Concept · Industrial and interaction design
Vacuum 2047: what if cleaning felt like playing?
Vacuum 2047 is a game module that clips onto the vacuum you already own and turns cleaning into play.
Chores are a task. Games are fun. The whole project is one question: how do you turn the first into the second?
- Role
- Concept, form, interaction and game design
- Type
- Physical product concept
Brief
Chores aren’t fun. Games are.
Vacuuming, like most chores, gets put off. It gives you no feedback, no sense of progress and no reward.
Meanwhile we go looking for games, competition and things to do together. So my side of the solution started from the other end: what is fun, and how do you bring it to a chore?
Sketches and models
A controller for a Roomba? A new vacuum? Something else?
It started as an idea, not a product. I explored a lot of directions: giving a robot vacuum a controller, designing a whole new vacuum, and more.
Each one raised questions that had to be answered first. Is it a vacuum? An accessory? Who already owns what? The answers pointed to a module.
Clip it on the vacuum you already have
Most people already own a vacuum. They just don’t use it much, or find it a pain to use. Asking them to replace it is a hard sell.
A clip-on module is cheaper, easier to bring to market and easier to buy. Vacuums fall into a few common shapes, so one adjustable clamp fits them all, sized to each handle the way a light clamps onto a bike’s handlebar.
Engineering and materials
Familiar on purpose
The shape, the colours and the controls take after classic handheld consoles, on purpose: it should feel like something you already know how to use, not a new gadget to learn.
The top module has a display, two action buttons (A and B) and a directional pad. The lower module is the attachment system, open to more accessories and other chores later.
Three classic modes and one that changes every month
A game you play once gets old fast, so the goal was variety. Like the big online games that rotate their modes, there are three classic modes you always have, each built around something different: Point Frenzy for the high score, Clean Rush against the clock (or your friends), and Teach Me to get better at it.
The fourth, the Mystery Game, changes every month. Each month is a new season: one month you do well, the next you don’t, and that gives you a reason to pick it up again.
One light that does four jobs
A four-part light sits in the middle of the device and does the talking. It shows charging, warns about low battery and errors, and points the way during a game.
One part, many messages, so the device stays simple to read.
Charging
Low battery
Errors
Direction
Points the way in a game.
From objects to screens
From objects to screens
Most of this project is UX thinking in a physical form: why someone would come back, how a device tells you what’s happening, and how something new can feel familiar.