Athletes know that performance isn’t just about physical strength or stamina. Mental focus, resilience, and emotional control are just as critical when the pressure is on. Yet most wearables on the market still focus on heart rate, steps, or calories, leaving the brain’s role in training largely invisible. For anyone who’s ever lost focus at a crucial moment or wondered why a session just didn’t click, there’s finally a new tool that brings mental fitness into the spotlight.

What makes the Nuromova N1 AI Sports Headband so compelling is how it turns the abstract world of mental state into real-time, actionable data. Forget about your run-of-the-mill wrist-worn fitness tracker. This is a sleek, lightweight headband packed with pro-level EEG sensors and AI-powered analytics, designed to help athletes of all levels train smarter, recover faster, and understand themselves better.

Designer: Nuromova Technology Co., Limited

Click Here to Buy Now: $329 $599 (45% off). Hurry, only a few left!

The design is clearly built for movement. The N1 features a soft, adaptive fit that hugs your head without squeezing, thanks to a multi-layer construction. A breathable, sweat-wicking outer surface, a cushioned mid-layer, and a cool, non-slip skin layer keep everything in place even during intense workouts. The headband is lightweight and minimalist, so it feels like any other high-performance sports accessory, just smarter.

Comfort isn’t just a side note here. The headband’s modular quick-release design makes it easy to put on or take off, while the gel electrodes ensure high-quality signal capture without irritation. The magnetic charging dock and extended battery life mean you can train day after day without worrying about running out of juice mid-session.

Of course, the real magic happens once you start moving. The N1’s EEG sensors capture brain signals from the frontal cortex, analyzing focus, stress, fatigue, and emotional shifts in real time. The AI model, running on both the headband and in the cloud, delivers instant feedback. If your focus dips or stress spikes, you’ll feel a gentle vibration cue, letting you adjust before your performance suffers.

The companion app is as thoughtfully designed as the hardware. Syncing is instant and calibration-free, so you can get started right away. During training, you see live readouts of your mental state. After each session, you get a detailed breakdown of focus curves, fatigue spikes, and emotional trends. The app even lets you align video highlights with your brain data, making it easy to spot what triggered a lapse or a breakthrough.

What’s especially interesting is how the N1 adapts to different sports and routines. Whether you’re a tennis player, runner, archer, or team athlete, the headband tracks your mental performance across disciplines. Early users describe it as a thinking partner that helps them understand when to push, when to reset, and how to optimize every session, not just physically but mentally.

The technology under the hood is impressive, but it never feels intimidating. Deep learning models analyze your data and generate personalized suggestions, all while protecting your privacy through federated learning. The feedback is fast, under 200 milliseconds, so you’re always in sync with your own brain. The AI coach feature provides insights that feel genuinely helpful rather than overwhelming.

That said, the N1 isn’t just about numbers and graphs. It’s about changing the way athletes approach training and recovery. Instead of guessing at what’s happening inside your head, you get clear, science-backed insights that help you build mental toughness and resilience over time. The design is subtle enough for everyday wear but smart enough to make a real difference when it counts.

The multi-sport versatility makes this headband particularly appealing for athletes who cross-train or compete in multiple disciplines. The same device that helps a tennis player maintain focus during long rallies can help a runner push through mental barriers or assist an archer in achieving perfect concentration. This adaptability means your investment grows with your athletic interests.

The Nuromova N1 AI Sports Headband represents a new frontier in sports technology, where mental fitness becomes as measurable and trainable as physical performance. For athletes who understand that the mind runs the game, this headband offers a way to finally see, understand, and optimize the psychological side of peak performance. It’s the kind of innovation that makes you wonder how you ever trained without knowing what your brain was actually doing.

Click Here to Buy Now: $329 $599 (45% off). Hurry, only a few left!

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SUSA is a bold new concept in AI-powered companion devices, designed by Future Facility as a visionary project for ASUS. In a world where artificial intelligence is becoming an integral part of our daily routines, SUSA emerges as a thoughtful reimagining of what it means to live with technology that truly understands and supports its users.

Unlike typical smart speakers or digital assistants, SUSA is designed to serve as an intelligent and emotionally responsive companion. Developed as a conceptual project for ASUS, the device leverages advanced AI to learn routines, preferences, and contexts, adapting its responses to suit the individual. With SUSA, the focus isn’t just on automating tasks or providing answers but on creating a meaningful and intuitive relationship between user and device.

