Story #2. Our solution - The birth of BETTER RE

In the last posting, we told you about the issues surrounding smartphone batteries, 
and the need to solve them for our environment.

Now, can you guess what solution we came up with? 

We searched for a way to utilize discarded batteries to charge our smartphones. 

External battery packs have their own lithium-ion batteries in them, 
and we thought of using smartphone batteries instead. 

But, we had some problems to solve.

The biggest issue was the different size and thickness.

After observing various smartphone batteries, we found out what they had in common: 
the contact part. 

The contact part of smartphone batteries had similar structure.

In other words, with a device to connect to the contact part, all batteries could be reused. 

From this clue, we thought of clipping the batteries to fix the contact part.

This way, the problem of various thickness was solved!

Also, to solve the size issue, we put spring at the bottom to support batteries from below.

Plus, we added the idea of expansion pack, so that users can expand the capacity if the want!

With these ideas gathered into one, we designed the prototype.

and this is what the prototype looks like!We name our product 'BETTER RE'
- meaning that it REuses old smartphone batteries to make our world BETTER.
Of course, you noticed the pronunciation is similar to 'battery', right?
We wanted to show the world that we need to reuse valuable resources for our better world,
and that reused products can be even better than existing ones. :-)

With this idea, we were nominated the winner on Red Dot Design Award,
,

 

and received grand prize on 2014 Samsung Tomorrow Solution contest!


We got confidence that BETTER RE can make people's lives and our world better, 
and set to working on making it a real product.

On the way, we went through several times of design improvement.
The first change was in the shape; it became smoother and slimmer!




Also, we changed the structure of the multi-clip a bit.
Instead of using springs, we used end bracket that could slide along the clip,
making sure the batteries clipped in won't move.

Then, one of our advisers suggested changing the material into eco-friendly ones.
We agreed it would make our product even better 
by minimizing the negative impact on the environment.

Aluminum and wood were chosen, making BETTER RE look more polished! 

Finally, BETTER RE was completed!
It took a long time for our idea to develop and born into a real product.

Now, we had to figure out the way to show BETTER RE to the world.
How and where do we have to start our new journey?



This is all for this posting. Thanks for reading!
To see BETTER RE on Kickstarter, visit http://buff.ly/1AQHjz5 !!

Have a wonderful day, everyone! :-)

Awaken your Energy, Enlighten our World.