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BeoTime design background
Designer Steffen Schmelling explains about the design of BeoTime: “When I started this project that ended with BeoTime, I discussed for a long time with the concept makers at Bang & Olufsen to find into the essence of the product. I wanted to challenge conventions, tease people’s curiosity but always make sure the end result served its purpose.
I decided that I did not want BeoTime to look like a conventional alarm clock. I wanted to inspire and surprise, create an experience. I was looking for metaphors and ways of communicating the experience of waking up in the morning of being in control, but in a pleasant casual way. I thought about words like fantasy, transition, dream, mystery – and came to think of the fantastic opera by Mozart - The Magic Flute – and from then on it all came together in my head.
The visual identity is simple and easily communicating the experience. The physical form is a combination of a baton that controls and a musical instrument that gently whispers wake up.
With BeoTime I feel we have succeeded in communicating all the Bang & Olufsen competences in one visual expression; elegant surfaces, magical movements, perfect integration and courage to question the ordinary…you look at it, and you get it all.
But in doing so, we have of course been faced with a large number of challenges – how to get the electronics into the extremely small physical expression that I wanted. A tube is a hard form to work with. It resembles the work you need to do if you are building a ship inside a bottle. At the same time I wanted to get the right mix between the digital software world offering scrolling LCD displays and sophisticated and elegant user interface, and the easy and intuitive analogue physical world represented by the aluminium tube and the trumpet shaped on/off button you press to set the alarm clock and where the sound is released.
I wanted BeoTime to be detached from technology – as it works with three ordinary batteries, it is easily accessible, you can place it casually on the side table, loose it between the pillows or fix it to the wall - whatever suits you best. It’s simple and unpretentious; it solves its task without any fuss. And still it is a beauty.”
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Designer
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Steffen Schmelling