LAYER

Materials - Plastic, Metal, Custom electronics

145mm x 83mm

The Design Behind LAYER

Four friends and I were contacted to prototype a new kind of scent diffuser. The client had recently stumbled upon a company that developed a scent technology which infused oil into tiny plastic beads, which released their scent when air was blown over them. Our client wanted to use this technology to sell a home product that would compete with, and out-perform, today’s scent diffusers that relied on oils, water, and heat. Our team was tasked with developing the end user experience along with working prototypes to validate our concepts. We ended up creating 5 working prototypes with custom electronics, logic, smartphone connectivity, scent switching capability, and RFID cartridge sensing capability from the device to the app so users can track usage and order more scents when low. We developed dozens of designs, models, and boxes of 3d prints. We pivoted multiple times on the name for our product and ultimately settled on “Layer” which was a bit of a play on words since the word layer has the word “air” in its pronunciation which we all liked. We tried other names like Airo and Flux but neither seemed to stick as well as Layer. Unfortunately due to time constraints I was unable to take high quality photos of the final iteration as we needed to deliver the device to our customer. The final design is shown below on the coffee table with the four other colors.

How does it all work?

Some of the design considerations were to have a device that was about the size of a standard household candle that you could put on your shelf and it could sit inconspicuously, or could sit in the middle of your room as an accent piece similar to home smart speakers. The device had an internal battery that would hold a charge for 30 days the same amount of time a cartridge was designed to last at maximum strength. There was also design considerations for the unit to be plugged in at all times. Internally the device rotated 4 replaceable cartridges that were detected via RFID internally to located position within the unit and to also determine life based on usage. This allowed us to communicate to the customer how long they would have until their cartridges were depleted and if they so desired could automatically ship them new ones based on their usage. Fresh scents, just in time. A speed controlled fan would then modulate scent into the room and even shut the unit off temporarily to offset the effect of olfactory fatigue so the scent stays as noticable and fresh as possible.

The design was to be offered in 5 different color with specialty colors being available later. The design also had provisions for an accent band to be slid over the unit to allow customers to accessorize and change the look of their unit to match whatever decor they preferred.

Our prototype app did a bunch of cool features with the concept including the ability to have multiple devices, independent control, user settings and preferences, cartridge life indicators, auto ordering when your scents are running out, scheduling for different times of the day, and even an alarm clock feature to help you wake up with the scent you prefer.

Want to see more of this build from concept to finished product?  Check out the gallery below.