The nostalgia harware hop

Modern devices have converged on a standardised design. Laptops, phones, tablets, everyone has them, and they get a bit boring. Your choice of phone doesn’t say much about who you are

Many of these devices are multi-tools. Your phone is also your camera, MP3 player and notebook. Whereas in the past you’d have had different devices for each of those functions.

And the ‘collage’ of devices would say something about who you are. Did you pick an iPod or a Zune? A moleskine or ‘cheap’ notebook? A point-and-shoot, or an analogue camera?

Recently, there has been a bit of a hype around hardware devices with a single purpose. Not only do they share a single purpose, they each have a unique design. The Rabbit R1 is reminiscent of the colourful Gameboys, the TP-7 field recorder is styled like an '80s device, and the Fuji X100 a digital camera disguised as a '70s analogue.

These retro devices are popular not for their superior functionality. An iPhone also takes pictures, records sounds, and does AI prompts.

But these devices symbolise something.
They are desirable because it says something about the owner’s identity.

And this desire to express identity through device design, will persist.

But I believe that ultimately, the economic viability of these single-function hardware devices will be unsustainable