, as you select your training programs and follow the instructions of the trainer on-screen, you can actually keep an eye on the correct form of any exercise.

Equipped with a built-in 4K projector that can be synced with a series of devices to binge-watch movies/TV shows on a 70-inch retractable screen, the HiBed by  Fabio Vinella (for Hi-interiors) is the epitome of in-bed relaxation. A built-in surround sound system with invisible speakers makes the bed feel more like a movie theatre. The bed is connected to an app and monitors our sleep patterns and movements, adjusting the temperature according to our comfort. It also records body weight, air quality, and noise level to provide a foolproof check on our health. Some good news for the late risers, the HiBed comes with an inbuilt smart alarm system that wakes us up with loud recitations of the weather and daily news.

Inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s composition of form and color, the Mondrian setup, by Harry Dohyun Kim, Weichih Chen, and Fuhua Wang, was made to allow a wide range of applications and blend into any interior setting. The aim was to solve three issues we experience with watching TV as we currently do – taking up space, not matching with the aesthetics, and lack of expandability. Urban apartments and single-person households need to maximize their space and should not have to choose between a large appliance and furniture when they can have both. Talking about interior aesthetics, TVs are now increasingly slimmer while furniture remains warm and cozy – this causes a visual mismatch when the two are put together. Mondrian’s design serves both purposes with one seamless structure. TVs are now being used in many ways and need to be able to adapt to the different content it supports, not just static pre-made products.

Dhyan is a Sanskrit word that means focus, care, or meditation and rightly fits this lounger by Sasank Gopinathan has been designed to bring all of that to you. Inspired by the simplicity of the tree of buddha and intricate Japanese zen gardens, the lounger blends traditional eastern philosophies with minimal modern design. It embodies peace and stillness one feels when one connects with nature. Dhyan has three different modes to suit your needs — a standard mode, a water-pond mode, and garden mode. Choose your zen is the new choose your avatar. The standard mode has a platform that doubles as a shelf along with storage compartments to help you get through the day.

The Aliante furniture system was developed in collaboration with Tecno S.p.A. and the aim was to investigate future work scenarios that as the team thought about the changing trends in behavior and habits. Aliante system offers a versatile working space for both individuals and teams. It features ergonomic seating options, more practical table surfaces, power outlets, and charging stations all placed in a flow that is suited to maximize comfort and productivity. Its extensible rail structure supports all the modules of the system and gives it the flexibility to be configured to any space – it can be set up in a line, as a corner setup, or even as a stand-alone system if you have a smaller space. The structural skeleton can be accessorized and expanded. Designed by Miriam Yassin, Juan Salazar, Andrea Tortone, and Karla Zesati, Aliante can be easily assembled into diverse arrangements, enabling architects to structure the internal spaces of airport lounges (or any other space) and define flexible coworking areas that work in the favor of those who spend time there.

A portmanteau of the words Lamp and Balance, the Lance night-light and wireless-charger is the kind you’d stop to admire for two reasons. Firstly, it’s a cute, quaint product that sits obediently on your tabletop, but at the same time, it charges your phone, so you’re not distracted by a screen. Its relatively flat design doesn’t have any sharp edges, making it feel instantly friendly, and the warm LED light on the top can be changed in color as well as intensity to soothe your room with a wash of ambient light. The Lance at the same time also serves as a wireless charger for smartphones, thanks to a slot right beneath the light wide enough to slide your phone too.

For more smart furniture designs, check out our previous round-up posts here!

IKEA meets Tesla in these tech-enhanced furniture designs: Part 2

I love doing up my home, selecting interesting pieces of furniture, adding them to my living space, and deducting the ones that don’t quite fit in. Home decor is always fun, and an interesting genre that I’ve recently been indulging in is Smart Furniture! Tech-enhanced furniture is a whole new ballgame, catering to our multiple needs, and making our daily lives more comfortable. From smart work desks that run on food waste to smart beds that charge our devices and come along with an integrated home theatre system, smart furniture is in a league of its own! And, we’re exploring a few super innovative and unique designs today.

