The $171 Vest Worn by F1 Drivers Hit the World Cup

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Heat has always been part of the game. Whether you’re a footballer running laps before a match, a Formula 1 driver crammed into a cockpit where temperatures can soar to 55-60°C, or a cyclist grinding through the Tour de France in July, managing your body temperature isn’t just about comfort. It’s about survival and, more specifically, performance.

That’s exactly what Dutch company Inuteq has been working on for years, quietly and without much fanfare, until now. Their PCM CoolOver, a cooling vest built on phase-change material technology, has found its way into one of the most high-profile collaborations in sportswear: the adidas CLIMACOOL System, officially unveiled for the FIFA World Cup 2026.

Designers: adidas x Inuteq

The way phase-change material works is genuinely clever. The vest contains PCM cells made from 100% biobased materials that absorb heat from the body as they gradually transition from solid to liquid state, keeping the surface at a consistent, controlled temperature. The 15°C version, the one widely used by athletes in sport and recovery, delivers up to 2.5 hours of constant cooling. No batteries, no electricity, no complicated mechanics. Just material science doing what it’s supposed to do.

I’ll admit that I didn’t expect to find myself genuinely excited about a vest. But when you look at what this collaboration actually represents, it shifts the conversation in interesting ways. Cooling technology has been operating in the background of elite sport for a long time. Ice towels, cold baths, fans on the sideline. These solutions work well enough, but they’re reactive. The PCM CoolOver feels like a proper design response to a problem that deserves one. It’s specific, engineered, wearable, and built on science rather than just intuition.

The adidas partnership started in motorsport. The CLIMACOOL System was originally developed to help Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team drivers, including George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, cope with extreme cockpit heat. From there, it was adapted, tested, and refined alongside football clubs including Manchester United, Juventus, and Arsenal, before being made available to all adidas partner federations at the 2026 World Cup. That’s a journey from one of the most technically demanding environments in sport to one of the most globally watched. Not a bad trajectory for what is, at its core, a vest.

The numbers are worth sitting with for a moment. The system reduces core body temperature by up to 0.5°C and skin temperature by up to 13°C, with a complementary overshoe that brings foot temperature down by up to 2°C in minutes. The Spanish Football Federation was quick to point out how they’ve been using the vest before matches, after training, and at half-time to support player recovery and readiness. When a federation is publicly crediting a vest as part of their performance strategy, that tells you something.

What also deserves attention here is the sustainability angle. Inuteq’s PCM technology is USDA-certified 100% biobased and REACH compliant, which makes it one of the only cooling vests on the market that can make those claims. In a category that could easily lean on synthetic chemicals and disposable components, the fact that this product is also biodegradable and fabric-free, easy to clean and even sterilize, puts it in a different class. Good design shouldn’t have to compromise on this, and here, it doesn’t.

The PCM CoolOver comes in multiple temperature variants: 6.5°C, 15°C, 21°C, 24°C, and 29°C, each calibrated for different conditions and use cases, from elite athletic performance to industrial and medical settings. The range feels thoughtful, like a product family that was designed to solve real problems across real environments rather than chase a single use case.

Cooling as a design challenge might not carry the aesthetic glamour of, say, a new sneaker drop or a conceptual chair. But the PCM CoolOver is proof that genuinely functional design, the kind that solves a physical human problem with precision and care, is just as compelling, and arguably more necessary. The fact that it has quietly traveled from Dutch labs to Formula 1 cockpits to World Cup pitches says more about its value than any product launch ever could.

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Pixel Watch 5 arrives with incremental upgrades and Gemini Intelligence, but are you willing to pay more?

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It’s that time of the year for Google to introduce its line-up of smartphones, smartwatches, and everything else that is destined for greatness. Samsung showed off last month what’s in their kitty, Apple’s going to reveal all the excitement next month, and bang in between is Pixel, right now. We already revealed our initial impressions of the Pixel 11 and the Pixel Tag, so now it’s the Pixel Watch 5 under the scanner.

The new wearable from the Google camp was making all the news in the weeks leading up to the final announcement, and most of those leaks have come true. Just like the Pixel Watch 4, the new wearable gets the same 360 domed Gorilla Glass 5 and more or less the same material composition from which the chassis is constructed. Last year’s Pixel Watch was good, and this one is an even better upgrade if you want to roll into the Google ecosystem.

