Located inside LA’s Westfield Century City shopping mall, the SKKN pop-up displays small cylindrical and spherical products on huge slabs of cement and alcoves in the smooth, bare walls. Perron-Roettinger co-founder Willo Perron says he drew inspiration from rock quarries when designing the 1,330-square-foot space, bringing in large-scale shapes meant to evoke massive chunks of raw minerals. Instead of contrasting with the products, the setting amplifies their simple, elemental forms.

If the products are a little mysterious, that’s because they’re meant to be. Perron-Roettinger created opaque containers that obscure their contents, with labels like “face cream” and “exfoliator” printed in tiny, barely legible text. The refillable containers are also housed within secondary packaging that’s textured to resemble naturally occurring materials.

“We like how it feels to hold a ceramic mug, the natural color of a clay pot, what it feels like to run your hand through sand, and all the different shades and textures of limestone quarry,” Perron-Roettinger co-founder Brian Roettinger told It’s Nice That.

Staying within the same limited gray and beige color palette, Kardashian’s SKKN Home Accessories Collection is also on display at the LA pop-up. The five-piece houseware collection aims to capture the “calming aesthetic and neutral color palette of Kardashian’s home.” All made of hand-poured concrete, the collection consists of a vanity tray, spherical storage container, waste basket, tissue box, and a canister with a lid.

“I knew I wanted to complement my skincare collection with home accessories, designed to display my products and elevate the home with modern, minimalistic elegance,” Kardashian says. “When designing this collection, I wanted to bring the monochromatic interior design elements from my home to others. I’m excited to be able to share this collection with everyone.”

The SKKN pop-up shop will remain in place until the end of the year. As stark as the interior design and products may be, there’s no confusing the store for that of any other brand. Two enormous digital displays splashed with Kim’s face bookend the space, reminding shoppers what they’re really there for: a little bit of bottled essence du nouveau riche.

Willo Perron previously designed a pop-up store for Kardashian’s brand of undergarments, SKIMS, in 2021. Located on the ground floor of the Parisian department store Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann, the store was similarly smooth, beige, and low on embellishments, but drew inspiration from the hues and curves of human bodies instead of stone. The same design was repeated for a second pop-up store in Los Angeles later that year.

The post Kim Kardashian’s SKKN Pop-Up Store is Just as Greige as Her Minimalist Home first appeared on Dornob.

Taken out of context, “Dmuse” is a puzzling object. It sort of looks like a futuristic clothes dryer complete with a circular glass door — though it also features a chute that looks like it would leave your clean clothes piled all over the floor. Its real use is even closer to a fictional gadget you might have spotted in The Jetsons when you were a kid. After bathing your cat, you place it inside and push a few buttons to select the temperature, duration, and fan strength. 30 seconds or so later, your cat comes out of its high-end sauna experience warm, dry, and fluffed.

We know what you’re thinking. How often do cats even bathe? Who would buy a large, expensive appliance for such a rare occasion? But Dmuse is multifunctional, offering a place for the cat to play, hide, and lounge in between baths. The drying space is at the top, with transparent doors to allow the cat to see outside during their spa treatment. If they get bored, a device for playing whack-a-mole offers a diversion. At the bottom, a dark, snug hole becomes a place to hide out.

The device was created by industrial design academy Designer Dot and student Lee Da-eun as a new smart gadget for the home. “Most cats hate bathing,” Lee writes. “The box-shaped dry room, which has been used a lot recently for convenience reasons, limits the free activities of pets who are stressed by bathing. The user can control the stage of play, wind strength, and drying time with the touch panel. This allows the fur on the cat’s belly to dry through a hole in the bottom plate. The colors were inspired by the cat’s habitat and the nocturnal nature of cats. When the drying time is over, the door will automatically open and the cat can come out on its own.”

Any cat owner will tell you that bathing a cat is rarely a relaxed experience. Most cats don’t like water, and will not only fight you to escape the bath, they’ll run and hide as soon as you let them out of the room, glaring resentfully from on top of the refrigerator with a trail of water in their wake. So a cat-safe drying chamber may not be as outlandish as it sounds — unless it’s a standalone object with no other purposes that just takes up space between baths. That’s what might make the Dmuse attractive to cat lovers, if you happen to have the type of cat that doesn’t ignore the beds and toys you buy in favor of cardboard boxes and paper bags.

Okay, so a cat fluffing orb is definitely an extravagance. But with so many other aspects of our homes getting the “smart” treatment lately, it’s not hard to imagine a future in which objects like this are simply normal parts of our decor.

The post Cats Can Play Whack-a-Mole and Get a Luxury Blow-Dry Inside This Weird Orb first appeared on Dornob.

A new video from UK bathroom supply store QS Supplies illustrates 500 years of “evo-loo-tion” in 90 seconds flat. Starting in the year 1520, this brief history of the bathroom tracks major developments like sewer systems, running water, toilet paper, and the introduction of matching accoutrements. Though this UK-centric history is limited to the Western world, ignoring earlier advancements of sewer systems and bidets across the globe, it’s still an interesting glimpse at how this essential space has changed over time.

