Ionic Breeze Quadra
On March 1, 1999, I began work with the Sharper Image Corporation as Manager of Product Development with the Sharper Image Design team, making the company’s proprietary products. I arrived to find a long backlist of projects; the highest priority was a second-generation fanless air cleaner to succeed the original Ionic Breeze.
The first Ionic Breeze had been a surprise success. During its development, the merchandising boss insisted that the company would struggle to sell even a few thousand units, so the Design team had negotiated a tiny initial production quantity. The product quickly proved to be immensely popular… and imperfect. Many minor incremental changes were implemented to improve performance and reliability as production ramped up.
Just as I arrived tests confirmed that simple but fundamental changes would yield a vastly superior product: the new model was configured with three deep collector blades rather than four shallow ones, and two emitter wires instead of three. A single button stepping through three power settings replaced two knobs and the “boost” button. A red “idiot light” indicated when things had gone wrong.
My work included coordinating the new industrial design and testing, and overseeing the detailed engineering, tooling, and production start. Our team came up with the name “Quadra” to reflect the anticipated four-fold improvement in effectiveness, which was almost achieved. Through careful component selection and deliberate design we significantly reduced cost – on a product launched at a price $100 higher than its predecessor. A star was born: the high-margin Ionic Breeze Quadra went on to sell over a million units, aided by a tremendous infomercial campaign, magazine and newspaper ads, the monthly Sharper Image Catalog, and “solo mailers” featuring just this product.
How did the Ionic Breeze Quadra become so popular? It did only a modest job cleaning the air – Quadra’s CADR was probably around 25, below the statistically-verified range of the AHAM/ASHRAE tests. But many people who owned air cleaners hated the fan noise (users tended to turn them to the “low” settings, reducing their effectiveness, or off altogether) and were frustrated by filter replacement (which was very profitable for manufacturers and retailers). Letters poured in praising the product… Perhaps much of the benefit was psychological: the gratification of doing something to improve a perceived problem, and/or a placebo effect.
The Ionic Breeze was widely imitated, sent reverberations through the IAQ community, and was central in Sharper Image’s rise and, reputedly, its fall. More on those subjects later.
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