7–8 min • Read the TLDR
When I joined Electrolux in 2021 as a product designer, I thought I had a good idea of what was ahead. I had already worked with connected products at Audi, but I soon realised that shaping digital experiences for appliances was a whole different story.
Designing an app for an oven, air purifier or robot vacuums is nothing like designing one for a car. The products, the markets, and the way people use them are completely different. Even the company processes and ways of working had their own rhythm and complexity.
That was my first big learning curve, and it is exactly why I want to share some of the highlights, challenges, and lessons from my time working on appliance launches. What became clear very early on was that the connected app is not just another feature, but the key to making sure people have a smooth and consistent experience across all touchpoints from the appliance itself to the digital interactions around it. Before diving into the details, let me set the scene with a bit of background about Electrolux.
Electrolux is a global brand that millions of households trust. For more than 100 years, the company has been known for making appliances that last, with quality and performance at the core. Today Electrolux operates in over 120 markets and sells more than 60 million appliances every year. Over 10 million of these are connected, showing just how fast the digital side of home appliances is growing.
The first real moment when I thought “this is different” was when I switched teams to join a newly created organization focused entirely on the digital experience. Electrolux had just made a bold strategic decision to bring everything in-house. That meant building a single ecosystem for all appliances instead of maintaining 20+ separate apps, setting up a new organization that grew from 20 people to more than 400, and rethinking a launch process that had always been driven by traditional hardware cycles.
At that time digital work was added only at the very end of the product cycle, which raised many questions for me: