The most interesting EDC upgrade here begins with something that already fits a pocket: a Zippo case. Open the lid, and there’s no lighter inside, just a miniature ratchet and carefully arranged bits. That little reversal sets the tone for this November selection. These designs aren’t trying to turn you into a survivalist. They reconsider the objects you reach for when something needs tightening, illuminating, carrying, organizing, or writing down.

We’ve brought together one DIY project and four retail designs, including a swiveling flashlight, a cork wallet, and a pencil that skips sharpening. This is our November edit of existing designs, not a roundup of November launches. The common thread is thoughtful use of limited space, whether that means fitting tools inside a familiar shell or removing an annoyance from something as ordinary as the keys you carry every day.

1. DIY Zippo Toolkit

Tiny Tool Shop’s Zippo conversion makes a persuasive case for designing around an enclosure rather than starting again. A custom-printed insert holds a micro ratchet, two Steinwhale bits, and a Klein utility knife extension inside the emptied lighter shell. Each component gets its own recess, turning the interior into a fitted tray rather than a loose collection of hardware. The recognizable metal case supplies the hinge, lid, and compact outline, while the insert gives it an entirely different purpose.

The best detail addresses the obvious drawback of tight packing: getting the ratchet back out. A spring salvaged from a disposable Bic lighter helps push it through an opening in the case. It’s a satisfying piece of resourcefulness, but this remains a maker project, not a finished product sold by Zippo. Reproducing it involves sourcing compatible tools, producing the insert, and modifying the shell. It also replaces the lighter function completely, trading a flame for a very small repair kit.

What we like

• Reuses a familiar hinged enclosure with a fitted layout for the tools.
• Spring-assisted retrieval makes tightly packed components easier to access.

What we dislike

• Requires fabrication, compatible components, and modifications to the case.
• The insert’s dedicated recesses limit flexibility when changing the tool selection.

2. Painless Key Ring

Most key rings make you use your fingernails as miniature pry bars. The Painless Key Ring changes the entry geometry instead, using a continuous wave shape to guide a key onto the ring. You’re still working with a springy metal loop, but without the same tightly stacked starting point as a conventional split ring. It’s a modest redesign with a clear purpose: make changing keys less fiddly without turning the key ring into another complicated mechanism you need to carry around.

Made from stainless spring steel, the ring is listed at 0.8mm thick and weighs three grams. The silver set costs $30 and includes one large ring plus three small ones, giving you separate attachment points for different keys. The appeal isn’t adding another tool to your pocket. It improves the connection between what you already have. If you rarely change keys, the benefit may not justify the price. For someone regularly swapping house, office, and shared keys, the geometry is more compelling.

Click Here to Buy Now: $30.00

What we like

• Wave-shaped entry offers an alternative to prying apart a conventional split ring.
• The set includes smaller rings for organizing separate keys.

What we dislike

• At $30 for the silver set, it’s a deliberate upgrade to a basic accessory.
• Keys still need threading around the ring rather than releasing through a gate.

3. WUBEN G5 Compact Flashlight

The WUBEN G5 puts its most useful feature above the body: a head that rotates through 180 degrees. Rather than repositioning the entire flashlight whenever the beam misses your work, you can change its direction while the body stays attached. An adjustable clip and tail magnet give you different mounting options, particularly useful when both hands are occupied. The flat form also avoids the rolling habit of cylindrical flashlights, making this a small lighting tool with several sensible working positions.

WUBEN lists the standard G5 at approximately 52 grams, with USB Type-C charging and maximum white output of 400 lumens. Its current specification gives an IP65 rating, which means this is not a light to treat as submersible. At $19.99 for standard colors, it’s an accessible alternative to reaching for your phone. The limitation is endurance: WUBEN’s longest runtime figure belongs at the lowest output, not maximum brightness. Choose it for short tasks rather than prolonged use at maximum brightness.

What we like

• Rotating head, clip, and magnet provide several ways to position the beam.
• The compact, flat body suits pocket carry without rolling away when set down.

