We’re living in a modern age where we can control an entire household with our phones. Google Home and Amazon’s Alexis can control all the lights in your apartment or smooth jazz staples like Winelight through your Bluetooth speakers. Vivint Smart Home is an alarm system that not only has cameras attached to your doorbell but has an app that lets you lock or unlock your doors as well as turn the alarm on and off with the swipe of a finger.
As time goes on, technology continues to dazzle us. Orro, a responsive lighting system founded by Colin Billings, has made it so you never have to think about your lights again.
The inspiration for Orro came from Flux, an application that allows you to change the color of your computer or phone display between warmer and cooler colors based on the time of day. Billings stumbled upon it during a handful of restless nights.
“Fascinated, I decided to learn more about how light exposure throughout the day affects our sleep, moods, productivity and overall well-being,” says Billings. “After much research, I was convinced that wellness and happiness at home are directly linked to the light we experience at home.”
Billings, along with a huge assist by award-winning studio Enlisted Design, created a light switch that uses two unique pieces of technology, SwitchIQ and TruePresence. SwitchIQ picks up your routine throughout your house within a week and then adapts the lighting to your preferences, one of which may be transitioning the lighting throughout the day to match the natural light outside.
TruePresence, on the other hand, knows when you’re in a room and sets the lights to a level it knows you enjoy. It doesn’t matter if you’re binge-watching the previous seven seasons of Games of Thrones to prepare for the final season, it will get your lighting right. All of which is done without the use of wifi because there is a small computer built into the back of the switch.
Of course, when you have technology of this caliber, you have to produce the right branding and packaging to represent it.
“For the brand name, we delved into words evocative of warmth, radiance and enrichment,” says Miri Chan, visual design director of Enlisted Design. “We were inspired by the Spanish word ‘oro’ which translates to gold. Ultimately, we decided on Orro, adding the additional R for balance and geometric effect would speak to the cyclical nature of circadian rhythm.”
From there, Enlisted Design and Billings worked closely to produce a product that would not only be timeless, well-made and intuitive but also supplied an easy installation process that would not frustrate or discourage consumers.
The solution was a sleek black switch embedded with four sensors and a tiny computer that takes less than 15 minutes to install with simple household tools like a screwdriver and a set of instructions.
“As Orro’s mission is to simplify your day-to-day through intuitive lighting, we wanted the visual and structural design of the packaging to feel equally elegant,” states Chan. “We also wanted to add a hint of mystery and anticipation to the design, inviting the customer to peel away the packaging and unveil the product.”
The Orro Switch comes in a sleek black box with a clean and refined wordmark on the front. After you pull the tear away, it reveals the text “light every moment” in a peach-to-purple gradient that emulates the colors of dusk to sunset and sunrise.
When you lift the lid, you’ll gaze at the switch placed in the center of the same peach to purple gradient frame, signifying the gentle changes in natural light. It successfully tells the brand story in a sophisticated way while matching the technological properties of the switch itself.
The fact that you could be chilling in your living room crushing old episodes of Game of Thrones until the wee hours of the night in prep for the final season and your lights KNOW that it’s snack time at 2 am so they turn on ever so slightly as not to blind you is pretty damn impressive. It might even be the future of homes as we continue to move closer and closer to the Jetson’s era of technology.
