Most Macro Pads Top Out at 24 Keys, but This Keychron Has 100

Macro pads have always operated on the assumption that a handful of keys is enough. Most offer between six and 24 programmable buttons, which covers a tidy shortcut setup until it doesn’t, when a workflow shifts or a new application joins the rotation. Running out of keys usually means buying a second pad, stacking it beside the first, and accepting that the layout will never quite be what you originally wanted.

The Keychron C100 8K skips that problem entirely by starting with 100. Arranged in a 10-by-10 grid and taking up roughly the footprint of a full-size keyboard, it ships with every key completely unbound. There are no default shortcuts, no preset layouts, and nothing to undo. The entire surface is a blank canvas that users fill through Keychron Launcher, the brand’s browser-based configuration tool.

Designer: Keychron

That software handles everything from key assignments and macro sequences to per-key RGB lighting. Color-coding matters more here than it does on a conventional keyboard, because it’s one of the more practical ways to navigate 100 unmarked keys. A cluster in red for video editing, a row in blue for streaming controls, and a section in green for communication apps turns a uniform grid into something immediately legible.

The switches underneath are Keychron’s own Apex Red linears, which ship installed but aren’t the only option. Hot-swappable sockets mean any MX-style switch fits without soldering, which opens the C100 to the deeper enthusiast habit of collecting and testing different switches across different zones. The transparent ASA-profile keycaps, made from a combination of PBT and polycarbonate, let the per-key RGB glow through without muddying the colors.

An 8,000Hz polling rate sits at the competitive end of the spec sheet, which matters most for gaming where input latency becomes meaningful. That puts the C100 in a different position from most macro pads, which treat speed as secondary to programmability. Having both in the same device means the 100 keys can cover reactive gaming inputs and slower productivity shortcuts with the same responsiveness.

The scale of the grid also changes how the device can be organized in practice. A standard macro pad tends to cluster tightly around a single application, leaving little room for secondary controls. The C100 has enough room to dedicate zones to different software contexts without overlap, so switching between a video editor and a 3D modeling tool doesn’t require reprogramming or layer-switching in the middle of a session.

Connectivity is wired USB Type-C, which removes batteries and wireless latency from the equation. Adjustable feet let users dial in the typing angle, and the plastic body keeps the overall weight manageable for something this large. At 196.65mm x 196.65mm, the C100 forms a perfect square, which makes it geometrically distinctive at a glance and easy to position consistently on a desk.

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ASUS Built an E-Bike Booster You Can Actually Take on a Plane

Dedicated e-bikes have become a convincing answer to the urban commuting question, but they come with their own set of problems. They’re expensive to buy, awkward to carry on public transit, and they make the bike itself the investment rather than the ride. For anyone who already has a bicycle they like, replacing it entirely to gain electric assist has always felt like the wrong solution to a solvable problem.

The ASUS Oxiis E250G1 takes a different approach. Instead of replacing a bike, it adds to one. The unit clamps directly to the seatpost, pressing a motorized roller against the rear tire, and the friction-drive mechanism converts pedaling into electrically assisted riding without touching the existing drivetrain. Installation doesn’t require tools or a visit to a shop, and removal takes about the same amount of time.

Designer: ASUS

At the heart of the system is Adaptive Boost Technology, which reads the terrain and automatically increases power on climbs or against headwinds. Riders can also select between Eco, Normal, and Sport modes manually, either through a button on the unit itself or via the companion app on Android and iOS. Sport mode keeps range to about 10 km; Eco mode extends it to 50 km on a single charge.

That 50km ceiling comes from a 158.4Wh battery rated at 36V, which charges to full in two hours using a 100W USB-C PD connection. The battery is removable and certified as flight-safe for carry-on luggage with airline approval, which opens up a category of travel where bringing an electric bike along typically requires checking oversized bags or renting locally. A round trip on a familiar bike instead of a rental changes the experience considerably.

