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AEG debuted a Dishwasher that’s quieter than a Library at IFA 2025. Here’s how they made it.

When you’ve been washing dishes the same way for decades, true innovation becomes almost invisible until someone shows you what’s possible. Ian Banes, Product Line Head for Dishwashing at AEG, spent four years deconstructing every aspect of how we clean our plates, from the physics of water droplets hitting ceramic to the behavioral differences between weekday efficiency and weekend entertaining. His team’s obsession with eliminating waste in the cleaning process has produced something genuinely transformative: a dishwasher that operates at library-quiet 35 decibels while using just 8.4 liters of water per cycle and achieving what they boldly claim is 100% cleaning performance in 90 minutes, no pre-rinse required.

The AEG New Favorit represents the kind of engineering breakthrough that happens when you refuse to accept that “good enough” is actually good enough. Rather than incrementally improving existing technology, Banes and his team started from scratch, questioning every assumption about spray arm rotation, water injection angles, detergent mixing timing, and even the behavioral patterns that dictate how we load our dishwashers differently on Tuesday versus Saturday night. The result challenges the fundamental compromises we’ve accepted in kitchen appliances, proving that quieter operation doesn’t mean weaker performance, and that sustainability innovations can enhance rather than limit functionality.

AEG New Favorit Dishwasher: An Interview with Ian Banes at IFA 2025

Yanko Design: Dishwashers have become almost ubiquitous, yet the hype around your new model for IFA 2025 suggests something transformative. What motivated your team to reinvent such a familiar appliance?

Ian Banes: We spend a lot of time with consumer research, including in-home studies, and from there we saw quite a lot of gaps between consumer needs and what was actually on the market. Consumers are looking for more energy saving, more water saving, shorter cycle times, and also better results. We felt there was a significant gap in the current offerings that we could improve on. That was the core motivation. We’re always looking at what consumers are doing; behaviors evolve, needs evolve, and there’s always something in the market that you can improve.

Yanko Design: The new AEG New Favorit dishwasher promises an ultra-quiet operation at just 35 decibels. Can you explain how your SuperSilent technology and re-engineered hydraulics make this extraordinary silence possible?

Ian Banes: What we tried to do is look at where there was waste in the process. We took away all of the steps that were adding things that weren’t actually helping to clean the dishes. If you’re putting water in too fast or too hard, then it can hit the side of the tub and not hit the dishes. Where you direct the water, when you direct it into the actual tub of the machine is really important.

We worked very hard on the rotation of the spray arm so that we covered different spots of the tub, on the angle of the spray arm, and then the timing with the software and the cycles. There’s a lot about making sure every drop of water was going on the plates and none of it was going on the sides of the machine or on the racks. That’s how we got to a good combination of lower noise, lower water usage, and lower energy. If you are putting extra energy to inject water against the side of the tub, then you’re making noise that you don’t need and using water and energy that you don’t need. By focusing on what wasn’t needed and just what was purely needed for the cleaning – maximizing that and minimizing everything else – that’s how we got to the low levels across all three areas.

Yanko Design: The AquaSave system is said to cut water use down to just 8.4 liters per cycle. How does this new water control system work to save so much water, and does it really clean dishes as well?

Ian Banes: Absolutely, it’s exactly the same as we just discussed because what we’re doing is putting all the water onto the dishes and none wasted in the process. We’ve also got the ability to change when we look at our zone cleaning – we can put more water into certain areas and make sure that we clean more effectively in those areas and let the standard clean work in the other areas. So we can really direct the water in a good way.

The other thing we work hard on is the mixing of detergent, because if you mix that properly then you get the detergent to activate really well. So again, you’re maximizing the effect of the chemistry as well as the effect of the water. It’s a combination of time, temperature, and the moment in the cycle when you do things. It’s a lot of small details and a lot of iterative testing. We spend a lot of time in our test labs working on different cycles and different optimization of when to do what in what sequence.

Yanko Design: Many people struggle with dishes that have burnt-on food or stubborn residues. You claim 100 percent removal in 90 minutes with your SatelliteClean Pro spray arm. What is different about this spray arm, and how does it ensure such a thorough clean?

