Tag Archives: handle

LED door handle can light up to help people evacuate in an emergency, and can self-sanitize too

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Razeto and Casareto have been designing and manufacturing locks and door accessories since 1920. To mark 100 years in the industry, the company set out to usher in a revolution in the world of door handles and developed the Ossh, a door handle that does more than just open doors – it communicates with you too. Relying on a patented cable-free power system, the Ossh door handles have LEDs inside them that illuminate to act as ‘signage’ of sorts. Just simply by looking at a handle, you can tell if the door is locked or open, and the LED’s different colors can even transform into a wayfinding system, allowing you to color-code doors to let people know what’s on the other side or even help them during emergencies. Moreover, the handles are also capable of self-sanitizing, using a combination of purple LEDs and Esi – a permanent antimicrobial anodic protection coating.

Ossh is a multifunctional door handle system featuring a variety of safety and management applications. Lighting up in critical conditions Ossh can even help direct people to safe escape routes. Ossh is available in kits: Stand Alone, for privacy; Wired, for fire doors; and Wi-fi for domestic and commercial setups. Ossh even features Esi – an antivirus, antibacterial, and antifungal technology that uses silver ions for sanitation. Tested and certified to kill coronavirus, the combination of Esi and the ultraviolet LEDs help sanitize the environment and the hand while opening the door.

The Ossh multifunctional door handle is a Silver Winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2021.

Designer: F.lli Razeto & Casareto SpA

Boston Dynamics’ latest robot moves away from biomimicry to design a practical warehouse solution!

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Thirty years ago, starting out as a tightknit research company, Boston Dynamics began its quest to create robots that could go where people go, do what people do, and move as people move. Today, a leading engineering and robotics design company, the team behind Boston Dynamics continues to produce and deliver commercial robotics equipped with dynamic control, cutting-edge electronics, and next-generation software. Designed for easy rollout servicing in existing warehouses, Stretch is Boston Dynamics’ latest mobile, automated case-handling robot.

In appearance, Stretch resembles an excavator or backhoe construction truck, with a solid, bottom-heavy base and tensile robotic arm. Filled out with four small wheels for tight turning and lots of movement, Stretch’s mobile base is capable of sliding in every direction and designed to allow the fuller robot to fit anywhere a pallet fits. The long robotic arm provides plenty of reach and height with seven degrees-of-freedom, granting Stretch access to cases and shipping goods throughout any freight space or pallet.

At the end of Stretch’s robotic arm, a smart gripper embedded with sensors and active controls grants Stretch with handling mechanisms to grasp a wide array of different types of packages. Keeping the whole operation going throughout the workday are high-capacity batteries and an advanced perception mast for long-lasting, precise, and stable power. Speaking of how Stretch differentiates the currently saturated truck unloading robots, palletizing and depalletizing robots, and mobile bases with arms, Kevin Blankespoor, Boston Dynamics’ VP of Product Engineering and chief engineer for both Handle and Stretch says “Stretch is built with pieces from Spot and Atlas and that gave us a big head start. For example, if you look at Stretch’s vision system, it’s 2D cameras, depth sensors, and software that allows it to do obstacle detection, box detection, and localization. Those are all the same sensors and software that we’ve been using for years on our legged robots. And if you look closely at Stretch’s wrist joints, they’re actually the same as Spot’s hips. They use the same electric motors, the same gearboxes, the same sensors, and they even have the same closed-loop controller controlling the joints.”

While Stretch is still a prototype, the wheeled robot is the commercial version of a smaller, earlier model from Boston Dynamics called Handle. Stretch currently enacts unloading and building applications for trucks and warehouses, with future plans for truck loading in the works for Boston Dynamics. While the team behind Stretch has yet to name a price, Boston Dynamics is working to make the case-handling robot compatible with other warehouse systems.

Designer: Boston Dynamics

Four wheels fill out Stetch’s mobile base, allowing it to fit anywhere a shipping pallet fits.

Smart gripping technology allows Stretch to reach for and take hold of a multitude of varying package types.

Stretch’s lengthy robotic arm grants the robot access to packages throughout the warehouse and full extension for easy rollout.

The team at Boston Dynamic equipped Stretch with seven degrees-of-freedom, providing plenty of reach and height.

Stretch was designed for warehouse case-handling and truck unloading.

