Collection: Desk Gadgets

Things for the square metre you spend most of your waking life at. Split roughly between the ones that do a job and the ones that exist to be picked up when you are thinking.

How to choose

Does a job: the Flex gooseneck lamp gives dimmable warm and cool light and charges your phone from its base, and the Trio MagSafe stand takes three devices off one plug.

Exists to be fiddled with: the Drift kinetic sand frame and the gyro wrist trainer, which is silent and needs no batteries.

Somewhere in between: the self-stirring mug and the CoolMist desk cooler, which fans, mists and humidifies without making enough noise to be annoying on a call.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good desk gift for a colleague?

Something small enough not to take over their space and quiet enough not to annoy anyone nearby. The gyro trainer and the sand art frame both pass; anything with a speaker does not.

Is the desk cooler loud?

No — it is designed to run beside a keyboard, so it is quiet enough to leave on during a video call. It is a personal cooler rather than a room fan, and it works within about a metre.

Does the gooseneck lamp actually charge a phone?

Yes, wirelessly from the base. It suits any phone that supports Qi charging, which is most modern handsets. It is a slow trickle rather than fast charging — good for overnight or while you work, not for a ten-minute top-up.

Will the kinetic sand frame stop working?

There is nothing to wear out. It is sand and liquid sealed in a frame — no motor, no battery, no cable. Flip it and it runs for a few minutes, and it will still do that in ten years.

What is the best thing here for concentration?

Genuinely, the gyro ball. It gives your hands something to do without making noise or requiring you to look at it, which is the opposite of a phone.