What we dislike

• Maximum brightness and maximum runtime describe different operating settings.
• Its IP65 rating does not cover immersion.

4. Pocket Everlasting All-Metal Pencil

A pocket pencil needs to survive being carried before it can be useful on paper. Sun-Star’s Pocket Everlasting All-Metal Pencil approaches that problem with a metal body, protective cap, and a writing tip that doesn’t need sharpening. At 4.7 inches long, it gives you a dedicated place to put a measurement, sketch, or passing thought without unlocking a screen. There’s no elaborate deployment mechanism, just a compact writing instrument ready to accompany a notebook.

The tip uses graphite and alloy particles to make an erasable mark. That makes it better understood as an alternative pencil technology than a pen that happens to look metallic. At $19.95, it’s also one of the less expensive objects in this selection. The name needs a little perspective: “Everlasting” isn’t a literal promise of infinite use. Its appeal is avoiding routine sharpening, while your preference for line darkness and feel still determines whether it earns space beside your keys.

Click Here to Buy Now: $19.95

What we like

• A capped metal body gives the writing tip protection during carry.
• Erasable marks and no routine sharpening make it an interesting notebook companion.

What we dislike

• At 4.7 inches, it still needs more space than a miniature keychain tool.
• Pencil marks aren’t a substitute for ink when permanent writing is needed.

5. Corkor Front-Pocket Cork Wallet

Corkor’s Front-Pocket Cork Wallet provides a welcome break from machined metal. Its cork fabric exterior has an irregular grain that gives a familiar card holder a distinct material identity. The layout stays straightforward: three card slots, an ID window, and two compartments for folded bills. Rather than adding moving parts to make a wallet interesting, Corkor keeps the construction restrained and lets the surface do the work. It suits an edited daily carry better than a collection of forgotten receipts.

The Portuguese maker lists an empty weight of 20 grams and dimensions of 110 by 80 by 10 millimeters. That last figure matters: adding cards and folded notes will change how much room it occupies. Corkor makes the $59 holder in Portugal and includes RFID-blocking construction, though the more tangible benefit is its simple organization. There’s no coin pocket, and cash takes more preparation than sliding notes into a full billfold. Those are deliberate compromises for someone who wants to downsize.

What we like

• Cork fabric offers an animal-free alternative to a conventional leather exterior.
• Separate card, ID, and cash compartments keep the layout easy to understand.

What we dislike

• There’s nowhere dedicated to loose change.
• Bills must be folded, making cash less convenient to sort.

Small Improvements Worth Carrying

The Zippo conversion is the conversation starter, but the quieter designs may make the bigger difference to a particular routine. A ring that’s easier to load helps someone changing keys. A swiveling light helps someone working with both hands. A simpler wallet helps someone trying to carry less. None needs to solve every problem to justify its place; it just needs to address one you actually encounter with some regularity.

These five designs aren’t a checklist to buy in full. The Zippo project asks for making time rather than a quick checkout, while the wallet asks you to reconsider what deserves carrying at all. Start with the small frustration you already recognize, then consider the space, upkeep, and setup its solution requires. A useful everyday carry should make your day feel less encumbered, not simply leave your pockets more fully equipped.

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A miniature Eiffel Tower tells you where someone went, but rarely gives you much reason to look closer. I’m more interested in souvenirs that carry a little of a place’s actual history, especially when they earn their space at home. The challenge is giving that history a useful role without polishing away everything that makes it worth preserving.

That’s the appeal of the La Tour Eiffel Diamond Light, designed by A+A Cooren Design Studio with Lagardère x Arteum. Built around a retired fixture from the Eiffel Tower’s sparkling illumination, it turns a piece of lighting infrastructure into a working tabletop lamp. The preserved paint marks are part of the point. Rather than manufacture another miniature monument, the designers have given an actual component a reason to stay switched on.