The anti-slip mechanism keeps the roller seated against the tire consistently, even over uneven surfaces, so power delivery stays smooth rather than intermittent under load. The unit weighs 3.7kg with the battery in place, puts out 250W rated and 500W at peak, and tops out at 32km/h. A built-in tail light uses brake detection to signal the rider slowing down to anyone behind, which is one of those small safety details that matters more in traffic than spec sheets tend to convey.

Compatibility stretches across most city, road, gravel, folding, and hardtail mountain bikes, fitting wheel sizes from 16 inches up to 700C. Full-suspension frames and carbon fiber seatposts are the noted exceptions, which rule out a portion of higher-end mountain bikes. For slick, semi-slick, and textured tires, the roller has enough grip to handle regular commuting conditions; knobby off-road tires aren’t recommended for obvious reasons.

When the ride ends and the commuter reaches their destination, the Oxiis comes off the bike and goes into a backpack. That portability reframes what an e-bike conversion kit can mean: not a permanent modification that commits the bike to one configuration, but a system that travels with the rider and attaches only when the assist is wanted. The bike stays as it is the rest of the time.

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Beni Is What Sony Aibo Grew Up to Be – A $549 Camera Robot That Captures Life While You Live It

Every camera product ever made has one thing in common: it needs you to operate it. A gimbal needs a hand to hold it. A drone needs a pilot with eyes on a controller. An action cam mounts somewhere on your body, which means it films from your body, not at it. Even the smartest AI tracking stand on the market still requires you to set it up, point it at where you’ll roughly be, and go do something interesting within its field of view. All of this adds up to a life spent maneuvering cameras instead of being in front of them, and the shots that matter most, the ones where you’re actually doing the thing, are consistently the ones you’re missing from.

Beni, from Palo Alto startup Mondo Robotics, is the robot that plays camera crew. It rides on four wheels, films in 4K HDR with 3-axis stabilization, hits 17.9 mph, and clears 10-inch obstacles mid-chase, getting itself back upright after a fall without any help from you. The team includes engineers from DJI and Tesla’s Optimus program, which explains how a 3.86-pound consumer robot ends up with hardware like that. It also has color-changing expressive eyes, a swappable hat, a name, and a personality that comes through in little nods and head shakes. That design language places Beni in a tradition Sony’s Aibo started in 1999, building robots people actually want to be around. The engineering is serious, the warmth is deliberate, and the combination puts Beni in territory most robotics products actively avoid.

Designer: Mondo Robotics

Click here to Buy Now: $549 $799 (31% off). Hurry, only 39/230 left! Raised over $2.8 million.

The choice to give a camera robot a face, a name, and a wardrobe is a design statement, not a marketing gimmick. Beni’s eyes change color and express emotions, it nods and shakes its head, and the whole body is customizable through swappable hats, ear attachments, and protection plates, in whatever combination suits you. The character design sits somewhere between a cartoon character and a precision instrument, which sounds like a contradiction and somehow isn’t. Mondo Robotics understood that emotional connection determines how often a device actually leaves the house. A robot you find charming is one you take outside. One that reads like a spec sheet stays in the drawer.

Beni measures 8.5 by 7.1 by 7.1 inches and weighs 3.86 pounds, light enough to throw in a bag. It hits 17.9 mph (28.8 kph) to keep pace with skateboarders and runners, clears up to 10-inch obstacles to handle curbs and stairs, dodges obstacles with onboard sensing, and self-rights when it tips over. The self-recovery system sounds like a footnote until you actually send Beni across gravel and watch it eat dirt, bounce back up, and continue tracking without a second of interruption. A creator who ran it through grass, gravel, trails, and concrete stairs for a full week reported footage that never stopped rolling. That kind of reliability is what separates a robot from a gadget.

