How small is too small?

By Andy Douglas, Managing Director, Timeguard

Over the years, mobile phones were probably the first thing that people bragged about when they had the smallest. Now, however, phones have got a bit bigger again, with a proliferation of new features and the revolution brought about by touch screens that need to be big enough to type on, read web pages or to watch videos.

So while compact designs are always welcome, and using fewer materials is more environmentally sustainable, size has becomes a matter of practicality. And so it has been with many of the products that we make and that you stock and sell.

The trend has been towards packing more functionality into smaller packages – and I’m sure no one would dispute that design engineers have given us much better-looking products.

The freedom to design them has come from huge jumps in the capabilities of electronic componentry, accompanied by huge drops in their prices. The willingness to design them has come from a management philosophy that prioritises innovation to keep the types of products you sell every day fresh.

That said, about the biggest part of our single-gang replacements for fused spur connections, which include smart timing features, is the rocker switch for the user’s finger!

Designing the rest of the functionality around that, to still meet the challenge of fitting into a single gang back box and be no deeper than the standard FCUs they replace, was no mean feat for our UK design team.

Changes in exchange rates that have followed last June’s referendum have been challenging. However, while there have been increased costs for British business, the bigger picture is still towards investing in chips and components that can deliver ever-more functionality which suggests that goods will keep getting smaller.

Cooling and long life

There are however limitations, and chief among these is the issue of allowing space for cooling to ensure long life. Even the lowest-output LED light does emit heat which, while it is barely detectable to the human sense is sufficient to compromise the life of the components.

The cheaper the components used in a bid to keep the finished price down, the bigger the risk. It might be that an LED lasts 20,000 hours instead of 30,000 – in which case, you might argue that no one will notice. Equally, failure might come after 20 or 200 hours, and that adds up to the short-term expense of returns and the long-term loss of customer trust.

So, for lighting, engineering in cooling mechanisms is a must and my rule of thumb is that if you don’t see cooling fins, think twice.

When it comes to multifunctionality, most smartphone users will probably admit that they don’t know half of what’s on their phone and only use a few functions anyway. With our electrical devices, we don’t have space for that kind of redundancy if we want to keep the footprint small, so every function must be there for a reason and every part must have a purpose.

You cannot just put any old LED strip into a light: you need precise alignment of prismatic lenses and back plates that are proactive reflectors, not just cosmetic if you are to flood and area in light effectively. That means investing in new design and new tooling.

Wiring back plates are increasingly popular and here again you can get too small. The idea of course is that installers wire up the back plate and clip on the main unit, be it a light or detector. Yet all the benefits of easy installation are lost if they are stuck up a ladder battling with fiddly connectors. They certainly won’t be thinking small is beautiful then! So there has to be a balance.

The moral of this tale? While we can make things a lot smaller and a lot prettier there is a law of diminishing returns. For many of our catalogue items, we are probably at “peak smallness”.

www.timeguard.com