Luca Toscano

Wiino

The first smart wine thermometer ever

ABOUT

Wiino's mission was to be the very first premium wine thermometer to measure the wine temperature without opening a bottle. This was a personal project and represented the first idea of an embryonal startup named Forture that never took off.

MY ROLE

Research, Industrial design, Packaging, Prototyping, UX & UI

TEAMMATES

Sara Monacchi

DURATION

May 2018 - September 2018

RESEARCH

Finding the "right temperature"

The significance of wine's serving temperature is frequently underestimated, yet it plays a pivotal role in revealing the wine's complete range of flavors and aromas. Each type of wine has its own optimal serving temperature, and a single temperature doesn't fit all. I conducted a thorough market analysis to understand the wine preservation techniques, the potential target user groups, the existing products on the market and the technologies involved in measuring a wine's temperature.

Research insights

INSIGHT

The service temperature is underestimated

Wine needs to be stored in the right conditions and be monitored to ensure it's characteristics are preserved. Chill blasters only cater for the first part, while the importance of the serving temperature is often underestimated.

INSIGHT

There's no such a product

All the products on the market only allow to measure the wine's temperature by inserting a metal probe inside the glass. This procedure it's invasive and can contaminate the wine which can be a problem, especially when for particularly precious wines.

DEVELOPMENT

A complete UX makeover

Some existing products in this field have been game-changers due to their innovative materials, appealing design, and a new user experience which brought wine-tasting to another level. My main focus was finding the best solution to collect drops and displaying temperature seamlessly with the bottle's geometry. This process involved numerous iterations, resulting in a practical and aesthetically pleasing design that could seamlessly adapt to with virtually any bottle on the market.

Early hand sketches of the Wiino thermometer's design

Set of initial 3D explorations of the Wiino's thermometer

Snapshots of 3D models and sketches of the Wiino thermometer

Different rendered views of the Wiino thermometer's outer shell

Collage of pictures representing various prototyping phases of the Wiino thermometer

OUTCOME

Revolutions start small

Wiino is the first thermometer of its kind. It includes a flexible steel helix ring that adjusts to any bottle's neck diameter, a sponge ring to absorb spills, and a sensor within a milled aluminum case. The sensor, activated when separated from the ring, detects the wine temperature using a specialized algorithm, displaying it on an LCD screen in just 3 seconds. Afterward, it can be magnetically reattached to the ring until the wine reaches the desired temperature for tasting. After six months of work, several prototypes and some initial discussions with potential incubators, the project never really took off and went back to the idea's drawer.