Ian Banes: We’ve tested this externally, so we’re very confident in the claim. It’s not just ourselves saying this, it’s external institutes. It’s to do with the rotation of the arm – you can see the demonstration outside on the floor area. It covers all the corners and then it’s the angle as well, and the timing. Again it comes back to all these small details: the geometry of the nozzle, the timing of the rotation, and how much water we put in when. It’s a lot of small details adding up to a big step forward. We tested ourselves quite a lot of times and then we went to external institutes and they came back with 100% in 90 minutes, so we’re very confident in the technology we have.

Yanko Design: Many people worry that “silent” appliances might compromise on cleaning power or durability. How does the New Favorit range manage to combine whisper-quiet operation with reliable, spotless performance, and what does this mean for daily life in busy homes?

Ian Banes: For daily life, I think it makes it a lot easier for people and hopefully they’ll use dishwashers more because they’re more water efficient than hand washing. I think that’ll mean less pre-rinsing, less putting things into hand wash and running the dishwasher as well. So hopefully now everything will go in the dishwasher, which is more efficient overall. The technology again comes down to just removing the things that are not cleaning in the process and making sure we get all the details right during the process.

Yanko Design: Loading a dishwasher can be a real puzzle. The EasyFlex Pro Baskets and 4in1 FlexHolder claim to offer more flexibility and secure cleaning for everything. What are these features, and how do they make loading easier and safer?

Ian Banes: We do a lot of consumer studies and see different behaviors of how consumers load dishwashers. We focus quite a bit on consumers during the week versus weekends because during the week you’re running your life – there might be school runs, jobs, just a lot of stuff going on. You want to be quick and efficient with cooking and cleaning. You might just want to do a quick tray bake for cooking, so then you need to clean a tray.

At the weekend is more family entertainment. You have more time to enjoy things, so maybe you’re cooking bigger meals with more utensils, wine glasses, this kind of thing. So we’ve followed the consumer needs and come up with features. The 4-in-1 for the tray bake – you can clean the oven tray because it will stand up in the bottom of the dishwasher. You can also fold that feature down and then you can clean wine glasses, beer glasses, champagne flutes because it’s got the right fittings to slot things in and hold them so they’re not rattling around and getting scratched.

We’ve also managed to get a tub that’s both 82 centimeters and 87 centimeters, so with that extra 5 centimeters under the work top you have room to put more things in – bigger pizza plates, bigger glasses. We worked a lot on the loading and flexibility for both weekday living and weekend living.

Yanko Design: It’s a common practice for people to rinse their dishes before loading the dishwasher. Your new models say they eliminate the need for pre-rinsing. What changes in the design, engineering, or software make this possible?

Ian Banes: It’s everything – it comes back to the hydraulic system AquaSave, to the spray arm, and then to the software. The combination of everything just allowed us to get rid of the need to do that and then get things 100% clean. Really, a lot of engineering to bring everything to that stage. It’s a huge time-saving, and if you come back to the weekday work, then you want your time to be saved. And at the weekend you want your time to be saved as well because you want to spend it not washing up but with the people you’re entertaining, with your family.

Yanko Design: Sustainability is on everyone’s lips. Can you walk us through concrete innovations in this dishwasher that genuinely reduce environmental impact?

Ian Banes: Obviously first is the energy and water because we’re consuming less resources, so that’s the innovation around the spray arm and the hydraulics. The other thing consumers won’t necessarily see straight away, but we’ve actually really stepped up the amount of recycled plastic that’s in the machine. We’re now at 35% recycled plastic in this machine, and I think that’s a big step forward to making the whole industry more sustainable – so not just the usage phase but also in construction.

That’s been a big tangible step we’ve made because it’s a lot of complex engineering with recycled polymers. They have slightly different mechanical properties than standard polymers, so to do the engineering to get that right has been a big part of the project.

Yanko Design: If you could have users know or appreciate just one thing about this dishwasher that might not be obvious in a showroom demo, what would it be?

Ian Banes: One hundred percent clean in 90 minutes. In the showroom, you will see the energy label, the water performance, and the noise level, but performance is something you have to use the machine to see. I’d really like consumers to know that and experience it from day one.

