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Inventors are like musicians: The ones we can name are rich and famous, but the majority will never be known. While many new products can feel more like gimmicks than actually useful (TikToker Khaby Lame famously made a career out of making fun of silly “innovations”), I can’t help but root for a certain kind of inventor: The ones brave enough to have a small idea that has no chance of earning millions, but might improve lives in a small way. At The Inspired Home Show, I spoke with several inventors aiming to do just that.
What is The Inspired Home Show?
The Inspired Home Show, held in Chicago from March 10-12, is North America’s largest home and housewares event. The event is open to buyers from major retailers—think the kind of housewares and big-box stores where you might buy kitchenware, appliances, or cleaning tools—and to brands from around the world, who showcase their latest products and innovations. The show is held annually, and I attended this year as a new homeowner to see what’s coming to stores this year, and to learn more about the over 2,000 brands offering housewares, tools, and home tech.
What is the Inventors Corner?
The Inspired Home Show is divided into four showroom floors: “Clean + Contain,” “Dine + Decor,” “Wired + Well,” and “International Sourcing.” But a special area is set aside for the “Inventors Corner,” where a few dozen startups have narrow booths to display their niche houseware innovations that they hope catch on.
Credit: Jordan Calhoun/Lifehacker
There’s a pitchroom-style energy to the Inventors Corner. Separate from the established household brands like KitchenAid or Hamilton Beach, the Inventors Corner is two rows of warm and outgoing entrepreneurs—the underdogs and dreamers of the convention—standing in front of uniform, bespoke booths, all eager to share their innovation and convince buyers that it deserves to be the next big thing. Realistically, few of them will be successful, but I saw at least five innovations that were just cool, creative, or helpful enough that I can’t help but root for them.
The ErgoCup is a Global Innovation Awards finalist
The ErgoCup is the kind of product where I tend to roll my eyes, wondering if anyone needs it. But when I met Gerald, the guy who handcrafts every ErgoCup one by one, I was holding a coffee, and he asked me to hold an ErgoCup instead. When I did, I had to admit that holding an ErgoCup felt good—a whole lot better than the mugs I have at home.
The ErgoCup is designed for people with hand mobility and gripping issues, but it’s also just a well-designed mug that feels easier to hold by basically eliminating the need for grip. It won’t be the type of product you find in stores soon—they’re handmade and not mass produced—but it’s the kind of unique craft item that feels special and makes people ask where you bought it. The ErgoCup is a finalist for the 2026 Global Innovation Awards for product design excellence.
Credit: Jordan Calhoun/Lifehacker
The Geo is specifically made for ground beef (or ground meat, in general), allowing users to easily and evenly break up ground meat. It’s like a combination of a spatula, masher, and slotted spool, and it’s the type of tool you wouldn’t know you needed until you tried it. The Geo is another award finalist for its unique and useful design, and if you cook ground beef often enough, it’s worth considering giving it a try. It only costs $16.
What do you think so far?
Liddy is the first interlocking, stackable pot lid system
When I found Liddy, my first thought was that it surely existed long before now. My second thought was that I want to get one to replace the mess of pot and pan lids cluttering several of my cabinets and drawers. Liddy is marketed as the world’s first interlocking, stackable pot lid system, which can replace up to six mismatched pot lids (universal pan lids exist, but aren’t interlocking and stackable). It comes in two sizes, and its design allows it to fit on any standard pot or pan, and then it stows away neatly onto a space-saving base station for storage. They’re dishwasher-safe, they end the confusion of which-lid-goes-with-this-pot, and they cost only $50 to eliminate the clutter of pot and pan lids.
Alpha QuickFind is a customizable organization system
Alpha QuickFind is an organization solution for junk drawers: It’s a standalone drawer system meant to be a place to store miscellaneous items (think pens, batteries, office supplies, card decks, cables, loose change, and small tools), turning chaos into order. It’s basically the adult equivalent of having a fancy pencil organizer at school instead of a standard pencil case, and it’ll free your junk drawer to be used for something else. Granted, for $300, you might choose to keep your junk drawer.
My Snapboard is the first snackboard designed to keep charcuterie cold
My Snapboard is a freezable snackboard that keeps food cold while it’s on display. It’s smart in its simplicity: You simply pre-freeze the board before, say, a summer picnic, and its patented design will help retain the temperature keep your food cold despite the summer heat. If you’ve ever taken charcuterie to a park or hosted an outdoor outing, you likely learned how quickly spreads melt, vegetables wilt, and cheese turns spongy. My Snapboard is meant to be an easy fix for that. It costs $50 for the black-and-white version, or $60 for the fancier woodgrain.
