Arc’teryx ASPECT Avalanche Beacon
The Arc’teryx ASPECT beacon highlights backcountry precision and safety for high alpine rescue. A sleek refined ergonomic form makes the beacon comfortable and usable even in harsh backcountry environments.
Design Objectives
Market research, personal experience and user interviews revealed frustrations with bulky designs, complex interfaces, and a lack of ergonomics when sitting on body in send mode. Avalanche beacons are expensive devices that need lots of training to use pro iciently. The ASPECT hopes to address these issues with a compact, ergonomic form, intuitive display and streamlined minimal aesthetic. Form development was crucial to the process.
Brand Inspiration
The ASPECT beacon draws inspiration from the refined alpine minimalism of Arc’teryx as was designed for the brand. Refined technical features, sculped ergonomic geometry and a glacial-inspired color scheme inspire the form and function. The design focuses on the elegant and ergonomic flow inspired by a glacier. This feel hopes to match the premium performance of Arc’teryx in extreme environments. Arc’teryx’s name and logo refer to the earliest known bird, which evolved wings to adapt to its hazardous environment this adaptaion to the surroundings was another deisgn inspiration of the ASPECT
The screen display is designed for simplictity and ease of understanding in high stress situations. Only the essential features for survival are shown. In send mode an Arc’teryx logo and text are shown on screen. As the beacon is turned on or the mode is switched the display will show the battery percentage. Direction arrows and distance in meters with live updates are shown when in search mode. To activate the search mode the slider slides up the right side and clicks in when the lines meet. Behind the bottom of the slider a hidden flag buttun is revealed since it is only needed for search mode. When the hidden flag button is pressed in multiple burial scenarios a flag icon will appear in the bottom left.corner of the display screen