Yanko Design: After all the work that’s gone into the New Favorit range, what’s the one moment or user reaction you’re most looking forward to at IFA 2025?

Ian Banes: Honestly, it’s the reaction I’ve just been getting now from customers. Showing them the product and getting their feedback, hearing them ask, “When can I have it in my shop?” – that’s a really prime moment. We worked for four years on the technical side, on consumer studies, and on developing solutions to meet their needs. To get that validation from people today is a really proud moment on behalf of the entire team.

Availability: The AEG New Favorit Dishwasher is entering production now, starting in Germany and rolling out across markets, with 2026 expected to be a big year for availability.

The post AEG debuted a Dishwasher that’s quieter than a Library at IFA 2025. Here’s how they made it. first appeared on Yanko Design.

Top 5 Biophilic Design Trends for Indoors: Illuminated Greenery and Functional Plant Solutions

Biophilic design brings nature into our built environments to enhance well-being and promote a stronger connection with the natural world. By incorporating elements like natural light, greenery, organic materials, and textures, everyday spaces and objects can become more calming, restorative, and inspiring.

Integrating plants into interiors helps reduce stress, support mental health, and boost relaxation. It also improves productivity by enhancing focus and creativity. Beyond aesthetics, indoor greenery purifies the air, increases oxygen levels, and fosters a grounded atmosphere, making even urban spaces feel more peaceful and connected to nature. Some of the cutting-edge applications of biophilic design in everyday objects included here will give you an insight on how to integrate it better in your daily life.

1. Green Partitions

To integrate greenery into partitions effectively, consider the space, purpose, and plant needs. Layer plants of varying heights, textures, and colors for depth, and enhance them with lighting such as spotlights or string lights. Decorative planters or repurposed items like ladders can also function as partitions to add charm and character.

Choose plants with similar light and water needs, and group them in odd numbers for visual balance. Large-leaf varieties help purify air and regulate humidity, while herbs work well in kitchen partitions. Place plants around seating to create cozy zones, and maintain them with regular watering, pruning, and giving them enough space to grow.

The Naava One is a freestanding green wall that combines natural beauty with practical functionality. Designed to enhance indoor spaces, it works as both a space divider and a living air purifier. The sleek housing holds a vibrant vertical garden, nourished by an integrated water reservoir and grow light. This built-in lighting system not only supports healthy plant growth but also creates a calming ambient glow, enriching any room’s atmosphere.

Equipped with wheels for easy mobility, the Naava One can be repositioned or grouped with additional units to transform interiors as needed. It’s also available in a Duo format, featuring greenery on both sides for double the impact. Purifying up to 60m² of air using a variety of plant species, the Naava One brings visual warmth and cleaner air to workspaces and living areas alike. It’s a thoughtful balance of design innovation and biophilic wellness.

2. Living Furniture

Furniture integrated with plants is increasingly popular for its ability to enhance interior design while supporting health and well-being. Combining greenery with functional pieces brings texture, color, and life into living spaces. This trend aligns with biophilic design, which emphasizes a deeper connection to nature within the built environment.

Beyond aesthetics, plant-filled furniture offers practical benefits such as air purification, stress reduction, and improved mood. The growing “urban jungle” trend reflects a desire for sustainability and a more mindful lifestyle. Caring for plants also adds a therapeutic element, making this design approach stylish and emotionally enriching, especially in compact urban spaces.

BloomingTables merges modern furniture design with indoor gardening, offering a unique and functional solution for plant lovers. Each table features a built-in planter housed beneath a sleek, removable glass top, allowing you to grow herbs, succulents, microgreens, or decorative plants right inside your living space. Designed as part of the world’s first “living furniture series,” BloomingTables cater to modern lifestyles, especially in compact homes and apartments where outdoor gardening is limited. This innovative design transforms everyday furniture into a sustainable and visually engaging green feature.

The collection includes four distinct sizes, including a desk, coffee table, entryway table, and side table. Each piece is crafted with a waterproof acrylic trough-shaped base and topped with a clear glass panel for effortless visibility and care. A discreet drain valve at the bottom enables easy water management, ensuring plant health while maintaining cleanliness. Functional, space-efficient, and elegantly designed, BloomingTables bring nature indoors in a refined and practical way.

