Philips Fade;
explore and express your style.
The Philips Autofade hair clippers were designed for ease of use with a sleek design that matches Philips' brand identity. The product is marketed towards individuals interested in a "fade-haircut". Unlike traditional hair clippers, the Philips Autofade consists of two motorized spindle motors, an accelerometer and gyroscope module. Because of this, the user is able to fade his own hair in a stepless manner, thus suited for a do-it-yourself job. ​​​​​​​
Project Brief
Design a hair clipper for Philips Personal Care which makes it easy to create a ‘perfect fade’ on one’s own hair. The Perfect Fade clipper is based on the Philips Hairclipper series 3000
Group Project
Duration: 10 weeks
Contribution: Ideation, Look & Feel Design, UI/UX Design, Visuals.
Development
Before we started our ideation, we did extensive ergonomical research. We wanted to know the different ways users are holding their hair clippers, especially when reaching the back of your head. We found that users continually switch up the way they hold hair clippers. This inspired us to create a comfortable to hold product, which users can grip in both a horizontal and vertical position.
Ideation
The initial ideation has led us to different ways on we could tackle the problem; "how do we create a fade in a stepless manner?" possible solutions that came to mind were gears, spindle motors, manually switching guard attachments. The initial ideation also gave us the opportunity to explore a different look and feel for the hair clippers.
Prototyping
After a lot of ideation and brainstorming all together, we decided on a more tehcnological solution to the problem "how do we create a fade in a stepless manner?"

We opted for a motorized attachment that extends itself based on a gyroscope module and an accelerometer. In order to get our proof of concept passed, we pocked up this scenario on an arduino.
Perfect control through smartphone connectivity​​​​​​​

In order to give the user a more streamlined and comfortable experience, we came up with the idea to implement a smartphone application, this way, the user is able to monitor the clippers' position in real-time, without use of a multiple-mirror set-up. 
Final Design
The final design uses two motorized spindle motors, rather than a servo mechanism, by opting for this choice we were able to reduce the overall size of the clippers. The final design has also been streamlined more, making it look more modern, yet still matching Philips' brand identy and more specifically, Philips' hairclipper 3000 line. 
The final CAD model is modelled in SolidWorks, rendered in Keyshot, and touched up in Adobe Photoshop.