Ding - smart doorbell innovation
by Startacus Admin
Ding is a doorbell. It’s smarter than a normal doorbell, but not as smart as a smart doorbell.
The Ding team considers these to be overly complicated, over-engineered, and generally overly high-tech things that most people don’t want in their homes. Ding is simpler and more refined. On the outside, a slim unit with grey or brass button, on the inside a fabric-covered speaker designed to look pleasing in the home.
But the useful part of Ding is its connectivity to your smartphone. When someone rings your doorbell, your doorbell rings you. Then, wherever you are, you can speak to the person on your doorstep and tell them to go away, wait while you come in from the garden, leave the package behind the flower pot and you’ll get it when you come home from Spain, etc.
The Ding team was one of 3 to win the Design Council Spark programme, netting themselves £65,000 and bringing their idea to a prototype and viable business plan. They have also been through the 12-week John Lewis JLAB accelerator, working with their design and buying teams to work on everything from price to packaging. 
As well as the Design Council funding, they have raised over $111,000 (more than 200% of the target) from Kickstarter, and have been gathering pre-orders from Indiegogo InDemand (a post-campaign solution that bridges the gap between fundraising and actually selling). They have also recently received nearly £20,000 more than their £250,002 (we assume the £2 is for coffee) goal on Seedrs.
So judging by all this, there is certainly a market for doorbells that ring you, and it opens the door (literally the only pun we could knock-knock out) to a suite of other products in the future.
The Ding team looks at the likes of Nest and Dyson and the way they have innovated common household things like the thermostat and vacuum cleaner, and feels like it is in a position to do the same for products focused around the front of the home, such as secure delivery boxes or, say, the doorbell.
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Published on: 21st August 2017
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