Designers: A+A Cooren Design Studio and Lagardère x Arteum (LxA)

The iron-alloy base makes the architectural connection without turning the whole object into another miniature tower. Drawing from Gustave Eiffel’s historical blueprints, its arches and cross-bracing reinterpret the structure near the monument’s top. I prefer that approach to a literal replica. You get enough of the tower’s visual language to recognize the reference, while the lamp keeps its own proportions and identity as an object for a room.

In the official photographs, the faceted upper section sits above that open metal framework like an oversized jewel in an industrial setting. The brown finish helps the two parts feel related, despite their different origins. It looks substantial without relying on a large footprint, and the exposed latticework gives your eye somewhere to travel beneath the light.

The lighting modes make the connection to Paris more than visual. One provides a steady warm glow. Another alternates 55 minutes of steady illumination with five minutes of twinkling. A third leaves the lamp dark for 55 minutes before its five-minute sparkle sequence. I’d probably favor the steady setting most evenings, but the timed sparkle has an appealingly specific purpose: it brings the monument’s lighting rhythm into the room, rather than simply making a souvenir flash.

A four-position rotary switch handles the three modes and off setting. That feels appropriate for an object whose appeal is so physical. At roughly 10.4 inches tall and 2.9 pounds, it’s a tabletop piece rather than a floor-standing statement. The specifications list 24 LEDs, and the store describes it as ambient lighting. I’d treat it as a decorative accent, not buy it expecting a reading lamp.

It also improves on an earlier idea in a meaningful way. Diamond of Light editions offered in 2016 and 2017 were collectible objects, not functioning lamps. The 2026 version adds an everyday reason to interact with the preserved component. To me, that’s a stronger design move than simply finding a more elaborate way to display it.

Each of the 500 numbered pieces comes with an official certificate of authenticity and a wooden case. The presentation embraces its collector’s-item status, which seems fair enough here. If the attraction is owning an actual piece of the Eiffel Tower’s lighting, documentation of its origin matters considerably more than another decorative flourish on the base.

The price puts that appeal in perspective. The official store lists it at €990 including VAT, before shipping, with worldwide delivery available. You’re paying for provenance, limited production, and the design work around the reclaimed fixture. As a straightforward lighting purchase, it’s difficult to justify on function alone. As a collectible that also has a place in daily life, the proposition makes more sense.

I wouldn’t want the weathering polished away or hidden behind a pristine cover. Those irregularities are what make the premise convincing. The strongest choice here is giving the old component enough new structure to work in a home while letting it remain visibly old. A souvenir becomes more interesting when its previous life is still allowed to show.

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The Snapmaker U1 drops to $699 this Black Friday, down 30% from its $999 list price, and it might be the smartest buy on your holiday list, mostly because it can make plenty of the gifts on it. The U1 is a four-toolhead 3D printer that prints in up to four colors or materials in a single go. That covers personalized ornaments, figurines, and fidget toys, all printed in multicolor on your desk. It ships with four spools of PLA and 30 ready-to-print models, so after unboxing and automatic calibration, you can print your first model on day one. A good chunk of your Christmas list, sorted.

Four-head printers are rare at this price. Tool changers like the Prusa XL have historically cost well north of $2,000. Snapmaker’s SnapSwap system keeps four print heads loaded and swaps between them in about five seconds, while single-nozzle setups like Bambu’s AMS flush filament at every color change. Fewer purges mean faster prints and, by Snapmaker’s count, up to 85% less wasted plastic. More than 20,000 Kickstarter backers already bought in, making the U1 the most-funded 3D printer campaign in the platform’s history, with now more than 150,000 users worldwide.

Designer: Snapmaker

Click Here to Buy Now: Black Friday Sale. Hurry, deal ends soon!