Designer Name: Future Facility

One of SUSA’s most innovative features is its emphasis on emotional intelligence. The device is engineered to recognize subtle cues in voice and behavior, allowing it to respond empathetically. Whether it’s offering calming support during stressful moments or celebrating your achievements, SUSA’s goal is to provide a sense of understanding and companionship that goes beyond typical digital interactions.

The physical design of SUSA reflects the same commitment to user experience. Future Facility has crafted a device that blends seamlessly into any living space, with a minimalist and inviting aesthetic. The interface relies on voice, soft lighting cues, and gentle movements, making interactions feel natural and unobtrusive. This approach ensures that SUSA is not only easy to use but also enhances the atmosphere of the home rather than detracting from it.

SUSA’s conceptual platform is also designed for openness and adaptability. It can connect with a wide range of services, manage schedules, control smart home devices, and deliver reminders, all while learning and evolving to fit a user’s unique lifestyle. Accessibility is at the forefront, with features that ensure people with different needs can benefit from SUSA’s capabilities, making technology more inclusive for everyone.

Privacy and security are fundamental to SUSA’s design. The device incorporates strong data protection measures and gives users control over their information. With capabilities for local processing, sensitive conversations and interactions can remain private, building trust between the user and their AI companion. SUSA represents a new direction for ASUS and Future Facility, showing how AI can move beyond functionality to foster genuine emotional connections. It highlights a future where technology doesn’t just work for us. It works with us, enriching our well-being and supporting us both practically and emotionally.

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It’s always a little funny watching the tech giants trip over each other, but I have to admit, I didn’t see this one coming. For years, the smart speaker game has had a predictable rhythm: Amazon owns the low-end, Google fights for the middle, and Apple holds the premium corner with an iron grip. The HomePod Mini, at $99, has been the default choice for anyone in the Apple ecosystem who wants decent sound and Siri integration without dropping big money on the full-size HomePod. It was a settled affair, a product so obviously correct for its audience that it seemed untouchable. Then Amazon’s fall hardware event happened, and they quietly dropped a device that feels less like an update and more like a targeted strike.

With the new Echo Dot Max, Amazon just built a better HomePod Mini, and they did it by building a better Siri first. This isn’t just about a spec bump or a fresh coat of paint; this is a fundamental repositioning. Amazon looked at the $99 price point Apple has owned since 2020, figured out exactly what makes the HomePod Mini compelling, and then systematically engineered a product that beats it on almost every front. For the first time, Amazon isn’t just trying to sell you a cheap microphone to access its store; it’s building a device that feels aspirational, intelligent, and frankly, a little bit ahead of its time. Apple has been put on notice, and the warning shot was fired from the last place they expected.

Designer: Amazon

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The sound is where the first surprise hits. For $99, the HomePod Mini has always been a marvel of audio engineering, producing sound that defies its small stature. But Amazon clearly took notes, because the Echo Dot Max is an immediate and noticeable upgrade. By engineering a dual-driver system with a dedicated woofer and tweeter, something unheard of in its previous Dots, Amazon achieves a sound profile that feels substantially richer and more complete. The company is claiming nearly three times the bass of the last Echo Dot, and from early impressions, that isn’t just marketing fluff. It fills a room with a warmth and depth that directly competes with, and in many cases surpasses, the HomePod Mini, a device that has coasted on its audio credentials since 2020.

But the hardware is just the Trojan horse for the real invasion, which is happening on the AI front. Let’s be frank, Siri has become a bit of a punchline. It’s a functional but deeply limited assistant, great for setting timers but clumsy with anything more complex. Amazon’s new Alexa+ is a generational leap forward. Powered by a new custom AZ3 processor and a sensor platform called Omnisense, Alexa+ is built for actual conversation. It can handle multi-turn requests, remember your preferences from previous interactions, and proactively manage your smart home based on learned routines. It’s the difference between a talking calculator and a genuine assistant, a distinction that makes Siri feel archaic by comparison.

This new intelligence fundamentally changes the device’s role in the home. The Echo Dot Max isn’t just a passive orb waiting for a command; it’s an active participant. Its sensors allow it to be contextually aware of its environment, adjusting its own audio or alerting you if something is amiss, like a door being left unlocked late at night. This proactive nature is something smart home enthusiasts have been dreaming of, a system that anticipates needs rather than just reacting to orders. While Apple has all the necessary pieces to build a similar experience within its ecosystem, it has been painstakingly slow to put them together, leaving a wide-open field for Amazon to plant its flag.

