DCA at IFA Berlin 2022
IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) Berlin is one of the oldest industrial exhibitions in Germany making its debut in 1924. The DCA team returned this September to explore the latest products and trends.
The world’s leading consumer durable brands gathered at the Messe Berlin bringing with them latest technologies, innovations and design. The big themes continue to be the same with Sustainability, AI and new UI/UX initiatives all key drivers for innovation with the team exploring interesting new nuances on these themes.
Haptics
Advancements in haptics are enabling brands to elevate their product UI experience through the creation of unique haptic signatures. Feedback is completely customisable, distinctive and fantastic to experience first-hand. Whether accurately recreating sparkling water bubbling in a cup or grains of rice dropping in to our hands - we witnessed a technology maturing and developing at electrifying pace, ultimately enhancing future UX.
Greener
Sustainability and environmental design continues to be a key initiative for brands. Many industry leading brands taking the initiative and displaying new, exciting and beautiful designs either made from completely or mostly recycled materials; alongside these products were educational displays showing the circular eco systems adopted by these brands to ensure that the product sold is as green as it can be.
AI
The team witnessed exciting examples of AI enhanced products. Examples included TVs that dynamically adapt to media content improving image resolution and quality with speakers that dynamically adapt to your environment, and 3D printers that track and monitor builds correcting and adjusting when needed.
Many brands displayed new media glasses, enabling users to view private content and audio from their devices. Picture quality was surprisingly excellent, creating a truly immersive experience. The connected home is a topic as popular ever with a seemingly endless supply of brands all looking to offer, smart living, connected everything, with new generation apps looking to control and monitor every aspect of our home eco systems.
EV
Like CES, automotive has been a growing part of IFA where exciting new developments in the EV market were showcased. Innovations included retro fitting of EV tech into LPG cars, allowing them to run electric and be charged through standard EV charge points, could this be a genuine solution to increasing EV usage and attaining carbon goals? Another example of automotive innovation was a vehicle that allowed you to increase and decrease the physical size of a car to improve handling, increase speed or make parking easier by allowing the car to fit where it couldn’t before.
Stand-out
Product that truly stood out included, Miele’s silent washing machine, AEGs beautifully designed air care range, the LG x Moooi installation and Coways interactive displays. We were left inspired and engaged by what we saw - the future of consumer goods is exciting with swathes of well-intentioned innovation and enabling technology coming our way. Watch this space!
