As a part of our evaluate of 2025, Dezeen contributing editor Rima Sabina Aouf shares her picks of this yr’s devices, together with a tiny daylight emulator, a video participant to your goals and a vest for listening to timber.
Synthetic intelligence (AI) continued to be an enormous focus for brand new product launches over the past 12 months, with US know-how firm Meta making an attempt to take the lead with new wearables and smaller corporations like Modem exploring different visions for ambient computing.
On the identical time, this has been a bumper yr for slimmed-down tech, with dumbphones, focus-promoting interfaces and deliberately minimal USPs making repeat appearances.
Learn on for 10 nice devices from this yr:
Auto-focus glasses by Ixi
In a yr by which sensible glasses flirted with their first try at a comeback since Google Glass, eyewear firm Ixi’s prototype stood out for what it does not do.
There isn’t any digital camera, no display, no speaker, no AI assistant – simply two progressive “tunable” lenses that promise to modify from studying to long-distance prescriptions relying on the place the wearer is trying.
If the auto-focus know-how works easily when the product hits the market, this could possibly be a game-changer for individuals with presbyopia – that’s, finally, nearly everybody.
Discover out extra about Ixi ›
Gaia Communication System by Inxects
Far out of your on a regular basis gadget, design studio Inxects’ experimental Gaia Communication System interprets stress alerts from the atmosphere into bodily sensations on the wearer’s physique.
Designed for architects seeking to discover and perceive the well being of a website, the sensor-laden vest and gloves give customers a brand new and visceral means of understanding the struggling of crops and animals because of air pollution, local weather change and habitat destruction.
With its concentrate on deep listening, this gadget is sort of a window into an alternate universe the place know-how connects us to, fairly than disconnects us from, the non-human world.
Discover out extra in regards to the Gaia Communication System ›
Fireplace for Life cooking range by Escea
Hearth producer Escea used its design and engineering experience to develop a safer, cleaner resolution to the open fires individuals usually must make for cooking in refugee camps.
Its fuel-efficient flat-pack cooking range is lower out of skinny metal sheets and assembled on the bottom by ReliefAid groups, who come out the completely different elements and put them collectively utilizing easy instruments and tools.
Greater than 8,186 households in Syria have been helped by the Fireplace for Life programme, Escea instructed us again in July.
Discover out extra about Fireplace for Life ›
Neural Band by Meta
Meta believes sensible glasses like its new Ray-Ban Shows will quickly be as ubiquitous on the earth as regular glasses are immediately, although consultants have sounded the alarm that the proliferation of surveillance is deeply regarding.
Much less controversial is the corporate’s Neural Band, which it trailed in July and introduced as a complement to the AI glasses in September.
Whereas there are additionally questions on what Meta and different corporations plan to do with the biometric information from neural units like these, the sensible wristband controller is a compelling different to keyboards, mice and voice instructions, and one that’s inclusive of individuals with restricted arm mobility.
Competitor Mudra presents a platform-agnostic different within the type of the Mudra Hyperlink wristband.
Discover out extra in regards to the Neural Band ›
Fairphone 6 by Fairphone
Dutch electronics firm Fairphone appears to have hit its stride with the Fairphone 6, a tool that mixes the model’s trademark repairability and ethically oriented sourcing with zeitgeisty swappable equipment and strong, reviewer-approved tech specs.
The cellphone additionally launched an progressive “Moments” mode, which replicates one thing of the dumbphone expertise by letting customers toggle between their common interface and a extra stripped-back one with restricted apps.
With seems paying homage to the Nothing telephones, the Fairphone 6 is an alluring proposition.
Discover out extra in regards to the Fairphone 6 ›
Sunbooster by SunLED Life Science
A compact gadget that clips onto the highest of pc screens, the Sunbooster delivers near-infrared gentle (NIR) to drained, cloistered workplace employees, replicating a number of the energising advantages of daylight.
NIR is invisible, so the Sunbooster does not have the super-bright presence of SAD lamps and simply integrates into an individual’s desk atmosphere.
Discover out extra in regards to the Sunbooster ›
Gentle Telephone 3 by Gentle and Foxconn
The Gentle Telephone 3 emerged because the strongest dumbphone providing in our highway check earlier this yr for good cause. It is in all probability the primary up to date dumbphone to really feel aspirational, due to the engaging design of its {hardware} and working system.
The sq. edges, perforated steel speaker grill and tactile knob and buttons channel the affect of German industrial designer Dieter Rams, whereas the stripping again of normally visible apps like podcasts and the calendar to a pure textual content format is surprisingly calming and beautiful.
At a time when AI is ramping up the capabilities of our private units, minimalist telephones just like the Gentle Telephone 3 are an vital counter-trend.
Discover out extra in regards to the Gentle Telephone 3 ›
Dream Recorder by Modem
Following up on final yr’s Terra compass, Modem’s Dream Recorder is one other imaginative open-source AI gadget, this time focused on the bed room.
Its single operate is to assist customers replicate on their goals by producing movies based mostly on their recollections, permitting them to start out the day with a personal ritual separate from their telephones.
The Dream Recorder won’t be probably the most helpful gadget round, but it surely does get factors for making audiences take into consideration how AI might be carried out otherwise, outdoors the realm of Huge Tech.
Discover out extra in regards to the Dream Recorder ›
Suri 2.0 by Suri
Suri has finessed its 2022 Dezeen Award-winning electrical toothbrush design with the Suri 2.0.
The brand new design retains the elegant aluminium physique of the unique, however introduces a brand new motor, stress sensor and induction charging – a hard-to-accomplish feat in a product product of steel.
The corporate makes some extent of rejecting pointless applied sciences like Bluetooth and app integration and continues to recycle its bioplastic brush heads.
Discover out extra about Suri 2.0 ›
Kibu headphones by Batch.Works and Morrama
This yr’s Dezeen Award winner for sustainable design, the Kibu kids’s headphones are supposed to be assembled and repaired by youngsters themselves.
Comprised of recycled bioplastic, every half is interchangeable and simply snaps collectively with out screws or glue, encouraging kids to construct the gadget and discover how every aspect works.
3d printed on demand in London, repairable at house and recyclable by means of Batch.Works, the headphones are additionally an effective way to introduce youngsters to circularity.
Discover out extra about Kibu ›
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