1520-1620: You Only Bathed Alone if You Were Fancy

For much of human history, people had little choice but to embrace their natural funk in between rare visits to a public bath, and it wasn’t uncommon to relieve yourself just about anywhere outdoors. The whole reason perfumes were developed (and considered a luxury) was to combat the general stench of body odor and human waste in the streets. If you were among the upper classes, you at least had a scented handkerchief to hold to your nose when necessary, and by the 16th century, you might have been lucky enough to have a bathtub at home, too.

During this period, the wealthy enjoyed freestanding wooden bathtubs filled with water heated in a cauldron, often placed near a fireplace for warmth. Castles were newly equipped with “garderobes,” which were basically upper-level turrets with holes in the floor that emptied into cesspools, moats, or just the ground. A jug and basin were used to wash your hands afterward.

1620-1720: Chamber Pots and Slight Tub Upgrades

A hundred years later, many people in cities were doing their business indoors. Now in widespread use, the chamber pot introduced a lot more convenience, whether you had an outhouse or not (but it was supposed to be for number one only). Wealthier people moved on to commodes, which were boxes with a seat and lid covering the chamber pot to reduce odors. Tubs also became more common at this time due to concerns about catching diseases in public baths, but the inconvenience of hauling and heating water meant you had to at least share the water, if not the tub. Many bathtubs from this period were also lined with steel to help keep them warm longer.

1720-1820: The Advent of Mirrors

No longer just for essential bodily functions, bathrooms started to become private spaces for grooming and preening in the 18th century. Instead of keeping their tub, chamber pot, and jug in the living area, people started confining these items to their own spaces. Commodes became common, and in 1775, a watchmaker named Alexander Cummings invented the S-pipe, the prelude to the modern flushing toilet. One of the most significant developments during this period was the increased affordability of mirrors, which were previously very expensive to produce.

1820-1920: Sewers, Running Water, and Toilet Paper

This is the time when bathrooms started to look like something we’d recognize today. Governments decided to get a handle on the public hygiene situation, building sewer systems and running water pipes to most urban homes. That meant the average person could have a flush toilet, a sink, and a bathtub, with water typically heated by a boiler in the basement. Rich people’s bathrooms grew more ornate than ever, with chandeliers, gilded fixtures, exposed pipes, and a nifty new invention called toilet paper (though frankly, we’d probably all be better off if the whole world embraced bidets instead).

1920-2020: The Bathroom as a Self-Care Refuge

Over the past century, bathrooms have become one of the most important rooms in our homes, typically second only to the kitchen in terms of how much money and care is put into their design. Water heaters and electricity transformed them into hallowed spaces where we can preen for hours on end with a full expectation of privacy. Nowadays, smart technology is taking luxury bathrooms up a notch by remembering our preferences for temperature and water pressure, automatically adjusting the lighting, displaying digital information on our mirrors, and even heating the toilet seat.

It’s wild to think of what bathrooms might look like in another 100 years, isn’t it?

The post From Chamber Pots to Smart Toilets: See 500 Years of Bathroom History in 90 Seconds first appeared on Dornob.

Installed using a system of cables, the lamp is designed with spaces like sports fields, public squares, train stations, and schoolyards in mind, shining a large circle of far-UVC light that sanitizes the air beneath it. Far-UVC light is invisible to the naked eye, of course, so the Urban Sun also incorporates conventional light sources to help people visualize how it works and see exactly where the “safe area” begins and ends. Studio Roosegaarde installed the first Urban Sun light in Rotterdam earlier this year as a demonstration, though future installations could string together multiple lights to accommodate larger crowds.

The designers worked with experts and scientists from the Netherlands, the United States, Japan, and Italy to create Urban Sun, with its far-UVC light source measured and calibrated by the Dutch National Metrology Institute VSL. The light also meets international safety standards on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. Studio Roosegaarde is making Urban Sun available for exhibitions and inviting governments and other partners to collaborate with them to get more installed.

Studio Roosegaarde doesn’t claim that Urban Sun is the ultimate solution for ending transmission of the novel coronavirus and other diseases. They call for continuing social distancing and masking as primary strategies to combat the pandemic, and note that most transmission occurs indoors. But what the Urban Sun can potentially do is make people feel safer gathering in large crowds outdoors, so big cultural events like concerts and festivals could theoretically resume around the world.

Lead designer Daan Roosegaarde told Dezeen he imagines Urban Sun being used at events as large as The Olympics and Burning Man, as well as design festivals like the Salone del Mobile in Milan. The studio is also exploring the possibility of adapting the design for indoor use.

“Suddenly our world is filled with plastic barriers and distance stickers, our family reduced to pixels on a computer screen,” adds Roosegaarde. “Let’s be the architects of our new normal and create better places to meet.”

Conventional germicidal UVC light at 254nm wavelength is highly effective at decontamination, but it’s also a health hazard. Far-UVC has a 222nm wavelength incapable of penetrating the outer layer of skin or the tear layer of the eye, so it can’t damage living cells in the body. While Studio Roosegaarde says Urban Sun could sanitize the surrounding air in as little as two minutes, most research has shown that it takes far-UVC technology about 16 minutes to kill 99 percent of airborne viruses.

We’ll likely be seeing a lot more far-UVC devices pop up in the near future, both indoors and out. Even Boeing has been exploring ways to incorporate it into its airplanes for years now, and is currently testing far-UVC handheld wands in passenger airplane cabins and cockpit interiors.

