From Google's Newest Pixels to a Tetris-Playing McNugget, These Were May's Coolest and Weirdest Gadgets
May brings with it the first long weekend of the (almost) Summer season, and usually kicks off keynote season, with Google announcing lots of new hardware at its annual I/O developer’s conference. But there was a lot more than just Pixel devices in May. There were lots of weird and wonderful gadgets revealed that you may have missed.
We’re not entirely sure why people feel the need to reinvent the bicycle wheel, but in addition to a bike with triangular wheels, May also brought us lots of new Dyson gear including a redesigned robovac. From other manufacturers, there was also an eye-melting 16K TV, a drool-worthy field recorder from Teenage Engineering, and a couple of weird calculators proving they’re not dead yet. Click through to see everything you may have missed.
Read more
McDonald’s China’s Tetris-Playing McNugget
Without a doubt, the weirdest gadget to debut in May came out of China, specifically McDonald’s, who celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Chicken McNugget by turning one into a super-sized Tetris-playing gaming machine. We don’t understand it either, but we still want one.
Squeezing 132 Million Pixels Into a 110-Inch TV
It’s still hard to find even 8K content these days, but that didn’t stop China’s BOE from revealing a 110-inch, 16K TV at Display Week 2023. They didn’t reveal a price tag, but if you have to ask, you definitely can’t afford one.
Amazon’s Redesigned Echo Buds Cost Just $50
Amazon has completely redesigned its third-generation Echo Buds wireless earbuds with a semi-in-ear design, making them a direct competitor to Apple’s entry-level AirPods, but with a $50 price tag.
Teenage Engineering’s Voice Recorder Is a Work of Art
Although we’ve been heartbroken by many of Teenage Engineering’s recent releases, as they’ve come with very steep price tags, we still wake up every morning dreaming about its new TP-7 Field Recorder that perfectly balances a retro design with modern features. If only it wasn’t $1,499.
Sony Confirms Its Next Handheld Is For Game Streaming
Rumors swirled for a while that Sony was working on a new handheld gaming device, but instead of debuting the next-gen PSP, the company teased a device with an eight-inch screen designed specifically for streaming games from a PS5 console, instead of playing them on its own power.
Reviewed: Samsung Galaxy A54
Another mid-tier offering from Samsung, the Galaxy A54 unfortunately now has to compete with the Google Pixel 7a, which might be $50 more expensive, but includes wireless charging (whereas the A54 doesn’t) and offers a much better camera than Samsung’s cheaper smartphone. At least Samsung is still delivering excellent battery life on a budget.
Heinz Made a Machine That Mixes Up Custom Dips
The dips are often the most satisfying part of indulging in fast food, and those who like to mix multiple packets when eating out will be thrilled with the Heinz Remix: a vending machine that can customize dipping sauces, eventually offering over 200 different flavor combinations.
Dyson Redesigned its Robovac To Be a Better Edge Cleaner
Dyson revealed quite a few new products throughout the month of May, including vacuums, a wet floor cleaner, new air filters, but the standout is its new Dyson 360 Vis Nav robovac featuring better performance, more smarts, and a clever little arm that pops out of the side to suck up dirt along walls it can’t get close to.
Google’s I/O 2023 Reveals
Google’s annual I/O developer’s conference took place in May, and the company took the opportunity to debut everything from new AI-powered tools, to Wear OS 4, to the first folding Pixel smartphone.
Reviewed: Google Pixel 7a
If you’re tempted by the Google Pixel 7 but are less interested in its $700 starting price, the $500 Pixel 7a is an absolute bargain, matching many of the Pixel 7's features, with the only downsides being 128GB of storage and an extra charge for mmWave 5G support.
A Bicycle With Triangular Wheels
YouTubers have cornered the market when it comes to unorthodox approaches to reinventing the bicycle. First, it was a bike with square wheels that rolled around like a tank, and in May, The Q debuted a bike featuring triangular wheels and a clever suspension system so it can actually be ridden comfortably.
You Don’t Want to Be on the Business End of This Dart-Firing Minigun
Hasbro’s Nerf blasters are designed for kids, but the custom 3D-printed MOAB—aka, Mother of All Blasters—is not. Powered by an electric motor, it can empty a backpack full of 500 foam darts in just nine seconds, leaving opponents stunned (and your room with a huge pile of darts to clean up).
Amazon Sets Its Sights on the iPad With Its Biggest Fire Tablet
Amazon updated its tablet line last month with the $230 Fire Max 11, featuring a generous 11-inch screen, an optional keyboard case and stylus turning it into a productivity device as needed, and the first fingerprint sensor on a Fire tablet, integrated into its lock button.
Reviewed: Beats Studio Buds +
The new Beats Studio Buds + can’t quite compete with the latest generation Apple AirPods Pro, but with a $170 price tag, they’re a much better alternative to Apple’s entry-level AirPods.
Dyson’s New Hair Straightener Is Full of Hot Air
Dyson’s second hair straightening product, the Airstrait, trades flexible heated metal plates for hot air, like its Supersonic hair dryer, so it can be used to straighten both wet and dry hair while also reducing the risk of heat damage.
Easily Upgrade Your N64 Controller With Bluetooth
Nintendo finally added GoldenEye 64 to the Switch’s retro gaming lineup, but to truly enjoy the experience, you need to play it with the classic, much-loved and much-hated N64 controller. 8BitDo’s new kit allows an original N64 gamepad to be easily upgraded with Bluetooth connectivity, a joystick that will never drift, and a rechargeable battery, all without needing you to have any soldering skills.
Google’s Project Gameface Makes You the Controller
Controllers and gamepads are no longer essential for gaming now that Google’s highly accessible Project Gameface is out in the wild. For those who can’t game using a traditional controller, Gameface relies on AI-powered face tracking through a webcam to control a game using simple facial gestures.
