High Tech Coffee Tables


Time was, coffee tables were good for three things only: setting down your coffee, setting down your coffee table books, and maybe putting your feet up. To combat this perception, Born Rich has posted their top ten list of high tech coffee tables that are capable of these things and more.


For many of the tables on the list, more means integrated lights that react to the user in fun ways, like KLOSS’s DeLighTable, which creates light patterns on its surface in response to being touched or having objects placed on it. We can’t argue with the design behind such tables, but if the tech upgrades are practically useless, at least they should be genuinely compelling, like this table that simulates endless space, or the embedded LED pong table. Of course, the list also contains tables that consider utility first, doubling as media centers or embedding a multitouch surface.


Still, to us the best ones weren’t even on the main list, but in an honorable mention category: a sweet coffee table made from a pinball machine, and our very favorite, a giant working NES controller. We understand that these are not as aesthetically pleasing (arguably) or as useful as some the tables on the list, but our priorities are ingenuity first, then utility, then design.

[via Neatorama]

4 thoughts on “High Tech Coffee Tables

  1. I’d have to say that list sucks. There is like 3 of them that are nothing more than computers shoved in an ugly coffee table. Not even a good looking coffee table. Like 3 more are bad arcade style jobbers shoved into a coffee table. The two ones I give a thumb up to are the DelighTable and the SNES controller. I’d like to learn how to make the delightable, or at least something similiar, but on a cheap budget :)

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