Gantri, a San A Francisco-based company known for making soft, stylish 3D-printed lamps is going wireless. That’s thanks to a new partnership with design company Ammunition.
Portico 3D prints its lamps using plastics made from corn-based polylactic acid (PLA) at its Bay Area facility. The result is a collection of carefully designed fixtures with gentle curves that aim to make luxury lighting somewhat affordable. (Rates go from $200 to $500.)
Last year, the company launched a program called Gantri Made, which allows buyers to personalize their lights and gives third party designers the ability to create their own designs using Gantri’s foundational parts.
Courtesy of Gantri
Portico first partnership with Ammunition in 2020, developing a line of stylish lamps aimed at showcasing what high-end illuminated rooms could look like. You’ve almost certainly seen something built with AmmunitionIt’s flair. The company designed Beats by Dre headphonesTHE Square point of sale tablets that you see in stores around the world, and many other projects, from robotic coffee machines at Jay-Z failed weed vape cartridges.
This new collaboration from Gantri is a range of lamps including floor lamps, table lamps and lamps small enough to fit in your hand. (These are rectangular, with designs inspired by the piers around San Francisco.) All the lights are wireless and can be removed from the charging ports to run for what Gantri says is 10 hours or more of battery life. Gantri is also developing an app to control lights. They will work with Matterthe connectivity standard that aims to make smart home technologies from different companies work together, but that compatibility isn’t expected until next year.
Ian Yang, CEO of Gantri, points out that for most of human history, light sources were something people carried with them: torches, candles, lanterns. Lights that stay in fixed locations have become the norm, but he wants these cordless lights to show there is another solution.
“I really think this product is going to change the way people think about lighting, but also the power of digital manufacturing and this new plant-based material,” says Yang.
The lights feature a custom charging port, which allows them to stand upright and face in any direction while still receiving a charge. They also require a custom charger and cannot be charged via USB-C or another cord in another room. This may hinder the mobility the lamp promises, as you won’t be able to move them from room to room and plug them in with a USB-C cord lying around – you’ll need to bring that proprietary cable with you. But Yang says it was a deliberate choice, even if it was much more difficult than finding a slot for a USB-C connection. He wanted the lamps to be portable yet have a place so that they would become a staple in a home.
“What we want is something we can use every day,” says Yang. “To do this, you need to get into the habit of recharging. We want to make this as simple and seamless as possible.”
Gantri also sees it as a product for restaurants. Yang says USB-C powered devices are sometimes more susceptible to theft. Having a proprietary charger would certainly make the light less useful to thieves.
Ultimately, Yang says this project is the culmination of everything he wanted to do when he started Gantri. When looking at the portable light category, he thought most of the other products weren’t very good.
“They’re really tiny, more like a candle, an accent, an ambiance, it’s not like a real light,” Yang says, describing Gantri’s move into the space as “an opportunity for us to not only replace that form factor, but actually rethink the lighting category.”