What Amazon has done here is strategically brilliant. It identified a competitor’s beloved product that had been left to languish, matched its price point, and then decisively out-innovated it on the two fronts that matter most: audio quality and AI intelligence. The Echo Dot Max isn’t just a better speaker; it’s a smarter, more capable, and more forward-looking device that serves as a powerful vessel for the future of ambient computing. It’s the product that Apple loyalists have been patiently hoping would emerge from Cupertino.

For the first time in a long while, the most compelling vision for the future of the smart home isn’t being articulated by Apple. Amazon has stepped into that void with a product that is aggressive, ambitious, and available right now. While we wait for Apple to eventually grace us with a revamped Siri and a new HomePod, Amazon is already shipping the future. The question is no longer when Apple will catch up, but rather, if it can.

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The post Amazon Built A Better Siri and HomePod Mini Before Apple… first appeared on Yanko Design.

Insta360 isn’t just the action camera company anymore. Sure, they’ve built their reputation on those clever 360-degree cams and the tiny GO series that creators love, but lately they’re making moves that would make even DJI nervous. A few months back, they shocked everyone by announcing their entry into the drone space, taking direct aim at DJI’s stranglehold on that market. Now they’re at it again with the Wave, a professional AI speakerphone that signals yet another strategic pivot, this time squarely into enterprise territory rather than just chasing the creator economy.

The Wave’s design immediately telegraphs this shift in ambition. Forget the typical hockey puck speakerphone gathering dust in conference rooms everywhere. This thing stands upright like a sleek cylindrical tower, roughly the circumference of a mini soda can but tall enough to command respect on any table. The matte black finish (there’s also an arctic white option) screams premium, while a thin vertical LED strip runs up the front face, pulsing green for power, red for mute, and various other colors for different modes. It’s the kind of design language you’d expect from a company trying to convince Fortune 500 CFOs that conferencing equipment can actually look good.

Designer: Insta360

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The weighted base keeps everything stable during animated discussions, while the USB-C port and power button hide discretely on the back. But here’s where Insta360’s engineering chops really shine: the entire speaker section telescopes upward to reveal a circular touchscreen interface nestled in the base. When you’re done with settings or need to stow the device, the speaker slides back down flush, completely hiding the screen for a clean, minimalist profile. It’s exactly the kind of thoughtful industrial design that separates premium products from generic conference room equipment.

The real magic lives in that 8-microphone 3D array buried inside the cylinder. Those eight mics capture audio at a professional 48kHz sampling rate, with automatic gain control ensuring nobody gets drowned out when the loudest person in the room starts talking. The pickup range extends to 16 feet, which means you can actually move around during calls without sounding like you’re shouting from the next room. Early reviews consistently praise the audio clarity, noting crisp voice reproduction even at distance, though music playback apparently needs more bass response.

But audio capture is just table stakes. The Wave’s real party trick is its AI integration, because of course it has AI integration. The device can transcribe meetings in real-time, identify different speakers, and generate smart summaries using over a dozen customizable templates. Need a quick recap of that brainstorming session? The AI will organize action items, key decisions, and follow-ups into digestible bullet points. You can even create custom glossaries for industry-specific terminology, which should help with accuracy since AI still trips over proper names and niche jargon.

The collaborative features get interesting when you start chaining multiple units together for larger spaces, or pair the Wave with Insta360’s Link 2 webcam for a complete audio-video setup. The system automatically tracks speakers and keeps them in frame, turning any room into a hybrid meeting space without needing a dedicated AV person. Connectivity options cover all the bases: USB-C for direct computer connection, Bluetooth for wireless pairing, and there’s even a dongle option for maximum compatibility.

At $300, the Wave isn’t competing with basic USB speakerphones. It’s targeting the same market as high-end Poly and Jabra units, but with AI capabilities that those legacy players are still scrambling to match. The pricing reflects Insta360’s bet that businesses will pay premium for genuinely useful AI features rather than just buzzword compliance.

What’s fascinating here is watching a camera company successfully translate their core competencies, spatial audio processing, computational photography algorithms, and premium design sensibilities, into completely different product categories. The Wave feels like a natural evolution of Insta360’s DNA rather than a random diversification play. Whether this enterprise gambit pays off remains to be seen, but if the early reviews are any indication, traditional conferencing companies should probably start paying attention. Insta360 clearly has bigger ambitions than just following creators around with tiny cameras.

