Teenage Engineering’s design language is best described as ‘office fun’. They make stuff that serves professionals, but doesn’t necessarily look like it was designed for a boardroom. As its name rather subtly implies, the products have a fun demeanor, brought about by the use of colors, exposed electronics, and simple forms that play a perfect canvas for the color palettes found on the company’s products. Their OP-1 remains one of the most iconic synths of all time, the Pocket Operators still get sold out as soon as they hit the website, and their field recording gear are modern-day classics. Now Teenage Engineering hasn’t really entered the world of imaging per se, but what if you carried that design language forward to something as humble as, say, a webcam?
Imagined by Rodrigo Guadarrama, the TE-W01 is a chonky webcam that embodies Teenage Engineering’s ‘Office Fun’ philosophy. It’s rather blockish, which comes with good reason, considering it packs a 4K camera lens and a large sensor, but also has two sets of microphones, two sets of LED fill lights, and an anodized aluminum outer shell that blends well with your gadgets, but also comes in a variety of colors should you choose to bling things up.
Designer: Rodrigo Guadarrama
Guadarrama’s webcam is simple, but still uses TE’s building blocks to create a product that delights. The front features 5 stacked modules, sort of resembling TE’s stackable speaker that they unveiled along with Baidu (there’s hints of their IKEA collab in here too). The center is a 4K lens, surrounded by stereo microphones on the top and bottom, and LED fill lights on the side that cast a perfect wash of light on you without needing a large ring LED setup. The dual lights do a better job of illuminating your face evenly, making sure it doesn’t look as harsh as a flashlight.
The camera comes with a pivoting stand that lets you face it anywhere. There’s a USB-C port on the back for connectivity, although the only thing really missing is a privacy shutter. I do believe that TE would engineer an over-the-top shutter design with a fidget quality to it.
The TE-W01 is conceptual, although it truly would be fun if the company made a set of peripherals to go with their PC offerings (they did release a just a few days ago that sold out almost immediately). If anyone at TE’s reading this, we’ll be waiting!
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