Keymitt design evolution explained
There is a lot of uncertainty around us today - except for the fact that earth is round, sun rises in the east, hardware is hard and everyone is tired of Brexit. I skipped a few other intentionally. Developing a software driven gadget is truly a monumental endeavour which requires careful planning, ideation, prototyping, testing and implementation. It is common that the same process can happen multiple times ifthe result is not satisfactory. Keymitt is no exception to this. Around 5.000 hours were put into taking Keymitt from a bundle of cables on a breadboard to a fine-tuned smart lock you see today.
Somewhere in the mid-way, we had to define the design of Keymitt. It had to be ergonomic,unique, elegant and of course functional. Needless to say, our industrial designer faced many limitations due to sizeable battery compartment and mechanics. These limitations came from user and business needs and in many ways defined how Keymitt looks today.
This is what Fabio Schasse De Araujo had to say about his work.
“The design of the Keymitt lock was strategically developed to provide functionality,intuitiveness, and robustness. The strong color contrast of black to green allows the user to quickly identify the interactive parts of the lock and the dark color of the remaining parts prevent the lock from developing a worn lock,even after extended periods of usage.
The circular turning knob was designed to snuggle up against the user's hand. The signal color indicates its functionality, the soft material makes it comfortable to turn and the 3D pattern of distributed stripes around it provide the necessary traction with the user's hand. The single colored detail on the front face of the circular knob was inspired by the hands of a watch and indicates the position as well as the motion of the knob when the lock is locking or unlocking.
The overall look of the lock provides the functions an intuitive product should and further more reflects the characteristics of the Keymitt brand. Especially the front face of the lock was designed to have a high recognition value, serve as the anchor point for the logo development and easily translate into a 2d visualization for the app to create holistic user experience stretching from the physical product to the user interface.”
At this stage, 40%of work was done. What followed is the actual implementation by our mechanical engineers who had to jump through hoops in order to respect the design guidelines and the customer needs. When that was done, we faced the proverbial“final boss”, the engineering for mass production. Every surface of every part needed to be designed with a draft angle so that it can be extracted from the plastic mold, and many corrections needed to be made to accommodate that. It is also important to study how the plastic cools off after being injected in the forms, as it can shrink in some areas creating ugly looking parts.
Here we are now,gearing up for mass production and we could not be more thrilled. Looking back I know we couldn’t do it any other way, and given the time and the number of iterations, I can see clearly the theory of Darwin at works here. And the results are astonishing!