The Hariana Tech Smart Ultimate Bed was designed to have everything you will need to relax within your bed frame. It has an integrated reclining massage chair with a remote, a built-in Bluetooth speaker, a bookshelf, a reading lamp, an air cleaning system, an area to plug-in and charges your devices, a foot-stool that opens up for extra storage, and a pop-up desk for the ultimate WFH setup, Netflix marathon or cozy reading hours. The sound system also features an SD card slot, an auxiliary port, and a USB port.

Fitwork’s design sort of embodies a no-excuse mentality to being fit. Whether it’s the excuse of ‘being too busy, or of ‘not wanting to go all the way to the gym’, Fitwork combats it by bringing the gym not just to your house, but to your workspace. Designed as a product to let you work and work out at the same time, this crazy hybrid of a desk-chair and treadmill keeps your legs active while you work. Whether you’re sitting in front of a laptop or standing in front of one, it’s the sedentary lifestyle that Fitwork tackles. The setup (which is sure to grab a few eyeballs) comes with an office chair attached to a treadmill underneath, and an elliptical in front. Coupled with an elevating desk, the Fitwork allows you to keep the lower half of your body active while you work, giving you cardio as well as keeping your spine engaged, whether you’re sitting or standing while working. While you’re sitting, your legs naturally rest on the Fitwork’s elliptical, allowing you to pedal away while typing out emails or attending zoom calls without really anyone knowing what a fitness buff you are. Swivel the chair back and boost your desk upwards and you’ve got yourself a standing workout workspace. Activate the treadmill and you can walk while working… or as I call it, walking the walk while talking the talk.

 

This table is called a Clock, and it was designed to be compact and fit in the growing trend of smaller living spaces. The designer wanted to create something that seamlessly blended into our workdays without disrupting our office hours or eating habits. The hybrid station converts food waste into energy to power itself wirelessly but also includes the systems to be plugged into a wall if needed. It is an innovative product that combines technology and functionality to sustainably manage waste and encourage more people to shift to natural/renewable energy sources. When you aren’t working, simply slide the parts back and close the product into a slim bench. In its closed state, only the power icon and energy levels are visible, simply tap the power icon to light up the panel.

The Cube high-fidelity loudspeaker was conceptualized and built with La Boite’s long family history committed to the “traditional high fidelity industry with the design of ergonomic ‘all-in-one’ products optimized for new technologies.” Their patented technology makes it so that from wherever the Cube high-fidelity loudspeaker, which measures 47 x 35 x 49 cm, is positioned in a room, neither the sound quality nor its volume will ever be compromised. Due to its small size, innovative design, and finely-tuned sound quality, The Cube high-fidelity loudspeaker can double as a coffee or side table sized to fit in any space ideally. Each speaker of the Cube’s collection comes outfitted with a total power output of 200W and features three speakers, one front-facing speaker, two aluminum vent ports for bass reflex, and two rear speakers equipped with La Boite’s patent Wide Sound 2.0 immersive technology. Mindful enough to make the Cube compatible with both wireless and wired capabilities, La Boite also integrated an analog RCA input, a digital optical input Toslink, Bluetooth 4.0 Codec Apt-X built-in, and a mini 3.5mm jack input.

Equipped with a built-in 4K projector that can be synced with a series of devices to binge-watch movies/TV shows on a 70-inch retractable screen, the HiBed by  Fabio Vinella (for Hi-interiors) is the epitome of in-bed relaxation. A built-in surround sound system with invisible speakers makes the bed feel more like a movie theatre. The bed is connected to an app and monitors our sleep patterns and movements, adjusting the temperature according to our comfort. It also records body weight, air quality, and noise level to provide a foolproof check on our health. Some good news for the late risers, the HiBed comes with an inbuilt smart alarm system that wakes us up with loud recitations of the weather and daily news.