Five-Second Swaps and a Lot Less Printer Poop

Each of the U1’s four print heads sits docked and preheated with its own filament. When a print calls for a new color, the printer parks the active head and grabs the next one. A steel-ball coupling and a mechanical lock seat each head in the exact same spot every time, and Snapmaker says the mechanism survived over a million continuous swaps with zero mechanical failures. The printer then auto-calibrates all four heads to within 0.04mm (about 0.0016 inches) of each other. That keeps the white trim on a Santa hat right where it belongs.

Single-nozzle printers handle color changes by shoving the old filament out until the new one runs clean. Snapmaker pegs that process at roughly two minutes per swap, and on a busy multicolor model the purged plastic can outweigh the model itself. The U1 only purges small amounts at the start of a job and during calibration. Print a tray of four-color ornaments and those savings stack up fast, in both hours and filament. Your filament budget ends up on the tree instead of in the trash.

A Personalized Ornament, From Download to Gift Box

Four heads can hold four different materials as easily as four colors, so flexible TPU or dissolvable supports can share a print with rigid plastic. For most holiday gifts, though, four colors of PLA do the heavy lifting. Snapmaker’s Full Spectrum feature stretches that palette by stacking thin alternating layers of your four filaments, which your eye reads as new in-between shades. Results depend on the filament, the model’s shape, and your settings, so a quick test print helps. Load red, green, white, and gold, and you’ve basically got Christmas in a box.

Personalizing a gift takes about as much skill as sending a text. Open an ornament model in Snapmaker Orca, add a name with the slicer’s text tool, and assign one of your four colors to each part. A palm-sized ornament uses only a few grams of filament, so each one costs pocket change in plastic. Hit print, and the U1 handles every color swap on its own while you get on with your evening. Repeat for each name on your list, and nobody else at the party will show up with those.

Smart Enough for First-Timers, Cheap Enough for Black Friday

Snapmaker Space, the company’s model library (currently in open beta), offers ready-to-print multicolor models, so beginners can skip 3D modeling entirely. Auto bed leveling helps your first layer stick, and input shaping reduces vibration for smoother walls, with speeds topping out at 500mm/s (about 20 inches per second). Filament loads itself, RFID tags on Snapmaker spools fill in settings for you, and Backup Mode switches to a matching spool when one runs dry. A built-in camera with AI monitoring can flag spaghetti failures and ping your phone. Tinkerers get Klipper firmware and OrcaSlicer support.

Click Here to Buy Now: Black Friday Sale. Hurry, deal ends soon!

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MoMA owns The Starry Night, The Persistence of Memory, and a set of LEGO bricks designed by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen in the 1950s. The museum brought two of those together in 2022, when it partnered with LEGO on the Starry Night set that grew out of a LEGO Ideas submission. A new Ideas project wants to complete the triangle. BrickRelativity has rebuilt Salvador Dalí’s 1931 painting of melting clocks as a 3D brick diorama, complete with the dead tree, the ant-covered watch, and the weird sleeping figure sprawled across the beach. If MoMA wanted a sequel, it wouldn’t even need to leave the building.

Dalí’s original is tiny, just 9.5 by 13 inches (24 by 33 cm), which catches plenty of first-time visitors off guard. The brick version spreads the scene across a black display base with a gallery plaque and a sky built from horizontal bands of blue, aqua, and sunset-yellow plates. BrickRelativity says the central blob was one of the toughest challenges, since soft, shapeless forms and rigid LEGO elements get along about as well as cats and bathtubs. The clocks came a close second, their faces rebuilt from tile grids that warp along with the melt. LEGO Art has already worked through Hokusai, Van Gogh, and Monet, so Surrealism feels overdue.

Designer: BrickRelativity

Three clocks melt across the scene, and each gets its own construction trick. The one hanging off the tree branch wears a pearl-silver bezel that folds over the wood, with a small silver ball at its lowest point standing in for the drip. The pocket watch sliding off the orange ledge swaps silver for pearl-gold tube elements that kink around corners, with a transparent fly perched on its face. The third clock drapes over the sleeping figure in the middle, following the curve of the body underneath it. Numerals were applied as decals directly to the curved surfaces, while every clock hand is built from LEGO elements.

