Omuus was contacted to source and validate into production biobased material by Finnish family company Weiste to serve their pioneering Eco Christmas Collection. Weiste history with innovation is extensive with 100 years anniversary in 2024.

The challenge for the project was to serve very different product materiality in the Weiste portfolio, ranging from glass like transparency to more ornamental decorations. The material needed to be suitable for the existing production capabilities, and testing requirements for long lasting product quality.

Omuus material engineer Anne Taitto started the work with Weiste professionals, to analyze the technical requirements and locate the most potential supplier network for the task. The challenge worldwide is that there is much need and interest towards biomaterials, but certain biomaterials are unavailable due to the increase of demand. This was one of the main concerns, to be able to identify material that has longevity and capacity for the future.

The end result: Omuus connected with worldwide supplier network during the few weeks project to identify different material options for test trials. Weiste trials successfully selected a biobased material that met the technical requirements and was visually meeting the product portfolio needs. We are excited for the Weiste for their world’s first biobased Christmas decorations!

Do you want to know more about sustainable materials? Contact us and let’s discuss more of your needs!

Annina Verkkomäki +358 40 7680127

annina.verkkomaki@omuus.com

Elaine examining eggshell quality in the lab.

“We approach circular design not only by optimising the waste material during the production phase but also by optimising the knowledge, technology and skillset.” – Elaine Yan Ling Ng 

OMUUS interviewed Elaine Yan Ling Ng the founder of The Fabrick Lab and also Chief Material Innovator at Nature Squared. In the interview Elaine will talk about alternative waste material, how it can be reused and applied in material design, what is essential in reusing such materials and how Nature Squared plays its part in it.

Sneak peek of Nature Squared marking kit,
Elaine has designed a range of palette that provide pre design tile combination for interior designers to choose from.

The future of material technology has to look towards the type of waste people are producing. Consumption and production inevitably link with each other therefore the focus needs to go into what kind of products we create. It becomes the brands responsibility to produce in a more responsible way. 

For Nature Squared circular design is not only about optimizing the waste material during production but also about understanding the social aspect of using the material. Their factories are located in Cebu, Philippines and for that surrounding eggshell was the obvious material that there is a stable supply off and therefore has a direct impact to its surroundings. Using the eggshell waste benefits the locals through the picking and cleaning process and also improves their environment because the eggshells create both social and health problems when left in landfills.

Go to Omuus IGTV to view the interview.

Moodboard of chlorophyllin tiles.

Do you want to know more about sustainable materials? Contact us and let’s discuss more of your needs!

Annina Verkkomäki +358 40 7680127

annina.verkkomaki@omuus.com

SAVE MONEY AND REDUCE YOUR COMPANY’S CARBON FOOTPRINT. 

Material audit helps you to save 3-5% of your company’s turn over. (Business Finland)  

Material Audit investigates the amount of losses generated by your business operations,  the costs of the losses, and the measures for reducing the losses. The audit decreases the environmental impact of your company’s actions by reducing raw materials use and waste.  

Material efficiency is a concrete action in order to show:   

• The corporate responsibility
• Enhance competitiveness 
• Reduce the carbon footprint.

WHAT IS MATERIAL AUDIT? 

A Material Audit is concrete action for corporate social responsibility with results that can be utilized to plan and maintain an environmental management system. 

The audit uncovers the bottlenecks in the material efficiency, increases the organization’s understanding of its material flows and waste, and identifies measures to improve material efficiency. 

OMUUS is authorized auditor for Business Finland funded Material Audits carried out according to the model by Motiva. After the material audit, the co-operation can be continued in projects related to product design and material optimization. 

MATERIAL AUDIT FUNDING 

50% Funding from Business Finland, average payback time 1,5months.  

Business Finland funds 50% of Material Audit costs up till 15 000€. In addition to the auditor’s fees and expenses, Material Audit funding may cover a calculated sum of up to 20% of other costs.  

Business Finland may grant up to 15,000 euros of funding for each audit.  

The funding covers the auditor’s fees and other expenses (such as travel expenses) incurred in the audit by an expert auditor who has attended Motiva’s material audit training. 