With the pandemic leaving most of us to our own devices, some of us knew we had no choice but to get good at cooking. My spice cabinet is overflowing because of it. Getting more and more familiar with herbs and the punch they pack in flavorful dishes, the popularity of horticulture has also increased. More and more people are installing indoor garden systems into their homes because they provide an easy, accessible way to bring the flavor of fresh herbs to every dinner plate. Grobo Premium is one such indoor garden system that utilizes smart technology and hydroponics to harvest vegetables and herbs inside the comfort of your own home. Since Grobo Premium is a smart garden system, the weight of having to learn about horticulture is lifted from the user’s shoulders. All that’s required for plant cultivation with Grobo is planting the initial seed and filling/draining the water as the days go by. Since hydroponics generally takes a more hands-free approach to gardening, the makers behind Grobo Premium chose it for their smart indoor garden system.

The Smartmi Heater has solved a lot of problems with two design changes. The first is simple – adding an adjustable handlebar to the heating unit. When the bar is in the upright position, it functions similarly to the handle of a briefcase, making the appliance more portable despite its bulk. If you pull it down in front of the heating unit itself, it acts as a rack to dry or warm up your clothes. (Finally, I can get that fresh-from-the-dryer warmth without risking a fire.) Of course, the adjustable bar poses a similar problem to my proposed “socks on the heater” method. Sure, your towels or sweaters will get warm and toasty, but your room may miss the flood of warm air directly aimed at your cold feet. The Smartmi fixes this issue by allowing warm air to flow from two outlets: straight out from the unit’s front and out from the top. This means that warm air can still fill the room, even if the heater’s face is blocked by a curtain of clothes.

Privacy or fresh air? That is the compromise that many apartment dwellers — especially those with ground-floor units — face. The Hazy Air Purifier is a window that ensures privacy while providing proper ventilation. How does it work? The device utilizes a new concept called HAZE, which uses sunlight to heat the air inside your home; this “heat haze” purifies the atmosphere and creates a foggy screen that obscures your interior living space from passing neighbors. How does the Hazy air purifier fit into your living space? After all, windows come in all sizes. The designers fixed this issue with the Hazy’s height-adjustable frame. As long as your apartment has rectangular windows, the Hazy will likely be a perfect fit. Alternatively, the product also works as a standing unit; it doesn’t have to be fixed to the wall. Unfortunately, this method means losing out on the product’s main selling point: the hazy window effect. However, on its own, the Hazy air purifier’s unique shape won’t clash with your decor or clutter or living space, but may also attract some interested, quizzical questions from house guests.

The pandemic gave Sergio Spinel, an interior architect and furniture designer, a very unique opportunity to relook his craft as something that’s more than what most people perceive it as. Decor serves a very fixed set of purposes, combining form and function, but with COVID-19, Spinel realized his decor could promote safety too. Meet the POD, the coat-hanger reinvented. Calling the POD a coat-hanger seems a little reductionist, now that I think of it. The device gives you a place to hang your coats, hats, place your shoes, store/charge your phone, keep your keys, and even provide a dedicated hook for your face-mask. Designed to be the last piece of furniture you interact with on your way out, and the first when you return from the outdoors, the POD stores your belongings, while also sanitizing them with PCO and UVC technology. The vertical wood-veneer pillar comes with a sliding door that opens when you approach it (thanks to a motion sensor at its base), revealing the organizing space within. Hooks give you a place to hang your coat, hats, and even your masks, while a tray at waist-level provides the perfect place to keep your wallet/purse, keys, and even wirelessly charge your smartphone.

