IQ PowerPack 1500
Enphase
Enphase approached Katapult to help them design and develop a product that stretched their impressive product range into new consumer facing markets. The IQ PowerPack 1500 is the result of a collaborative effort to deliver a game-changing device that can lead the market with both impressively engineered performance and aspirational aesthetics.
Industrial Design
3D CAD Modelling
Design Strategy
Ergonomic Analysis
Visualisation
Research
User Experience
Creating a Vision
Enphase already leads their industry in product quality and user experience ,but taking on a consumer focused mobile product like the IQ PowerPack 1500 required out of the box thinking.
Katapult worked hand in hand with Enphase’s engineering and marketing teams to create a vision for what the product could be. The result is a sophisticated contemporary power source that both acknowledges Enphase’s strong design heritage and looks to create a design presence of it’s own.
During this creative phase we explored different product formats and styles, generating sketches, 3D CAD visuals and full scale appearance models to help Enphase’s senior
Overcoming Constraints
Designing a portable battery system is no mean feat. First and foremost, it needs to be safe. It needs to outperform competitors and it needs to be positioned to be a commercial success.
The IQ PowerPack 1500 was built specifically to create a new benchmark in the portable energy category and was exhaustively tested during development to ensure that it met both global design standards and Enphase’s own stringent performance requirements.
During this time Katapult’s designers pivoted on a number of occasions to refine the product layouts and design details to dovetail in with evolving engineering and commercial requirements. The final design maintains a striking design aesthetic whilst delivering highly ruggedised portable performance.
Building an Ecosystem
One of Katapult’s strengths is to be able to offer a complete suite of services across design, engineering, UX and strategy. As the project progressed the broader team identified a need to consider a more approachable UX, especially associated with the mobile nature of the product.
We presented a dedicated collapsible trolley concept that provided a seamlessly integrated way to transport the device without having to do a dead lift. The trolley is cleverly engineered to fit the main unit securely and make moving the IQ PowerPack 1500 around easy and safe.
Our team completed detailed engineering design, oversaw several rounds of prototype builds and undertook testing to help validate the preferred design direction. We then worked closely with Enphase to handover the manufacturing files for production to ensure the design intent was maintained through to product execution.
