Why I Haven’t Shipped Flasq (Yet)
And why disposable vapes might change my mind
For almost five years, Flasq has lived in my notebook, my prototypes, my late-night tinkering sessions – but never in the hands of others. It started as a playful idea: what if your water bottle wasn’t just an object, but a companion? A bottle that glowed gently when you forgot to drink, that pulsed with creative energy when you touched it, that felt almost… alive.
It worked. Friends who tried it called it a “mystical companion” – not because it tracked data or buzzed with notifications, but because it created an emotional bond. You drank more water simply because you didn’t want to “let it down.”
So why didn’t I release it?
The Shadow of E-Waste
Every time I got close to polishing the prototype, I saw two hurdles:
- Did the world really need another connected object with a circuit board, LEDs, and a charging port?
- It would be my first physical product so it has to be perfect (but yet again: There are many imperfect products, just as the automatic cat feeder in the house I currently sit)
I didn’t want Flasq to end up in the same drawer as failed Kickstarter gadgets – glowing paperweights that once promised magic. Emotional design shouldn’t come at the expense of environmental design.
So I told myself: if I ever ship this, it has to be:
- Modular: parts you can re-use when the bottle dies.
- Repairable: not glued shut, not a mystery box.
- Repurposable: when you’re done, the tech lives on in another project.
That standard has kept Flasq on the shelf for years.
Meanwhile, in Vape Land…
And then last week, I read about someone, Bogdan Ionescu, hosting a website on a disposable vape.
Yes, the same “single-use” gadgets filling trash bins and rivers turned out to have ARM Cortex microcontrollers inside – tiny computers capable of running a web server.
It made me laugh, then it made me angry. I worry about whether a hydration gadget might create waste… meanwhile, companies are shipping rechargeable batteries, USB-C ports, and full microcontrollers in products designed to be thrown away after a few hundred puffs.
In that context, Flasq feels almost innocent.
Maybe It’s Time
I still believe objects should be designed with afterlife in mind. But perhaps the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the possible. If disposable vapes can justify their existence (and their e-waste footprint) with flavored nicotine clouds, maybe a modular, caring water bottle that nudges you toward health and focus has more right to exist than I let myself believe.
The real design challenge is to build things that outlive their first use case. To design gadgets that age gracefully, that invite hacking, that can be part of a second, third, or fourth life.
Maybe it’s time Flasq finally leaves the prototype shelf – not as a “finished product,” but as an open design others can tinker with, repurpose, and improve.
Because if a vape can host a website, surely a bottle can host some meaning.
💧 Flasq isn’t just about hydration. It’s about asking: how can design make everyday objects companions rather than commodities – without creating tomorrow’s landfill?