What are we actually doing here?

A few weeks ago, our main man, Mr. Marques Brownlee released a video talking to the head of hardware engineering at Apple, John Ternus. In the video he briefly explains the thesis we are trying to challenge, that repairability and resilience are on two ends of the spectrum of product construction, and that designers need to make a strategic choice between the two. By sealing the iPhones shut they water-proof them, and thereby reduce the number of phones needing repairs, which reduces the need of producing new batteries. Fair enough, right? However, batteries have a best-before date. We all know that. And sure, you CAN replace the battery. You just go to Apple and empty your childrens’ college tuition funds to get it replaced right next to posters of smooth trade-in deals to get the new iPhone which apparently will blow your f*cking mind.

But let’s not get too cocky. Water-proofing phones makes a lot of sense considering the use-case. And who are we to talk? We are young creators choosing to start a hardware company selling consumer electronics in a time of great environmental challenges. The talk of the town is that the best thing you can do to achieve sustainable consumer habits is to refuse to buy new things. Can’t argue with that. Consumer guilt is something corporations have been fighting for years. All these brown paper packages, soft and happy fonts, green leafs and having the word sustainability permeate everything except the product itself. We can’t have that.

We believe strongly that the way forward is transparency. The best decisions are made when people are informed well enough to truly make their own choices. Letting the user assemble a set of honestly, and in detail described components is the best method we could come up with to achieve true transparency. But, regarding Apple’s arguments, we refuse to see it as a compromise. Creating some build-it-yourself kit which would result in a subpar product the user would get tired of after an hour later is just a shite idea. The lesson needs to be that user control and performance aren’t contradictions. Not to brag or something, trust me we would never, but we made sure ASSEMBLY_ONE performs for its price. Our mission depends on it. 11 hours of battery life on full power. The beautiful finishes of the aluminium, the feeling of bending the plates, all iterated ferociously until we were able to present a product experience worthy of our customers. And sure, someone could say that what we do is design, produce and sell lamps. But what we really are trying to do is affect the way we think about product design and user experiences, moving away from the faulty idea of completely sustainable products,and exploring a space where transparency, customizability and repairability are taken for granted.