The post Ultraviolet “Urban Sun Light” by Studio Roosegaarde Sanitizes Public Spaces first appeared on Dornob.

Showerheads considered “smart” can combine water savings with new technology that doesn’t leave you suffering from local restrictions. These fixtures function by threading a powerful air blast into the water spray for a full water effect with up to 30-percent savings. Other “smart” showerheads connect to your home assistant or a phone app to provide features such as remote start and pre-saved spray preferences. Yes, really.

Here’s a list of highly-rated, advanced design options to consider:

Moen Bathroom Controller

The first item on our list isn’t even a showerhead, but the brains behind a great shower experience. This controller, well, controls everything in your shower, from the amount of water pressure to the temperature. Like auto-start for your car, you can prep all the settings to your liking before you even step foot inside the shower. Using manual touch or your phone, you can get the party started. When synced with Alexa, you can even voice command your morning shower. Plus, the feedback report will lay out the amount of water and electricity used for each shower, making it easy to track your overall water consumption and improve savings.

Moen S6320 Velocity Rainshower

Also by trusty brand Moen, this rainshower gives you the full Singin’ in the Rain experience, with better options than many other rain showers, which barely rinse the soap from your skin. It features an eight-inch head that provides ample water coverage. And while you can enjoy the rain-like effect of the lighter spray whenever you like, you can switch to a higher capacity when it’s time to rinse to get the job done efficiently.

WaterHawk 6″ Smart Rain Showerhead

Although smaller than the Moen mentioned above, the WaterHawk is considered more of an eco-friendly smart showerhead due to its high level of water efficiency. The real-time feedback provides an up-to-date usage report as you shower rather than having to rely on data reports later in the day. Adding to the Earth-friendly features is the ability to monitor efficiency of water temperature and shower duration in order to meet your water consumption goals. The WaterHawk also features another stand-out bit of innovation: it uses the force of the water to power itself, making it a battery-free solution. Plus, it adds some color to the experience with LEDs that change color with the water temperature.

DreamSpa

While some models try to get away with inexpensive materials, this smart showerhead is all quality. In addition to a stylish look, the DreamSpa offers some high-tech features you’d expect from a smart showerhead, such as a zero-battery design and water-saving abilities. It also allows you to visually ascertain the temperature of the water, with LED lights color-coded in response to different settings. When it switches from cool-water blue to warm green or red hot, it’s time to get in. Flashing red, however, warns the water is too hot for safety (a particularly nice feature for kids and older folks). Installation requires no tools and is hassle-free so you can quickly set up and enjoy the five modes: Hydro-Mist, Pulsating Massage, Economy Rain, Water Saving, and Power Rain.

Nosame

Well water presents unique challenges, from mineral smells to dry hair and skin. Nosame incorporates multi-layer water filtration and promises a healthier overall experience. The Rainfall, Massage, and Jet Spray modes provide settings options whenever you need them, yet the technology provides ample water pressure with consumption savings of up to 30 percent. This is an inexpensive handheld model that screws into any existing shower hose outlet and is backed up with a warranty and money-back guarantee.

The post The 5 Best Options For Getting Smarter in the Shower first appeared on Dornob.

Entitled NETINA, the outlandish collection includes three pairs of knit shoes: one with electrical charging ports, another with docks for dozens of matchsticks, and a third that can carry and display various sizes of tampons.

Goldberg, a Tel Aviv native, chose to highlight these commonly-shared objects to facilitate more social interaction. “The human body contains various opportunities for carrying objects that can be useful for ourselves and to those around us,” she says. “Our feet contain such benefits and also obtain the true characteristic of movement: movement as in being dynamic and active, but also movement that symbolizes the transfer and giving of an object to another.”

This shoe line provides a way to “give on-the-go” with “as little effort as possible,” the artist says on her website. She believes the “ability to give is a source of comfort and happiness,” and that NETINA “examines the world of cooperatives in an unconventional way that answers the sincere desire to give and receive as a way to create a beneficial and open society.”

“I started researching what people like to give and to receive while they are on the go,” Goldberg continues. For example, a light for a passerby’s cigarette is contained in the spiky white matchstick shoes. They “represent the element of fire – an element we have been transferring to one another since the beginning of time.”

Similarly, the red NETINA shoes are ringed with 12 candlestick-like holders for tampons. Instead of being tucked out of sight in a tote, Goldberg makes the feminine hygiene product visible in an “extroverted manner.”

The final pair in the collection features six USB charging ports, all of which can provide power to nearby individuals via a portable charger hidden in the shoe sole. The back of the blue slipper can be plugged into an outlet for battery recharging, and a bright orange charging cable can even be threaded around for convenient transport.

Every shoe in the collection has a barcode stamped onto the back that will link to a social app when scanned, facilitating even more community interaction.

Goldberg, a recent graduate in industrial design from Israel’s Shenkar College, says she paid close attention to “the matter of weight and size” when configuring the footwear to ensure functionality. She attributes her core design values to her upbringing in a collective Israeli kibbutz, with the emphasis on daily cooperation with others shaping her artistic process above all else. She also feels that “we develop an emotional relationship with our daily usage objects,” and that “I have a desire to put an added value on each object in addition to … extraordinary functionality; this added value is the path to the emotional relationship.”

