IKEA’s Cardboard Camera - Design Bureau

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IKEA’s Cardboard Camera

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

We expect IKEA to come up with simple, elegant solutions to everyday modern needs, but this year, the Swedish juggernaut has been dabbling in everyday technology. It launches a line of HD flatscreens in 2013, and recently unveiled a simple, cheap camera, the KNÄPPA. IKEA wants customers to shoot their homes and upload the pics at psathome. IKEA's cardboard camera was designed by Jesper Kouthoofd of Stockholm's Teenage Engineering to let them do so. It is comprised of a single piece of folded cardboard, one circuit board, a camera sensor, and an integrated USB connector. It has stability control for indoor shooting, but no LCD screen, no on-board editing controls. While it might be cardboard, there's nothing disposable about it as far as we know—but it might be nice for situations and vacations when you don't want your $500 digital getting knocked about. The bad news? There's a reason that price and availability info hasn't been announced as of yet. The camera, it seems, was designed in conjunction with IKEA PS 2012 launch—which IKEA tells Design Bureau will hit American stores in August of this yearwhich is not happening in America as far as we know. Right now, it won't be sold in stores, just distributed at IKEA FAMILY events. 

Read the KNÄPPA manual PDF 

UPDATE: 

IKEA tells us The PS 2012 will be in US stores in August of this year. And confirms that "the camera is a tool for consumer to share photos of the IKEA PS products in their own homes. It’s preloaded with images of the products in homes already, and has the USB port so that you can download your own on a special microsite developed to support the PS line."

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