If you ever wanted your home to smell like a burger joint, today’s your lucky day. White Castle has just released this limited-edition Original Slider-scented candle ($15). It comes in a ceramic replica of the signature White Castle Slider box. All proceeds go to Autism Speaks, the largest autism research and advocacy organization, so buy two. If burgers aren’t your thing though, try this fried chicken candle.
Chairs. Such endless designs for the simple function of sitting. Ukrainian design house Odesd2 brings us this Q1 Chair ($1200), a geometric-patterned chair whose “spherical shape..provides the most comfortable and natural fit.” Upright, upside down, side to side, one leg over the other. No, that doesn’t describe your dance style. Those are a few of the endless positions to experience in this forward-thinking design piece.
The internet of things. It’s the new buzzword. Cisco claims it’ll generate $14.4 trillion in value within 9 years. Exactly why a company like Zuli hopes to snag a small piece of that pie. They hope to do so with these new Zuli Smartplugs ($40). Use your smartphone to control each plug and automate your home appliance usage. Connect three and they’ll form a mesh network, where each plug can talk to each other. In other words, gossip about you while you’re out of the house. With greater usage, the smartplugs eventually learn your behavior and lights, tvs and stereos will magically turn on every time you enter the room. And to think people used to use a primitive device like the Clapper.
Keep those winter parties going with the Dutchtub Wood. This outdoor hot tub seats four and maintains a constant warmness with coil-fired heating. Place this in an open field and enjoy the vastness of nature, looking out on neverending fields. Or put this in the back of your patio and enjoy staring up through your neighbor’s windows. There are plenty of practical uses for a cedar fence boards: to gain privacy, safely corral kids and pets, block wind and noise, and prevent unsupervised dips in a swimming pool.
Coffee never stays warm, only let’s-sue-McDonald’s-hot or funny-I-didn’t-order-iced-coffee cold. Along comes Logan Maxwell with a novel solution to keep coffee at a constant, belly-warming 140 degrees farenheit. The Temperfect mug relies on a third insulation layer (nestled in between the inside and outside layers) called “Material X”. Don’t worry, you can carry this “Material X” out in the open at the office (and not have to hide in the bathroom).
“Material X” absorbs excess heat, which turns it to a liquid, bringing the temperature of your coffee down. At that point, this mystery substance then turns back into a solid, whereby it releases heat, warming your coffee back up again. It’s a cycle. What is “Material X”? Sand. No, just joking, it’s not.
Premium coffee needs premium machines. Behold, the Ratio Eight coffee machine ($395). These come hand-assembled in Portland and are made of die-cast aluminum with nickel-plated finishing. Such quality means many years of caffeine stimulation. Preorder now for a May 2014 ship date.
Vela (pronounced veh-la) is a Bluetooth-enabled LED lamp from the small but spunky crew at Michigan-based twisthink. Is it just a light? Yeah, but it’s about as versatile a lantern as one could hope for. When fully charged it promises 16 hours of luminescence at full intensity, and many more hours if it’s dimmed. You can change the colors it emits at any time or set it to change on a timer; you can make the light dance like a candle; heck, you can even blow your phone to turn it off. So basically it’s four times as entertaining as Ryan Reynolds in Green Lantern.
Gotta love when tech invades old school objects, like the clip. Yes, the clip. That thing just got better. The Gripstar makes the clip cool for the first time since 1641 or something by providing a fast, functional, and attractive way to hold something up. Just apply the adhesive, stick Gripstar against the surface of your choosing, then insert the object. It can hold up to 1.5kg of weight and it sticks against many types of surfaces, including wood, brick, glass, metal, and wallpaper– never leaving a mark.