Consumed by Electronics
CE design at a crossroads: disappear into the environment or demand to be noticed.
It’s been a year since I published the 100 Ideas in Electronics report — a super successful publication for us with over 600 sales via Gumroad. Maybe it was the anniversary, maybe it was that photo of a glib Mark Z walking down the court steps reminding us of our (forced?) relationship with tech, maybe it was a Fodda demo call with a European CE corp about the positive power of design… but I was jolted to refresh.
In this newsletter, I’m going to share what seems to have changed over the last 12 months - especially when it comes to the form and function of our devices.
What’s also changed is that this year’s Consumer Electronics Design ‘report’ is not a report. Can you guess what form and function it is? Yup. It’s a knowledge graph! Available for you all to poke and query the 22 trends and 300 data points in your* own AI by signing up to for a Fodda account here.
Consumer Electronics Design Trends 2026
By comparing the themes in our research from last March with the ones that emerged since - we can see consumer electronics design splitting in two directions simultaneously:
One toward objects that are designed not to be noticed for what they are (jewelry, furniture),
and one toward objects that are deliberately present, physical, and expressive (zero-screen and gestural interfaces, animated and changing hardware).
Both moves feel like reactions to the same thing: the ubiquity of flat, passive, glass-rectangle devices we carry every day.
1. The Object That Becomes Something Else
A striking number of products in this period are defined by physical transformation — not just foldable screens, but objects that genuinely change category when reconfigured. Headphones that twist into a speaker. A table that rotates into a lamp. A camera that snaps off to become a wearable action cam. An earring that becomes a bracelet.
These objects have two legitimate identities, and the transformation becomes the interaction.
Next: ask the CE Design graph on Fodda:
Which product categories is transformation design happening in?
2. Jewelry as CE
(As you know) ring-form devices have exploded over the last year, but what’s notable is the shift in design language — from fitness-tracking rubber bands toward objects that deliberately read as jewelry.
New electronics from Samsung, Spktrl, Quartz and Vocci all seem designed to be indistinguishable from jewelry when not in active use. The wearable CE object is now competing with luxury accessories for the same physical space on the human body.
Next: ask the CE Design graph on Fodda:
What materials are CE designers borrowing from jewelry — and where else are those materials showing up?
3. Infrastructure as Furnishings
Several products we found are designed to pass as domestic objects — not “tech you tolerate in the room” but things you’d buy for a room anyway: a battery that sits beside a desk like a console piece, an AI assistant that hangs from the ceiling like a light fitting, a device framed like an artwork, a diffuser orb that levitates like a sculpture.
The intent is consistent: consumer electronics that earn their place in considered interiors by looking like they belong there, rather than gadgets that have colonized the room.
Next: ask the CE Design graph on Fodda:
What design strategies are CE brands using to make a product disappear into a room without miniaturizing it?
4. The Single Material as Statement
Last year, I wrote about a theme I labeled “Single-Block.” Over the past year, we’ve seen it evolve into something more defined: products where the entire design argument is the material itself.
A lamp in stainless steel and brass. A splittable keyboard carved from a single block of aerospace aluminum with a wood accent strip. The Apple MacBook Neo still follows the 2008 unibody template — just softened.
In each case, the material is not a finish — it is the form. This connects to a broader shift away from “premium-looking plastic” toward honest, single-material construction that ages visibly.
Next: ask the CE Design graph on Fodda:
When CE designers commit to a single material, what are they giving up — and which products treat that sacrifice as a feature?
5. Emotion-Expressive Hardware
A category we didn’t call out last year: hardware that physically expresses emotional state.
A phone that nods and shakes in response to video calls. A ring that reads emotional and physiological shifts and responds through vibration. A globe that reacts to the room’s mood and music. A robot that comes alive when a child’s watch docks with it.
This is a distinct emergent theme — devices with physical affect, not just function. The form language is deliberately responsive and engaging rather than static.
Next: ask the CE Design graph on Fodda:
Which rooms of the home is emotive tech appearing in first?
Final Thoughts
Some trends we noted last year appear to be stalling. The “Spy Glass” (or telescope) format feels like it’s left in the gutter gazing up at the star - either too early or just not compelling enough. There’s also thin evidence of electronics that broadcast visualizations; previously, we saw a lot of this in student work, so maybe we’re waiting for that theme to literally graduate.
More surprising: proximity-aware tech felt underwhelming in this dataset, often appearing as a secondary feature rather than a defining one.
What does feel consistent across everything is a deliberate move away from touchscreens as the primary interaction surface. This doesn’t feel like nostalgia — it feels like a design argument. That tactile, analogue interaction is more intentional and less addictive than glass.
And form follows that philosophy: when the interface is physical, the object seems to earn its place in the room (or body!)
[Leave comments on the topics of this newsletter on the LinkedIn version here]
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*Fodda graphs work best in Claude or Notion or Vertex AI or as an API call.