The camera shoots 4K with HDR coloring that handles extreme lighting without manual adjustment. HybridFlow Stabilization combines four-axis mechanical and electronic stabilization, which keeps footage smooth even when Beni is clattering across rough terrain at full speed. Storage is 32GB internally with a microSD slot for expansion. Everything core, tracking, filming, obstacle avoidance, runs entirely on-device, and your footage stays on the robot’s local storage. The only cloud connection Beni ever makes is for the optional AI auto-editing feature, and only when you explicitly give permission. For a camera product in 2026, that’s a privacy setup worth paying attention to.

Tail tracking, side tracking, front tracking, and circle tracking give Beni four distinct cinematic modes, each producing footage that most solo filmers never actually get to see. Tail mode keeps Beni behind you at pace, a proper chase-cam shot without anyone chasing. Side mode locks it right beside you, framing you against the rushing landscape the way a Hollywood tracking rig would. Front mode has Beni reversing ahead while filming your face, which turns out to be unusually good for capturing effort and expression mid-activity. Circle mode sends it into a continuous 360-degree orbit for sweeping hero shots. The magnetic Motion Tracker, worn on your wrist or clipped to your bag, keeps Beni locked on even when you briefly move out of frame, and doubles as a manual controller for directing movement without touching your phone.

Beni’s auto-editing feature builds highlights from your raw footage using AI models that Mondo Robotics has customized, so you’re not manually scrubbing through hours of clips for ten good seconds. The company is clear that this is the only opt-in cloud feature; every other function runs locally. Pilot Mode sits at the other end of the control spectrum, letting you drive Beni manually from your phone for footage from its low-slung ground-level perspective. The vantage point is genuinely unlike anything a handheld camera can produce, just by virtue of where the lens sits relative to the ground.

Battery life runs 1.5 hours per charge, with a swappable design that stretches to 4.5 hours across three batteries. The Standard Combo, including Beni, Motion Tracker, hat, chest protection plate, and one battery, is available at $549 (discounted from the $799 retail price). The Explore Combo adds three batteries, a charging hub, and off-road wheels for $699. Individual add-ons, including extra batteries at $59, off-road wheel pairs at $9, ears and hats packs at $9, and protection plates at $9, are available separately. Every unit comes with a 12-month limited warranty from the date of activation, and global customer support is available at mondorobotics.com. Shipping covers the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, with customs fees included on a flat $10 shipping fee.

Click here to Buy Now: $549 $799 (31% off). Hurry, only 39/230 left! Raised over $2.8 million.

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The $29 Key Ring That Finally Fixed a 130-Year-Old Problem

While I have a lot of keychains, from pop culture to K-pop to travel-themed, I am truly annoyed with keyrings. To be honest, I don’t have any ability to open and close them, so I have to wait for my brother or a friend to attach my keychain of choice. It’s something we use every single day, yet there hasn’t been any improvement to them for the past hundred years or so, and they cause annoyance and sometimes even pain. That oversight, I think, is finally getting corrected.

The Painless Key Ring is exactly what its name promises, which is both its greatest strength and possibly why it is not getting the attention it deserves. It sounds almost too simple. A key ring without the pain. But when you consider that the double-coiled split ring design has not meaningfully changed in over 130 years, a product that actually reimagines it from the inside out starts to feel less like a novelty and more like something that was long overdue.

Click Here to Buy Now: $29.00

The engineering behind it borrows from places you would not typically associate with your front door key. The coiled wave spring technology used in this ring is the same mechanism found in aerospace equipment and bullet train systems. Japan, where the ring is made, is not exactly known for cutting corners on precision, and that pedigree shows in the numbers. At just 0.1 oz for the large version, it is half the weight of a standard key ring. At 0.03 inches thick, it is noticeably slimmer. And despite being lighter and thinner, it is twice as strong as a conventional ring, thanks to the high-tensile steel used in its construction.