In addition to the auditor’s fees and expenses, Material Audit funding may cover a calculated sum of up to 20 per cent of other costs. Other costs consist of labor and travel expenses and material and supplies costs incurred by the audited company for the purpose of carrying out the audit. These costs do not need to be specified.

Material Audit funding is offered to SMEs, mid cap companies and large corporations. 

Contact Omuus official Material Auditor anne.taitto@omuus.com for more info, or call Annina Verkkomäki 0407680127.

‘Consumers would naturally build a more sustainable futurebecause they would have comfortable options available.’

OMUUS interviewed Elena Amato the founder of Ponto Biodesign “when biology and design meet”. In this article we will talk about Circular Design, why it’s so important, what is happening in the field of Circular Design and what Ponto Biodesign got to do with it.

Can you introduce yourself and your company Ponto Biodesign?

My name is Elena Amato, I’m a Guatemalan designer currently living in Brazil. I’m passionate about circular design, material development using biofabrication and thinking about creative applications for those new materials. I’m the founder of Ponto Biodesign, which is an experimental lab and design studio based on the concept of “when biology and design meet”. Currently I’m researching bacterial cellulose growth using agricultural waste as nutrients for the bacteria. I’m using the bacterial cellulose to make natural, compostable materials for applications in consumer products. Ponto biodesign is still on its early stages but I have a lot of positive engagement from people.

I’m studying for a master’s degree in Design focused on materials and sustainability at the University of the State of Minas Gerais, so I decided to merge Ponto Biodesign with my master’s research for the next year and a half. The aim of the master’s project is to grow bacterial cellulose using banana peel and develop two kinds of materials for fresh fruits and vegetables packaging. The idea is to develop a natural and compostable alternative for plastic trays and PVC films currently used for these types of fresh products.

What is the story behind Ponto?

I started learning about circular economy and biofabrication in 2018 for my graduation project. I designed a more sustainable packaging system for handmade personal care products, manufactured locally with natural ingredients. In order to the packaging’s components flow in integrated and regenerative loops, I decided to use compostable materials. While researching, I started reading about bacterial cellulose and how it was being used in fashion as an experimental alternative for leather. Since the first day I started working with bacterial cellulose I was fascinated by the material and its possibilities. After a lot of experiments, I finally got a great natural, compostable, colorful material that could be used as packaging.

When I finished my graduation project, I just couldn’t stop testing new ideas, so I kept researching and creating new materials. In April 2019 I had the opportunity to be featured in a Design magazine and I was very happy to see that a lot of people were interested in the materials and wanted to buy them for their products. It was then, that I decided to found Ponto Biodesign. I began to work with bacterial cellulose but someday I would like to include fungi biofabrication and grow different kinds of materials.

At the beginning I started with a paper-like material, made purely with cellulose and natural pigments. Then I made biocomposites using food waste like orange peel, eggshell and coffee and after that I began growing the cellulose using food waste as nutrients to feed the bacteria. Every material has its own characteristic some are more flexible, translucent, brittle, smooth and even transparent.

Even though people are interested in buying the materials, we are still on a prototype stage and we still have a long way to go in order to be commercially viable. In the future, we hope they can be used for wallcovering, lampshades, toys, packaging, etc. Thinking about their application is one of the things I like the most about the process. I can’t wait to see Ponto Biodesign’s materials being produced in a wider scale and available for everyone to use.

I like to use the terminology Growing Design, created by the researchers Camere and Karana, to describe my work’s approach. In Growing Design, the materials are grown by living organisms without changing their genetic structure; designers are actively involved in material production even using DIY processes and the materials developed are intended to be used in products today or in a provable future.

What was the gamechanger in your life that motivated you to specialize in circular design?

Sometimes we blame consumers for not taking an action into building a sustainable future, but I think that if designers create thoughtful solutions, using healthy materials for the environment, building smart services, connecting stakeholders in a wider system, and thinking a lot on their experience, consumers would naturally build a more sustainable future because they would have comfortable options available.