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The post Insta360 Just Launched an AI-powered Speaker for Offices That Automatically Takes Meeting Notes first appeared on Yanko Design.

Remember when we were optimistic about AI? Sure, healthy skepticism, but also pretty optimistic about devices like the Rabbit R1 potentially ‘killing the smartphone’ as we know it? The R1 moved 100,000 units and kept return rates under 5% in the initial phases, but those early reviews were brutal. Tech YouTube called it “dog water” and “barely reviewable,” which is basically the digital equivalent of being declared DOA. The device promised a revolutionary AI experience where you could just talk and have things happen, but what users got was a gorgeous piece of hardware wrapped around software that felt half-baked at best.

But here’s where things get interesting. Instead of pulling a Google and quietly killing the project, Rabbit doubled down. Over 16 months, they pushed 30+ over-the-air updates while building what they call a “very unique community” of users who apparently enjoyed being beta testers for a $199 device. Now they’re back with Rabbit OS2, claiming they’ve completely rebuilt the experience from scratch. The question isn’t whether they’ve improved things, it’s whether they’ve improved them enough to matter.

Design: Rabbit

The biggest change is how you actually interact with the thing. The original R1 was almost aggressively voice-first, which sounds cool until you realize that talking to gadgets in public makes you look like you’re having a breakdown. OS2 finally acknowledges that humans have fingers by adding proper gesture controls. Swipe down from the top for quick settings (brightness, volume, camera access), and you get bottom navigation buttons for muting conversations, typing follow-ups, or activating the camera. The conversation flow now appears on screen in real-time, so you can actually see what the AI thinks you said before it does something completely wrong.

But the real visual differentiator is the new card stack system (which feels a lot like the Windows Phone if you ask me). Remember how nobody could figure out what the R1 actually did beyond looking pretty? Rabbit clearly got tired of that question because OS2 surfaces everything through discoverable cards. Swipe up from the main screen and you’ll find your feature overview laid out like a deck of cards. Tap any card to jump into that function, or stick with the old push-to-talk method if you’re feeling nostalgic. Card management works exactly like you’d expect: swipe left to dismiss cards above the stack. It’s basic UI design that should have been there from day one, but hey, better late than never.

The core features got meaningful upgrades too. Magic Gallery now centralizes all your Magic Camera photos through the card stack, while Rabbit Hole (their cloud service) finally supports bulk export for both processed and original images. Translation transcripts sync automatically to your account, and you can actually play back recordings directly on the device now, with AI transcripts uploading to your Rabbit Hole journal. The intern tasks feature gets a dedicated card for enhanced on-device agent interaction, which sounds fancy but basically means you can chat with their AI assistant without jumping through hoops.

Here’s where things get sort of interesting: R1 Creations. Rabbit is positioning this as making the R1 the “first vibe coding device,” which is either brilliant marketing or complete nonsense depending on your tolerance for startup speak. The concept is actually pretty wild though. You have a conversation with the Rabbit intern, describe what you want built, and it creates custom apps, games, or tools right on your device within minutes. Their demo involved building a cyberpunk Pong game through natural language: “Build a Pong game with a cyberpunk theme,” followed by back-and-forth refinement about neon colors, scroll wheel controls, and scoring systems. The AI clarifies details, you provide specifics, and apparently you get a working game deployed to your device.

A vibe-coded version of Pong

The implications here are fascinating if it actually works reliably. Alpha testers have already created a bunch of apps available for free installation at rabbit.tech, with QR code sharing for social distribution. Rabbit frames this as an evolution toward a new kind of app store, though you need intern tasks (their premium service) to create custom stuff yourself. The free library approach is smart, turning early adopters into content creators for everyone else.

What’s most telling is that all these improvements come via software update. The hardware remains completely unchanged, that iconic orange design intact, which means Rabbit is essentially admitting they shipped unfinished software at launch. The question now is whether OS2 delivers enough to justify the R1’s existence in a world where your phone already does most of this stuff better.

The “what can R1 do that your phone can’t” question still looms large. Conversational app creation is genuinely novel, but how often do normal people really need custom Pong games built through voice commands? Rabbit seems to be betting on a future where AI-assisted creation becomes mainstream, positioning themselves as the hardware platform for that shift. Whether that future arrives fast enough to save the R1 remains to be seen, but at least they’re finally shipping software that matches their hardware’s ambition.

The post Rabbit R1’s OS Update features a New Interface and Speech-to-Vibe-Coding Abilities first appeared on Yanko Design.

