SlashGear just rounded up a batch of new gear, and a few of these actually solve problems instead of inventing new ones. Let me run through the five.

First up, the Roland FP-40. Roland basically doesn't miss on digital pianos, and the FP series has always been the "sounds like a real piano, folds onto a shelf" option for people who don't have room for a baby grand. It's the boring kind of gadget that's boring in a good way: all the engineering went into the key action and the sound engine, and nobody will ever write a headline about it. Usually a good sign.

The Lexar Muse SSD is the one I'm most curious about. Portable SSDs have gotten fast enough that the bottleneck often isn't the NAND anymore, it's everything around it. If Lexar nailed the sustained-write behavior so it doesn't choke partway through a big transfer, this becomes an easy recommendation. If it doesn't, it's just another brick in a very crowded drawer. We'll see when reviews land.

The BenQ iScreenBar is a screen-mounted light bar, and I'm a longtime convert to this category. Lighting your desk from above the monitor instead of from the ceiling kills glare on the screen and actually makes late-night work easier on your eyes. SlashGear doesn't detail what's new in this model, and I'd guess it's the usual category stuff, maybe better color temperature control or smarter ambient sensing, but that's just me speculating. Either would be welcome.

The JBL Pulse 6 keeps the LED-cylinder-with-speaker-attached tradition going. JBL has been iterating on the pulsing light tube forever, and at this point the visuals are basically the product. The audio is fine, the lights are the point, and I have made peace with that. Somebody at a party always loves these things.

And then there's the Clicks Communicator, the wildcard of the batch. The name alone tells you where it's aimed: communication. The physical keyboard revival crowd has been underserved since BlackBerry faded, and a device that puts actual buttons back under your thumbs in 2026 is either a stubborn niche play or quietly brilliant. I can't tell you exactly what form it takes from the roundup alone, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but I'm genuinely curious to find out.

What ties the list together is that none of these are trying to be everything. A piano that plays piano. A light that lights. A speaker that flashes. In a year where, in my opinion, too many gadgets feel like they're chasing the same AI-assistant-everything trend, I'll take that restraint. Your mileage may vary on that take, but the gear stands on its own either way. My pick of the batch is the iScreenBar, and I say that as someone who has shipped code under exactly that kind of lighting for the past three years. Your eyes notice the difference about two hours into a debug session, whether you want them to or not.