Magnet Eyewear uses an unbreakable hinge system making them almost indestructible
Kieron is a freelance writer and Digital Consultant who doesn't consider himself a design lover but a user of design - which to him is more than enough.
LinkedinAndorran designer Marc Sapetti has created Magnet Eyewear with the strength necessary to handle heavy nights and reckless daytime wear.
After losing them at a party or rolling over them after forgetting you placed them neatly beside you so you could take a nap, one of the top reasons glasses break is because people don’t know how to take them off properly. Most people take off their glasses by grabbing one side to pull them off, which loosens the screws and inevitably leads to broken frames.
In an ideal world, glasses should be removed by grabbing the nose bridge or by gripping both sides to distribute weight equally. In the real world, people just aren’t giving it that much thought.
Designed to reduce tension when stress is put on the temples, Magnetic Eyewear is a solution to bad spectral-wearing habits because it features an innovative breakaway system Italian designer Sapetti has named MagLeg.
Instead of screws and hinges, MagLeg uses a series of magnets embedded within the frame to allow unrestricted movement and reduce strain on the parts of the glasses which are prone to breaking. Meanwhile, the strength of the magnet ensures the perfect balance between a secure fit and the breaking point of the different parts.
Are you interested in useful designs for everyday objects? Check out the story of Robert Bronwasser and his design philosophy SMILE.
Eagle-eyed readers will wonder how the glasses store away when not in use. Sapetti has placed an additional magnet in the centre of both legs, which keeps them together whilst still intact with the lens part of the spectacles. It’s one of those ideas that’s so simple and that is what makes it so impressive.
Those same readers will also wonder how easy it is to mix up the different arms but thanks to the opposite polarity of each magnet the user experience is fairly intuitive. That’s in addition to the obvious appearance of the arms, which both feature curved temples sculpted to either side of the wearer‘s head.
Available in various colour combinations, which can be mixed and matched to create different styles, Sapetti envisions his eyewear collection to be made from high-grade injection-moulded plastic using 3D-printed nylon. Opting for this production process would allow a tighter fit, as the temple tips are heated during the final fitting, allowing them to be closely tailored to the size of a customer’s head.
To test if his invention really works, Sapetti has put the product through its paces. Rigorous testing involved four different types of 3D scanned heads, belonging to the 80th percentile of the population. At each stage of the process, these 3D prototypes were tested over a 5-day period, and after several rounds of 3D printed iterations to refine the concept, Sapetti and his team delivered the final product.
Find out more about other customizable magnetic design solutions, head to D-12: The modular magnetic lighting system.