Guitar amplifiers have remained surprisingly unchanged for decades, serving mainly as tools to make guitars louder with varying degrees of warmth, tone and distortion. While digital modeling has improved dramatically over the years, most amps still force musicians to choose between vintage analog tones and modern convenience features. LAVA STUDIO reinvents this fundamental compromise by reimagining what a guitar amplifier can be when design, technology, and user experience converge in genuinely thoughtful ways.

The first thing that strikes you about LAVA STUDIO is its departure from traditional amp aesthetics, featuring a sleek all-metal enclosure that houses a 13-inch multi-touch display adjustable up to 80 degrees for optimal viewing angles. This design choice immediately signals that this device thinks beyond conventional amplification, positioning itself as a creative workstation rather than just another modeling amp. The precision machining and attention to build quality suggest serious engineering underneath the elegant exterior, while the 2.1 audio system with carbon fiber woofer and dual aluminum tweeters delivers the kind of pristine sound quality that justifies the premium presentation.

Designer: LAVA MUSIC

Click Here to Buy Now: $749 $999 ($250 off). Hurry, only 137/500 left! Raised over $1.25 million.

What sets LAVA STUDIO apart technically is its lavaAI neural modeling system, which achieves over 99.90 percent accuracy in amp modeling through advanced machine learning algorithms trained on meticulously sampled high-end gear. Benchmark testing reveals performance that surpasses established top competitors with error signal measurements showing superior precision in recreating the subtle nuances that make each amplifier unique. The 800MHz DSP processor provides significantly more processing power than competing products, enabling real-time effects processing without the latency issues that plague many digital systems.

The creative workflow becomes genuinely impressive when you explore the 40+ effect modules and 8-slot sound chain that operates through intuitive drag-and-drop functionality on the touchscreen interface. Rather than scrolling through endless menus or memorizing button combinations, musicians can visually arrange their signal chain and adjust parameters with the kind of immediacy that encourages experimentation rather than frustrating it. The built-in miniDAW extends this philosophy into recording territory, offering multi-track capabilities with full-mix and individual track exports that integrate seamlessly with existing production workflows.

Perhaps most innovatively, LAVA STUDIO includes lavaAI stem isolation technology that can split any song into individual tracks, extracting vocals, drums, guitar, and bass from mixed audio files. This feature transforms the amp into a learning tool that lets musicians isolate specific instruments for practice, create backing tracks from existing songs, or analyze arrangements in ways that were previously impossible without expensive studio software. The practical applications for music education and creative exploration feel genuinely transformative rather than gimmicky.

The learning ecosystem built into LAVA STUDIO represents another departure from traditional amp thinking, featuring over 100 interactive courses with world-class instructors covering everything from neo-soul to jazz guitar to heavy metal techniques. Kickstarter backers also get a $150-value Guitar Workshops on LAVA STUDIO, an equivalent of around 30 courses. Video lessons stay perfectly synchronized with interactive tabs, creating a seamless learning experience that moves from instruction to practice to recording with backing tracks. The 8-track loop recording system encourages experimentation and community sharing, turning solitary practice sessions into collaborative creative experiences that connect musicians across different skill levels and geographical locations.

Industry recognition has been substantial, with endorsements from Grammy winners, coverage in Guitar World calling it potentially the guitar amp of the future, and testimonials from respected YouTube educators praising its innovation and versatility. This is genuine enthusiasm from professionals who recognize how LAVA STUDIO addresses long-standing limitations in traditional amplification and music production workflows.

The device succeeds because it treats the guitar amp not as a fixed appliance but as an evolving creative platform that adapts to how modern musicians actually work, learn, and share their music. By integrating high-quality amplification, professional recording capabilities, comprehensive learning tools, and community features into a single, beautifully designed device, LAVA STUDIO suggests a future where our musical tools become genuine creative partners rather than just functional necessities.

Click Here to Buy Now: $749 $999 ($250 off). Hurry, only 137/500 left! Raised over $1.25 million.

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The Dyson Unveiled event in Berlin marked a significant moment for the tech and home innovation community, as Dyson introduced its largest wave of new products to date. Held at Dyson’s flagship Demo Store in Berlin and streamed worldwide on September 5th, the event was led by Sir James Dyson himself, showcasing a future-focused lineup of 11 cutting-edge devices. Unlike previous years, Dyson chose to host this exclusive launch independently from the IFA Berlin trade show, emphasizing its commitment to direct consumer engagement and product experience.

