Hasta La Ideas

Layer and Panasonic have designed a range of near-future product concepts, including a smart head massaging device and an AI-powered skin analysis that makes personalised, nutritious smoothies in response to the results.

Called Balance of Being, the collection comprises six designs that use technology to enhance everyday rituals, in order to encourage more meaningful engagements with products and promote wellbeing in the home.

The concept range was envisioned by Benjamin Hubert‘s design agency Layer and Panasonic’s design and engineering teams.

Products include a smart cooking appliance, a skin analysis device that doubles up as a smoothie maker, an LED light treatment for hair, a smart head massager, and two skin care devices.

“All products react and deliver based on the rich living knowledge of you and your family,” explained Layer, “building a thorough and safe understanding of needs to deliver incredibly personal outputs that brings balance to being.”

“Balance of Being aims to close this gap between technology and our lifestyles, focusing more on human interaction, comfort, enhancing our lifestyles, and providing truly meaningful experiences with technology allowing us to bond with one another instead of our devices,” added Rowan Williams, creative lead from Panasonic Design’s London team.

Lift is a smart cooking and food maturing appliance, which uses heat and pressure technology and embedded sensors to “lift” food to its most optimal nutritional state.

The device aims to encourage families and young people to take more of an interest in cooking, nutrition and healthy eating.

The Shot concept combines food with skincare. An AI-powered camera sensor on the front of the device conducts a visual analysis of the user’s skin condition.

In response to the skin test results, Shot creates a bespoke smoothie from a selection of fresh frozen fruit and vegetables to give the user a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals.

Both the Tone and Grow product concepts use LED light treatments to improve the user’s health, and come in the form of a headband-like accessory.

Tone sits around the user’s neck and examines their skin complexion before coming up with a personalised self-care regime. The device then uses a combination of steam and LEDs to treat the user’s skin.

Grow is placed over the user’s head, and uses an LED light treatment that targets the wearer’s hair and hair follicles to promote healthy growth.

According to Layer founder Benjamin Hubert, the collection takes design cues from the traditional Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetic that celebrates imperfections.

Layer and Panasonic used these ideas to “help soften high performance experiences with an approachable aesthetic.”

Other designs in the collection include Ease, a skin care device that works during sleep, and Wave, a smart head massaging device that maps the user’s level of tension to determine the length of time, method and intensity of the experience.

Layer and Panasonic envision the products being made with materials such as glazed ceramic, refined timber and constructed textiles, in a neutral, pale colour palette to make them “feel natural in the home.”

“We are curious in how we engage with products and the knowledge that they can build of us and our families,” said Panasonic Design’s creative director, Takehiro Ikeda.

“How do we intersect our aspirations of a more natural world with experiences that are technologically enabled?,” he continued.

“This creates many exciting questions for Panasonic; opening opportunities for new paradigms of products and experiences that allow us to lead our lives in more meaningful ways that brings balance.”

Balance of Being was first revealed at the 2019 IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin, which took place this year from 6 to 11 September.

Layer and Panasonic are not the only companies using technology to promote wellbeing. UK design agency Morrama released a smartphone earlier this year with a series of wellbeing features that give users more control over what they see on their device.

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