How many different ways can you say, “Do you have WiFi?” It’s my most-asked question when visiting new cities. In today’s world, having access to WiFi is essential if you plan on making the most of any trip abroad. But far too often have I thrown my money down the drain for a tiny cup of espresso just to use a cafe’s WiFi and charging port. Replacing this costly exchange with their interpretation of a city hub, the makers behind Kuube designed a smart bench for city centers, equipped with all the necessities that a modern-day traveler might need to comfortably move through any city. Moreover, given the fragile nature of our climate and our energy grid, these smart benches could prove to be a highly valuable public utility during blackouts by providing free charging and WiFi to everyone. Kuube comes in three different sizes, each of which offers the same services to varying degrees. The Kuube Nano, their mid-sized bench, is solar-powered and accommodates up to four people, complete with a WiFi hotspot, two USB chargers, two wireless Qi chargers, and a single display screen, which provides environmental information like weather, air quality, and UV index.

IKEA meets Tesla in these tech-enhanced furniture designs!

Furniture is an integral part of any home, it sets the tone for it and contributes to the essence of the home. As pleasing as aesthetic and visually intriguing furniture can be, people are now shifting towards furniture designs that are more focused on function and utility, and one such interesting genre is Smart Furniture! Tech-enhanced furniture is a whole new ballgame, catering to our multiple needs, and making our daily lives more comfortable. From smart work desks that run on food waste to smart beds that charge our devices and come along with an integrated home theatre system, smart furniture is in a league of its own! And, we’re exploring a few super innovative and unique designs today.

The Hariana Tech Smart Ultimate Bed was designed to have everything you will need to relax within your bed frame. It has an integrated reclining massage chair with a remote, a built-in Bluetooth speaker, a bookshelf, a reading lamp, an air cleaning system, an area to plug-in and charge your devices, a foot-stool that opens up for extra storage, and a pop-up desk for the ultimate WFH setup, Netflix marathon or cozy reading hours. The sound system also features an SD card slot, an auxiliary port, and a USB port.

This table is called a Clock, and it was designed to be compact and fit in the growing trend of smaller living spaces. The designer wanted to create something that seamlessly blended into our workdays without disrupting our office hours or eating habits. The hybrid station converts food waste into energy to power itself wirelessly but also includes the systems to be plugged into a wall if needed. It is an innovative product that combines technology and functionality to sustainably manage waste and encourage more people to shift to natural/renewable energy sources. When you aren’t working, simply slide the parts back and close the product into a slim bench. In its closed state, only the power icon and energy levels are visible, simply tap the power icon to light up the panel.

What is this Dot table? Think the most perfect combination of Alfred the butler and Alexa in the form of a table. Yes, that is exactly what you get – a smart table that can do everything it possibly can without transforming into a robot! With the Dot, you won’t have to ask those you love to bring you your charger – this table not only has multiple charging USB ports but can also wirelessly charge your devices with its in-built integrated connectivity system. Dot is a table by day and DJ by night thanks to the embedded SONY speakers so now you have music AND a place to put down your party snacks!

Equipped with a built-in 4K projector that can be synced with a series of devices to binge-watch movies/TV shows on a 70-inch retractable screen, the HiBed by  Fabio Vinella (for Hi-interiors) is the epitome of in-bed relaxation. A built-in surround sound system with invisible speakers makes the bed feel more like a movie theatre. The bed is connected to an app and monitors our sleep patterns and movements, adjusting the temperature according to our comfort. It also records body weight, air quality, and noise level to provide a foolproof check on our health. Some good news for the late risers, the HiBed comes with an inbuilt smart alarm system that wakes us up with loud recitations of the weather and daily news.

mellow

mellow2

The Mellow is a multimedia table. Its elegant wood+fabric construction makes it fit classically into any home without standing out too much. The thing that does make it stand out though, is that under the table’s surface lie four 15W speakers as well as 4 passive radiators, churning out sound capable of transforming your house into a cinema, or making it the perfect venue for everything from easy-listening to a rocking house party! Working wirelessly with any multimedia device, and a number of third-party music platforms, the Mellow table can be kept anywhere in your room without worrying about cables near your tables.