The event drew global attention with the reveal (or rather, re-reveal) of the world’s slimmest vacuum, the Dyson PencilVac, measuring just 38mm in diameter, as well as the AI-powered Spot+Scrub robot vacuum, engineered for intelligent wet and dry floor cleaning. Other highlights included next-generation air purifiers, high-performance cordless vacuums like the V16 Piston Animal, and innovative haircare tools. Each product unveiled is designed to make everyday living smarter, cleaner, and more efficient, reflecting Dyson’s mission to solve real-world problems with technology.

Designer: Dyson

The Dyson V16 Piston Animal is Dyson’s most advanced cordless vacuum, featuring smart suction that automatically adapts to floor types and a green dust-revealing light. Its innovative dual conical brush bar prevents tangling by directing long hair to the ends for easy disposal, while a manual compression system lets you compact dust and empty the bin with less mess. The V16 is also compatible with Dyson’s new Submarine 2.0 wet roller, transforming it into a versatile wet and dry cleaner for even more convenience.

Meanwhile, the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene wet and dry vacuum features a unique design with its dirty water tank mounted on the vacuum head, reducing clogging and odors without using a filter. It uses a microfiber roller with nylon bristles for stain removal, offers a self-cleaning function, and comes with a hot-air drying dock for easy maintenance. It’s also ideal for stain removal as it has a microfiber roller with nylon bristles.

The new Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai robot vacuum is a major step up from last year’s 360 Vis Nav, adding mopping functionality, a self-emptying dock, and a rare bagless design for easy bin emptying. While these features are now standard among leading robot vacuums, the bagless system sets Dyson apart. This means users will be able to empty the dust bin similarly to how they do it with the Dyson stick vacuum.

Dyson has also released an upgraded version of its V8 Cyclone cordless vacuum, which has 30% more suction power than the original model launched back in 2016. It can also run for up to an hour on a full charge and now has an on/off button, so you don’t need to continuously hold down the trigger. It is also still compatible with attachments from the previous version. Later on, it will also get a self-emptying dock.

Lastly, Dyson highlighted the PencilVac cordless vacuum, which was initially unveiled last May. Considered to be one of, if not the, slimmest vacuums on the market with its 38mm diameter, it features an airflow system that compresses dust and debris and stores it in the handle. Since it’s so thin, you can use it to reach those difficult-to-clean crevices. It also has four cone-shaped brush bars to make sure those pesky tangled hairs don’t interrupt the cleaning process.

With its bold Berlin showcase, Dyson has once again redefined what’s possible in home cleaning and personal care technology. From smarter, more powerful vacuums to clever wet-and-dry cleaners and breakthrough robotics, the Unveiled 2025 lineup proves Dyson’s commitment to making everyday living easier, healthier, and more efficient.

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There’s an unspoken agreement we have with our current robot vacuums. They handle the mundane, everyday dust, and in return, we handle the sudden, chaotic messes ourselves. It’s a decent partnership that keeps the floors generally tidy, but it always requires two separate tools and two different mindsets for cleaning. A startup named xLean, however, is proposing a radical new treaty at IFA 2025 with its debut TR1 robot. This device is engineered to be both your autonomous floor cleaner and, with a quick transformation, the powerful handheld tool you grab the moment your toddler redecorates the kitchen floor with yogurt.

The company, a startup spun out of a top robotics institute and staffed by veterans from places like DJI and Roborock, is making a bold claim. They believe the next leap in cleaning intelligence isn’t just about avoiding more obstacles, it’s about a robot learning to clean with human intent. The TR1 is their Trojan horse for this idea, a device that watches how you clean up a spill in its handheld form and then applies that knowledge when it’s back in robot mode. It’s a fascinating, almost sci-fi concept grounded in a piece of hardware that looks thoughtfully engineered and ready for the real world.

Designer: xLean

That one-second switch from autonomous robot to handheld cleaner is the core of the entire experience. It’s not a clumsy, multi-step process; an electric lock disengages the main unit, and you’re ready to tackle a sudden mess. This dual-form design is the only way the robot can access its “Self-Evolving Intelligence.” By using the RGB-D camera, green laser sensor, and motor encoders in handheld mode, the TR1 records your movements and habits. It learns your specific approach to cleaning, a process known as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback, or RLHF. This collected data, anonymized with user consent, is then used to refine its cleaning algorithms, meaning the robot actually gets smarter and more aligned with your preferences over time through OTA updates.