Other storage items in her creative past include the Rua Bag, a leather satchel that can be attached to a bicycle bar for comfortable travel, and the Pulpy Piggy Bank, a coin container that offers a “satisfying sensory experience” when unraveled by its red string.

The post Offbeat Shoes Allow Wearers to Share Tampons, Power on the Go first appeared on Dornob.

While getting an allergy barrier to seal your mattress and pillows definitely helps, as does washing your bed sheets at least once a week, germophobes and those with lowered immune system responses might want to consider taking even more extra steps.

A new offering among robotic home gadgets will automatically sterilize your bed for you. The ROCKUBOT is basically like a Roomba for your bed, except it uses UV light and ultrasonic vibrations to eliminate the germs, bacteria, mites, and more that lurk in the space where you spend nearly a third of your life.

Ultrasonic waves prevent mites, bed bugs, and other pests from sleeping, feeding, and reproducing, and they’re completely inaudible to humans and pets. The ROCKUBOT’s creators say they’ve tested their product against E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans, as well as 900 living mites. When disinfection was complete, all of the mites were dead, and 99.99 percent of the other contaminants were eliminated.

The bot’s Kickstarter page reads: “UV-C light has been used successfully as a germicide and bactericide for decades. It can kill or disable the growth of micro-organisms like bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens, and it provides a chemical-free alternative to other disinfection methods, like using chlorine. Due to its effectiveness and advantages, UV-C is being used for an increasing range of applications.”

“It is used, for example, for disinfection in wastewater treatment plants, laboratories, air-conditioning systems, and even pools and aquariums, as well as in various stages of food and beverage industrial processes. UV-C is also used in medical and hospital settings to sterilize instruments, work surfaces, and the air.”

The bot features 24 smart sensors and a navigation system to keep it from falling off the edge of the bed, and it can even roam around underneath the blankets with ease. You can use it to clean toys, phones, and other objects in manual mode, too. To top it all off, the ROCKUBOT also plays music with Bluetooth 5.0, and doubles as a power bank so you can charge your devices as it works its magic.

No matter how many stars a hotel might have, or how fancy their bedding, they’re probably not deep-sanitizing the beds after each guest checks out (wouldn’t that be nice, though?). The ROCKUBOT offers peace of mind, and who knows, it might just improve your health, too. If you get sick often or suffer from allergies, it would be interesting to see whether you started feeling better after regular use. Would you be tempted to take one along the next time you travel, or use it daily in your own home?

The ROCKUBOT is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, with early bird rewards offering a complete kit for $119, 54 percent off the expected MSRP of $259.

The post This Music-Playing Cleaning Robot is Basically a Roomba for Your Bed first appeared on Dornob.

There’s been a lot of innovation in this space recently, and this new entry to the market brings a particularly novel approach. The SEEUS95 Mask has no ear loops, no straps, and no nose wires or folds that pinch, irritate, or leave deep marks on the skin. Frankly, it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie as well, but that could be a pro depending on your fashion sense. It gently sticks to the face without any adhesives and easily peels off when you want to remove it.

Made almost entirely of clear, reusable, medical-grade silicone, this completely transparent protective face mask has another huge benefit that’s immediately obvious. It can help alleviate accessibility problems currently caused by masks, specifically allowing deaf and hard-of-hearing people to read lips without exposing them to viral particles. The air the wearer inhales and exhales enters and exits through two removable N95-rated filters on either side.

Unlike most fabric options, this silicone mask forms a tight seal over the face, offering additional protection. The flexible material adjusts to accommodate a wide range of facial sizes and shapes without losing that seal. In moments when you need a little more air, like when you’re performing strenuous activities, you can pull the silicone off the contact point under the chin area. The “skin therapy layer” that makes the mask stick is made of a skin healing material called chitosan, an organic biopolymer found in the shells of shrimp. It’s naturally antimicrobial and antibacterial, and it’s often used for post-surgical wounds, to boot.

The filter itself is made of several layers of natural fibers consisting of bamboo, silk, nano silver, and activated carbon. Each of these materials has its own particular antimicrobial and antibacterial properties while acting as physical filters for air that may contain viral particles. The filters were independently tested for efficacy by the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, consistently blocking between 95 and 99 percent of various particle sizes.

Cleaning it is simple, too. The designers explain that “We designed the Light Warrior Masks to be easily cleaned and sanitized in many ways. If you are on the go and need a refresher, just wipe with alcohol. If you’re at home, just pop in the microwave for three minutes (but MAKE SURE YOU TAKE OUT THE FILTERS FIRST)! Doing a load of dishes? Take out the filters and put the Light Warrior mask in the dishwasher. With a dishwater, some water spotting may occur, but that’s okay; just wipe off the water spots with a soft, clean cloth, and you’re good to go!”

Fresh off a round of crowdfunding on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the masks are currently in production and set to be sold for $59 each, including four filters. It comes in three sizes: extra small, small, and large.

The post Transparent Filter Mask Sticks to Your Face With Silicone first appeared on Dornob.

Capable of washing dishes for two in under twenty minutes, “Bob” is the brainchild of Paris startup Daan Tech. It made its debut at CES 2019, but it’s getting renewed attention for its newly-added UV-C light, which allows for a waterless sanitization cycle that can disinfect all kinds of objects, including phones, face masks, keys, and other small household items. The ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) eliminates bacteria and viruses in just a few minutes.

