OTTAWA, March 15, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Design 1st, one of the most trusted full-service product design-engineering firms across North America, today announced it is successfully supporting the need for clients seeking product design partners with leading edge expertise in ultraviolet (UV) rays and other air and water purity technologies to support increased awareness in cleanliness among consumers. With cleanliness standards integrating seamlessly into people’s lives, they are turning to products that help mitigate pathogens and support cleaner daily habits. Design 1st has emerged as a go-to product design partner of choice for clients that deliver on this clean factor and others that are on a path to deliver new products that enhance air and water quality and eliminate pathogens to ensure the highest level of purity for the air, water and food we consume.
For over 30 years, Design 1st has helped guide customers, from entrepreneur to enterprise, through all stages of the product design and development process. Design 1st balances deep expertise in new tech, product usability, materials and engineering with component supply risks, global manufacturing expertise and diverse supply networks, to provide an end-to-end “idea to product” service. One area seeing design demand in 2022 is the ultraviolet (UV) sterilization market. According to a research report analyzing the UVC Disinfection Products Market Outlook from 2021-2031, sales are expected to reach $30B+ by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 15.2% over the period. With Design 1st’s technical skillset in air and water filtration and UV technologies, they have become an ideal partner for companies looking to bring disinfectant solutions to market for personal, batch and continuous cleaning applications. Three dimensional imagineering of air, water and light flow behaviors requires experience and advanced tools to design new products in the sterilization markets.
“The global pandemic has ignited a shift in how people interact with everyday objects throughout their daily routine, from the air they breathe in a room, to the devices and surfaces they touch, to the food and water they consume each day,” said Matt Bailey, VP, Engineering at Design 1st. “We’ve have been helping clients design and configure technologically challenging filtration and purification products for many years and it’s exciting for us to have the opportunity to tap into our deep experience in UV and fluid flow control to help turn these ideas into useful products for a variety of applications.”
Innovating in UV Product Concept Development & Delivery
Ultraviolet rays have long been a standard method for cleaning and Design 1st is actively involved with clients to bring UV product concepts to market. CleanSlateUV, a Toronto-based biotechnology startup, is working towards a Fall market launch of a brand new product – the next-generation smartphone sanitizer co-designed by Design 1st. It leverages the simplicity of ultraviolet-C light technology to destroy the most dangerous microorganisms, causing disease in humans, in as fast as 20 seconds. The device is ideally suited for healthcare, as well as public locations including transportation hubs, corporate offices and retail establishments. Its sleek design and user-friendly features allow it to be used by anyone, no training required. It is so powerful that up to 99.999% of common germs, including superbugs and Covid variants, can be inactivated in one UV light treatment cycle, without any damaging chemical additives.
With extensive UV technology experience, Design 1st has a competitive edge in sterilization technology that doesn’t allow bacteria to build up resistance to the cleaning process. The UV technology expertise includes leveraging LED emitters for UVC and UVB wavelength emissions. The Design 1st team also has a strong laboratory testing partner network to facilitate efficacy of specific implementations of LEDs, glass materials and reflectors, as well as ray trace simulation capabilities to quickly evaluate options and explore winning design configurations that most effectively bathe the objects being purified with uniform UV light exposure and intensity level.
Revolutionizing Air Flow
Today there is an increased demand for products that incorporate technologies that keep airstream circulating and produce clean breathable air while preventing overexposure to harmful bacteria, dust and other air borne contaminants. Design 1st has extensive experience in filter material methods and electrostatic filtration as well as zero ozone electro statics with ability to meet the UL 2998 standards for air flow devices that range from systems that fit the body to systems that purify rooms.
Design 1st develops new products that accurately measure air flow and sensing for multiple use cases. These include:
- Calibre: A real-time fitness metabolic tracker that helps you perform better and live smarter. A wearable device that measures breath flow and composition for tracking calories, fat burn and oxygen use anywhere and anytime, Calibre was co-designed by Design 1st to be comfortable, functional, aesthetic, and light. It includes multiple gas sensors to measure the composition and flow of inhaled and exhaled air, allowing it to measure dozens of biometrics with remarkable accuracy, including real time calorie burn rates, oxygen intake and the fat usage by your body. The data helps you know and influence how your daily routine affects your body.
- Caframo: An award-winning hatch fan for boats and yachts that ejects stale hot cabin air in 30 seconds. Available in market, Caframo selected Design 1st to creatively design and deliver high-volume air flow for a yacht hatch fan with custom blade design to drive maximum air through the confined space of a boat hatch opening removing hot stale air quickly when it's time to sail. The blade design required CFD finite element analysis as well as the fan having the ability to rotate out of the way for people to use the hatch to exit the boat. According to Mike Tettenborn, VP Engineering, Caframo, “Design 1st’s designers and engineers demonstrated the right creativity and technical understanding, managing the product design and testing process. The end result was an easy-to-install, powerful portable marine hatch fan, unlike any on the market.”
- Rumidifier: A zero-energy low-cost humidifier device with no moving parts that sits on top of household forced air furnace vents and employs a water well and filter positioned to maximize air flow and provide humidification from the water well to the air stream. According to a company spokesperson, “I needed to transform the Rumidifier napkin sketch design into a working prototype and then a real product. As a first-time inventor, the importance of having a knowledgeable business-focused product development partner like Design 1st, is very clear to me now.”
- Molecule USA, Inc. is a think-tank from Los Angeles that develops disruptive, impactful solutions for humanitarian aid and sustainability challenges. Today, Molecule offers a scientifically-backed water resilience technology that harnesses the humidity in the air — even in dry, desert climates — to provide a sustainable supply of clean purified drinking water regardless of location. Molecule selected Design 1st to conduct research and assist in the prototype development and testing for their new best-in-class line of Sorbent-Enhanced Atmospheric Water Generators. “I did a lot of due diligence on product development companies and Design 1st had the deepest bench for technical capability,” said Kurt Francis, CTO at Molecule. “Design 1st's early efforts in prototype development helped us move from our novel desiccant powder to embedded substrate and then with refinement and rigorous testing we continued on the path to our commercial products. Their design team are absolutely fantastic to work with."
Additional Resources
- Learn more about our work.
- To learn more about Design 1st client projects, visit: https://portfolio.design1st.com/
- Read the Design 1st blog at: https://www.design1st.com/blog/
About Design 1st
Design 1st is one of the most trusted full-service product design firms across North America, with a seasoned team consisting of diverse technical expertise, over 1,000 products developed, and 130 client patents secured. From Startup to Enterprise, we enable companies to quickly scale capabilities throughout their new product development programs by leveraging our core competencies in human behavior, industrial design, mechanical engineering, electronics engineering, embedded firmware, and manufacturing setup. Design 1st's plug-in experienced team has helped clients transform their physical ideas into commercialized hardgoods products across a variety of industries and influenced millions of people globally. For more information, please visit our website, www.design1st.com, or follow us on LinkedIn.
Media Contact:
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