Berlin
A window between languages
A wearable translator for the places where people work side by side without a shared language. It runs entirely on the device — no phone, no connection, nothing sent anywhere.
55 mm × 30 mm × 10 mm
A wearable translator for the places where people work side by side without a shared language. It runs entirely on the device — no phone, no connection, nothing sent anywhere.
Every day, someone knows exactly what needs to be said and can't say it. A care worker who understands what a resident needs but not the shift instruction. A patient describing pain to someone who can't follow. Someone whose skill is invisible because the language isn't there yet.
ONU exists for that moment — one conversation, made possible.
A material concept, a hand-built form study, and the circuit boards that actually run inside it.
The result is a working prototype today. Follow the build — and see it in action — on Instagram.
Recognition, translation and speech all happen on our own board — no server, nothing to sign into.
No recording is stored or sent anywhere, which turns a long data-protection review into a short one.
Built for hands-on work and sterile areas, where personal phones aren't practical or allowed.
Belongs to the workplace, not one person — so the people who need it most don't have to buy it.
Our own hardware, running the full pipeline on the device. We're now preparing for first testing with care and manufacturing teams in Berlin.
The pipeline, the hardware, and why running all of it on a device you can clip to a collar is the hard part.
Read →Why we're building this, who it's for, and where we want it to reach.
Read →We're looking for a small number of care, manufacturing and public-service teams to work with.
Read →
Product designer and educator with a decade of experience across consumer and industrial products, and a lecturer in design and entrepreneurship in Berlin. ONU began with a simple observation: the places where being understood matters most are exactly where the tools don't reach.
A venture built at SkalaDesign.
Get in touch, or follow the build day-to-day on Instagram.