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When I learned our Somnus Lab Sleep Pad had won the Red Dot Award for Product Design, I felt pleasantly surprised and genuinely honored. Winning in the category of Personal Care, Wellness, and Beauty felt like a beautiful acknowledgment of what we've been quietly building—something more personal than just another tech gadget, something designed to genuinely enhance lives.

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Beyond Traditional Categories

Honestly, I've always struggled to fit our product into a neat category. Smartized devices in greneral are really hard to fit in existing product taxonomy. Traditional mattresses haven't fundamentally changed for centuries—just foam and springs, nothing actively adaptive. We didn't want to simply improve on existing products; we set out to completely rethink what sleep technology could do. What if your sleeping environment actively worked with you to optimize health and comfort? That was our starting point, and our Red Dot Award confirms we’re onto something special.

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Scandinavian by Accident

Living in Sweden for over a decade, Scandinavian design gradually seeped into my consciousness without me even noticing. Minimalism, simplicity, functionality—these became second nature. When I look at our final product, I now realize how naturally these principles were reflected. It wasn't intentional at first, but it perfectly matches the calm and intuitive feeling we wanted the Sleep Pad to convey.

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The Great Debate: Invisible vs. Iconic

In our earliest meetings, we spent hours debating our design approach. Should the Sleep Pad blend invisibly into your bedroom, quietly improving your sleep in the background? Or should it boldly announce itself as a beautifully crafted piece, much like products from Dyson or Bang & Olufsen?

In the end, we found our sweet spot somewhere in between—calm yet clearly technological, elegant yet quietly confident.

Early Sketches

In this stage, they are really rough ideas. We didn't have a lot of boundaries, just freestyling a few directions.

Moodboard/inspiration

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Round 1 concepts

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Refined Sketches

Seeing a few real designs, it's easier to point ourselves in a clearer direction. After several rounds of iteration, we narrowed our focus to three main concepts. Each had unique strengths, and ultimately, we selected the best aspects from each, blending them into the final design you see today.

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Below are the three main concepts that could have made it to the final. We ended up cherry picking the favourite parts of each concept and moved towards a design that is closer to what we see today.

Concept A: Minimalistic and subtle, designed to blend seamlessly into the bedroom environment.

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Concept B: Bold and clearly tech-driven, inspired by iconic consumer tech products.

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Concept C: Softly futuristic, offering a gentle blend of organic shapes with advanced technological features to enhance both aesthetic appeal and user interaction.

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After exploring these distinct design directions—Concept A (minimalistic subtlety), Concept B (bold technological presence), and Concept C (soft futurism), instead of limiting ourselves, we took a step back, carefully examining each concept's strengths.

We asked ourselves: What would it look like to blend minimalism's quiet comfort, bold technology's intuitive clarity, and futurism's inviting warmth?

The answer became the design you see today—calm yet sophisticated, intuitive yet quietly innovative. By selectively combining the best elements of all three concepts, we crafted a product that is both subtly elegant and profoundly functional. This careful fusion allowed our Sleep Pad to resonate deeply with users, ultimately helping us earn recognition through the prestigious Red Dot Award.

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Material Adventures & Lessons Learned

Our journey wasn't limited to digital screens or cozy conference rooms. We got our hands dirty, traveling to trade shows and supplier factories, diving deep into every material imaginable—plastic, metal, wood, glass fiber, even titanium. It was funny how our initial excitement at flashy consumer product exhibits quickly faded. Soon, we found ourselves gravitating to the less glamorous manufacturers' alleys, surrounded by components and raw materials. Touching, feeling, and understanding these materials was invaluable; 3D printing is convenient, but it can never fully replace the importance of hands-on interaction.

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Quiet Voices, Big Impact

Throughout development, we made a conscious effort to deeply listen, tuning into Reddit discussions, conducting user surveys, engaging with sleep scientists, and hosting intimate focus groups. While it's difficult to point to a single dramatic insight, I know our design was shaped by countless subtle suggestions and quiet user feedback. That continuous dialogue made quite some difference.

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Interactive Details: More Than Just Pretty Lights

Every detail matters to us, especially how users interact with the product. Something as seemingly simple as LED indicators became an opportunity to enhance the user experience—amber for active mode, blue signaling Bluetooth readiness, orange prompting a water refill. Each decision was about creating an intuitive connection, making the Sleep Pad feel personal and responsive.

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A Milestone Worth Celebrating

Winning the Red Dot Award isn't just a badge of honor—it’s validation of our approach, mixing design elegance and health-tech innovation. More importantly, it reminds us we're on the right path in making a meaningful difference in people's lives.

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What Comes Next?

We're genuinely excited about where Somnus Lab is headed—more innovations, deeper user connections, and broader partnerships. If you're curious, inspired, or interested in working together, please reach out. Let's keep reimagining sleep, together.

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