London, United Kingdom
After five years of development, the leading optics manufacturers Swarovski Optik and Marc Newson have created together the AX Visio, the world’s first AI-supported binoculars, allowing the user to identify over 9,000 types of wildlife in real-time including mammals, dragonflies, and birds, as well as capturing photos and video, sharing GPS coordinates, and Bluetooth pairing with a smartphone.
“It was important to me to try to imbue the design with a kind of personality- I wanted them to feel approachable and usable,” states Marc Newson.
“The inclination when designing high-performance items tends for them to be purposefully complex, and I was hoping to create something that was the opposite- intuitive and inviting.”
The designer sought to create an approachable and ergonomic object that belies the complex optical engineering and pioneering electronic technology that fit within the handheld device.
The geometry of the device is inspired by vintage porro prism binoculars, like Swarovski Optik’s Habicht model.
As with Marc’s design of CL Curio, the pocket-sized binoculars released in 2021, AX Visio has an extruded aluminum bridge, which here encompasses the three-scope construction of the piece: the third scope relays the image to the identification software, whilst the two primary lenses can also operate as analog binoculars.
AX Visio 10×32 is composed of around 390 parts and is engineered in Swarovski Optik’s factory in Tyrol, Austria.
Project: AX Visio 10×32 Binoculars
Designers: Marc Newson Ltd.
Lead Designer: Mark Newson
Manufacturer: Swarovski-Optik AG & Co KG