The functional difference comes down to one motion. A traditional split ring makes you hunt for the gap in the coil, wedge a fingernail underneath, and pry it open millimeter by millimeter while the metal digs into your skin. The Painless Key Ring opens when you press the release point. Let go, and it closes. That is the entire operation. No gap hunting, no skin damage, no compromised manicure. The wave spring structure creates what you could describe as a “pre-warped” design, where the natural flex of the ring accommodates keys of any size without warping under stress or losing its shape over time.

It comes as a set of one large ring and three smaller rings, available in silver and black. The black version is dyed rather than painted, which makes it more resistant to wear and scratches, not just aesthetically different. Both finishes hold up well against the daily context of being thrown into a bag, clipped to a carabiner, or dropped on a desk, which is most of our actual key ring experience.

At $29 for a set, the price sits in a range that feels proportionate to what you are getting. It is not an impulse buy, but it is also not a hard sell when you consider that most people spend more on a single decent pen without much deliberation. The comparison that keeps coming to mind is the razor that replaced the old disposable, or the notebook that made you stop picking up freebies at conferences. Once you use something engineered to actually work, the previous version becomes very difficult to go back to.

The design community talks a lot about objects that deserve more attention than they receive, and the key ring is probably the most obvious example of that gap. We carry our keys every day without any particular feeling about them, which is fine until you realize that feeling nothing about a daily object usually means it is only doing the minimum. The Painless Key Ring sets a different bar, one that takes the smallest, most neglected piece of your everyday carry and applies genuine engineering logic to it. Whether you are someone who obsesses over EDC setups or someone who just wants to stop destroying their nails every time you need a spare key, the upgrade reads the same either way.

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Japan’s Ice Cream Shop Where the Stools Look Like Melting Ice Cream

If a space can be designed to feel like a pause, SR Ice Cream Miyakojima might be the best argument for it. Tucked on Miyakojima Island in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture, this small cafe and ice cream shop by architecture studio Kii is the kind of project that makes you stop scrolling and actually look. Not because it’s flashy, but because everything in it seems to belong somewhere between the island and the dessert it serves.

Kii co-founder Satoshi Arai described the brief in beautifully simple terms: create a place where local residents, new arrivals, and tourists can all just show up, sit down, and share a moment. No hierarchy. No specific demographic. Just ice cream and a good atmosphere. That’s a harder brief to pull off than it sounds, and what Kii delivered is quietly remarkable.

Designer: Kii

The most talked-about detail is the stools, and they deserve the attention. Kii commissioned pastel-coloured stools from NOTA shop, with a handmade glaze designed to mimic the look of ice cream that’s started to melt. Arai was clear that the studio went through multiple prototypes to get the colour and texture just right, which tells you something about how seriously Kii takes even the smallest gesture. The results are unpredictable by design, each stool slightly different from the last. It’s the kind of thing you don’t notice until you really look, and once you do, you can’t unsee it.

But the stools aren’t the whole story. The counter is clad in local limestone clay, applied in repeated layers to build up a textured, almost geological surface, with the tabletop polished from the same material. When you consider that Miyakojima is a Pacific island that takes regular typhoon hits, the choice of limestone starts to feel less like an aesthetic decision and more like a conversation with the landscape itself. The floor and walls are lined with perforated concrete bricks, a building typology native to typhoon-prone Okinawa, reimagined here as custom interior tiles by Tajimi Tiles. Taking something structural and utilitarian and folding it into the interior language is exactly the kind of move that separates good design from great design.

Above the central counter, a curved ceiling finished in pale pink draws the eye upward. The colour was chosen in direct response to the natural light quality of the space, and it works in the way that subtle things tend to work: you might not clock it immediately, but it shifts the mood of the whole room. The counter also has a small arched door built into it for filter maintenance, a pragmatic detail that somehow ends up looking charming. That balance between function and personality runs through the entire project.