My favorite detail, though, is the face of that gold pocket watch. BrickRelativity built it from a grid of light-blue tiles, and as the face slumps over the ledge, the seams between them bend with it. The result looks like graph paper caught in a heat wave. The grid also gives the numerals a place to sit and recalls the stud-by-stud mosaics of LEGO Art, now visibly coming apart. A warped coordinate system feels very Einstein, which is funny, because Dalí insisted his soft watches came from cheese rather than relativity.

Dalí reportedly based the sleeping figure on a rock formation at Cap de Creus, and it’s generally read as a squashed self-portrait. BrickRelativity layered curved slopes in tan and pale flesh tones until the blob looked properly boneless. Dark gray bars and curves form a closed eye with long lashes, and a wing-like membrane of stacked plates trails off behind it. Back on the ledge, the closed orange pocket watch is a ring of curved elements with a little crown nub. A cluster of tiny ants made from dark clip plates swarms its lid, turning Dalí’s recurring symbol of decay into a minifig-scale infestation.

The landscape skips a printed backdrop entirely. Horizontal bands of blue, aqua, pale yellow, and orange plates build up the sunset sky. The Cap de Creus cliffs on the right use stepped wedges and slopes in tan, dark tan, orange, and gray, placed at different depths to make the coastline recede. Dark brown tiles cover the beach, with patches of exposed studs breaking up the flat surface like scrubby ground. Viewed head-on, that depth collapses back into the painting’s flat composition. BrickRelativity has some practice with perspective tricks: previous Ideas projects turned M.C. Escher’s impossible staircases into bricks.

Down in the front corner, a tiny Dalí minifig with swept gray hair, a patterned tie, and that famous upturned mustache paints at an easel holding a miniature copy of the painting. It’s a direct callback to the Van Gogh minifig and easel that shipped with the Starry Night set. A black base and a small plaque bearing the artist’s name, the title, and the year finish the gallery look. Fan builders have been chasing this museum energy all year, from a 1,117-piece Picasso portrait to a Brick Dangerous melting clock that just qualified for LEGO’s third 2026 review. Dalí’s copyright is managed by the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, so any official version would need the estate’s blessing.

The project currently sits at 1,849 supporters, with 602 days left to hit the next milestone of 5,000. LEGO Ideas lets fans submit builds and rack up supporters, and projects that reach 10,000 move on to LEGO’s official review for a shot at becoming a real set. You can head to the LEGO Ideas page and give BrickRelativity your vote, which costs nothing but a LEGO account. Dalí already turned this painting into floating bricks once, in his 1954 sequel The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. Seems only fair to let someone finish the job properly, with clutch power this time.

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Severance did something no tech company has managed in decades: it made people want a trackball again. The MDR terminals on Lumon’s severed floor, with their cream shells, tiny glowing screens, and built-in trackballs, have become weird objects of desire for a show about corporate horror. Designer Shaun Wellens has dreamed up the computer I imagine Lumon would roll out for its next rebrand. The P1 Terminal is a CGI concept from a made-up 1970s company called Push / Pull, designed as a shared computer for people living in a communal space. It has a soft white clamshell body, a phosphor-style display, and a blue trackball that looks good enough to lick (please don’t).

Wellens says the P1 was inspired by a computer used to support experiments aboard the Space Shuttle, which makes sense once you notice the clamshell form. Then he wraps the whole thing in fake history. In his story, the P1 launched in 1972 for people living in underground communities called “pockets,” where it handled mail, bulletin boards, and shopping. It sold badly, its users adored it, and it got a sequel, which is basically the life story of every cult-classic gadget ever made. He also admits to sneaking deliberate flaws into his fictional designs so the imaginary engineers can fix them in the next version, and I love that level of commitment.

