Nobi Smart Lamps

Nominee Information

This project is the redesign of the first generation of Nobi’s Smart Lamps.

Nobi is an AI-enabled lamp focusing on fall detection, *prediction, *prevention and vital sign monitoring. Think of a ‘guardian angel’, hanging in the middle of a room, offering safety while meeting the highest design standards, as well as privacy requirements. In case of a fall, caregivers, relatives or friends will immediately be contacted. When help arrives, the
lock of people’s home will automatically be opened.

At a certain age, realizing its vulnerability when it comes to falling, often results in anxiety about falling with big impact on mental and physical wellbeing. Nobi offers piece-of-mind and takes away destructive fear. Biggest challenge? Convince elderly to adopt new technology into their lives.

This is where product design plays a crucial.

1/ The design process started by capitalizing on the learnings from the 1st generation Nobi lamps. Result: 4 design principles that guided the whole process.
– SIMPLE: The pure lines were appreciated by the users. The fact that it could be compared to normal lamps was a positive point.
– DISCREET: Some experience a high-tech-looking piece of equipment near them as overwhelming. They even feel being spied on by a device they don’t understand.
– FRIENDLY: Users liked the design of the lamp and like to show it off to visitors and friends.
– COZY: The lamp fits well visually into the environment of its users, which made them feel even more comfortable with it.

2/ Observe in a senior residence, listen to elderly & talk to care staff.

3/ Find out how to consolidate these insights into the visual appearance of the new lamp. How? Survey people to explore what they understood by these 4 concepts. In this survey, people could choose from a variety of normal lamps (the first version of Nobi was included in camouflage). This helped Nobi to understand how 4 principles in different lamps were perceived.

4/ Create 12 style mood boards > hundreds of sketch options were generated. The concepts most aligned with the design principles were selected.

5/ Testing: in a 2nd survey, different designs of normal lamps (and the 4 camouflaged concepts) were showed to respondents. The final concept chosen was scored at the same level or higher than standard lamps in simple, discreet, cozy, and friendly.

6/ In the final concept, the 4 design principles were taken even further:
– SIMPLE: Nobi simplified the installation of the lamp by making the user experience delightful; also for the installer.
– DISCREET: Camouflage was key in this stage! Any aspect that might lead one to think that there is state-of-the-art technology inside was taken away. Nobi had to compete with ‘normal’ lamps.
– USER-FRIENDLY: Nobi added the option to change lampshade with other colors and designs to suit the user’s taste.
– COZY: inspired by the most traditional typology of lamps, Nobi adapted its newest generation lamps even better to the users’ environment.

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