Quirky is a social product development company that takes your innovative consumer projects and attempt to make it reality. You know how sometimes we post amazing concept designs that are incredible in every which way but probably won’t see in our homes until at least another few decades? With Quirky’s products, you can vote on how much you like the design concept, how much you’d be willing to fork over to own it, and if it gets enough love, the company will put the item in production.
Quirky products often offer simple but ingenious solutions to your everyday tasks without appearing too much like those cheesy late-night infomercials. Here are a few Quirky products we hope to see available for purchase in the near future.
Outline
Ironing clothes can be tricky if the fabric doesn’t stay in place. Each time you flip over the clothes or move to iron another section, you miss the seams where you’re supposed to be ironing. The Outline steel frame fixes that by allowing you to insert a flexible bar into the opening of your clothes to keep it spread apart so you can iron in the shape the clothes are intended to look like. A movable handle in the middle lets you adjust the width of the outline, and you can also snap the handle apart for larger areas.
How much we think it should cost: $10
Renew
This towel disinfectant system can help save a ton of trees by not wasting money on paper towels. You can get the sterilizing machine outfitted to hang from your cabinets or sit on your kitchen countertop to easily access a way to clean towels. We’re not sure how much energy the machine will take to clean each towel or if you have to use the provided Quirky towel that comes with, but it would be nice to have pristine towels that don’t smell all too funky from over usage.
How much we think it should cost: $40
Fader
Buying textbooks in college is easily one of the most expensive costs of pursuing higher education aside from tuition bills. You’d be hard pressed to get more than half of what you paid for books when you sell them back at the end of each term. If you’re one of those people who like to highlight key notes in your books, the Fader can help you make your annotations without diminishing the quality of your book since the ink disappears after five months. This way, you can take great care of your book and sell it back in as best a condition as possible to make your money back. And if you’re one of those people who like buying used books with highlights in it so you can reduce the amount of your own reading… tough luck?
How much we think it should cost: $6
Catch
Anything that helps us reduce time cleaning is always going to win points in our books. Catch is a collapsable netted shield that you can set up in front or over your pan to stop the oil splatters from getting all over your stove or worse, on your skin. The design is dishwasher-safe, and you can fold it up to double as a serving mat so you can eat right out of the pan. Laziness at its finest instance.
How much we think it should cost: $15
Stem
Juicing fruits can often get to a tedious task, and you always end up getting juice on yourself and waste a bit of the fruit. If you don’t plan to use the juice of one whole fruit, Stem is a great way to just add a splash of juice by inserting the serrated teeth into a piece of fruit and spray away. Afterward, store the fruit with the nozzle in your fridge to reuse at another time. It’s like the juice became its own bottle. Best of all, Quirky has already received enough feedback to begin making this product!
How much we think it should cost: $8
UPDATE: We now have a review of Stem after it hit the market!
Sure, some of these items have first world problems written all over it. But if you can afford to buy the little innovations to make your life easier while supporting individual designers, why wouldn’t you? If you think there are other Quirky products worth featuring, or disagree with how much we think the items should cost, share with us your comments below.
I would buy Renew, Fader and Stem! I love kitchen gadgets and that disappearing highlighter is pretty fantastic!
Whoa! This was a nice article to run across. Inventor of “Renew” here and thanks so much for the props.
I love the idea behind Quirky! I have submitted quite a few invention ideas and hope Quirky chooses one to make! You can check them out in the middle of my profile page located here: http://www.quirky.com/users/175415
Inventor of “Catch” here! Thanks so much for the love!!!
haha I’m definitely getting Catch if it comes out
Looks like I guessed the price completely on point! $14.99 and on pre-sale at $7.99.
I could’ve used the outline yesterday when I was ironing. I was thinking the same thing about how I wish the fabric would just stay flat.
All of these products are good and the prices are fine too, but i am looking forward to buy a “Fader” only :)
Just to note, those aren’t official prices. These are Quirky’s “upcoming” designs for which you will have to vote on how much you want to pay for them. The numbers are just my suggestion :)
Your suggested prices are good :)
Let’s hope they stay around that price point so we can afford to buy these fun things!
Okay, my personal favorites are Renew and Stem. I don’t like using roll after roll of paper towels, and the Renew system seems like it might be worth a try. (Although I don’t need anything else in my kitchen.) As for Stem, I usually just cut up my lemons and limes and store them in the fridge until I need them. If Stem truly works and allows you to get most of the juice out, I might be interested.
I like both of those as well.