3. Illuminated Greenery

The combination of plants and lighting is gaining popularity for its ability to enhance aesthetics and plant health. Creative setups like hanging greenery with string lights or grow light integrated shelves add warmth, texture, and a modern biophilic touch to interiors. This trend suits minimalist spaces and creates a cozy, nature-inspired ambiance.

Functionally, grow lights such as LEDs and T5 fluorescents provide essential light spectrums that support photosynthesis, leading to healthier plants with vibrant growth. These lights enable year-round indoor gardening, even in areas with limited natural light. Tailored lighting options make this trend practical and visually appealing for plant lovers.

Houseplants, though less demanding than edible crops, still require attention to watering, lighting, and their unique needs, making their upkeep anything but trivial. Enter the Vivo Pot, an elegantly designed smart planter that simplifies plant care without sacrificing aesthetics. This self-watering pot ensures your plants receive just the right amount of moisture, taking the guesswork out of daily routines. Its built-in COB LEDs provide essential light, allowing your favorite greens to thrive even in rooms with little natural sunlight. The Vivo Pot is not just another gadget – it’s a beautiful fusion of form and function, making plant care nearly effortless while serving as a sophisticated decor piece.

What truly sets the Vivo Pot apart is its striking design and versatility. When closed, it resembles a smooth, egg-shaped sculpture, symbolizing new beginnings and blending seamlessly with modern interiors. Swirling grooves add a sense of movement, making it a decorative accent even without a plant. The adjustable lid lifts to accommodate growing foliage, housing the integrated LEDs that double as a gentle desk lamp or atmospheric night light. A glowing ring frames the plant, accentuating its presence and casting a warm, inviting glow in the dark. The Vivo Pot’s thoughtful features – self-watering, adjustable lighting, and sleek looks – combine to create a user-friendly, visually stunning concept. It’s a testament to how technology and design can work in harmony to enhance the simple joy of nurturing life indoors.

4. Functional Plant Solutions

Functional plant accessories are trending for their ability to combine style with practicality. As more people embrace indoor plants for their air-purifying and mood-boosting benefits, tools like self-watering pots, smart soil sensors, and biodegradable containers make plant care easier and more efficient. These accessories help maintain optimal growing conditions, especially for those with busy lifestyles.

In addition to supporting plant health, they enhance home décor through elegant pots, stands, and hanging planters. Pot stands also improve airflow and light exposure. With the rise of biophilic design and eco-conscious living, functional accessories offer an interesting way to blend nature with everyday interiors.

Real plants are popular for their ability to purify indoor air by absorbing toxins, but not everyone can maintain them. For those who struggle with plant care, a Barcelona-based company offers an innovative alternative – Pure Plants. These are 3D-printed sculptures designed to resemble plants while functioning as air purifiers. Using Pure. Tech technology, these decorative pieces absorb and neutralize carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and other volatile organic compounds, helping to improve indoor air quality without the need for watering or sunlight.

Crafted from a sustainable biomaterial made of Pure. Tech and PLA are bioplastics derived from corn dextrose, the sculptures are eco-friendly and functional. Their geometric, parametric designs take inspiration from desert flora, such as cacti, giving them a stylish, modern appeal.

5. Think Out of the Box!

Thinking creatively about plants means exploring their potential beyond food, medicine, or decoration. By integrating them into urban spaces, we can address environmental challenges such as carbon sequestration, air purification, and waste reduction. Innovations like biodegradable packaging, living walls, and plant-based building materials offer sustainable alternatives for everyday use.

Plants also contribute to well-being and artistic expression. Through biophilic design, sensory gardens, and living art, they enhance interior spaces and mental health. This imaginative approach fosters resourcefulness and resilience, encouraging sustainable solutions and a deeper, more harmonious relationship with the natural world.

The Chia-Chair is a striking furniture concept created by MA Design students Alice Hultqvist, Emelie Sjöberg, and Linnea Nilsson at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg. Presented at the Making Transparency exhibition during the Stockholm Furniture Fair, the chair reimagines traditional furniture by prioritizing plant life over human use. Crafted with an ash wood frame and a wool tube filled with polyester stuffing, the seat and backrest double as planters for chia seeds. The designers cared for the chair like a living organism, watering it twice daily and using a plastic cover overnight to retain moisture.

