Nokia on Friday released a 3D printing kit that will allow users to create their own custom cases for the Lumia 820. The handset, which was unveiled last September, features a removable shell case that lets users change the color of their phone or even enable options such as wireless charging.
Now Nokia has taken things a step farther. It is allowing users to customize their phone via a special 3D printing kit. The 3DK is the first such accessory from a major handset manufacturer. Although the market penetration for 3D printers is still in its infancy, this is a way for Nokia, a once-dominant player in the handset arena, to regain the spotlight for doing something different.
“This is very much a marketing initiative,” said Ian Fogg, senior principal analyst and head of the IHS mobile sector at IHS iSuppli. This is about getting column inches and getting Nokia talked about in the media.”
Nokia did not respond to our request for further details.
Cutting-Edge Props
Even prior to the widespread adoption of mobile smartphones, the handset has been very much a way of showing off some individuality. Primarily this has been through the production of cases, which has grown from a cottage industry to a major market.
Is Nokia killing the cash cow by allowing users to create cases with a printer?
“The reason this is very much a marketing initiative is that Nokia knows accessories have good margins,” Fogg told TechNewsWorld.
“Nokia doesn’t want to sacrifice that market, and they know 3D printing is a niche market,” he explained. “Few people own 3D printers at home, so it won’t cannibalize the accessories businesses at all.”
It could also help reaffirm that Nokia is still very much on the cutting edge — even beating Apple with something that could have users thinking and reacting differently.
“Nokia wants and needs to reposition themselves as tech leaders, and this appeals to thought leaders and first adopters,” said Glen Hiemstra of Futurist.com. “It will create buzz in the maker community.”
Custom Case
The fact that Nokia — not Apple — is embracing this technology goes back to Nokia’s roots in providing some variety to mobile phone owners.
“Nokia’s old advantage was they were the one company that seemed to get that folks didn’t want to have identical phones and theirs were designed to have their appearance changed by users,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. “This would be particularly important if you were competing against a one-size/look-fits-all strategy like Apple has.”
There have been many ways to create individualized phone cases, but much of this has resulted in increasing the footprint of the handset in the processes. Nokia could change that.
“It could differentiate Nokia from most handsets on the market,” said Fogg. “Instead of customizing the handset, you are actually customizing the casing — and this isn’t adding any bulk or heft to the phone.”
Future of 3D
The other notable part of this is that 3D has been a dud as a visual technology, in that consumers aren’t liking what they see on a TV screen. However, having a 3D printer to play with could be much more inviting. To date, 3D printers have been expensive, though.
MarkerBot unveiled a 3D printer in September that cost nearly US$2,200, but as with many technologies the price is likely to fall. For people to get excited about adopting the technology, there need to be products worth printing — and the 3DK could nicely fill that void.
“Nokia sees the future coming, and this is a recognition that 3D printing is on the way to being commercially viable for custom products,” added Hiemstra.
This could also be an experiment in the tradition of preferring fast failure over being too cautious, Hiemstra told TechNewsWorld, “a charge [Nokia has] been prone to — but small risk, pretty big reward.”
Of course, for this technology to take root will require that drop in price, but that should happen over time, and 3D printing could be a big game-changing moment — one that starts now.
“This is likely the future of customization, and it will only be a matter of time before someone figures out how to get the price down so you can have a 3D printer in your home that can customize a lot of stuff ,” noted Enderle. “This clearly brings 3D printing one more big step into the mainstream.”
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Since Nokia has 2 concerns, good marketing, and also, not losing revenue from selling accessories, they could charge owners of Lumia’s that don’t own 3D printers, to print accessories on Nokia’s printers for a fee. That will create a bigger buzz on what is arguably a good idea, and retain accessory revenue.
Makerbot? You didn’t really look too hard did you?
Lets see, there is the coffee maker sized/looking things some company is making that is about $1,200, for starts. I don’t remember the company name. But, if you want to go both cheap, and don’t mind spending some time building it (you get this price only with the kit, not the pre-built), there is the roughly $550, including shipping, "portable" 3D printer, called the portabee:
http://portabee3dprinter.com/
And, yeah, the prices are bound to go down. The Makerbot is costly because a) its print area is much bigger, and b) its got a whole shell thing around it, to keep people out, while it prints. Most of the cost though, ironically, is just in the motors, electronics, etc., the price of which isn’t actually likely to drop much. They are already all used/usable in many different things, so, its unlikely that their price is going to go down a huge AM ount. The whole point of most of these projects is that they use off the shelf parts, or you can print them yourself (assuming you have a printer already), rather than buying them from some company that is making one-off parts, and have to cover their development costs.
A factor, which, BTW, might make the Nokia thing more expensive than it should be, seeing as they will be using custom electronics, custom casing, etc.