Designer: Shaun Wellens

The shell is a rounded off-white pod, with a sage-gray handle module sitting on top like the carrying grip on a vintage TV. That handle has a recessed slot and a tinted window that recall the iMac G3 and the 1999 clamshell iBook. The open renders show the two halves joined by a stacked metal hinge at the center, the one visibly mechanical part on an otherwise pebble-smooth body. The Space Shuttle inspiration was the GRiD Compass, a magnesium clamshell designed by Bill Moggridge that flew aboard Columbia in 1983 as the Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer, or SPOC.

Inside the lid sits a dark, rounded-rectangle display with cyan-green text that recalls an old phosphor CRT. A camera pokes through a tiny notch at the top center, which is a hilarious thing to find on a computer that supposedly shipped in 1972. Perforated speaker grilles flank the screen. The interface boots to a pixel-font “hello” and drops you into a numbered menu of services, a text-only setup that would sit comfortably next to a Lumon file full of scary numbers. Wellens calls it a lightning-fast graphical interface anyway. In his fictional timeline, it arrived a full year before the Xerox Alto, the pioneering 1973 GUI computer.

The bottom half is a dark oval tray holding a full keyboard, with the blue trackball parked dead center below the keys. That ball is the loudest color on the entire product, and it deserves to be. Trackballs have appeared in early terminals, arcade cabinets, and Logitech’s TrackMan, while Severance gave them another memorable role on the MDR desks. Putting it in the middle also makes sense for a shared machine, since lefties and righties get equal access. The oval keyboard looks a little cramped at the edges, but it matches the pebble shell so neatly that I’m happy to call it one of his intentional flaws.

A chunky, multi-jointed arm that looks borrowed from a robotics lab supports the terminal. It’s designed to let the P1 swing out, tilt, and tuck away, useful movements for a shared machine in a cramped communal space. In one render, the cable drops in from above, suggesting a ceiling- or wall-mounted setup like a dental lamp waiting for its next patient. Residents could walk up, pull it down, check their mail, and push it back, which might explain the Push / Pull name (my theory, Wellens hasn’t confirmed it). That setup makes the P1 feel closer to a payphone or a library catalog terminal than a personal computer.

Wellens’ conceptual history lands surprisingly close to the real thing. In August 1973, the Community Memory Project put a public bulletin board terminal in Leopold’s Records in Berkeley, with later terminals appearing in libraries and laundromats around town. A decade later, France was distributing free Minitel terminals that let people shop, bank, and message each other from home. The service lasted until 2012. The P1 mashes both ideas into one glossy pod for people living underground. Wellens even mocked up a period magazine ad with a big serif headline over a violet product shot, and it’s convincing enough that I briefly wanted to mail away for one.

Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle already gave us the most covetable fake office tech on television, so consider this a friendly nudge. Somebody on the show’s crew should get Wellens on the phone, because the P1 looks like a terminal Lumon would install somewhere much friendlier than the Break Room. He has form here too, having already dreamed up the Kriket 3000, a pastel retro robot that would look right at home wandering the severed floor’s hallways. The guy clearly loves building machines for a timeline that never happened, which is more or less the Lumon design brief. Hire him, throw him a waffle party, and let him build whatever strange hardware the next season needs.

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The most anticipated video game of all time is launching within a few weeks. It’s 19 November, to be precise, when Rockstar Games will release Grand Theft Auto VI, and everyone, including Nike, wants to tap into the fanfare building up to the launch. No wonder then, the footwear giant has teamed up with rapper Travis Scott and Rockstar Games for a pair of Nike Air Force 1 Low themed after the upcoming game.

We have seen some Nike and Travis Scott collaborations in the past. The usual obvious with their releases has been their limited availability. Considering this one is based on a game whose fanfare is already blowing out of the roof, these won’t be an easy buy either.

Designer: Nike

If the leaked Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack x Rockstar Games x Nike Air Force 1 Low “Grand Theft Auto” is released in limited quantity, there is going to be a fight to get them. Anyway, we do not have that information at the moment, what we know from leaked images is that the shoes will have the reverse swoosh logo on their lateral side, which is a signature of Travis Scott x Nike sneakers. The surfaced images show the GTA sneaker in Black avatar with Grand Theft Auto-inspired accents such as a pink toe-box money band and a pink six-star wanted level graphic.