Of course, a clever learning system is meaningless if the fundamental cleaning is weak, especially in handheld mode where you’re dealing with the worst messes. This is where xLean’s engineering team seems to have put in the hours, developing what they call Dual-Motor DirectSuction. Instead of a typical vacuum-then-mop system, the TR1 uses high negative pressure to suck up solids and liquids simultaneously. The real magic is the VortexMatrix Separation Technology, a system refined over three years and nearly 40 prototypes to solve the physics puzzle of separating air and liquid inside a low-profile body. Paired with dual rollers spinning at 800 RPM, it has the raw power to handle anything from spilled cereal to a sticky juice disaster without just smearing it around.

The intelligence extends to its robot form as well. Its square body and impressive 6mm-level edge cleaning ability ensure it gets into the corners that circular robots famously miss. The navigation is powered by Reinforcement Learning, trained across millions of simulated scenarios to handle complex environments like a maze of chair legs without getting stuck. It maps a 150-square-meter space in just three minutes and uses a combination of Vision and LiDAR for object recognition, identifying over 400 different household obstacles. For the privacy-conscious, there is a physical “Red Line” camera shutter that slides over the lens, giving you a clear visual confirmation that it isn’t watching when you don’t want it to.

Once the cleaning is done, the TR1 returns to its OMNI Station, a base that’s as innovative as the robot itself. It features what xLean claims is the world’s first disposal system designed for mixed solid-liquid waste, so you don’t have to deal with the gross slurry yourself. The station then performs a full-path flush with 60°C hot water to clean the robot’s internal tubing and rollers, followed by a self-drying cycle. For total automation, the station is even designed to be upgraded for direct water refills and drainage, eliminating the need to ever touch a water tank again. It’s a complete, end-to-end system that seems to have considered every user pain point.

It’s clear the team at xLean is playing the long game. They talk about the TR1 as the first step toward general-purpose robotics, a platform to validate their core technologies at scale. The integration with the Apple ecosystem, including Matter and HomeKit support, shows they understand the importance of seamless smart home control. They’ve even built the hardware to be modular, hinting at future upgrades that could unlock new capabilities. With a global Kickstarter launch planned soon after its IFA debut, the xLean TR1 feels like a confident and compelling answer to the question of what comes next for home cleaning. It’s a robot that doesn’t just work for you; it learns from you.

The post This Robot Vacuum Watches You Clean, Then Learns to Copy You: xLean TR1 Hands On at IFA 2025 first appeared on Yanko Design.

It’s that time of year again, and the halls of IFA 2025 are buzzing with the usual mix of ambitious concepts and iterative updates. Every so often, though, a company we’ve been tracking drops something that feels less like an update and more like a statement. Timekettle is that company this year. We’ve talked about their W4 Pro earbuds before, praising how they nailed the near-instantaneous translation that makes conversation feel human again. Now, they’ve unveiled the W4 AI Interpreter Earbuds, a smaller, sleeker, in-ear sibling aimed squarely at the rest of us, not just the C-suite execs jetting between Tokyo and Berlin.

This launch solidifies the idea that Timekettle has found its groove. They are building a cohesive ecosystem, not just a collection of one-off gadgets. The W4 borrows the core philosophy of the W4 Pro, prioritizing seamless, natural communication, but packages it for casual travelers and spontaneous conversations. It’s a smart move, recognizing that the need for clear translation isn’t confined to the boardroom. The company is iterating on a winning formula: create hardware that disappears, letting the software do the heavy lifting so people can actually connect. This is about refining a solution, not reinventing the wheel for marketing’s sake.

Designer: Timekettle

That’s the real trick here, the bone-voiceprint sensor. Instead of just using microphones that pick up every bit of ambient cafe chatter or airport noise, the W4 detects the vibrations from your own bones as you speak. This is a clever way to achieve incredibly precise voice capture, effectively isolating what you say from the environment around you. The result is crystal-clear input for the translation engine, which is half the battle for accuracy. It also means your conversation remains private, with minimal sound leakage. For anyone who has tried to use a translation app on a busy street, this hardware-first approach to clarity is a massive leap forward.

And of course, it all runs on their proprietary Babel OS 2.0. This is where the magic happens after the hardware captures your voice. With a claimed 98 percent accuracy and a wild 0.2-second lag time, the experience is functionally real-time. The system uses advanced LLMs to understand the context of a conversation, which allows it to intelligently correct for confusing homophones, those pesky words that sound the same but mean different things. It supports a staggering 42 languages and 95 different accents, covering over 95 percent of the global population. Timekettle is even teasing future updates like AI voice cloning, which could make translated speech sound like your own.

