Okay, I love work gadgets! I think they have the ability to add some zest and excitement to an otherwise completely mundane workday. I love discovering new work gadgets, and keep one eye open for them at all times. Especially with the pandemic forcing us to transform our homes into our new office, it’s really important to have some nifty products that make work more fun, easier and efficient. Whether it’s an office chair that lets you work and work out, a portable magnetic whiteboard, or even a unique desk organizer, each of these designs adds a little spark to our daily work routine, combining fun and functionality and leading to a fulfilling day. These are the kind of designs that’ll make you look forward to work every morning, and you’ll be jumping out of bed, excited to get started!
Fitwork’s design sort of embodies a no-excuse mentality to being fit. Whether it’s the excuse of ‘being too busy’, or of ‘not wanting to go all the way to the gym’, Fitwork combats it by bringing the gym not just to your house, but to your workspace. Designed as a product to let you work and work out at the same time, this crazy hybrid of a desk-chair and treadmill keeps your legs active while you work. Whether you’re sitting in front of a laptop or standing in front of one, it’s the sedentary lifestyle that Fitwork tackles. The setup (which is sure to grab a few eyeballs) comes with an office chair attached to a treadmill underneath, and an elliptical in front. Coupled with an elevating desk, the Fitwork allows you to keep the lower half of your body active while you work, giving you cardio as well as keeping your spine engaged, whether you’re sitting or standing while working. While you’re sitting, your legs naturally rest on the Fitwork’s elliptical, allowing you to pedal away while typing out emails or attending zoom calls without really anyone knowing what a fitness buff you are. Swivel the chair back and boost your desk upwards and you’ve got yourself a standing workout workspace. Activate the treadmill and you can walk while working… or as I call it, walking the walk while talking the talk.
The CheerPod is a tiny, handheld device that boils the mouse down to its essentials. With a design that’s dictated by the need to be small and remote-like, the CheerPod is to mice what smartphones are to landlines – Portable, rectangular, and heavily feature-laden. It comes with an infrared sensor on its base, like all wireless mice, allowing you to drag your cursor by moving the physical device, but it also allows you to mimic gestures by swiping across screens in mobile and desktop interfaces. The CheerPod, unlike most wireless mice, works without a receiver, connecting directly to laptops, desktops, tablets, and even phones using Bluetooth. It sports a Magic Mouse-inspired touch-enabled surface on its top that lets you click, scroll, zoom, pinch, swipe, and even use multi-touch gestures… sort of like the love-child of a mouse and a trackpad.
The 3-in-1 Snapmaker printer comes with an all-metal design, ensuring a high-quality and reliable 3D printing experience. The entire unit comes with a flat-packed, easy-to-assemble, solid aluminum alloy frame that’s CNC-fabricated for next-to-zero tolerance between parts, resulting in high-accuracy operations. The machine comes supported by a touchscreen tablet that acts as your user interface, allowing you to set up and control your production-line. Switching between printing, machining, and engraving modules is literally as simple as plugging out the old module and plugging in a new one. A 3D printing module, a laser engraving module, and a CNC carving and cutting module come right in the box, along with easy-to-assemble linear modules, the touchscreen display, a heat-enabled bed-plate for an immaculate 3D printing experience, and even a spool of PLA filament so you can begin creating right from day one, right within your home
Snowl reimagines the mouse… or more accurately, the control-input for computers. Designed as a wearable that fits around your finger like a ring, Snowl isn’t bound by optical sensors, and a 2-dimensional surface. Instead, it unleashes the ability to control your objects in all three dimensions, even accounting for rotation and tilt, otherwise known as 9 degrees of freedom. It’s the next evolutionary step in control, as we went from mice to touchscreens, and then to VR controllers. Snowl now combines them all into a single device that can shapeshift between all three, giving you a single way to control your laptop, smartphone, television, gaming console, or even VR headset with a wave of your hands. In short, it’s just a couple of holograms away from allowing you to interact with digital interfaces the way Tony Stark would.
The Orbitkey Nest reinterprets the stationery box by acting as a storage container for not pencils and erasers, but for your EDC. Designed to complement your tech-filled life, the Nest is perfect for storing your chargers, cables, AirPods, hard-disks, SD cards, pen-drives, etc. It helps keep your workplace organized not just by containing your tech accessories, but also by allowing you to dock/rest your belongings on it. The Nest’s upper surface comes with a slight indentation, perfect for resting your wallet, keys, or watch, while a dedicated zone even acts as a wireless charger for your phone. Made from beautiful materials that give it a contemporary touch, the Orbitkey Nest comes with a top-grain leather upper, a polycarbonate shell, and a nylon fabric base layer that allows it to complement as well as contain your belongings and lifestyle.
