Lighting-Related Subsystem Lead

I was working on a future Alexa device and owned that device’s luminaire subsystem. Most light fixtures have a central light bulb or set of LED strips and a vast amount of volume to diffuse the light. In this particular device, the goal was to achieve that same aesthetic in as limited volume as possible to save space for other components.

I collaborated with an optical engineer who specialized in designing lightguides and wanted to apply a philosophy similar to a kindle lightguide design to this application. The thought is to have a highly polished lightguide with a variety of extraction patterns throughout its curvature to slowly dissipate the light (Patent 12638155). Behind the lightguide sat a reflector so other components wouldn’t interfere with the lighting effect and on the outside of the lightguide sat a diffuser part.

I de-risked the novel lightguide design by prototyping an early smaller version using rapid prototyped parts. Once we saw promising results, I scaled to creating 20x full sized parts that were vacuum cast and 3D printed and validated.

Echo Auto 2

Nintendo Switch Game Holder