The Nike Air Force 1 Low “Grand Theft Auto” features a leather upper and will reportedly be available in three colorways: White and Pink, Black and Pink, and a Multicolored option. It is rumored that the sneaker will retail for $130 and will be available for purchase starting 19 November, the same day as the game’s release.

As a nod to Grand Theft Auto VI, the Travis Scott x Rockstar Games x Nike Air Force 1 Low features the six-star wanted level iconography in the outsole. In addition to the star motif, the black sneaker in the pictures is highlighted with the pink rubber money band wrapped around the toe box. It features branding for all involved parties in the collaborative Air Force 1 Low, and comes with an extra set of laces in pink color to contrast with the black all-over look of the sneaker.

For a more intriguing change, it’s reported that the collaborative Air Force 1 replaces the “AIR” lettering on the midsole with GTA, which is an evident reference to the upcoming game. Since there are very limited images that have leaked, we don’t have a picture of what’s on the inside of these sneakers, so we’ll reserve our comment for now, until more information comes in.

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There was a time when a computer’s biggest annoyance was a progress bar inching slowly or a dial-up modem screeching and hissing its way online. Nobody pinged you on Teams, Copilot didn’t offer to rewrite your emails, and the worst thing your PC could do was crash in the middle of Solitaire. Benlywatch’s Desktop 95 bottles that era and straps it to your wrist. The limited-edition analog watch puts a Windows 95-style desktop on its dial, complete with teal wallpaper, beveled windows, and a dialog box that reads “Loading memories…” Honestly, that progress bar is the most accurate thing anyone has written about millennials.

Two pixel cursors serve as the hands, a SYSTEM “Ready” dialog sits near the center, and a taskbar runs along the bottom of the dial. It all lives in a 39mm-wide, 10mm-thick case made from 316L stainless steel, with a Swiss quartz movement and a 5 ATM water-resistance rating. You get a blue or white dial with a leather strap, Milanese mesh, or steel bracelet, plus a numbered caseback. The edition is limited to 500 pieces. Pre-orders are open at $159, with shipping slated for November 2026. The only notification it will ever send you is the time.

Designer: Benly Watch

Pixel Cursor Hands and Two Desktop Dials

One hand is a classic arrow pointer, and the other is the little pointing hand that appeared whenever you hovered over a link. Together they move around the dial telling the time, which is the most productive thing a cursor has done since the invention of the screensaver. Everything else on the dial stays put. On the blue version, an ARCHIVE window with File, Edit, and View menus holds WORK, PHOTOS, and NOTES icons, while DESK, SAVE, and FILES shortcuts line the left edge. Chunky pixel numerals mark 12, 3, 6, and 9, and the taskbar reads MENU, ARCHIVE, and READY, speaker icon included.

The white dial swaps teal for a creamy beige and renames the main window DESKTOP, with COMPUTER, FILES, and DISK icons and a simpler “Loading…” bar. Its numerals almost disappear into the background, so it looks like a screenshot someone shrank down and laminated. I like that the two dials feel like two moods of the same machine. Blue is the cheerful default everybody remembers from the family PC. White is the office computer in accounting that never got its wallpaper changed. Both keep that SYSTEM “Ready” box parked near the center like a promise.

The Windows 95 Design Behind the Dial

Windows 95 launched on August 24, 1995, backed by a $300 million marketing push, a launch event hosted by Jay Leno, and people lining up at midnight to buy an operating system. Its startup sound was composed by Brian Eno, which remains a wild sentence to type. The interface reflected the work of a design team led by Virginia Howlett, a painter by training. Those teals, royal blues, and medium grays came partly from the limited color palettes of graphics cards at the time. Hardware limits, basically, turned into an aesthetic people now pay money to recreate.