This posthumanist design challenges the notion of human-centered furniture, emphasizing a more balanced relationship between people and the environment. By allowing plants to “occupy” the chair, the project symbolizes respect and reciprocity toward nature. The Chia-Chair serves as a conversation piece and a call for sustainable thinking, suggesting that future living spaces could integrate greenery as an essential, active element.

Biophilic design is more than a trend as it is a lifestyle that brings nature into our daily routines. Incorporating plants into living spaces and everyday objects enhances well-being, reduces stress, and fosters a deeper connection to the natural world. As urban living grows, biophilic design offers a simple yet powerful way to restore harmony, improve health, and create more nurturing environments.

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This Nothing-inspired Transparent Robot Vacuum Concept Doubles as Furniture

The transparent tech trend has been gaining momentum ever since Nothing burst onto the scene with their see-through smartphones and earbuds. There’s something genuinely compelling about celebrating the inner workings of our devices rather than hiding them behind opaque plastic shells. Designer Taeyeon Kim has taken this aesthetic philosophy and applied it to one of the most mundane household appliances: the robot vacuum, creating an independent concept that reimagines how cleaning tech could integrate into our daily lives.

Most robot vacuums are designed to be as invisible as possible, tucked away in corners where they won’t interfere with foot traffic or interior design schemes that homeowners have carefully curated. Kim’s concept takes the opposite approach, embracing transparency and modularity to create a cleaning system that actually wants to be seen and interacted with regularly. The vacuum itself features a completely clear shell that exposes all the internal components, from the motor and sensors to the circuitry that makes it work.

Designer: Taeyeon Kim (PDF Haus)

The real innovation here lies in the glyph interface borrowed from Nothing’s design language, which uses various lighting patterns to communicate contextual information to users throughout the cleaning process and operational cycles. Instead of guessing whether your vacuum is stuck, charging, or actively cleaning, the device displays its status through intuitive light patterns that show deployment direction, cleaning progress, and current operational modes. This makes the relationship between user and device feel more like a conversation than a one-way command structure that most appliances impose.

Perhaps most cleverly, the base station abandons the typical corner-hiding approach and transforms into a functional side table that users can place near seating areas or workspaces throughout their homes. This dual-purpose design maximizes space efficiency while keeping the vacuum accessible for regular interaction, whether that’s checking cleaning progress or simply appreciating the engineering on display. The station maintains the same transparent, geometric aesthetic as the vacuum itself, creating a cohesive system that feels intentionally designed rather than grudgingly accommodated in living spaces.

What sets this concept apart from other transparent tech experiments is its focus on genuine lifestyle integration rather than just visual novelty for its own sake or marketing appeal. While other Nothing-inspired concepts often stop at copying the clear shell and LED accents, Kim’s design considers how the vacuum’s presence affects daily routines and living spaces. The modular approach also hints at potential future upgrades or customization options, aligning with the broader movement toward repairable, user-serviceable technology that consumers increasingly demand.

Concepts like this serve an important purpose in pushing both manufacturers and consumers to reconsider their assumptions about household technology and its place in our homes and daily routines. By making the vacuum’s operation transparent and its presence welcome rather than hidden, the design suggests a future where smart home devices enhance our understanding of how they work rather than mystifying it. Sometimes, the most innovative approach is simply asking why we’ve been hiding our technology when we could be celebrating it instead of treating it as a necessary evil.

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XGIMI’s New Projector is So Bright, It Might Make Your TV Obsolete: Hands On at IFA 2025

For years, the great projector dilemma has been a story of compromise. You could have a massive screen, but you had to surrender to the darkness, drawing curtains and killing lights to get a picture that wasn’t a washed-out mess. They were for dedicated theater rooms, not for casual afternoon viewing or a spontaneous gaming session. The dream has always been a projector that behaves like a television: bright, sharp, and ready to go whenever you are, regardless of the ambient light pouring through your windows. It’s a simple ask, yet it has remained one of the most difficult engineering challenges in consumer electronics. A device that can throw a vivid 150-inch image in a sunlit room felt like a far-off fantasy.