According to research conducted by the Design Council, approximately 80% of a product’s environmental impact is defined at the initial design stage. It’s exciting to think the potential design has to reshape the future. It is very important because it has the ability to make changes from the internal business structure to the services and products that they offer to users. Knowing that, as a designer, I felt like there was no other option than to take responsibility for what I created. I wanted to actively design more sustainable options for consumers, thinking in the entire product’s life cycle starting from the material composition.

A lot of the waste we produce comes from packaging, so I want to create healthy and practical options to people and show that it’s ok to use single-use packaging when they are made with the right material. A lot of materials in nature have a short life cycle. The thing is that those materials are meant to return safety to the biological cycle in a short period of time.

Why do you think circular design is so important today?

We were born in the linear economy system, where we feel it’s natural to extract materials, manufacture products and then throw them away. But where is that “away”? We are just making huge piles of mixed materials, wasting and contaminating the resources of the planet.  The whole universe works with circular flows: our lives, energy, the climate… everything flows and one thing feeds the other. We were trying to force a linear system that obviously isn’t working.

I think that circular design is very important because if we only take resources but don’t feed them back into the system, eventually we won’t have resources anymore. We have a limited amount of resources that are meant to continuously transform into new formats, but those huge piles of mixed materials that we are making are disabling that transformation that we need in order to renew the resources.

I am thrilled to see so many initiatives around the world working to create alternative materials that can help the transition towards a more Circular Economy. For too long, we’ve been ignoring the fact that products are made with elements that are not safe for humans and nature. It’s time to start cleaning our products and processes and start working like nature does, where nothing is waste and materials flow on integrated and regenerative systems, returning safely to nature as nutrients to be a part of the material cycle again. I believe biomaterials are a great tool to promote transparency, local collaboration, fair trade, social and environmental responsibility.  In the near future, biomaterials are going to be everywhere, in medicine, fashion, packaging, toys, furniture, buildings, etc. People are asking for safe and sustainable products.

What are the greatest challenges for circular design?

For me, the greatest challenge for circular design is education and awareness. We as a community need to work together as a system and be conscious about the importance of making the shift towards a more circular economy. The easiest thing to do is to continue doing things the way we’ve been doing them. It’s easier to ignore the problem than to re-organize and re-think about material source, manufacturing process, consumer behavior and how we discard the products we buy.

Specifically, in material development using biofabrication, there are many initiatives with awesome ideas, but it is still a challenge to get the production into a wider scale because a lot of them are still researching, and in early development stages. I find companies like Ecovative, Malai, Make Grow Lab and Boltthreads an inspiration. I hope researchers and startups that are working in this field persevere so biofabricated materials can be available in wider scales and available for more people in the near future.

Another challenge is to change the impression that circular design is a utopic ideal, which only non-profit organizations work on in order to save the planet. Actually, circular design is about financially sustainable solutions. Circular design, besides being necessary in order to continue living in this planet it, has to be lucrative.

Where do you see circular design in the next 5 years?

I believe we will be more aware of the responsibility each of us as members of the community and as professionals have. There will be more regulations that benefit companies that are working towards a more circular operation and penalize those that aren’t. We will see a lot more sharing services in consumer products, more reusable and refillable products, more options of energy from renewable sources for the community, more healthy materials available, people demanding less plastic and pesticides and an increase in the demand of locally source products.

I think that in the next few years, circular design will be more a requirement than an extra feature. Circular design will be essential in every level, since the early stages of the conception of products, the materials used, the manufacturing process, how it’s delivered and the services that will help connect the product with the users and with other companies. Transparency will be a must; there will be more brands and products with tracking codes that will give the information of the whole production chain to the consumers.

Of course, I also like to think that the future will be a lot more bio. Our buildings, energy, clothes, nutrition, health, etc. will be more connected with nature and we will operate in a more symbiotic way with our environment. That means that we will have to design our physical surroundings with and for the specific characteristics of our local environment. The intersection of biology, technology and design will be a powerful tool for creating more sustainable solutions. In five years, we will see a more consolidated platform of what will drive the circular bio-economy in the future.

How would you describe your materials to an alien with 4 adjectives?