There’s a broader conversation to be had about what we want from food retail design right now, and SR Ice Cream Miyakojima sits squarely in it. We’ve spent years in the era of the Instagrammable space, where interior choices were made to perform on a phone screen rather than to serve the people inside them. Kii seems uninterested in that game. The materials here are regional and weather-worn. The stools are handmade and imperfect. The pink ceiling is gentle, not loud. The whole space is designed to function as a community anchor, not a backdrop.

That’s not to say the space isn’t photogenic, because it absolutely is. But the photography feels like a byproduct of good intentions rather than the goal. It’s a distinction that matters, especially on an island where the landscape already does most of the heavy lifting.

Miyakojima is the kind of place that tends to make people slow down. The fact that Kii designed a space that encourages exactly that feels right. An ice cream shop shouldn’t need to compete with the ocean view outside, and this one doesn’t try to. It just sits there, cool and considered, with its melting stools and layered limestone and quietly pink ceiling, doing what the best spaces do: making you want to stay a little longer.

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These Contemporary Chairs Turn Sustainability and Stillness Into Design

A chair can be a surprisingly effective storytelling device. Give it a different material, soften a familiar silhouette, or borrow a gesture from somewhere unexpected, and suddenly it becomes more than somewhere to sit. Jaro Kose’s CUT and ZEN chairs approach that idea from two very different directions: one gives discarded material a second life, while the other translates the meditative landscape of a Japanese Zen garden into an upholstered form.

CUT is, at first glance, a fairly restrained wooden chair. Its clean oak frame, gently rounded proportions and broad backrest give it the familiarity of a classic dining chair, while its stackable construction makes it practical enough for both residential and public environments. The design also extends into upholstered and high-chair variations without losing the clarity of the original silhouette. But one version of CUT changes the story through material alone.

Designer: Jaro Kose

Sustainability plays an important role in Kose’s design approach, particularly in considering how materials are sourced, used and eventually given another life. Reflecting the client’s own commitment to sustainability, a version of CUT replaces the conventional seat and backrest with components made from recycled plastic.

Instead of disguising the material’s previous life, the chair celebrates it. The recycled surface has a visibly speckled texture, almost terrazzo-like from a distance, creating a sharp contrast against the quieter wooden frame. The project explores several possible recycled finishes, turning what could have been treated purely as an environmental choice into part of the chair’s visual character.

There is something appealing about that transformation. A material once categorized as waste returns as the element that gives the chair its personality. Sustainability here is not added as a label after the design is finished; it becomes visible in the object itself. CUT suggests that responsible material choices do not necessarily have to make furniture feel overtly ecological or compromise a refined interior aesthetic. Waste can simply become another raw material to design with.

ZEN moves in almost the opposite direction. Instead of beginning with a material question, the armchair begins with a feeling.

Its inspiration comes from Japanese Zen gardens, spaces historically associated with meditation and contemplation. Their carefully positioned stones and raked gravel create compositions that feel almost motionless while still suggesting movement. Kose translates that relationship into a chair designed around softness, stillness and visual calm.

The connection is immediately recognizable. The generous upholstered seat resembles a smooth stone, except here the expected hardness has been replaced with foam and fabric. Behind it, a series of rounded concentric forms creates the backrest, echoing the repetitive lines drawn through gravel around rocks in a Zen garden.

It is a wonderfully literal reference without becoming novelty furniture. The chair still reads clearly as a contemporary lounge piece, but once you understand the inspiration, the relationship between every element becomes obvious. The seat becomes the stone; the backrest becomes the energy radiating around it.

That softness also gives ZEN an interesting presence within an interior. Fully upholstered furniture is already common in contemporary residential spaces, so the material itself allows the chair to blend naturally into its surroundings. Its unusually rounded proportions and graphic backrest, however, make sure it never completely disappears.

CUT and ZEN ultimately tell two stories about contemporary living. CUT asks what happens when designers reconsider the materials we have already used, while ZEN looks at how furniture can encourage a different relationship with our surroundings and ourselves. One gives waste another life. The other turns a meditative landscape into something you can sink into. And both show how a relatively simple chair can carry a surprisingly rich idea.