The company explains that “while most of the world has been locked down, Daan Tech used that time to find a convenient solution on how to sanitize items while continuing building its manufacturing capacity for its small innovative dishwasher. UVGI is an easy and safe way to sanitize items. Thus, it will be an option offered for an extra £49, now available at a discounted price of only £39. With this option, in addition to cleaning the dishes, Bob autonomous dishwasher sanitizes any objects measuring less than 27 x 27 x 34 cm or 10.6 x 10.6 x 13.8 in.”

“Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation or UVGI has been used for years to sanitize drinking water and sterilize tools in hospitals. More recently, it has been used in US hospitals to cope with the mask shortage. The principle is simple: sending high-energy photons whose wavelength is between 200nm and 280nm (with an efficiency peak at 270nm) on viruses. Photons, or light particles, break the RNA of viruses and make them harmless to humans. However, due to their high energy, UV-C rays are also harmful to human cells and can cause skin and eye burns. That is why Daan Tech designed a safe way to use them within Bob autonomous dishwasher.”

The compact dishwasher itself is great for people living in small spaces like apartments, RVs, tiny houses, and boats. It uses five times less water than manual dishwashing, and you don’t even have to connect it to a water line, since it has its own built-in three-liter refillable water tank. It weighs just 22 pounds (10kg), measures just 19.2 inches tall, and can fit a full day of dishes for two people, including four plates, four glasses, two cups, two bowls, a small saucepan or frying pan, and cutlery. There’s also a 10-minute glasses-only mode if you’re just washing cups.

The body comes in either black or white, and you can get the door in black, white, silver, red, orange, yellow, two shades of green, two shades of blue, purple, or pink. It has a drainage hose you simply direct into a nearby sink and features two handles for portability. The new version with the UV-C light is currently available for preorder for €299.90 (about $350 USD).

There is, unfortunately, one catch. “Bob” is only shipping to the European Union and United Kingdom for the time being. You might be able to get around that by having an overseas friend receive it and ship it to you, however. Otherwise, let’s hope some United States-based companies are working on a similar idea.

The post Bob: An Ultra-Compact Dishwasher That’s Also a COVID-19 Sanitizer first appeared on Dornob.

Bissell BarkBath

A clean dog isn’t just a happy dog — they’re also welcome in almost anyone’s home. This compact cleaning system lets you bathe your dog on the go and doubles as a portable carpet and upholstered furniture cleaner. Its one-of-a-kind spray nozzle gently reaches deep down to the dog’s skin and deposits the dirty water into a separate tank. For $200, you can easily keep your dog and home clean without bulky equipment or frequent trips to the groomer’s.

Fi Smart Dog Collar

No more fretting over where your dog is when they decide to explore the world explore outside your yard. The lustrous Fi Smart Dog Collar tracks their location with a real-time GPS and reports the data back to you on your smartphone. It also tracks how many steps they take and their total exercise time to monitor their fitness. The collar is $149, and the additional $99 annual subscription fee is a small price to pay for the serenity of knowing your pooch’s whereabouts.

Mighty Paw Smart Bell 2.0

With a minimal amount of training, the Mighty Paw Smart Bell 2.0 lets your dog alert you to their need to go outside and take care of business. Priced between $30 and $40, the system is wireless and needs no batteries, with a customizable ringtone that’s activated by the simple touch of your pet’s paw.

PetChatz Interactive Pet Camera

You don’t have to be Dr. Dolittle to talk to your pet. Thanks to this nifty invention, you can now have two-way calls anytime you’re away from home, and even toss them “treats” or calm them with light bursts and therapeutic scents. The basic system costs around $350, but for a bit more, you can add on “PawCall” buttons that let your pet reach out to you from afar.

Petcube Bites 2 Smart Pet Camera

If you just want to keep tabs on your pet’s secret life when you’re not home, Petcube Bites 2 Smart Pet Camera is the perfect gadget for you. You can reward good behavior with a virtual treat or talk to them with the two-way audio feature. Even better, this system is a little cheaper than others at just $249.

PetSafe Smart Feeder

With the PetSafe Smart Feeder, you’ll never have to feel guilty about not being home to feed your dog on time. Instead, a simple phone app lets you set up an automatic feeding schedule. Set it to dispense an eighth to four full cups of food, or use the “Slow Feed” option to dispense a preset amount of chow over a 15-minute span.

SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder

No more food pilfering between your dog and cat thanks to the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder. Using microchips, the food inside is only accessible to the right pet when they approach their respective dish. No worries if your pet isn’t microchipped, either: you can also use ID tags on their collars to activate access. At a price of around $150, you can make sure each and every pet gets the proper nutrition every day of the week.

SureFlap Microchip Pet Door

Instead of making repeated trips to the door to let your pet in an out, simplify life for a meager investment of $85. The SureFlap Microchip Pet Door reads a microchip or programmable collar to let the pet in and out without concerns about strays or wildlife getting inside. You can also set up pre-selected times for the doggy door to automatically be locked or unlocked from the outside.