Natural, microbe-made, colorful, waste-based.

We want to thank Elena Amato for sharing her insights about Circular Design and wish the best of luck with Ponto Biodesign. We recommend to keep an eye on this future proof company here!

Do you want to know more about sustainable packaging materials? Contact us and let’s discuss more of your needs!

Annina Verkkomäki +358 40 7680127

annina.verkkomaki@omuus.com

Surface Design Show London

February 11-13 2020

This time Per Boicel at Omuus attended Surface design show in London at the Business design centre.

Priestman Good Design studio presented ‘Get Onboard: Reduce. Reuse. Rethink’ to attack the aviation problem of plastic waste at long flights. Colour Hive gave a forecast of colour, material and finish for spring and summer 2021.Furthermore there were as usual some surface materials that stood out in the crowd.

RETHINKING THE MEAL TRAY.

Aviation design is a central area of work for Priestman Good Design studio. ‘Get Onboard: Reduce. Reuse. Rethink’ is attacking the aviation problem of plastic waste at long flights.Their aim is to reduce waste in the meal service.  The economic drive is to reduce weight – a central factor in aviation design. The average passenger use estimated 500g plastic cups, cutleries and other items per person per long flight journey, all end up in waste. They have explored a vast range of food safe materials that have been developed for the catering industry, from cups made from coffee grounds, to algae, bamboo and rice husk.

In average every passenger is using three plastic water bottle on every journey, before boarding, at journey and at arrival. Priestman Good came up with this refillable bottle made of biodegradable and commercially compostable bioplastic and cork. The shape of the bottle has been specifically designed to be more efficient for travel, and fits within the pocket of an aircraft seat back. It could be refilled on stations at the airport or inside the plane.

TREND REPORT FOR SPRING AND SUMMER 2021.

Colour Hive gave a forecast of colour, material and finish for spring and summer 2021.

Trends to look out for in short:

Factory – Nostalgia- Looking back to Artisan craft, imperfection in materials and finish.

Reverie – Romantic approach old style in a new way, Love and Lyricism.

Clarity – Clean and considered, Purity unpolluted colours and materials.

Alice – Immersive and Subversive, Escape from the real world into the dream world references to 60-70ies psychedelia

These images are example of Colour Hive Factory trend with products created of recycled waste, with imperfect finish.

Surface Design show 2020 placed bio-design surface, materials and solutions in the very centre surrounded by conventional materials made of wood, ceramic tiles and different imitation of natural materials with a few new creative products.

An inspirational example beyond imagination is London based Italian company MirroPlus. Demonstrating a thin lightweight mirror material, similar to the “liquid mirror” in the Movie Matrix.

In January and February 2019, we attended two shows in London – Surface Design and Architect@Work. What links them together is that they present future, contemporary, advanced and innovative materials for all areas of design. The strong influence of Biophilia and Bio-Design is visible when creating new design, materials and production techniques.

We attended a talk by Oliver Heath Design – an architectural and interior design practice. They use the science and style of biophilic design by improving the human connection with nature. The benefits of optimising daylight in classrooms can increase the speed of learning by 25%, improve attendance by an average of 3.5% per year and improve test results up to 14% – Analysis of The Performance of Students In Day-lit Schools (Niklas Bailey 1996). Biophilic design in hospitals reduced stays by 8.5% and reduced post-operative medication by 22% Oliver Heath human spaces.

Future material inspiration

MaterialDriven was invited by the international trade show Architect@Work to curate the theme ‘Future-Proof Materials’ – showcasing new vegan leathers, to responsive facade-skins, to carbon-sequestering paint, and advanced bioplastics. The show spanned from premature idealistic design work to realistic projects already out on the market, tested with documented assessments. https://www.materialdriven.com/future-proof

Future Proof gives a bright light in the era of post industrialism issues we are experiencing in the world right now. Today’s problems become tomorrow’s possibilities. Turning air pollution into design products for everyday use.

