December 27, 2025
I can think of lots of examples when I have opened up a device to find elegant design embedded within. My espresso machine, for example. The Italian designers working in the 1960s and 70s did not have the luxury of computers or integrated circuits, so they built cool little things like flowmeters to gauge how much water was going by into each shot or a cup, linked to a dial (rheostat) so you could adjust it on the fly. You have elegant technology without technical complexity.
Recently, the integrated wireless went out on my oldest “daily driver“ laptop. It’s Windows 10 and not upgradable, but I like the large keyboard and I didn’t want to immediately toss it. So to keep it going just a little longer, I bought one of those $13 USB Wi-Fi6 network buttons from Amazon. 
The cool thing, design-wise: in addition to the Wi-Fi radio circuitry it has a tiny little embedded memory space that is just big enough for the Wi-Fi driver installer.
Genius.
Those of us who have worked in IT for a long time remember the Catch-22 of having to get on the Internet in order to grab a driver, etc. This little thing solved the problem by having it all built in.
I always say a silent “thank you“ when I find such things.
This little device is of Chinese manufacture, and it’s the first I’ve seen that has both of these elements combined. I think this is an example of design maturity – going from pure manufacturing to design designing and building in common place in innovation.
