Relaxound Anniversary Story 01: How to build a Zwitscherbox?

What does a product look like that doesn't yet exist? This question was one of many that Philipp Störring asked himself when he invented the Zwitscherbox. It was certain that he wanted to bring some calming chirping into the bathroom. His idea initially earned amazed shaking of the head. “When you develop something new, you need a thick skin! In 2013, many could not imagine that chirping in rooms could be relaxing. A prototype was needed. Quickly!”

 “Since there was no such thing as sound boxes, I had to improvise. Using an mp3 player and a wipe box, I tested countless chirping sounds. I wanted the perfect chirping. Eventually I found it: A blackbird’s song from the Black Forest. But the first motion detectors consumed too much power, and the batteries quickly ran out. In the end, the solution was a light-activated sensor that worked particularly economically.”

 This is where Dennis Clasen comes in. Philipp contacted the product designer from his old hometown Hamburg and presented his sound concept to him. “It was important that our box didn't look like a loudspeaker,” the two agree. Dennis developed the idea of the bird house and built the first prototypes. The Zwitscherbox was born! Now it was time to show the new product to the world.

Philipp and Dennis built 100 prototypes of the Zwitscherbox on their own. “It took half an hour to assemble the components. Significantly longer at the beginning.” The two soldered, cut cardboard, glued design fronts, wrapped each sound box in tissue paper, packed them in boxes with their own label, and tinkered with the website. “And then, when we were finally done and really bone-tired… we went door-to-door.”