Designer: Google

The watch designed for Gemini Intelligence gets a 320ppi AMOLED LTPO display supporting DCI-P3 color, but still has the same 3,000 nits brightness level as the predecessor. Under the hood, this wearable gets a clocked-up version of the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 (claimed to be 12 percent faster than last year’s offering) mated to an upgraded 3GB RAM (from 2GB last year) and 64GB storage, which again is an upgrade from the 32GB on the Watch 4. However, I was expecting the Snapdragon Wear Elite (based on the 3nm manufacturing process) to grace the smartwatch, just like on the new Galaxy watches. That said, it isn’t a deal breaker in any way.

Just like with all the newer gadget offerings, this one improves on the health tracking and claims to bring accurate sleep tracking for loyal users. Other reliable features include the loss of pulse detection (called the Breathing emergency detection) and skin temperature tracking. SpO2 monitoring and ECG tracking also come standard with both the models.

Improvement of life features include recovery recommendations based on heart rate and sleep metrics, custom strength routines, and the Google Health Coach with custom workouts. According to Google, the route tracking accuracy on the Pixel Watch 5 has improved by almost 100 percent. Do look out for the Blood Pressure Trends and non-invasive Insulin Resistance Trends, which could be a deal-maker if you are looking for exactly those kinds of features in a smartwatch.

Quite predictably, Google is offering the IP68 and 5ATM-rated Pixel Watch 5 in 41mm and 45mm sizes, in both Wi-Fi-only and LTE variants. The 41mm version gets a 332mAh battery pack while the 45mm variants have a beefier 465mAh battery on board. Both are slight bump-ups from last year’s version for a few hours more of juice. The 41mm version lasts for around 30 hours, and the 45mm version for 40 hours on one full recharge. According to Google, the Quick charge dock adds 15 hours of runtime with just 15 minutes of charge.

Google is offering the 41mm model in Matte Black, Polished Silver, and Champagne Gold colors, whereas the bigger 45mm variant will be available in just the Champagne Gold hue. The prices on both the Pixel Watch 5 models and their variants have gone up slightly. The 41mm version for the Wi-Fi model costs $399, and the LTE variant goes for $499. The bigger 45mm version is priced at $29 for the Wi-Fi model, and the LTE version costs $529.

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The No-Drill Plywood Shelf System Every Renter Has Been Waiting For

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Most shelves come with a decision baked into their design: find a wall, drill some holes, and commit to a location that will outlast most furniture arrangements. Wall-mounted storage has its advantages, but it tends to dictate how a room organizes itself rather than the other way around. Freestanding alternatives often compensate with bulk, trading flexibility for a kind of permanence that doesn’t feel all that different.

The Repisa 01 approaches that problem from a different angle. It’s a modular shelf system built around the idea that storage should adapt to the space it occupies, not the other way around. Made from CNC-cut plywood with an interlocking joint system, it stands without screws, brackets, or wall anchors, and reconfigures into entirely different layouts depending on what a space needs from it at any given point.

Designer: Lorenzo Vega

Everything here reduces to four interchangeable pieces: two tops and two sets of legs. These plywood components lock together through notched cutouts that let the legs slot directly into the shelf tops, with no hardware or tools required. Assembly is straightforward, and so is breaking it down. The simplicity of the connection is what keeps the whole system flexible rather than fixed in one form.

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From those same base components, the Repisa 01 assembles into layouts that look quite different from one another. A wider, lower arrangement works naturally as a living room display shelf for books, plants, and framed pieces. The same parts, rearranged taller, shift it toward something that reads more like a room divider, creating a soft visual partition in open-plan spaces without committing to anything structural.

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Smaller configurations bring it down to something suited to a bedroom corner or a compact apartment’s entryway, holding a few books or a cluster of plants without crowding the room. The natural plywood finish sits comfortably next to most interior palettes without needing to match them precisely. A shelf that follows you between apartments and living situations can’t afford to be too particular about its aesthetic surroundings.

This flexibility extends to what the shelf holds as well. There’s no fixed shelf spacing or depth to work around, so the arrangement scales up or down depending on what needs displaying. A household that favors tall ceramics has different priorities than one focused on paperback books or small indoor plants, and the Repisa 01 doesn’t try to resolve those differences with a single fixed configuration.

That also makes it a natural fit for renters or anyone who moves often. Most modular shelving available on the market still anchors somewhere eventually, even if only at the back panel or through a top-shelf bracket. The Repisa 01 removes that requirement entirely, which quietly changes the relationship between the shelf and the room, giving the room back its walls without giving anything up.

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