#HTE

Emergency Phone With a Surprising “Screen”

Here’s a phone with a rather surprising object where you’re expecting to see numbers or icons:

That’s the SpareOne Phone, designed by Singapore-based design consultancy NextOfKin Creatives for client XPAL Power, Inc. The brief was to design a “full functioning emergency phone powered by a single AA with a 15 year shelf life.”

“As the product did not have any LCD information display, the archetype of the display screen was used to showcase the hero of this device - the iconic long lasting AA battery.

"We designed an intuitive layout with the Emergency button (for SOS calls) being the center of the button interface. The other features we rationalized necessary were a slim form factor, tactile button designs, programmable phone-number memory and the universal LED torchlight.”

Simple and basic, battery front and center, I like it. The placement of the battery is such that you can see the expiration date at a glance. As for ergonomics, it’s not like you’re supposed to have an hour-long gab-fest with a college buddy on this thing and I’m okay with the bulge.