Speaking sustainably

By Rebecca Coleman 05 : 01 : 2017 People People : Modular : Repair

Sweden – People People’s new speaker aims to tackle landfill culture by alerting users when a part needs to be replaced.

The Small Transparent Speaker connects to a user’s phone via Bluetooth
The brand offers prepaid postage on faulty or broken items, providing a further incentive to fix the device rather than throw it away

The Small Transparent Speaker combines style and sustainability, and encourages users to repair rather than discard their device upon encountering a problem.

Users receive a notification on their smartphone when the device’s in-built sensors detect a part that needs replacing, enabling them to replace, repair or update the speaker before it becomes necessary to throw it away.

‘Consumer products are too quickly becoming waste and most end up in landfills,’ the brand explains on its Kickstarter page. ‘The challenge of our generation will be to stop trashing our planet and leave it in a good shape for coming generations.’

The brand offers prepaid postage and discounts on future purchases for users who send the speaker to its repair centre. While alerting potential buyers to the fact that a product could fail at the point of purchase might seem counterintuitive, but the move is likely to resonate with consumers for whom sustainability is a priority.

The Big Picture

A watershed moment for multi-lifecycle products is fast approaching as the idea of obsolescence increasingly becomes obsolete. Read our Future Forecast 2017: Design and Interiors briefing to find out more.