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You Can Now Own a Piece of Verstappen’s Controversial 2021 Championship-Winning F1 Car

Remember where you were on December 12, 2021? If you’re an F1 fan, chances are you do, because that was the day Max Verstappen snatched his first world title away from Lewis Hamilton on the literal final lap, in the literal final corner, off the back of a safety car restart that stewards are probably still debating in group chats somewhere. I was rooting for Hamilton that day, and honestly, watching it unfold live still ranks as one of the most gutting sports moments I’ve sat through. Verstappen fans got a legend born in real time. The rest of us got years of “what if” conversations that still spark up whenever Abu Dhabi comes up.

F1 Authentics just gave fans a way to own a literal piece of that chaos. The official F1 memorabilia arm, run by Memento Exclusives, has dropped a new Mystery Box collection where every single box guarantees a genuine piece of bodywork from the RB16B, the Honda powered Red Bull that carried Verstappen to that maiden championship. Only 1,000 boxes exist worldwide, with 500 going up for grabs online, priced around £1,000 GBP ($1,348 USD) a pop, which also happens to be the minimum guaranteed value of everything packed inside.

Designer: F1 Authentics (Memento Exclusives)

That RB16B earned every bit of the spotlight it’s getting now. It was an evolution of the 2020 car, finally sharp enough to go toe to toe with a dominant Mercedes squad, and it carried Verstappen through nine wins across one of the most contentious title fights modern F1 has produced. Hamilton led early, Verstappen clawed the lead back mid-season, and the two arrived at Abu Dhabi dead level on points. We all know how that ended. Owning a fragment of that car means owning a piece of the exact machine that decided, for better or worse depending who you asked, one of the sport’s most argued about championships.

Somewhere in that run of a thousand boxes sits the real chaos generator, a redeemable ticket for an official F1 replica front wing and nose, pulled from cars across Aston Martin, Cadillac, Racing Bulls, Red Bull, Williams, or Alpine, and valued north of twenty grand. It’s a genuinely wild pull rate, turning what could have been a straightforward memorabilia drop into something closer to a scratch card for grown adults with disposable income and a soft spot for motorsport history.

F1 Authentics has been building toward drops like this all year, following an earlier sold out box tied to Lando Norris’s championship car and a March release that hid an £89,000 racing simulator inside one of just 150 units. F1 memorabilia is getting gamified, and this RB16B drop might be the most emotionally loaded chapter yet, especially if you were the one yelling at your TV that night in Abu Dhabi.

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LEGO x Nike Air Force 1 is set for take-off with a 360° dunking minifig onboard

LEGO and Nike are back with their new themed set. This time it’s the Air Force 1 Space-Themed Building Set that seems en route to orbit and beyond, leaving nothing but its exhaust plume behind. If you’ve been following, this is not the first such collaborative model. LEGO x Nike started their collaboration of kicks, bricks, and a whole lot of fan love with the co-branded Nike Dunk x LEGO Set.

Since then, the inspiring duo has not looked back. Giving sneakerheads, builders, and those who live in the spirit of basketball, a new set with playful details almost every year. Ideal for kids aged 9+ and adults alike, over the years, Nike Slam Dunk and the Nike Dunk Trickshot, the bright yellow Air Max Dn, and the iconic Air Max 95 LEGO sets have swayed us big time, and now the AF1 is here with similar intention.

Designer: LEGO x NikeLEGO x Nike

The LEGO x Nike Air Force 1 building set was officially announced with its first look on the LEGO website just recently. A nod to the Nike Air Force 1 sneaker, first launched in 1982, the set comprises 1,093 pieces and measures over 10.5 inches high, 14 inches wide and 4 inches deep. Alongside the sneaker, the interactive set features other antics to make it really interesting to see and fun to build. The space-themed build has the basketball sneaker as the highlight, but it shares base with kinetic display elements that are, of course, an eminent part of the build.