Designed with two halves that separate when pulled apart, the X-Kit transforms from a slim, baton-shaped form into a broad platform to dock your Mac or Windows laptop on in mere seconds, with an angling mechanism that can be set at 4 different positions to give you the right angle you need to minimize fatigue… something that most WFH setups fail to achieve. The angled stand, however, is just half of what the X-Kit is capable of. Also built into the product is a remarkable 5-in-1 multiport that unlocks your laptop’s true potential. Armed with a 4K (30Hz) HDMI port, two USB-A ports, one SD and one TF card reader, and a USB-C port to power the experience, the X-Kit gives you a multiport that is conveniently located right in your laptop’s stand. Not only does this make it easy to locate and access ports, but it also means a reduction in clutter i.e., cables, dongles, and paraphernalia around your workspace.
At its heart, the Nemeio is a traditional keyboard. It comes with its familiar layout, with the spacebar at the bottom and the function keys on the top, but look closer and you’ll see that each key isn’t just a plastic keycap… it’s a transparent button sitting above an e-ink display! Switch the Nemeio on and the e-ink screen underneath comes to life, with a backlight that illuminates each key, displaying the symbol the key represents. The presence of a dynamic screen right under the traditional keyboard is what gives Nemeio the best of both worlds. You can adjust Nemeio’s layout on the fly, changing between QWERTY and DVORAK layouts, adding other languages and glyphs to your keyboard, or turning less-used keys into program shortcuts. Nemeio supports all languages from your operating system and its dedicated software allows you to customize your keyboards to suit your needs. If you’re someone who relies heavily on shortcuts, you can even program them into the keyboard, and the shortcut icon displays on its relevant key. Layouts can be saved as presets and can be instantly switched between programs, and you can even create dual-language keyboard layouts, switching between typing in English and your language of choice in mere seconds!
Think of the SyncPen as an Apple Pencil or a Samsung Galaxy S-Pen that can also write on paper. Designed to look and feel like a regular pen, the SyncPen comes with an in-built micro-camera that captures what you write at a frequency of 200 frames per second, turning all your notes into digital text that can be stored infinitely, edited, and even searched through. The pen digitally records all your notes onto your smartphone, allowing you to seamlessly transition between digital and physical timekeeping. If you ever need to refer back to your notes for a certain piece of text, you can search for it either by word or date, much like within your phone’s own note-keeping app. The SyncPen’s functionality works across 66 languages and can even transcribe and translate mathematical symbols. The pen actively performs handwriting recognition, allowing you to write in your own personal writing style while the pen actively works to translate it on its own.
With a patented design that features 5 magnets on one side, the Mover Erase sits flat on any surface, but can easily be lifted up by pressing against its magnets. A simple push causes the individual note to lift up, allowing you to easily remove, replace, and rearrange notes on the fly. Your written matter, doodles, and graphs can easily be wiped off with a piece of cloth, or under running water, if the ink gets too stubborn. They say the average human uses 700 pounds of paper each year – averaging to roughly 8 trees and 7000 gallons of water to process those paper requirements. With the Mover Erase, that footprint is heavily reduced. Besides, it’s a much better way to ideate on your whiteboard or in your notebook, given you rearrange notes when you need, move them to one side when you don’t, wipe them clean when you’re reusing them, and carry them to your desk when you want them to be accessible. Oh, and they stack up too!
Having a UHD 4K screen (3840×2160 resolution and 1200:1 contrast ratio) that’s compatible with all the modern-day gadgets oriented for peak productivity and entertainment on weekends is one thing every professional or budding creative individual craves. Well, the 15.6-inch Mako Pro 4K touchscreen monitor by 6D Sharks is designed keeping in mind every little need of a productivity-oriented dual-monitor setup that’s compatible with all the devices one can throw at it. The slim, lightweight IPS monitor is compatible even with smartphones, gaming consoles, and cameras for seamless connectivity. This 10-point capacitive screen has minimal bezels to enhance the viewing experience and comes with a stylus touch pen to give your creativity wings. For solo use, the widescreen has a split mode which literally turns it into two screens for a multitude of uses. Unlike other portable monitors, Mako (the Max variant) has a 120 Hz refresh rate, so gamers and multimedia content lovers will already have a smile on their faces.