Vorwerk's Kobold robot app wins German Design Award 2018
The robot app for Vorwerk's Kobold VR200 robot vacuum cleaner receives the prestigious German Design Award 2018. Its interaction and design "Made by UID" convinced the jury of experts in the "Apps" category. The German Design Award honors pioneering design trends in the German and international design landscape. This award is all the more valuable since it is only open to contestants that were previously nominated by a panel of experts.
Smart helper – smart design
"We want to make technology useful for people by offering great design and greater ease-of-use, making their lives easier. The fact that the Kobold robot app was recognized with the German Design Award shows that we were extremely successful in this endeavor," says Henrik Rieß, Creative Director at UID.
The Kobold VR200 robot vacuum is the perfect helper for everyday household chores. With the robot app, it can now be easily controlled from anywhere. Whether users are on the way to work or on the road home from their vacations – they can now start the cleaning process at any time, keep up-to-date on the cleaning status via push messages or receive information on the filter status. The app's visualization matches the robot's bright and friendly design language. That way, users can intuitively access features that they already know from the physical product.
Quick real-time overview
The greatest challenge during the design process was to make the technical complexity of the underlying Internet-of-Things system invisible to the user. In order to provide seamless user experience, the interdisciplinary team attached great importance to real-time status information and fast feedback interaction of the app. This convinced the jury and made us one of the winners of the German Design Award.
Award for excellent design
The German Design Award is presented by the German Design Council every year. The international jury of experts includes design specialists from the business and academic world and the design industry. Only products that stand out for their exceptional design quality are selected to enter the competition. In 2017, 5,000 products were presented in the Excellent Product Design and Excellent Communications Design categories.