The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2025–2026
Festool's ETSC 2 lights its own sanding surface with an LED ring — no more sanding blind
A cordless sander with an LED ring around its pad lets woodworkers see unevenness while they sand — iF Gold 2026.
Festool GmbH
What it had to solve
Sanding is a blind craft: the workpiece sits under the tool and in the operator's shadow, so flaws only appear when the sander stops and a torch comes out. Festool's cordless eccentric sanders had to solve the same old ergonomic problems too — low profiles, balance with a dust hose, and hand fatigue — while adding nothing that slowed the work.
How it works
Woodworkers sand in their own shadow. The workpiece sits beneath the machine, dust obscures the surface, and flaws stay invisible until the tool stops and a separate light appears. Festool's ETSC 2 cordless eccentric sander answers that quiet frustration with hardware: an LED ring mounted just above the sanding pad.
The ring casts light across a 180-degree band around the tool face, making unevenness visible in real time. Users can run it at full or half brightness, switch it off, or dim it and set lighting duration from the Festool app for inspecting a finished surface. The same redesign lowered the body, added a rear grip and placed the battery under the handle so the sander stays balanced even when tethered to a dust hose.
Trade reviewers treated the light as the breakthrough — one called the ETSC 2 the best sander it had ever tested, another found the ring so effective it ended the stop-and-inspect ritual — and in 2026 the machine received iF Gold. The idea was simple: a tool that can see its own work lets the craftsman judge it without breaking rhythm.
Why it lands
- The LED ring put inspection light exactly where the operator was looking, not where a lamp happened to stand.
- Live visibility of unevenness meant flaws were fixed during sanding instead of discovered after.
- Low profile, rear grip and battery-as-counterweight solved ergonomics without adding complexity.
- The pad brake prevented the very scratches a sander is meant to remove, closing the loop on finish quality.
What it did
Reviewers called the LED ring the tool's game-changing feature: Popular Woodworking judged the ETSC 2 the best sander it had tested, and Australian Wood Review found the light effective enough to end the habit of switching the sander off to inspect the surface. In 2026 the design took iF Gold, the award's top distinction, for balancing precision with effortless control.
What you can take
Solve the problem where it happens: light that lives on the tool instead of in the workshop turns inspection from a separate step into part of the sanding motion itself.
Since then
The ETSC 2 arrived at retailers in February 2025 with the LED ring as its signature, and independent reviews across woodworking titles converged on the same verdict — the light changed how sanding quality could be judged. Its iF Gold in 2026 cemented the ring as a category feature rivals began imitating, and Festool's app integration gave the humble inspection light a software dimension.
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