Douwe Egberts will unveil a conceptual coffee machine, called BeMoved, at the Dutch Design Week on Saturday. It is the world’s first coffee machine that can be operated by movement alone, bypassing the need for users actually having to touch it. The development of BeMoved, by a small team at the Research & Development department in Utrecht, enabled Douwe Egberts to experiment with technology, interactive design and new types of coffee. BeMoved is intended as a source of inspiration for future global innovations in the area of coffee.
The futuristic coffee machine is based on the idea that modern consumers would like to be able to interact with products on a more personal level and enjoy more varied experiences with coffee. Being the market leader in coffee and tea, Douwe Egberts is used to pay special attention to innovation, including developing the latest coffee machines and promoting new ideas about coffee for out-of-home and home users.
Harrie Wessels, design manager at Douwe Egberts puts this way – With BeMoved we succeeded in raising human interaction with a coffee machine to a higher level. In developing this concept we acquired a great deal of knowledge that can be incorporated in the design of future machines. Now we invite the public to join us in developing our ideas about the future of coffee.
The BeMoved concept is innovative in the areas of technology, design and interaction. The machine can be operated by means of a large touch screen, or by activating a motion sensitive camera. Users can choose from a selection of eye-catching interfaces, such as Drag-And-Drop dragging the ingredients into the cup, Explore discovering your coffee in the living tree, Picture It recalling user programmed preferences, and Shoot-Em-Up where you earn your coffee by jumping. In addition there is a selection of different types of flavourings, including hazelnut and caramel. Finally, users can check the latest share prices, weather forecasts, real-time traffic jams and the most recent news, as the machine can be connected to the Internet.
BeMoved was not developed for a market release, but aspects of its design and users’ experiences will be considered when developing new machines and other ideas about coffee.