They’ve clearly figured out their hardware playbook. The W4 Pro, with its over-ear design and boom mic, is the serious tool for professionals who need uncompromising performance. This new W4 is the stylish, everyday-carry version. Its compact in-ear form factor, available in a slick Navy Blue or Sandy Gold, is designed for comfort and portability. The ergonomic hook ensures the sound-pickup mic is perfectly positioned without constant fiddling. Timekettle understands that for a device to be truly useful, it has to be something you actually want to wear and carry, blending fashion with its powerful function.

This whole “one-flip sharing” thing is brilliant in its simplicity, carrying over the user-friendly ethos from their other products like the X1 Hub. You just flip open the case and hand an earbud to the person you want to talk to. The system automatically establishes a two-way translation channel, enabling a natural, face-to-face conversation. It completely removes the awkwardness of passing a phone back and forth or speaking into a shared device. This maintains eye contact and body language, the crucial elements of communication that most tech solutions completely ignore. It’s a design choice that puts the human experience first.

The battery specs are solid enough for a full day of adventuring. You get four hours of continuous translation or eight hours of music playback directly from the earbuds. The charging case bumps those numbers up to ten and eighteen hours respectively. This dual functionality as a high-quality music listening device makes the W4 a versatile travel companion, not just a single-purpose translator. Priced at $349, it’s a serious investment, but it reflects the premium, problem-solving tech packed inside. While others are still fumbling with basic accuracy, Timekettle is busy refining the nuances of human interaction.

The post Google and Apple Should Be Worried About Timekettle’s Newest AI Translator Earbuds: IFA 2025 first appeared on Yanko Design.

My theory is that you don’t inherently trust what you can’t see. Or rather, it’s more difficult to trust things you can’t see. Take AI for example, it literally took ChatGPT to become a sycophant for people to put their trust in it. But Clippy, as useless as it was, garnered a level of fondness… because you could see it, you were aware of its presence. Siri is currently facing this exact problem, it lacks the emotional warmth of ChatGPT, and the physical presence of a Clippy. That, in part, is a major reason why Siri hasn’t ‘stuck’, but Ben Geskin’s reimagination of Apple’s voice assistant may solve one of those problems.

For current Vision Pro users, Siri exists as a glass orb with a glowing waveform inside it (sort of like Siri on your phones and tablets). However, given Apple’s push for making Siri smarter (using AI), Geskin decided the voice assistant needed a new avatar – something that felt warm, familiar, trustworthy. Geskin’s Siri 2.0 features a friendly face, borrowed from the MacOS Finder icon, and put on a colorful orb that sort of feels like an abstracted gradiented version of the Apple Intelligence colors. While the Finder icon has always existed as just a static face, it now comes to life with this new avatar of Siri, looking at you, answering your questions, and responding with the emotional connect of an AI assistant, and the adorable face that’s as warm as Clippy (but probably a tad more useful!)

Designer: Ben Geskin

Geskin shared his concept on Threads, garnering a lot of responses from people who compared it to Clippy, and some who said it reminded them of Miss Minutes from the TV series Loki. The latter is a stellar example of how a ‘face’ or a ‘presence’ can really humanize something that isn’t inherently human… to the point that it feels dystopian. However, with Siri 2.0, this merely gives Apple’s popular voice assistant a face to match.

Now, instead of interacting with a bunch of glowing soundwaves, you have a personality to direct your queries to. This particular variant only exists in Vision Pro (it really does make the most sense in the spatial realm), although I don’t see why the Finder ‘face’ couldn’t just become the avatar for Apple Intelligence. The colors inside could move to create dynamism (they could rotate while the AI is thinking), and god forbid if the thing crashes, all it needs to do is become Apple’s beach ball!

I really don’t subscribe to the idea of ‘humanizing’ AI, but I’d like to at least know what I’m talking to. Currently, Siri exists either as an ominous voice inside my AirPods, or as a glow around my iPhone screen. For all its faults, I do still think Siri deserves a more concrete presence, and Geskin’s reimagination of the popular voice assistant really has my heart! After all, if it has a name, it should have a face too, right?!

 

View on Threads

 

The post Siri gets a dedicated ‘Avatar’ in Vision Pro thanks to this UI Concept first appeared on Yanko Design.