Carbonator PRO
Work - Aarke
Year - 2018 to 2020
What might look like a simple product from the outside has actually a lot of moving parts in order to be easy to use while still have the capacity to withstand the explosion of a bottle with 50 Bar pressure. We aimed for the expression to have more of quality and reliability then elegance while still keeping it minimalistic. All interactions points were refined to express this as well. Everything from the sound of the locking mechanism to the bottle cap (that is all in metal)
Ease of use was our starting point
How to interact with the product was the main focus of the exploration and definition phase. Sketching and testing a wide variation of ideas that felt intuitive and had mechanical concepts that would enable quality and durability. Both in build quality and user experience.
One of the main challenges during the project was all of the dependencies between parts, shapes and functionalities. Everything was very fluent, decisions were difficult to make and testing was time consuming. A very challenging project but it gave us all some important learnings.
Steel machine for a glass bottle
The glass bottle is basically the hero part of the product. Everything that makes the Carbonator look and work the way it does is because it is a glass bottle instead of of a plastic bottle that is being carbonated. It has a quite wide and sturdy look. This is due to saving increased height of the machine while still have enough volume above the water level so it can handle being carbonated without having water flowing out.
The carbonation process is a simple, one-handed operation with the unique Push-to-Lock feature. Just place the bottle in the base, push down the cover, carbonate and release
