William Hawken

Our relationship with technology is broken. Something breaks; we don't fix it. A new shiny gadget comes out, and we toss out the old one.

Unsurprisingly, electronic waste (E-waste) is a global crisis and has a devasting impact on the environment and for all those who inhabit it. This issue is also very close to home, with the UK generating the second-largest amount of E-waste per capita in the world.

Consumer electronics are a large contributor to E-waste. These products include everything from smartphones, Airpods (one of the worst contributors), cameras, and more.

My particular project is around wireless speakers. As an audiophile, this is a product category that has consistently frustrated me as wireless speakers are often very difficult to repair, impossible to upgrade, and usully aren't very customisable. My learnings and principles from this project can however be extended to a broad range of consumer electronics.

I have named the project ETC, to indicate that the story of a product is a continuous process, that the life cycle of technology can repeatedly evolve and adapt. The relevance and functionality of an object will go on, and if designed correctly and responsibly, our consumer electronics should last a lifetime.

The two concepts at play here are emotional durability and modular design. Both concepts aim to keep the products in consumers' hands for as long as possible. This is achieved through modularity, which separates the responsibilities of a product into isolated modules. If something goes wrong, the consumer can repair or replace the module, instead of the whole device. Emotional durability provides a means to keep a product desirable past the 'honeymoon' phase. I achieve this through deep customisation options, as well as the versatility of use and interchangeable external modules, which can both provide additional functionality or new ways to interact with the speaker.