Made of Air is a radical new biochar-based material designed to combat climate change made of 90% atmospheric carbon. The material is a sustainable alternative to use in construction, interiors, furniture and more. http://www.madeofair.com/

The company Graviky Labs use harmful air pollution particles filtered from exhaust pipes of vehicles to create ink for pens, markers or spray ink http://www.graviky.com

Future trends predict less conservatism and a more flexible approach for next year in colour and material wise. Is this something that we will see in politics and economics with lightness and sense of community? At Surface Design show trend magazine Colour Hive presented The Trend Cluster future trends for Spring and Summer 2020 Kinship Care & Share, examining ideas about flexibility and the importance of community. Kinship rejects traditional values in favour of freedom and sharing.

The Greek company PHEE is using the dead leaf of the vascular sea plants that are annually washed up in abundance on the Mediterranean shores and disposed as waste. PHEE-board is a flat panel made from the leaves of seagrass Posidonia Oceanica and biological resin.

Dutch product SEA gives a new life to plastic litter that’s collected from ocean beaches. LockTiles is a carpet tile shape with laser cut edges – this means that the edges interlock around each other and always will fit together in all directions. A material driven design that is healthy for the environment and humankind.

Wildspitze Organoid is a good example of materials that engage with our senses. It is naturally scented alpine-hay and herbs from the Tyrolean Alps. Hand-cut, customised for smell, touch and vision.

What does this mean for us today?

We see a shift from industrial age to the ecological age. (M.Pawlyn 2016 Biomimicry in Architecture p1.) “We are entering an age in which knowledge is the prime substitute for matter”

If you are interested in the big players of the field and want to know what to expect in the next 10 years, please see previous blog – Bio Design Nov 08, 2018

The big challenge is not to elaborate alone in field of expertise, Penicillin was mould that became a lifesaving medicine, while blue mould became a delicious cheese. (Kinship rejects traditional values in favour of freedom and sharing). The second challenge is implementing a brilliant biomimicry into a reality, from small scale in the lab or design studio into large scale production.

Omuus will keep following these areas of design in future blogs.

We want to thank Per Boicel for his report from Future Proof and Material Driven Design at Surface design and Architect@Work.

Designing iconic light electric vehicle

Technology design agency Omuus and Rideascout published their collaboration on designing Scouter – a light electric vehicle. Omuus has been creating Scouter design from brand appearance to product concepting.

Aspiration for the project was a new approach for designing a vehicle – to create a new iconic design language. Scouter is a electric vehicle, that’s structure has been used minimal amount of material for making it light weight and creating visual airiness.

What makes Scouter recognizable is iconic lightweight design, which enables form to be modular. Vehicle structure can grow and convert for various use cases, yet the design stays recognizable. This also enables maximum brandability. Designing Scouter has allowed us to utilize our knowledge of experience driven design, where user experience and high quality materials are in the focus. User centric design was success criteria to make Scouter approachable and easy to use for multiple user groups.

Omuus and Rideascout share a common value of sustainable development. Technical textiles where chosen for their durability and aesthetical appearance. For example durability can be designed into the textile by additives that repel dirt and are water resistant, and textile is easier to repair than plastic. Textile also enables light weight body which contributes to longer travel distances with the light electric vehicle.

Omuus and Rideascout continue their product development partnership regarding the design of Scouter.

Here are some Omuus snapshots from the Scouter launch event at Helsinki Ice Hall 13.3.2019:

Pekka Majanen (OMUUS) interviewed by Mia Aalto-Setälä (OMUUS).

Petri Pitkänen (RIDEASCOUT) and Annina Verkkomäki (OMUUS) interviewed by Iltalehti.

Scouter is a modular platform for branding.

Omuus “youngsters” Mia Aalto-Setälä and Gabriel Boicel test driving Scouter.

#aboutcmf

Once upon a time there was an unknown field of design called Colors, Materials and Finishes (CMF). Before 1990s CMF was not absent in consumer product or fashion design. The importance of colors and materials were not taken under consideration as their own entity. As we already know, materials and techniques should be taken under consideration from the very beginning of product development. Companies save time and money, but more importantly they get the anticipated outcome.

