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FOR SIX MONTHS, among the software startups and other early-stage companies in Dundalk’s regional development centre, one team has been busy working out the best way to grind weed.
The Chewy will be the latest concept off the assembly line from the six-year-old Sourcing Product Design or Louet Woods Products (LWP), named after its founders, Darren Louet-Feisser and Ronan Woods.
The bud-shredding device is being billed as a world-first “truly portable electric herb grinder” as part of the company’s pitch for a piece of the billion-dollar trade in legal dope.
“There are a lot of people who use medical marijuana and have poor hand skills, like those with bad arthritis, for example,” Louet-Feisser says.
And it’s quite hard to use a grinder when you are out, on the move or even at a concert. So we decided to design something that both loads and grinds your herb.
While LWP often works developing other inventors’ ideas, like the Ladderlimb, a tool holder for step-ladder rungs, and getting them onto the market, in the case of the Chewy the process was entirely in-house.
The product designers identified an unfilled niche to service the burgeoning cannabis sector while they were developing vaporisers for e-cigarette suppliers.
A recent report from the industry-sponsored Arcview put the size of the US legal marijuana market at $2.7 billion (€2.45 billion), of which 82% was bought for medical use. Cannabis use for any purpose is still banned in Ireland.
“People might say it’s an unusual or even a taboo market, but there are millions of people using medical marijuana in US alone,” Louet-Feisser says. “Most of the feedback has been this product is a game changer because it’s really unique.”
A hybrid design
Rather than taking their inspiration from existing devices, most of which Louet-Feisser dismisses as glorified coffee grinders, the Chewy is more like a combine harvester mated with a piece of office stationary.
The device runs on a nine-volt battery, which powers a high-torque motor the designers say is good for grinding a bud of the green stuff in about 10 seconds.
“We prototyped about 100 different mechanisms until it worked perfectly,” Louet-Feisser says, adding that the company has already applied to patent the Chewy’s internal workings.
Here’s a look at the final production model:
The product was recently launched in a campaign on crowdfunding site Indiegogo with prices starting from $35 (€32) apiece, although with a week to go it appears the Chewy will fall short of its $20,000 (€18,230) target.
But Louet-Feisser doesn’t mind, at least as far as he’s letting on. With the device ready for production, the launch was more about creating a *ahem* buzz among its potential customers and garnering endorsements from bloggers, he says.
Before we pushed the button on tooling we really wanted some market feedback on it – really it was getting people interested in the product before February.
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Boo! – Apple have done away with the Irish cailín (pale skin, red hair) who used to represent many Irish women – now we’ll have to choose between a blonde or a brunette. Bring back the redhead!
Tiocfaidh ar la.
Does that mean that only those people who have installed this will see the new emoji ?
Yes is the answer. This is an Irish flag test:
The flags work as special control letters representing the abbreviation for countries. On Android phones they usually show up as just the control letters, so, as always, an Irish flag can be displayed but only as a blue “IE”, not an actual flag. The system (at least before lollipop, not sure if its changed) never supported the actual flags but would just show the control letters instead.
WhatsApp does that too, but only if it encounters a combination it doesn’t have a flag for.
Any for android?
It just requires characters U+1F1EE and U+1F1EA to be entered in sequence ( a special “I” and a special “E”) but the system won’t display them as a flag. Apple hasn’t really added a new character. Just the ability to correctly recognise the combination.
Android, as of 4.4 anyway, doesn’t display any of these combinations as flags (not even U and S). Just as the control letters that make them up. Applications on android that don’t use the system emojis (WhatsApp and Facebook messenger for instance) may add support sooner, since they both support flags
I like that they’re in the kind of pop up menu thing so you don’t spend ages scrolling. Nice one.
I always thought the Irish flag would be a lot nicer without the orange
Go back to Limerick
The davedunne comment above is not me. It is a dam imposter. I am flattered all the same. I in all honesty don’t give a bollix about flag’s.
The davedunne comment above is not me. It is a dam imposter. I am flattered all the same. I in all honesty don’t give a bollix about flag’s.
Fine gael don’t approve ..
Anyone else not have the option of downloading the new update?
Note to self:
Block Brian Tong
Excited to see the Irish Tricolor being represented.
I would be more excited when my Android Galaxy S6 starts representing my flag!
What kind of phone do you have?
Ireland/…Ivory Coast flag
All I can say is
Noooooo. Fail, all the emojis didn’t show up
What a lot of
Erik just point g out he has the new S6
˙˙˙sᴉɥʇ pɐǝɹ uɐɔ noʎ ɟᴉ sᴉ ʇI
Why don’t android phones have flag emojis?
Flag on WhatsApp is Ivory Coast not Irish
have your say