VARRAM Pet Fitness Robot

No more lazy pets that sleep all day while you’re away. The VARRAM Pet Fitness Robot plays with your pet using 16 preset frolicking moves that carefully avoid obstacles throughout your home. The $100 price tag includes a program that monitors your pup’s activity and advises on changes you can make to further improve their health.

Whistle FIT Pet Health Tracker

Finally, this Fitbit-like gadget tells you if your dog is getting the proper amount of exercise based on its breed, weight, and age. Set incremental goals and adjust food amounts to match their activity patterns and keep them at the peak of good health. The tracker costs $80, plus an annual subscription fee of $35.

The post 10 Cool Trinkets and Toys That Will Make Your Dog’s Day first appeared on Dornob.

Wearing a plastic face shield is an easy way to stop this habit in its tracks, but most of the ones you’ll find for sale at your local drugstore or on Amazon are bulky, uncomfortable, and too hazy to see through. A different version aims to be as comfortable as wearing glasses while offering protection from potentially infectious droplets and interrupting mindless face touching.

“Blocc” covers all the major avenues for infection on your face, working as a barrier when you reach for them. Unlike a conventional face shield, which uses foam and a headband to cling to your face, Blocc rests on your ears and nose. It doesn’t quite extend all the way past the chin, but its bubble-like shape makes that unnecessary.

It might seem like a face shield worn like glasses would make it impossible to actually wear glasses underneath it, but the design actually leaves plenty of room for most frames. Just remove the Blocc’s nose rest to accommodate them. The ergonomic shape also makes it easy to wear when running or riding a bike.

3D printed out of clear polycarbonate, Blocc is designed for everyday use by the public, not for healthcare or laboratory settings. It’s easy to wash with soap and water so you can use it over and over again. Though it’s no replacement for a mask, it’s a great supplement, especially for people who have to interface with the public for work and need some extra protection.

The face shield’s creators explain that “our team is based in South Korea — one of the first countries to be hit hard by the pandemic. We often noticed people wearing masks and habitually touching their face out in public. After looking into this further, we found that the average person subconsciously touches their face 23 times an hour (source: https://bit.ly/2APII4I) and that this is an innate habit very difficult to break. Therefore, it only seemed logical for us to create a face shield that would block (hence, the product name) the hand from touching the face.”

“We noticed that some people had already been using them, but none of them seemed to look comfortable or well-designed. This is why we decided to make one ourselves — one designed for the average person to wear in public without feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable. Our sincere hope is that Blocc will help you become wary of your face-touching habit. With your help, we can make Blocc a reality.”

Blocc raised nearly 500 times its initial goal of $5,000 on Kickstarter, and it’s now available for pre-sale on Indiegogo. You can get one for $27, or a two pack for $52.

The post Blocc: A Streamlined Face Shield You Wear Like Glasses first appeared on Dornob.

“The competition seeks to explore the aesthetic, functional, social, gestural, and experiential possibilities of enhanced hygiene,” says Bombas & Parr. “It is hoped that this will accelerate the establishment of new behavioral norms which benefit the ongoing health of global society. Ultimately, the aim is to explore how people can safely re-enter the public realm.”

The entries are divided into eight categories: Luxury Design, Sustainable Design, Hygiene Innovation Beyond the Sanitizer, Awareness and Communication, Cadet Designers (Under 18’s), Child-Directed Design, Gesture and Ritual, and Industrial Design. These are the winners, but all of the entries are worth checking out on the Fountain of Hygiene website.

Child-Directed Design: Paint Your Hands Clean

It’s tough to get kids to wash their hands properly. This submission by Kate Strudwick, Amos Oyedeji, Alexander Facey, and Nicole Stjernswärd presents a color-changing hand sanitizer brush that turns hygiene into a fun activity.

Sustainable Design: Seaweed Capsule

Terry Hearnshaw’s biodegradable dispensing system makes it possible to carry individual doses of hand sanitizer in your wallet or pocket, or dispense them from gumball-style machines. Bursting the capsule within clenched hands releases the optimum amount of sanitizer.

Gesture and Ritual: Hygiene-Friendly Visits

This sanitizing doorbell by Line Johnsen is a simple concept that basically forces people to sanitize their hands before entering a home. In order to ring the doorbell, they have to place their hands beneath the automatic dispenser.

Luxury Design: Step One

Sally Reynolds’ innovation is a pedal-activated sanitizer dispenser made of colorful recycled plastics resembling terrazzo. Just step on the copper foot pedal to make the gel come out of the spout.

Hygiene Innovation Beyond Sanitizer: Centrepeace

Our phones might just be the germiest things we ever touch. This invention by Conrad Haddaway, Twomuch Studio, and Inga Ziemele sits in the center of a dining table, offering three shelves for phones. An ozone-generating UV light then sterilizes them while you eat.

Industrial Design: Bubble Party

“Imagine when we finally get back to having small social gatherings, the experience of hand sanitizer in the form of a floating cloud of bubbles, seeing people both young and old drawn to play, capture, and get clean!” says Steve Jarvis, designer of this neat creation. “So much more inviting than simply passing around a basic plastic bottle from person to person.”

Awareness and Communication: Buggy

Another attempt to encourage people to sanitize their phones, “Buggy” by Zoe Lester, Beth Thomas, Emma Chih, Erin Giles, and Kris Murphy is a habit-building app displaying the buildup of bacteria on your locked phone screen. It works by collecting data around daily phone usage, generating multiplying bacteria across your lock screen to convey the real-life bacteria that needs to be cleaned off your phone.