Dubbed the Coway Icon Air Purifier, this is a reworked and modified variant of the plasticky box-like utilitarian purifiers. It boasts a smaller and flatter form factor to sit along a wall, presenting users with more flexibility in room placement. The quiet and powerful Icon integrates smart technologies to be more than a simple box doing its chores – it comes with its own smartphone app that can be used to control the functions of this air purifier remotely. The app also provides a status report of the air quality and its lifecycle, informing when cleaning or replacement is necessary.

Yves Behar’s Forme is the 2020 version of the magic mirror that will make you come out of this quarantine fitter than before. Get in Forme-ation! Forme is a 6 feet tall smart mirror that doubles up as a home fitness trainer and machine. “We wanted to make a fitness machine that’s fully integrated into the home without it being an eyesore,” says Béhar. While similar machines in the market are offering cardio or yoga, with Forme you also get weight lifting, aerobics, and functional training on top of the usual programs. When not in use, the machine’s arms slide back and it turns into an elegant mirror for your home. The instructors are thoroughly vetted and you can track your progress by syncing it with your smart devices.

A portmanteau of the words Lamp and Balance, the Lance night-light and wireless-charger is the kind you’d stop to admire for two reasons. Firstly, it’s a cute, quaint product that sits obediently on your tabletop, but at the same time, it charges your phone, so you’re not distracted by a screen. Its relatively flat design doesn’t have any sharp edges, making it feel instantly friendly, and the warm LED light on the top can be changed in color as well as intensity to soothe your room with a wash of ambient light. The Lance at the same time also serves as a wireless charger for smartphones, thanks to a slot right beneath the light wide enough to slide your phone too.

Mr. Alfred is a conceptual smart air-management system that looks like an elegant bar cart – the gold rails add a retro finish while the muted grey body gives it a rich yet subtle aesthetic. Instead of having four home appliances, you can just have one that does it all while saving space and upgrading your interior game. Mr. Alfred is designed to provide solutions for healthy air in your space by sensing the quality. It is precise and targeted at keeping your space clean. The sleek appliance is made of six important parts – the main body which is responsible to store and charge the detachable parts, a drone that monitors the space, a robot vacuum, an air purifier, humidifier, and dehumidifier. Fun fact: the three air-management parts rest on the robot vacuum that makes them portable.

Inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s composition of form and color, the Mondrian setup was made to allow a wide range of applications and blend into any interior setting. The aim was to solve three issues we experience with watching TV as we currently do – taking up space, not matching with the aesthetics, and lack of expandability. Urban apartments and single-person households need to maximize their space and should not have to choose between a large appliance and furniture when they can have both. Mondrian’s design serves both purposes with one seamless structure. TVs are now being used in many ways and need to be able to adapt to the different content it supports, not just static pre-made products.

Your leftover food powers this smart WFH desk!

Furniture ideas are really evolving during quarantine and I am loving that a table brings a lot more to the table than being a table. Never did I think I would come across a clock that was also a table but the world of design always surprises us! Functional furniture is an essential as our lifestyles become more flexible, especially after the pandemic that has taught us to optimize our resources to serve more than one purpose – just like this conceptual work station.

This table is called a Clock and I want you to keep that in mind for the rest of this story. Clock was designed to be compact and fit in the growing trend of smaller living spaces. The designer wanted to create something that seamlessly blended into our workdays (especially when working from home!) without disrupting our office hours or eating habits. The hybrid station converts food waste into energy to power itself wirelessly but also includes the systems to be plugged into a wall if needed. It is an innovative product that combines technology and functionality to sustainably manage waste and encourage more people to shift to natural/renewable energy sources.

When you aren’t working, simply slide the parts back and close the product into a slim bench. In its closed state, only the power icon and energy levels are visible, simply tap the power icon to light up the panel. The smart furniture appliance also has defined heating and cooling areas that are touch-controlled. You can sync your phone with Clock to receive all the important updates and statistics about your hi-tech table. This is an award-winning project that gives us a glimpse of a better future where multi-functional, sustainably powered, and aesthetically sleek products give us the flexible life we crave.

Designer: Yeg Design Studio

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