The Atrio case, a Kickstarter project from Craftwerk USA, is an aluminum bumper that’ll cost you a crazy $90 (less for early-bird pitchers). But the clever twist here is that the box it comes in doublers as a stylish – and matching – iPhone stand.
One of the secret shames of the gadget indutry is packaging. On a busy day, I can fill a trashcan twice over with the packaging from the various cases and other junk that UPS and FedEx bring to my door, and I take a trip to the recycling station almost daily. Sometimes it seems that the packaging should cost more to make than the gadget inside, especially when it comes to iPhone cases.
So the Atrio is a welcome change. Instead of tossing the box in the trash, you reassemble it into a stylish and useful-looking stand for the iPhone. There are no clever gimmicks sadly – while it’ll accommodate a Lightning cable for charging the iPhone whilst docked, you’ll have to wrangle the cable every time you do it (see the video) – but the inclusion of a handsome stand with the bumper is good enough for me. Especially as many people will spend this much on a stand alone.
Want one? You’ll have to wait til at least the end of June, and that’s if the Kickstarter is successful. In the meantime, you could do what I do when I actually buy gadgets, and ignore the ones which have giant boxes. I’m looking at you, high-end SD card manufacturers…
Source: Kickstarter
Source: Craftwerk