The Air Force 1 itself, ready for launch, comes in a clean white colorway with an orange Swoosh logo. The Swoosh is removable and replaceable with a silver logo, which resembles the heel collar ascent of the sneaker. The set, as mentioned, is not about the sneaker alone. Assembled on a base with traction patterns resembling the Air Force 1 outsole, it is centered around a large blue-colored AF1 sign.

The basketball setting on the base is made interesting with a LEGO spaceman minifigure, with Nike styling, mounted onto a mechanical rig and stationed on the AF1 sign with a basketball hoop just in the front. The minifigure features an interchangeable head and is attached to an integrated dial, which can be turned to let the minifig pull off one of the most difficult basketball moves. It can do a full 360-degree dunk by spinning mid-air before slamming the ball through the hoop.

An eye-pleasing conglomeration in white, blue and yellow, this LEGO x Nike Air Force 1 set will begin shipping from September 1, 2026. It will be available through LEGO for $100; a price point that should push you to get this streetwear decor for your desk, shelf, or bedside table.

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Pixel Watch 5 arrives with incremental upgrades and Gemini Intelligence, but are you willing to pay more?

It’s that time of the year for Google to introduce its line-up of smartphones, smartwatches, and everything else that is destined for greatness. Samsung showed off last month what’s in their kitty, Apple’s going to reveal all the excitement next month, and bang in between is Pixel, right now. We already revealed our initial impressions of the Pixel 11 and the Pixel Tag, so now it’s the Pixel Watch 5 under the scanner.

The new wearable from the Google camp was making all the news in the weeks leading up to the final announcement, and most of those leaks have come true. Just like the Pixel Watch 4, the new wearable gets the same 360 domed Gorilla Glass 5 and more or less the same material composition from which the chassis is constructed. Last year’s Pixel Watch was good, and this one is an even better upgrade if you want to roll into the Google ecosystem.

Designer: Google

The watch designed for Gemini Intelligence gets a 320ppi AMOLED LTPO display supporting DCI-P3 color, but still has the same 3,000 nits brightness level as the predecessor. Under the hood, this wearable gets a clocked-up version of the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 (claimed to be 12 percent faster than last year’s offering) mated to an upgraded 3GB RAM (from 2GB last year) and 64GB storage, which again is an upgrade from the 32GB on the Watch 4. However, I was expecting the Snapdragon Wear Elite (based on the 3nm manufacturing process) to grace the smartwatch, just like on the new Galaxy watches. That said, it isn’t a deal breaker in any way.

Just like with all the newer gadget offerings, this one improves on the health tracking and claims to bring accurate sleep tracking for loyal users. Other reliable features include the loss of pulse detection (called the Breathing emergency detection) and skin temperature tracking. SpO2 monitoring and ECG tracking also come standard with both the models.

Improvement of life features include recovery recommendations based on heart rate and sleep metrics, custom strength routines, and the Google Health Coach with custom workouts. According to Google, the route tracking accuracy on the Pixel Watch 5 has improved by almost 100 percent. Do look out for the Blood Pressure Trends and non-invasive Insulin Resistance Trends, which could be a deal-maker if you are looking for exactly those kinds of features in a smartwatch.

Quite predictably, Google is offering the IP68 and 5ATM-rated Pixel Watch 5 in 41mm and 45mm sizes, in both Wi-Fi-only and LTE variants. The 41mm version gets a 332mAh battery pack while the 45mm variants have a beefier 465mAh battery on board. Both are slight bump-ups from last year’s version for a few hours more of juice. The 41mm version lasts for around 30 hours, and the 45mm version for 40 hours on one full recharge. According to Google, the Quick charge dock adds 15 hours of runtime with just 15 minutes of charge.