These clever oven-trays come with an extended lip that makes them easy to hold

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This is a handle-appreciation post. As someone who’s dropped his fair share of cookies (and one lasagna) because oven-trays aren’t easy to grip, more so when they’re hot and you’re wearing gloves, it seems plain counterintuitive that oven trays, pans, and casseroles don’t have larger gripping surfaces.

The Nest Oven tins feature a simple innovation that solves a familiar problem – removing hot oven dishes whilst wearing thick & cumbersome oven-gloves. A specially designed lip on the front of the tray makes it easier to pull the tray out of the oven, and wide handles on the side let you hold the tray once it’s out of the oven… you know, so you don’t risk fumbling with your tray of food, much like Kevin with his famous chili. And here’s the best part – like all of the products in the Joseph Joseph Nest™ line, the oven tins nest right within each other for easy storage!

Designer: Tej Chauhan for Joseph Joseph

This smart door handle solves 4 issues of its predecessors

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Smart homes are no longer a thing of the future, it all started with TVs and mobile phones but now most appliances in our home have an ‘above average IQ’. One of the first few converts were lights, refrigerators, and thermostats, we also have a few smart handles and locks but they are just not ready to take the SATs (I can’t be the only one who finds these entertaining!). They are often overlooked when we think of smart appliances but this conceptual handle is here to ‘unlock’ some new levels in the smart home game.

The Handle solves a lot of the issues that come with the current smart locks in the market. The invisible tech feature has a human body sensor so the backlight in the handle will light up when you approach thus making it easier for you to touch the fingerprint identification on the backside of the product. The frontside has a laser microvia touch keypad which lights up subtly when needed and literally looks like someone has imprinted the handle with characters using a fine-tip glow pen. You can set a number password, icon password or pattern password on this keypad.

The indoor handle (when you are inside the room) has an unlock key to open the door and an ergonomic toggle switch you can use to lock the door. Unlike most smart handles and locks, the Handle is not black or bulky, it is slim, very sleek and has a modern yet minimalist design that makes it merge with any interior environment. The handle is here to open the door to a brighter future of smart homes.

Designers: Wayne Lu and Wenjie Zheng

MIT’s sensor-packed glove helps AI identify objects by touch

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Researchers have spent years trying to teach robots how to grip different objects without crushing or dropping them. They could be one step closer, thanks to this low-cost, sensor-packed glove. In a paper published in Nature, a team of MIT scientists...

Let’s take a second to appreciate this saucepan’s detachable handle

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If it wasn’t my job to talk about the Jiu Cast Iron Pan, I’d be looking at that GIF all day. The Jiu Cast Iron Pan comes with a detachable wooden handle, allowing you to use it with small ovens or on stovetops without the handle, and letting you directly snap the handle on whenever you want to lift or swirl the pan. With the handle, the Jiu looks like an elegant cast iron pan fit for the finest kitchens, and without the handle, the Jiu takes on a much more classy plate-esque avatar. All in all, the detachable handle becomes much more than just a gimmick, because the plate looks classy with it and without it too… and the handle’s working mechanism is a thing of sheer beauty.

The handle itself is a two-piece sliding unit made from walnut wood that grabs onto the rim of the pan. The pan comes built with a pretty large rim, allowing the handle to grab onto the metal without ever coming in contact with the food. The rim is also shaped in a way that allows the handle to grip on pretty tightly, so the pan doesn’t come sliding off by accident, sending hot food flying everywhere.

Both the handle and the pan have a minimal, useful, Japanese sensibility which truly makes the Jiu look as wonderful as it does. Its use of simple lines and contrasting materials creates a utensil that I’d sure love to have in my kitchen… and that’s not just the bachelor in me appreciating the fact I can now directly eat food out of the pan!

Designer: TENT for Fujita Metal Co.

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These vases are arguably more attractive than the flowers they’re meant for

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With its simplified shape that acts as a neutral base to the signature flair that is the vase handle, the Symbol bud vases by Nicolette Johnson are quite literally a symbol of beauty. The handles act as decorative halos to the flowers and buds that you place in the vase, and they come in a variety of designs, from simple circles and ellipses to much more complex, elegant shapes.

The vases come with distressed, grunge-ish finishes too, that don’t really subtract from the beauty but rather add to it, making them look and feel like precious antiques.

First designed in 2016 (and still being continues as an ongoing project), the vases began as a simple form with a cone-shaped body and a singular, round handle, evolving later with new vessel shapes and more intricately detailed handles.

Designer: Nicolette Johnson Ceramics

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