A 65-Inch OLED TV That Disappears Into a Coffee Table
There are plenty of reasons to hate on this design for an OLED TV that can fold away into a coffee table, but it’s actually notable for being the first 65-inch, 8K TV manufactured using inkjet printing. The process promises to dramatically reduce the price of OLED TVs in the future—hopefully.
Reviewed: Unistellar eQuinox 2 Smart Telescope
You can get a really nice telescope for gazing up at the stars for $2,499, but the Unistellar eQuinox 2 Smart Telescope skips an eyepiece for a wireless connection to a smartphone, which makes it easy to find objects in the night sky through GPS tracking and image recognition. It’s easy enough for amateur astronomers to use, but has enough high-end features to satisfy more experienced stargazers.
Good Calculators Never Die
Are people (at least those not in school) still actually buying calculators in the age of smartphones? Apparently so, because HP is once again re-releasing its iconic, 40-year-old HP-15C with an upgraded processor inside for $120—but that same old, super-basic LCD display.
A $10 Calculator That Can Play Doom Eternal
If you have to buy a calculator for work or school, why not opt for the GHLBD? This Android-powered device can be found for under $25, and often as cheap as just $10. It features a basic calculator button layout, but packs a full color touch screen, a 32-bit quad-core Allwinner A50 processor, 1GB of RAM, and Android 9, allowing retro gaming emulators and game streaming platforms to be installed and used.
Asus’ Handheld Gaming PC Officially Debuts
After most of the details were accidentally leaked through online retailers like Best Buy, Asus officially revealed its ROG Ally handheld gaming PC last month, with its $600 starting price making it pricier than Valve’s Steam Deck. It remains competitive thanks to a better screen, more powerful internals, and the ability to connect it to an external graphics card for improved gaming performance.
Reviewed: JMGO N1 Ultra
The JMGO N1 Ultra projector was an absolute steal when it debuted through Kickstarter at a $1,099 price point for a limited time. But even at its full retail price of $2,299, its 4,000 ANSI lumens of brightness plus built-in speakers and streaming services make the N1 Ultra one of the best performing projectors you can buy for under $2,500.
Would You Spend $180,000 On an iPhone Case With a Rolex In It?
Luxurious doesn’t always mean tasteful, as is evident with the Caviar Daytona iPhone case made from luxe materials like 24K gold and titanium. What attempts to justify its $180,000 price tag is exclusivity—just three are being made—and the inclusion of a strapless, self-winding, 40mm Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Oyster watch finished in yellow gold with a black dial.
Sony’s Giant Party Speaker Improves Movie Night, Too
Although Sony has long been known for its excellent electronics, its audio gear, including headphones and speakers, particularly stands out these days. The SRS-XV800 (yes, Sony still struggles with product naming) is a 28-inch tall wireless party speaker on wheels with built-in karaoke functions, but it can also double as a sound bar with an optical cable connection to your TV.
Anbernic’s Extremely Tiny RG Nano Handheld
Interest in retro gaming continues to grow, but while most handheld gaming devices are growing in size, Anbernic devices keep shrinking. We don’t know what the pricing will be like for the RG Nano, but it looks like a Game Boy that was shrunk to the size of a pack of gum.
Philips Tacked an E Ink Screen Onto a Monitor
E Ink screens still aren’t a suitable replacement for LCD or OLEDs, but they can offer better readability, so Philips slapped a 13.3-inch E Ink panel on the side of its 24B1D5600 monitor, which also features a 23.8-inch LCD, allowing text documents to be sent to the e-paper display, while other content can be enjoyed in full color.
Sony Upgraded Its Popular Vlogging Camera
Sony continues to prioritize vloggers and other video content creators with its lower-end digital still cameras, and three years after the debut of its groundbreaking Sony ZV-1 that helped anyone churn out high-quality video, the company is back with a sequel—the unsurprisingly named Sony ZV-1 II—featuring a wider lens that allows more creators to squeeze into frame at once.
Bitzee Digital Pets Could Be the Next Big Holiday Fad
If you’re a parent who remembers spending weeks trying to hunt down a Tickle Me Elmo or Hatchimal during the holidays: be forewarned. Spin Master’s new Bitzee digital pets could be the next big holiday fad, recreating the Tamagotchi experience with a screen that appears to float in mid-air, and digital characters you can reach out and touch.
Apple’s New Accessibility Features Can Mimic Your Voice
Apple showed how users could use the upcoming Point and Speak feature in the Magnifier app to detect and read buttons on a microwave.
Although the company hasn’t revealed when the new features will arrive (WWDC 2023 is probably a good guess), last month Apple revealed several new iPhone, iPad, and Mac accessibility features including an AI-powered Point and Speak feature in the Magnifier app, making it even easier for those with reduced vision to identify things. There’s also the ability for users to generate a synthesized voice that sounds just like them with just 15 minutes of training.
A Retro Casio Digital Watch Gets Some Modern Features
The original Casio G-Shock DW-5000C, which debuted in Japan back in 1983, remains one of the most iconic digital watches of all time, gracing the wrists of millions of users over the years. Last month, Casio revealed an updated version that still carries forward the highly recognizable square faced design, but with an updated LCD screen and new features like fitness tracking and even a heart rate monitor.
The Ultimate Cosplay Accessory For Star Trek Fans
After first debuting their absolutely stunning Star Trek: Voyager tricorder replica several years ago, maker Mangy Dog recently shared a video with a more in-depth look at all of the prop’s features, functionality, and even Easter Eggs. If you’re a Trek cosplayer, you need to tell this maker to shut up and take your money.
More from Gizmodo
Sign up for Gizmodo's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