Three decades later, Windows comes with Copilot, Teams, and a Solitaire that serves you ads, and Howlett herself has called the Windows 95 years a “kinder, gentler time.” The Desktop 95 taps into that feeling. It’s a desktop with no updates, no pop-ups to dismiss, and no assistant asking how it can help. The only thing missing is Clippy, though in fairness he didn’t arrive until Office 97, and the dial is probably better off without a backseat driver.

Case Specs, Pricing, and Availability

The case measures 39mm across and 44.5mm long, and at 10mm thick it should slip under a shirt cuff without a fight. It’s made from 316L stainless steel, with a matching steel caseback engraved with the Desktop 95 name and an individual edition number. The leather strap is 20mm wide and fits wrists from 5.3 to 8.1 inches (13.5 to 20.5cm), with Milanese mesh and steel bracelet versions also available. Inside is a Swiss quartz movement, which suits the theme, because nobody in 1995 wanted to wind anything except a VHS tape. Water resistance is rated at 5 ATM.

Most of Benlywatch’s catalog is retro-futurist digital hardware with OLED and LCD screens, from the Cybertruck-inspired Future Warrior to its 1970s-style Stargazer. The Desktop 95 takes a different approach, recreating a screen on an analog dial. It’s listed at $159 on pre-order through Benlywatch’s website, limited to 500 pieces, with shipping expected in November 2026. Free worldwide shipping is included, and the brand covers import taxes and duties.

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Camping stoves can be awkward things to pack, especially when the burner and pot supports insist on keeping their cooking shape inside your bag. Easy Cooking approaches that problem with a folding stove concept that tucks its parts into an elongated, rounded case. Developed in 2023, it proposes a smaller package for the trip without making you assemble a kitchen from loose pieces.

The closed body has a sandy beige finish, interrupted by black details and a short fabric loop at one end. Concentric slots near the opposite end echo the circular burner hidden inside, while a field of smaller perforations breaks up the broad face. It’s a restrained way to give camping equipment some character without covering it in rugged-looking armor or oversized branding.

Designers: Hao Kong, Qi Qiu

Opening it changes the relationship between those parts. The burner extends away from the housing, and three serrated pot supports spread around it to create a cooking position wider than the packed form. Folded inward, those supports nest alongside the burner. The proposal concentrates on rearranging what a stove needs, rather than giving a conventional rectangular cooktop a handle and calling it portable.

The fuel cartridge sits lengthwise inside the open housing, keeping the supply beside the burner rather than requiring a separate fuel hose. A large rotary dial occupies the side, and an OPEN label marks a separate control on top. Those familiar physical cues suggest where to begin, although the presentation doesn’t explain the ignition system or the cartridge’s locking and release mechanisms.

That arrangement would make sense for a quick outdoor meal, when you want to put a kettle on without unpacking a boxy tabletop appliance. The enclosure serves two jobs: concealing the burner for transport and accommodating the cartridge once the stove is deployed. Its usefulness would depend on how easily those parts move, especially after grit and food residue get into the joints.

There’s a precedent for this kind of transformation. Snow Peak’s Home & Camp Burner, released in 2019, also folds its burner into an enclosure that holds a butane cartridge during use. Easy Cooking explores that packing problem with a flatter, capsule-like outline. The shared idea makes the details of deployment more interesting than any suggestion that folding a stove is entirely new.

Easy Cooking remains a concept rather than an established retail product. There’s no mention of dimensions or weight figures to demonstrate how much space it saves, and material grades aren’t specified. The folding supports leave practical questions about how a full pot would be held above the ground, particularly when stirring or lifting it could shift the load across that narrow structure.

Heat management matters as much as the folding trick. Snow Peak warns that certain cookware can radiate enough heat toward its canister to create a hazard, a reminder of what’s at stake when fuel and flame share a small footprint. Making the stove disappear for travel is appealing; keeping its fuel from overheating once a pan goes on top demands more care.

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