Smart Nutrition Bottle
Client
LifeFuels
Description
Smart nutrition bottle
Date
2018
Activities
- Colour, Material and Finish
- Industrial Design
- Mechanical Engineering
- Production Support
- Prototyping
- Systems Engineering
- Visual Brand Language
Awards
- CES Innovation Award
- Edison Award
LifeFuels, a US start-up based on the outskirts of Washington DC, began with a simple vision: to help people find what fuels them. They felt every day seems to get busier than the last, and making healthy choices is difficult. Their mission was to create the world’s first portable drink maker which can create a personalised drink wherever life takes you. The bottle works to keep the user on track, giving simple and easy choices to help them thrive.
DCA first met LifeFuels founders, Jonathan Perelli and Rob Lawson Shanks at the CES exhibition in 2016. They were launching their new smart nutrition bottle which had just been awarded an honoree CES Innovation Award. The bottle was a production prototype and it had received a great reception. Their stand was very busy receiving endless compliments from passing visitors, many of which were senior executives from the world’s FMCG companies. DCA were less complimentary. As constructively as possible we explained how we felt their solution was not optimal and explained how it could be a better.
The world’s first portable drink maker which can create a personalised drink wherever life takes you
A number of months passed and then we received a call. The LifeFuels team had been living with their bottle and had started putting it in user’s hands, testing it out and using it every day. They realised that it wasn’t the product experience that they wanted to be known for; it wasn’t good enough. LifeFuels felt that in the world of hardware, you only get one chance to make a first impression and they wanted to redesign it. They asked if we could help.
DCA felt the version one bottle was overly complex both visually and technically. This complexity did not deliver a consistent accurate dose either, therefore the core technology needed to be reviewed. DCA understood that LifeFuels was a start-up company and had put significant investment into the version one bottle and pod technology, so two streams of concepts were created; one stream looked to improve the existing core technology and second stream challenged the current thinking and would look at a new core technology.
LifeFuels felt that in the world of hardware, you only get one chance to make a first impression
During the first stage of work the concept for a bottom up dispense was presented to the client. This concept offered the best possible product and consumer experience as it solved many of the major flaws with the existing product concept;
It packaged the ‘engine’ neatly in the base of the product in a natural fashion. This has several benefits, firstly the user would be able to drink from a normal vessel, secondly the balance of the product was appropriate as the engine and components were in the base and thirdly, the ability to house the pods in the base meant that the dispense could be celebrated as it dispensed into the vessel above, adding to the consumer experience.
At this point it was just a visual concept but founded on sound principles of engineering. The next challenge was to prove this out so our engineering team set about creating rigs to demonstrate the principle, firstly mechanically on a larger scale and then more focused, integrating electronic hardware and software to drive the new dispense system within the preferred industrial design envelope. The new core technology provided much more accurate dosing and a recyclable consumable which had no wastage of product. Our industrial design and engineering teams worked together, in conjunction with the internal LifeFuels team whose software team developed an app in parallel to control and connect the bottle to broader wellness systems. This agile, multidisciplinary approach resulted in a fully working prototype being achieved in 9 months and production of the hardware and consumable pods within 18 months. The product was relaunched at CES in 2018 winning an innovation award, while also going on to win a prestigious Edison Award in 2020.
The new core technology provided much more accurate dosing and a recyclable consumable which had no wastage of product