Cadet Designer: Handle Sanitizer

This tactile sanitizer dispenser system by teen inventor Bo Willis is a sponge cover that fits over door handles, automatically covering people’s hands with sanitizer when they enter the room. Willis also proposed “sanitizer walls,” living walls of aloe vera, cinnamon, cloves, rosemary, and eucalyptus that you can run your hands through to kill bacteria.

The post The Fountain of Hygiene: Hand Sanitizer Competition Produces Creative Results first appeared on Dornob.

The Pura-Case by Italian studio Carlo Ratti Associati is a battery-powered device that sort of looks like a beefy garment bag. You can hang up to four pieces of clothing inside the case at a time to blast them with ozone, a naturally occurring gas composed of three atoms of oxygen (O3) capable of killing all kinds of pathogens on different surfaces.

Four different cycle settings achieve different things depending on your goals: a 1.5-hour “extra quick” cycle removes up to 80 percent of viruses and bacteria, a three-hour cycle removes up to 99 percent of viruses and bacteria, a four-hour cycle eliminates odors, and an eight-hour “eco-mode” cycle uses less power to achieve the same results. You can control it through an LED-lit top panel or remotely with the Pura-Case mobile app.

Most of us associate ozone with the “ozone layer” in the Earth’s stratosphere, which protects the planet from harmful concentrations of sunlight and filters out UVB radiation. It’s also commonly used to purify municipal water and sanitize hospital equipment. Multiple studies have found it effective at killing harmful pathogens like E. Coli, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Clostridium difficile, and more.

Many people with high-contact essential jobs have spent the last few months changing out of their work clothes on their doorsteps to avoid bringing germs inside their homes. While the likelihood of contracting the novel coronavirus from your clothes is considered low, vulnerable people and health care workers still may want to play it safe, and a device like the Pura-Case makes that a lot easier.

The Case’s official Kickstarter explains that “Pura-Case is designed to purify your clothes and any other accessory you might want to sanitize after staying outside. Your keys, your shoes: you can put all these objects inside Pura-Case and get rid of the germs and smells attached to them in less than hour! The kit includes all the tools needed to make it freestanding — simply put it at the entrance of your home or any spot convenient to you. Or you can place it inside your closet or wardrobe using the handlebar on the top of the case.”

“Pura-Case is an IoT (Internet of Things) product: offline use is possible, but you can also benefit from its connection to the internet to become part of the user community across the globe. The Pura-Case team keeps working on new updates: new programs will become available through the app as the world evolves and different purifying options are required.”

The Pura-Case consumes very little power, especially compared to a standard washing machine, and can help save 15 to 30 gallons of water for every load of clothes you sanitize. You can claim one as a reward for backing the Pura-Case Kickstarter campaign at $249 USD or more.

The post Pura-Case Portable Wardrobe Purifier Eliminates Germs and Smells first appeared on Dornob.

No matter when a vaccine arrives for the novel coronavirus, we’re not done dealing with pandemics anytime soon. Scientists say COVID-19 is just the beginning, as things like climate change and habitat loss will likely continue to make highly communicable diseases more common. If you think we’re all about to get back to “normal” life as it looked prior to 2020, you’re probably being overly optimistic.

The good news is that there are lots of things we can do to adjust (while simultaneously doing everything we can to limit the impacts of climate change). Designers and engineers are coming up with all kinds of interesting ideas to reduce disease transmission in public places, and thankfully, most of them stop short of putting us all in our own fully enclosed bubbles.

Recognizing that indoor dining is a primary vector of coronavirus spread, the Plex’Eat by Christophe Gernigon essentially places each diner inside their own hanging hygienic shield. These suspended plexiglass hoods surround you on three sides while you’re seated at the table, reducing the risk of airborne infection. They’re big enough to accommodate most people, along with the plates and glasses in front of them.

“I imagined, during my nocturnal creative wanderings of these months of confinement, a new way of welcoming customers of bars and restaurants in search of outings,” says Gernigon. “Though we would have preferred not to arrive at this point, it is better to consider aesthetic, design, and elegant alternatives that guarantee the rules of social distancing.”

He makes a good point, especially about the “guarantee” of compliance. Many diners simply aren’t concerned with the risks and are unwilling to follow the rules on their own. Design that makes participation compulsory solves that problem.

Of course, the single-occupancy Plex’Eat design also presents a few practical problems right off the bat. First of all, dining is often an intimate experience involving close conversation. It’s kind of hard to hear your companion through two layers of plexiglass, and restaurants are already loud enough without people shouting to get around this issue.

But Gernigon has a solution for this, too, proposing that some shields can be large enough to enclose two people together, or entire families. That way, you’re protected from diners you don’t know, but can maintain close contact with people from your own household.

The design isn’t just applicable to dining. Gernigon suggests that it could be used to protect both employees and customers in all kinds of environments, like reception desks, nail salons, casinos, bars, airports, and health care facilities. And, as far as products that limit contagion go, it’s reasonably attractive.

