IKEA is not usually a name you will associate with gaming, but that somehow changes with this latest collaboration between the Swedish flat-pack furniture giant and prosthetic maker Unyq and educational e-sports company Area Academy. In this collaboration, IKEA will offer a line of personalized accessories for gamers called Uppkoppla.
Uppkoppla, which means ‘online’, will feature products that are designed to improve gaming experience and surround life at home. For starter, three products were introduced and they include a wrist support, textured key caps and a mouse bungee to keep cord out of the way when using wired mouse. Unyq made the announcement yesterday at IKEA’s annual Democratic Design Day, IKEA’s annual product conference, in Älmhult, southern Sweden.
“There are an estimated 2.2 billion gamers around the world playing for a total of 14 billion hours per week. Gamers spend a large portion of their time online, sitting for hours on end, which can lead to massive physical strain on the body. Drawing on the expertise and input of Area Academy, an educational e-sport company with a thorough understanding of the unique wants and needs of gamers, UNYQ and IKEA identified an opportunity to create products which are not only functional, customized and design driven, but also offer ergonomic benefits.”
For now it will be the aforementioned three products, but IKEA promised there will be more to come. IKEA Uppkoppla Gaming Accessories will arrive in 2020. The price range and exactly availability are not known at this point.
Source: The Verge.