That is what they already figured out at automotive industry in 1920s. We can say that CMF has been a crucial part of design for decades. Harley Earl from General Motors was the first one in automotive industry who convinced that CMF, at the time called Art & Color section, was valuable asset to design process.  After that CMF was better known as color and trim design. They believed and still believe in the power of in depth trend and consumer research appliance to the vehicle design process.

NOKIA LEGACY

The winds of CMF started to change product development, when Nokia brought CMF design to the consumer product design process in the early 1990s. At the time Nokia’s Chief of Design Frank Nuovo saw that the current design methods where deficient. The color, material and finishing decisions were made by marketing executives based on their own assumptions about what would be appealing for consumers. Nuovo had worked before in automotive industry and started to apply these methods to the mobile design process. He created a team for Nokia, that was specialized in colors, materials and trend forecasting. From there on, the color and material choices were made based on consumer and trend research. This new approach to design was soon adopted by the competitors and is nowadays used by all the smartphone manufacturers.

Nokia has been an important advocate for CMF design. Therefore, we emphasize our Nokia background and the legacy from those times. Many of today’s CMF designers are from Nokia due the fact that this field of design is not taught anywhere. We can proudly highlight the fact that we have a great group of CMF designers from Nokia times working seamlessly together. Our ways of working have developed a lot from Nokia times and we are constantly reforming our own path for maximized value creation.

FUTURE

The future of CMF is creating even more unique experience by data being the enabling force. Data has already widened our perceptions of consumer preferences. Before big data, trend forecasting has been more qualitative and about specific user group. In the future CMF design can be based on more meaningful data – qualitative research with more quantitative results. The data united with color psychology and cognitive psychology bridges the gap between different branches of science. Which will be meaningful for business decision making and competitiveness, but more importantly it allows us to make better products for consumers. Ultimately, we can say that CMF will create the guidelines for novel design.

Image: Per Boicel, Chelsea Flower show.

The word biophilia means love of living things and you’re about to start hearing a lot more of it. Nature design makes us feel good because people are born with the connection to nature. Biophilia is not a trend; it is a fact that makes us feel good. Trends fade over time but the good feeling that nature creates doesn’t. Increasing interest to biophilia and biofilic design makes it juist easier to bring knowledge forward. It creates an illusion of a trend and biophilia is going to have an increasing influence on interior design and architecture.

For this months “We know today what people love tomorrow” -post we interviewed the Horticulturist in Landscape Design Per Boicel with 30 years of experience in the area. As he designed gardens he developed a deeper curiosity in to the relationship between humans, nature and the positive effects of Biophilia. He studied horticulture therapy and the healing effect nature has on human’s physical and mental health. Later he was mentored by the well-known colour psychologist Angela Wright to understand the connection between colours and emotions. In today’s post we will be discussing on Biophilic and Organic Product Design and explain them through pictures.

In nature, you can’t find 90-degree angles and rectangles.

 When observing product designs, I can see its becoming more organic. From mobile phones to automobiles to public buildings, the trend is most evident in the shapes we create.  In nature, you can’t find 90-degree angles and rectangles. Biophilic and organic design is letting go of sharp edges in favor of natural shapes that curve and flow.

Image: Per Boicel

The Italian bath tub in marble in picture below has the natural flow of a rock pool at the sea side. Where the sea waves have created a cavity in a piece of rock. The cobbles at the base give a sense of sea side environment, which evokes the human response to sea and beach.

Image: Per Boicel 100% Design London                                                                            PIXABAY

When choosing colours in biophilic design, options are often taken from natural environments. Using a colour scheme that represents the local natural environment creates a sense of belonging through attachment to place.

Picture from Stoft.

These ceramics are an excellent way of designing the different steps plants have during a growing season.

Organic Design is more than Shape

In nature, there is no such thing as static conditions. Colours and temperature change from hour to hour and season to season. These changes are connected to the condition of the surroundings; spring colours are different to autumn colours. Morning colours differ from evening colours.

Image: Pinterest

This green curtain is using plants to follow the changes in nature. They grow by time and the colours are changing from a brown tone in the winter to light green in the summer. It also produces oxygen and removes carbon oxide from the indoor air.

