Around The Home

The dramatic increase in the number of devices finding their way into people’s homes has made the humble electrical outlet hot property, with all manner of power-hungry hardware and proprietary port-packing mobile gizmos clamoring for attention. The PowerBrick universal charger from Feligan aims to be your one-stop electricity outlet by virtue of its ability to simultaneously power 11 devices. Read More

If you find standing up in the shower just too strenuous then the Horizontal Shower from German company Dornbracht could be just the thing for your bathroom. It features an array of six “Water Bar” showerheads built into a horizontal platform that is attached to the wall, with another platform below on which to recline. Read More

Keeping porous building materials free from stains and water damage has gotten a little easier in the past few years. Thanks to advances in technology, we’ve seen the advent of things such as spray-on glass and anti-graffiti coatings. Now, Spanish nanotech company TECNAN is offering a nanoparticle-based coating that repels liquid, yet still allows the underlying material to breathe. Read More

Designed by Mieke Meijer, this lamp, simply called Balance, is a wooden LED floor or table lamp that only illuminates when perfectly balanced. Read More

As great of a home improvement as an indoor climbing wall might seem to a climbing fanatic, it's not exactly the type of addition that will increase the value of your home. Chances are, potential buyers will prefer all walls unmarred by rubber scuffs and multi-colored arrays of grips and tape. If the wall looks anything like the Lunar Nova, however, they might just pay extra. Read More

For an idea that has yet to make it to Kickstarter, a remarkable amount of work has gone into Tetran - a modular system possibly best described as LEGO for furniture. Tetran consists of a variety of standardized modules, blocks and cushions that can be fitted together to create just about any item of furniture you can think of, or even room-filling amalgamations custom designed to suit the user's personal needs. Read More

Who hasn't killed at least one houseplant in their time? Personally, I have given up trying to nurture these fussy organisms altogether and my house is now a green-free zone. Technology like the Koubachi Wi-Fi Plant Sensor might entice me to consider trying to bring the outdoors in once more though - it's designed to take all the hard work out of keeping plants alive while they reside in the unnatural environment that are our homes. Read More

There's nothing quite like the heady aroma of fresh herbs, and nothing more satisfying than growing your own. Whether you use them to scent a room or give your cooking some much-needed taste bud titillation, if you live in tightly-packed city accommodation then indulging your appetite for fresh greenery can be difficult. If your home is not blessed with enough window space for a hanging garden like Windowfarms, but you have lots of floor space that's just begging to be divided up, then take a look at the Herb 2 project from FABRIKAAT. An experiment in folding and bending, this flexible partition wall is also a herb garden and an unusual source of low-energy lighting for your living space. Read More

Microsoft is looking to unify electrical appliances within the home and establish itself in the burgeoning “smart home” market with the development of HomeOS. Essentially a lightweight “smart home” operating system that aims to make it easy for users to manage their home networks and ease the creation of applications by third party developers, HomeOS is designed to provide a central hub through which various household devices can be controlled. Read More