Packing battery tech no person makes use of in client gadgets and a half-horsepower motor, BlenderCap is likely one of the most ludicrously over-engineered merchandise we’ve seen in a sizzling minute. At CES in Las Vegas, we took a better take a look at talked with the crew behind the product to seek out out extra.
Let’s begin with, er, why do we want a transportable blender within the first place?
“We initially invented this only for private use for making smoothies after the gymnasium. I used to be going to CrossFit, and I wished a protein shake after that. I made myself a shake, and it simply bought kind of melted and lumpy after you’ve labored out for an hour or two,” says Dakota Adams, co-founder on the firm. “Then the thought got here alongside to place a blender onto these Hydroflask-style bottles. Matthew [Moore] and I grew to become pals and commenced engaged on tips on how to pack that expertise right into a tiny little cap.”
On the time, the duo was constructing a battery manufacturing unit for Apple in China, engaged on the blender on the aspect. A few yr in the past, the duo give up their jobs at Apple to make the BlenderCap a actuality. Within the course of, they created an absolute beast of a blender.
The BlendCap equipment, displaying off its customized PCB and the batteries soldered on to the board. Picture credit score: robotechcompany.com / Haje Kamps
“We found you can also make margaritas smoothies. In testing, we’ve performed a whole Costco bag of ice on a single cost. You can also make 10 of them in a row,” laughs Adams. “We crammed a whole five-gallon Dwelling Depot bucket of margaritas. What that interprets to in actual life, is that as an alternative of charging it every single day, you cost it as soon as per week or each two weeks.”
Battery tech is the corporate’s power, and the founders ended up utilizing customized batteries with expertise that’s beginning to present up in next-generation electrical automobiles.
The blender cap weighs round a pound, and it’s tremendous easy: There’s just one button. Press and maintain to mix, or double-click to mix for 25 seconds. It costs with USB-C, and the corporate determined to make use of the identical thread sample that Hydroflask makes use of, which implies it’s suitable with numerous thermos-like bottles that lots of people already personal.
“We promote it as a equipment – it comes with a 32-ounce vacuum-insulated bottle that’s twin wall stainless-steel, and dishwasher protected. It comes with a BlenderCap, a blade cowl, and dual-twist cap, which transforms the wide-mouth bottle right into a smoothie-mouth,” says Matthew Moore, the corporate’s different co-founder. “It costs over USB-C, and you should buy it for $129”
It isn’t but potential to purchase the blender cap by itself; the corporate says it’s as a result of it’s attempting to maintain the variety of merchandise it sells manageable.
That is the place the magic sauce is saved. On this case, ‘magic sauce’ is electrical energy, clearly. Picture Credit score: TechCruch / Haje Kamps
“Sooner or later, we’re most likely going to supply it by itself, or with totally different measurement bottles and many others, utilizing extra of a kitting methodology. Proper now, simply to restrict the SKU rely and make it easy for launch, we’re simply promoting the one equipment,” Moore explains. “We discovered {that a} single 32-ounce bottle is what most individuals wished it in early testing.”
Pre-orders for the equipment opened on January 4, and transport begins late subsequent month. The corporate says its merchandise are already manufactured; it simply have to determine the logistics of getting it right here.
Their very own manufacturing unit
Maybe unusually, Cruz has its personal manufacturing unit constructing the BlenderCap.
“We’re leasing manufacturing unit area at a extremely high-end producer in Shanghai, and we personal all of the tools and the robots constructing this. So we even have on our meeting line – we designed the whole meeting line – and we’ve bought extra robots than folks placing this collectively,” says Adams. “It’s loopy. There are glue dishing out robots, computerized screw dispensers. It’s stunning. Frankly, that was a bit aspirational. And we’re actually joyful to have our personal devoted manufacturing unit constructing.”
For its first batch, the corporate is manufacturing 6,000 of the BlenderCaps, and is ramping as much as sustaining manufacturing.
Every little thing customized. As a result of why the hell not. Picture Credit score: robotechcompany.com / Haje Kamps
The corporate claims it’ll be worthwhile from day one, and has began to have a look at what the following era of merchandise could be. We requested, however the firm isn’t fairly keen to share what’s subsequent.
“We’ve bought a secret product arising,” laughs Adams. “Clearly, this battery tech can go into many alternative gadgets, and we have now a complete product roadmap, and are excited to construct out an ecosystem round what we have now right here, after which different new client merchandise. One of many issues that we’ve noticed available in the market, is all these DTC manufacturers over the past 10 years got here in mainly simply rebranding low-cost Chinese language commodity merchandise, loads of plastic enclosures and simply junk. Now we have this design philosophy that we grew up on at Apple for 10 years of actually placing our coronary heart and soul into merchandise. So we’ve bought a complete bunch of merchandise coming alongside the identical philosophy: minimalist, tremendous excessive finish supplies. From there, we’ll see the place it goes”
