Just when we thought life was reaching a semblance of normalcy, the Omnicron variant slowly crept into our lives. It’s been slowly driving us back into the comforts of our home…although I don’t think the homebodies are really complaining. Could another lockdown be a possibility in the near future? We don’t know, but it’s better to always be prepared. Hence, we’ve curated a collection of innovative tech designs that’ll keep you thoroughly entertained as the pandemic moves on to the next level. From an FHD projector that lets you watch Netflix on a massive 200-inch display to a shapeshifting TV that turns into a virtual fireplace – these product designs are the futuristic and techy additions you need in your home to completely master any upcoming lockdown. Enjoy!
1. The Freestyle
In stark contrast to most projectors, the Freestyle comes in a sleek cylindrical form that looks like a mix of a spotlight and a smart speaker. In reality, that is almost exactly what it is, though it substitutes the spotlight for an LED projector. The Freestyle’s body can swing 180 degrees, making it trivial to place the projector anywhere and still get a good view. The projected image can go from 30 to up to 100 inches with a Full HD resolution. Despite the more compact size, the Samsung Freestyle is actually packed with features you’d see in bigger projectors. Those include autofocus and automatic keystone correction, both of which give the projector its advertised freedom.
2. The N1
The N1 can project sound waves at a certain amplitude or loudness, but it can also decide how loud the audio remains over a certain distance. By doing this, it can make the sound waves traveling to your ear loud, but make them soft the minute they cross your ear. Mounted on the top of the N1 are two cameras that track your face, locating the placement of your ears. It doesn’t matter if you have long hair, a thick beard, glasses, or even a face mask… the device can beam audio to your ears in real-time.
3. The 77W
The 77W’s display unit sits on a stone-textured base and comes with a wooden sleeve that can move up or down (as can the display itself). This allows the TV to assume 3 modes – a TV mode, a concealed mode, and a fireplace mode. The concealed mode allows the display to descend downwards into the wooden sleeve, hiding most of that black box behind a textured wooden panel… but the other two modes allow the 77W to truly shine… either as a high-definition television for watching the news, videos, sports, and entertainment content or as a fireplace that peeks from below the wooden panel, playing a looped high-definition video of burning logs and crackling flames.
4. The Jireno CUBE4
For under two Benjamins, the Jireno CUBE4 makes pretty lofty promises. Sure, it isn’t a 4K multimedia device, but then again, it delivers an absolute bang for its buck. The projector comes with a compact design that’s reminiscent of the Anker Nebula Mars 2, with its handle on top that lets you carry it around the place, so you can bring the party to your friends’ houses. Although it’s marketed as a portable projector, the one thing it lacks is an internal battery, so having a power-source nearby is a must. On the design front, the Cube4 has an all-aluminum body that, aside from giving the projector its premium aesthetic, also helps with heat dispersion, allowing the projector to stay cool at all times – a feature further reinforced by the CUBE4’s potent inner cooling system.
5. Iván Antón’s Apple TV 2021 Concept
Designer, Iván Antón has come up with an Apple TV 2021 concept, which comes with a wall plug built-in. Now that’s full marks for the compact build, but the practicality is debatable until we have something like this to use. Taking nothing away from the vision, I’m impressed with the concept of Apple TV’s ability to interact with Siri without the need for a remote. Furthermore, the new concept also integrates the MagSafe charger into the Apple TV unit, so the compatible remote can now be charged conveniently by sticking it to the back of the set-top box.
6. The Light Speaker
Designed with a multisensorial experience, the Light Speaker from Transparent appeals to your eyes as much as it does to your ears. Styled to look less like your conventional speaker with front-firing drivers or like the ubiquitous smart speaker with a cylindrical fabric clad, the Light Speaker champions a lantern-inspired design… and in true lantern fashion, also comes with a light on the inside that flickers as the speaker’s drivers vibrate, creating a hauntingly beautiful audiovisual allure. In its lamp-shaped avatar, the Light Speaker rubbishes the notion of what a Bluetooth speaker should look like. Taking on an appearance that looks aesthetic even when the lamp isn’t on, the Light Speaker is a compact little number that comes with a handle that can be detached if needed.
7. The HiBed
Equipped with a built-in 4K projector that can be synced with a series of devices to binge-watch movies/TV shows on a 70-inch retractable screen, the HiBed is the epitome of in-bed relaxation. A built-in surround sound system with invisible speakers makes the bed feel more like a movie theatre. For lazy bums like me actually traveling to a multiplex to watch a movie is totally out of the question now! Its intelligence makes it more than a bed, serving as a space you can escape to with music from any of your favorite sources! Oh, and did I forget to mention it comes along with Wifi?
8. The Chroma
VAVA makes a few really compelling arguments on behalf of its cutting-edge projector. For its compact size, the VAVA Chroma can project a display that measures anywhere between 80 inches to 150 inches diagonally. While most projectors require a dedicated spot and careful placement and orientation, the Chroma is an ultra-short-throw projector and can directly be placed against a blank wall, while it projects an image upwards onto the wall. As far as the image itself goes, the Chroma uses the world’s most advanced ALPD® 4.0 laser technology and a Red, Green, Blue Plus triple laser light source to produce a sharper 4K UHD image with HDR10, up to 106% Rec. 2020 color range, exceeding the color range of top movie theater projectors.
9. The Harman Kardon Turntable
The Harman Kardon turntable designed by URUSS Design carries a distinct retro-futuristic flair and unique form factor to keep music lovers more than interested. Just look at those internals inside a crystal-clear housing that encapsulates the mechanics of the record player in the most majestic manner. It’s like a celebration of the timeless record player era and the untouchable art of creating music. This piece of rare beauty stands in a corner on an equally impressive tripod – instantly attracting onlookers with a profound magnetism. For an instance, I too got drawn to the charismatic design of this record player that is in a league of its own. As the music plays, the record spinning inside is visible as elegantly as one could ever imagine!
10. The Collector
Codenamed the ‘Collector’, this futuristic vision from the mind of Liu Tianchen aims at bridging the worlds of electronic music and actual instrument-playing together. The rather slick-looking electronic drum kit features six adjustable pads and two pedals mounted on a folding frame. The kit comes with a folding stool too, and two drumsticks, giving you a near-authentic drumming experience. The difference, however, is in the fact that the Collector doesn’t rely on a pre-existing bank of drum sounds, but instead, gives the artist the flexibility to collect and build their own banks, either by purchasing samples online or making samples of their own. Then, working just like any good MIDI controller, the Collector lets you create beats using these samples in a way that closes the gap between actually jamming on a real-life drum kit, and just simply pressing buttons on a MIDI controller.