It seems XGIMI was listening to our collective sighing, because they just walked into IFA 2025 and dropped a potential solution on the table with the Horizon 20 series. The star of this new lineup is undeniably the flagship Horizon 20 Max, a projector that reads less like an incremental update and more like a complete reimagining of what a consumer-grade projector can be. This isn’t just about making things a little brighter or a bit faster. The spec sheet suggests a device built to eliminate those long-held compromises, packing technology that aims to make the projector a legitimate centerpiece for any living room, day or night. XGIMI is making a bold statement, and it looks like they brought the hardware to back it up.

Designer: XGIMI

That staggering 5,700 ISO lumen figure is what really defines the Horizon 20 Max. For anyone unfamiliar with projector metrics, that is an immense amount of light output for a home unit. To put it in perspective, its predecessor, the already respectable Horizon S Max, topped out at 3,100 ISO lumens. This near-doubling of brightness is achieved through a potent combination of an RGB triple-laser light source and a newly developed X-Master Red Ring lens. In practical terms, this means the projector can cut through significant ambient light, producing a vibrant, saturated image even when the sun is out. It fundamentally changes the use case from a “special occasion” device to an everyday screen for movies, sports, and casual viewing.

Of course, a bright screen is only half the battle, especially for gamers. This is where the Horizon 20 Max throws down its second gauntlet: a claimed input lag of just one millisecond. Projectors have historically been a poor choice for competitive gaming due to their slow response times, but a 1ms figure puts this device in the same league as high-end gaming monitors. This ultra-low latency, combined with its sheer brightness and 4K resolution, creates an incredibly compelling package for console and PC gamers. The ability to play fast-paced titles on a massive screen without perceivable delay is a holy grail for many, and XGIMI appears to be delivering it in a single, well-designed box.

Visual fidelity extends far beyond raw brightness and resolution. The Horizon 20 Max is a true 4K projector, but its comprehensive support for modern imaging standards makes it a cinephile’s tool. It natively supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, Filmmaker Mode, and is IMAX Enhanced certified. This ensures it can correctly interpret and display the latest content from streaming services and 4K Blu-rays, preserving the director’s original intent with accurate colors and dynamic range. To bolster this, the projector boasts a dynamic contrast ratio of 10,000:1 when its dynamic black level enhancement is active, promising deep blacks alongside its powerful highlights. This level of format support is critical for future-proofing and getting the most out of premium media.

XGIMI also packed in several thoughtful design features that elevate the user experience. The entire unit sits on a rotating gimbal, allowing for easy physical adjustments. More importantly, it incorporates both optical zoom and motorized lens shift. These are premium, professional-grade features that allow you to resize and reposition the image perfectly on your screen without physically moving the projector or resorting to digital keystone correction, which inherently degrades image quality. By keeping the adjustments entirely within the lens optics, the 4K image remains bit-perfect and sharp from corner to corner. Combined with XGIMI’s competent auto-framing software, it makes achieving a flawless setup remarkably straightforward for experts and novices alike.

The system is powered by Google TV, providing a familiar and robust smart interface with access to a universe of applications. Crucially, the Horizon 20 Max comes with Netflix pre-installed and officially supported, sidestepping a common and frustrating licensing hurdle that plagues many other Android-based projectors. For audio, a pair of 24-watt Harman Kardon speakers are integrated to deliver 360-degree sound. While it won’t replace a dedicated surround sound system, it’s more than capable for casual viewing or for use in rooms without a complex audio setup. This all-in-one approach reinforces its role as a streamlined entertainment hub.

Coming in at a retail price of $2,999, the Horizon 20 Max is certainly a premium product. However, when you consider its capabilities, the price begins to look quite reasonable. It is a device that functions as a high-end 4K home theater projector, a competition-grade gaming display, and a bright, user-friendly smart TV all at once. The early bird pricing of $2,399, which includes a floor stand and a game code, makes it even more tempting. For those who crave the scale of projection but have been waiting for the technology to overcome its traditional weaknesses, the Horizon 20 Max appears to be a powerful, thoughtfully engineered answer. It’s a legitimate contender for the center of a modern living room.

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