The Plex’Eat has already been installed in a Paris restaurant as a demonstration, and French manufacturer Sitour has begun producing single- and couple-sized models. We might as well get used to seeing a lot more plexiglass in public spaces in the near future. Some people might feel safer, while others might feel like the shields create a claustrophobic, antisocial effect. How would you react to your favorite restaurants and bars installing these things?

The post Plex’Eat: Suspended Shields Protect Patrons in Bars, Restaurants first appeared on Dornob.

One workaround is to carry an antimicrobial tool for opening doors and pushing buttons. But as we all grow more aware of potential public health concerns, designers are coming up with some clever built-in solutions, too.

“Dropkick” addresses one high-touch urban surface: pedestrian buttons at crosswalks. Noticing people contorting their bodies in order to push the waist-height buttons with their feet, the folks at One Design Office realized there’s a really obvious way to solve the problem.

They explain: “diving deeper into this, there was a general consensus that these buttons were not hygienic. The negative connotation is further amplified with the rampant rise of COVID-19 and the growing obsession with public hygiene. As reported in the Journal, studies show that the surfaces of these buttons have been breeding grounds for bacteria, with swabs showing significant colonies of bacteria dwelling on them. Even active wiping down of these buttons may prove to be futile with the bacteria becoming more dominant if they survive. Re-appropriating this to the context of COVID-19, traces of the COVID virus were found on stainless steel surfaces as long as 72 hours after initial contact.”

“You’d imagine that in the 21st century that technology would advance beyond needing to operate buttons. In fact, some cities are already putting in place sensor-activated pedestrian crossing buttons. It was also discovered that many of these buttons don’t actually contribute to the timing or speed of activating a crossing, as most of them work to a pre-determined schedule during peak hours, making them “placebo buttons,” as quoted in the Guardian article. Could it be that these buttons exist for the sole purpose of satisfying the human need of feeling as though they have actively done something to reduce waiting times, much like the ‘close’ button in elevators? We suspect that there could not be a replacement for the tactility of a physical button.”

Their solution, developed in collaboration with Greenpoint Media, is a kickable, hands-free pedestrian button set at ground level. They hope Dropkick can help reduce the transmission of germs while allowing the buttons to continue what is essentially a placebo function. The pill-like shape of the button allows it to be pressed from multiple directions, and it’s backlit for visibility, especially as pedestrians get used to looking further down the light pole than usual. But as the designers point out, having the button on the ground comes with an additional benefit: most people standing at crosswalks are already looking down at their smartphones, anyway.

The button features a hard one-piece aluminum shell for strength and durability, with holes drilled to let the green or red arrow lights pass through. The buttons also contain speakers that can alert pedestrians when it’s time to cross the road, or introduce “biophilic sounds” to the urban environment, like those of singing birds.

This hands-free approach is just one example of how urban design and even home interior design might change as a result of COVID-19. Check out some essential interior design takeaways from the coronavirus crisis, and what we might be able to expect from major cities in the years to come.

The post Dropkick: A Hands-Free Pedestrian Crossing Solution first appeared on Dornob.

While people have been aware of the dirty doorknob dilemma for decades now, the pandemic has motivated professionals from all kinds of fields to develop creative solutions that could revolutionize the ways we enter and exit rooms and buildings.

The CleanKey

Ziad Salah from Edmonton, Alberta was motivated by his personal situation. His wife is pregnant with their first child, and their older parents are at high risk for contracting the virus. He was following all the protective protocols, of course, but he still felt it wasn’t enough. He says that “it’s not enough to socially distance from being around people. You have to socially distance from things that are publicly shared, too.”

Working with his friends Abed and Ammar Shawar, Salah brainstormed possible solutions. They ultimately came up with a small key-shaped tool with a hook on the end that fits into any pocket and opens doors weighing up to 70 pounds without the hands ever making contact with a knob or handle. The CleanKey can also help you avoid hand contact with keypads and touch screens.

Although CleanKey is among an assortment of portable door-openers currently on the market, Salah and the Shawar brothers believe their curved hood design is more stable than those of their competitors — not to mention more competitively priced at $7. Salah explains that “we’re getting orders for five to six of them at a time, one for every member of a family, so we don’t want the total cost running to $100.”

Free for All

Instead of carrying a tool to open doors, engineers at Materialise (one of Europe’s largest 3D-printing operations) came up with a device that can be easily installed on existing door handles. Perhaps most impressively, it took them only three days to devise, produce, improve, and make public online printing blueprints for it.

Just to clarify, Materialise’s primary focus is the design and 3D-printing of medical equipment, so their aim was never to mass-produce the handles. Instead, they made the blueprints available free online so any individual or company with a 3D printer could use them to create their own. To date, over 100,000 blueprints have been downloaded, equal to around one-tenth of all 3D-printer owners in the world.

The “Less is More” Solution

Arjun Kaicker, head of workplace analytics and insights at London-based Zaha Hadid Architects, thinks voice-activated doors will someday be common. Until then, he suggests a much simpler answer to avoiding germy doorknobs.

“Meeting room doors are going to be propped open, and only if you have a meeting requiring absolute privacy will a person close that door with a handkerchief. And when people move into the offices straightaway, they might just take doors off meetings rooms and offices and put them into storage until things change.”

The post COVID-19 Sparks New Innovations in Door Design first appeared on Dornob.