Image: Adam J Rowe 

The seating that you see in the picture above is designed around the user as an organic being. How ever you sit move or work, the design is made to adjust. This is not typical design where the user must adapt to the seating. It is Biophilic Soft Seating design for BA Furniture and Product Design at Nottingham Trent University.

So, what is Good Biophilic Design?

Biophilic design is the designing for people as a biological organism

Biophilic design must nurture a love of place.

Good biophilic design draws from user experience.

It is vital for a designer to understand a project’s design intent (Read more)

These sitting rings in the picture may not be the most practical example of organic design. However, I choose to present them because they attract the visitors to sit on them (innate connection), which means the biophilia effect in design worked.

           Image: Per Boicel 100% Design London 2017

If Biophilic design is intent to Physiological Health and Well-being it can also be called mood management. To create a healing effect both physical and mental for the user. Good biophilic design is to create spaces that are healthy and restorative, yet integrative with the functionality of the place.

Imagine a world where hospital patients heal faster, schools where children’s test scores are higher, offices where workers are more productive and communities where people are happier and healthier. What if I tell you that this is all possible? Read more from here.

We want to thank Per Boicel for his time and opening the door into the fascinating world of biophilia.

55 billion IoT devices by 2025.

Source: Business Insider 2018

100% Samsung devices will be connected and intelligent by end of 2020.

Source: Samsung.

The near future trend is to have more smarter homes, smarter cities and smarter healthcare, and they all share common nominator in antenna friendly materials. From Omuus perspective we see companies that transform their offering into connected and intelligent business, but have a small hiccup when it comes to accessing RF friendly materials that also provide premium visual quality.

It is a challenge to design around an antenna and sensors, we have 20 years of knowhow of the topic. Today we talk with our Master of Materials Anne Taitto, Material Technology Engineer M.Sc.Tech and our CMF expert Annina Verkkomäki about antenna friendly materials. The inspiration of this article is our new service, if you would like to hear more about the service, please contact anne.taitto@omuus.com.

COMMON CHALLENGES

We are frequently asked across industries if we have RF transparent premium materials?

Anne: Premium RF transparent materials have been on our watch list for years. We constantly scout material trends and interesting suppliers. It’s both the premium appearance, and the story of the material, but the suppliers need to show also competence both in capability and capacity. Antenna’s and sensors defines the industrial design, the user experience of how you hold the product not to interfere to the performance, and most importantly the material choices and manufacturing process.

Annina: The consumers scrutinize brands and the design, and high quality material is one of the key element in purchase decision. Whether we are talking about wearables or connected home devices, for healthcare or for consumer electronics – the product need to be stylish. Otherwise people won’t want it. Public and working spaces are expected to be homelike environments and technology needs to be more adaptable and responsive to these needs. This is why in Omuus we saw huge need to combine this consumer trend and the material solutions into one service.

We are also frequently asked, if our services are expensive?

Anne: Price is always determined by the amount of work, and we are efficient in our work. Best scenario is that me and my team could be part of the process right from the beginning. Ideally, we start with the materials and supplier mapping to avoid unexpected production cost later.

In general, I can say that material led work always saves money and reduces risks. The time that we use for material work reduces overall product development cost.

Last but not least, the most common question: which materials are suitable for design with antennas?

Anne: Of course that always is highly depending on your product – what materials are the best fit for the user experience or the use case. Or the brand statement your brand is going for. For the RF transparency easy answer is plastic. That can always be challenged for the need for high quality premium products. The best material solutions are created with good material driven design and multidisciplinary work that our service provides.

THE SERVICE

Annina: Omuus 7SEC. ANTENNA WORKSHOP© is a guide to help you to choose the materials for devices with antenna. Our goal is to shorten your timeframe to access the materials for competitiveness. Our service provides you actionable steps for product development.

Anne: The service is suitable for companies venturing into connected devices area. Not to forget companies who would like to refresh their material selection. Having right materials, will shorten your product development timeframe and increase the consumer appeal of your product.

If we managed to wake your interest, please ask for the full-service info and offer from anne.taitto@omuus.com.