On Kickstarter, a British startup called Gomi Design is currently offering a surprising Bluetooth speaker made almost entirely from recycled materials. Gomi notably recovers and repurposes e-bike batteries from Lime’s bike-share fleet via a partnership with the operator.
The Gomi Speaker looks like a regular portable Bluetooth speaker, but it stands out from the crowd with its manufacturing process. In fact, Gomi is giving a new lease of life to no less than 50,000 battery cells previously used in Lime e-bikes. Each one is carefully removed, cleaned and rigorously tested before being used to create this new range of speakers. The casing is made using 100 percent recycled plastic waste saved from landfill.
Gomi promises battery life of 20 hours for the speaker and offers customers a “repairs-for-life” return service to help prevent its products being thrown away when the battery gives up the ghost. In fact, Gomi intends to become the first company to create fully-circular tech products using end-of-life consumer waste.
The crowdfunding campaign runs until March 31 but has already smashed its target. The speaker is offered on Kickstarter starting from £129 (approx. S$242) in a choice of four colours: Lime Green, Black Mono, Blue Ocean and Birthday Cake. The first shipments are expected in November 2021.
Note that this isn’t the first project of the kind that Gomi has brought to Kickstarter. In 2020, the startup successfully submitted a portable battery, also made using recycled materials. On its website, there’s also a wireless charger made using waste plastic.
More details here