Google is offering the 41mm model in Matte Black, Polished Silver, and Champagne Gold colors, whereas the bigger 45mm variant will be available in just the Champagne Gold hue. The prices on both the Pixel Watch 5 models and their variants have gone up slightly. The 41mm version for the Wi-Fi model costs $399, and the LTE variant goes for $499. The bigger 45mm version is priced at $29 for the Wi-Fi model, and the LTE version costs $529.

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The $171 Vest Worn by F1 Drivers Hit the World Cup

Heat has always been part of the game. Whether you’re a footballer running laps before a match, a Formula 1 driver crammed into a cockpit where temperatures can soar to 55-60°C, or a cyclist grinding through the Tour de France in July, managing your body temperature isn’t just about comfort. It’s about survival and, more specifically, performance.

That’s exactly what Dutch company Inuteq has been working on for years, quietly and without much fanfare, until now. Their PCM CoolOver, a cooling vest built on phase-change material technology, has found its way into one of the most high-profile collaborations in sportswear: the adidas CLIMACOOL System, officially unveiled for the FIFA World Cup 2026.

Designers: adidas x Inuteq

The way phase-change material works is genuinely clever. The vest contains PCM cells made from 100% biobased materials that absorb heat from the body as they gradually transition from solid to liquid state, keeping the surface at a consistent, controlled temperature. The 15°C version, the one widely used by athletes in sport and recovery, delivers up to 2.5 hours of constant cooling. No batteries, no electricity, no complicated mechanics. Just material science doing what it’s supposed to do.

I’ll admit that I didn’t expect to find myself genuinely excited about a vest. But when you look at what this collaboration actually represents, it shifts the conversation in interesting ways. Cooling technology has been operating in the background of elite sport for a long time. Ice towels, cold baths, fans on the sideline. These solutions work well enough, but they’re reactive. The PCM CoolOver feels like a proper design response to a problem that deserves one. It’s specific, engineered, wearable, and built on science rather than just intuition.

The adidas partnership started in motorsport. The CLIMACOOL System was originally developed to help Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team drivers, including George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, cope with extreme cockpit heat. From there, it was adapted, tested, and refined alongside football clubs including Manchester United, Juventus, and Arsenal, before being made available to all adidas partner federations at the 2026 World Cup. That’s a journey from one of the most technically demanding environments in sport to one of the most globally watched. Not a bad trajectory for what is, at its core, a vest.

The numbers are worth sitting with for a moment. The system reduces core body temperature by up to 0.5°C and skin temperature by up to 13°C, with a complementary overshoe that brings foot temperature down by up to 2°C in minutes. The Spanish Football Federation was quick to point out how they’ve been using the vest before matches, after training, and at half-time to support player recovery and readiness. When a federation is publicly crediting a vest as part of their performance strategy, that tells you something.

What also deserves attention here is the sustainability angle. Inuteq’s PCM technology is USDA-certified 100% biobased and REACH compliant, which makes it one of the only cooling vests on the market that can make those claims. In a category that could easily lean on synthetic chemicals and disposable components, the fact that this product is also biodegradable and fabric-free, easy to clean and even sterilize, puts it in a different class. Good design shouldn’t have to compromise on this, and here, it doesn’t.

The PCM CoolOver comes in multiple temperature variants: 6.5°C, 15°C, 21°C, 24°C, and 29°C, each calibrated for different conditions and use cases, from elite athletic performance to industrial and medical settings. The range feels thoughtful, like a product family that was designed to solve real problems across real environments rather than chase a single use case.

Cooling as a design challenge might not carry the aesthetic glamour of, say, a new sneaker drop or a conceptual chair. But the PCM CoolOver is proof that genuinely functional design, the kind that solves a physical human problem with precision and care, is just as compelling, and arguably more necessary. The fact that it has quietly traveled from Dutch labs to Formula 1 cockpits to World Cup pitches says more about its value than any product launch ever could.

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