Log in member
We chat with Joshua Gunn, Dreo's VP of retail sales and marketing about the company's new tower fans and how they've redefined home appliances in just 5 years.
"Hello everyone, I'm Alex here with Gamereactor. We are live at CES, I'm here with Joshua at the DREO booth.
What's exciting about DREO, apart from these massive fans behind me that are giving us a lovely cool breeze on what is a surprisingly warm convention setting, considering how cool it is in Las Vegas."
"Why should people be excited about this, maybe for those who aren't familiar with DREO, because it's a company that's fairly young. You guys started in 2021, if I'm not mistaken.
Absolutely, yeah. We started in 2021. The company launched on e-commerce.
It was our primary channel in the categories of tower fans and heaters."
"Since then, we've grown the portfolio to include purifiers, humidifiers, and then starting to look at all-season products.
One of our best all-season products that we will be launching in the upcoming years is our tower fan mister.
Really, the concept is, how do you take the cooling effect that a tower fan gives you and accentuate it with a very light mist?
The combination of those two factors actually can decrease the ambient temperature anywhere from 3 to 5 degrees."
"We're very proud of the innovation, unique to the market, and it captures what DREO does best, which is design and forward-thinking innovation.
How do we do it in a way that a consumer is going to react very positively?
We're very excited about the launch."
"I'm really excited about these fans as well because I've tried mist fans in the past and they've always felt like I'm either getting a small shower or that I'm getting slapped in the face a bit by too much wind.
But this is a really, really nice, cool breeze that we're feeling right now."
"How did you guys get the technology behind that to make it work?
I was speaking to your colleague before and he told me that it's all your own parts, really, down to the Wi-Fi modules and things like that.
What was the process of making all that like?
Everything that we do is self-developed, including the Wi-Fi module, the algorithms, the PCBAs, the component parts that are important to actually producing the effect that you're feeling right now."
"We use some of the ultrasonic technology that actually breaks up the water mist into the fine droplets that you feel.
Really, what we were trying to do is ensure that it still gave you that cooling effect without having to create a mess or creating a puddle around the actual fan."
"Plus, we're a dominant leader within tower fans today, so it was mixing those two technologies in a way that we know could really drop the ambient temperature around our shoppers.
And that's essentially what we came up with here."
"And you guys also have the same technology in the portable versions, correct me if I'm wrong on that?
What was that?
Same tech as in the portable versions?
Yes, absolutely."
"And is it sort of the same approach that you guys take too?
Because this isn't just like cooling and things like that.
Adria also has a lot of smart home stuff in the kitchen appliance area and things like that.
Especially something that I was interested in is the fact that you guys have made your second air fryer in a way both smaller and bigger at the same time, so it's more compact."
"So what's the sort of design approach, I guess, that you guys take to making these big leaps?
Yes, what we wanted to do was really elevate the function of an air fryer.
So we came out with the ChefMaker.
C1 was our original launch, which utilized both dry heat plus wet heat, almost like a sous vide type cooking, along with an algorithm that could cook a rib eye, for instance, with perfect doneness, but still give you that sear on top, which is almost impossible to do with a regular air fryer."
"We've now upgraded that by using what we call Chef AI.
So in the future, through our app, you'll be able to actually take pictures of ingredients that are in your refrigerator or type in a specific recipe that you want to hit, and then that will actually give you the necessary steps to build the course that you want to have for yourself and then be able to send that recipe to the ChefMaker and for the cooking to be automatically done for you."
"It's really exciting stuff, and especially because you guys have already got a lot of credit for this.
I don't know if you can see it in the background of the shots, but there's some lovely awards here from CES, from Kickstarter, and things like that.
How does it feel to get those awards?
I guess it's a validating feeling when you guys have put in so much work over the years."
"It is. It's wonderful to get these awards.
We're not here to win awards.
We're here to make our customers happy and to come up with really interesting innovation.
But the awards are just the cherry on the top."
"What's the mission goal going forward and what excites you guys about the future?
I guess the immediate future is these Myst fans and things like that, but is there anything that you're thinking of really pushing boundaries on in the near future as well?
Health and wellness will be a big theme for ourselves."
"As you look to the future, we're looking at RO purification systems, countertop-type systems that make pure water accessible to just about anybody, regardless of where they live.
That's a big focus of ours."
"And then air purifiers.
People care about the quality of the air that they breathe, especially with more forest fires, more pollutants in the atmosphere.
So that's going to be a big theme that we're going to continue to drive, as well as continue to focus on consumer-centric innovations, very much like what you see here today."
"Joshua, just got one more question for you.
When can people check out some of the stuff that they've seen here at CES or maybe online, and where can they learn more about DREO?
DREO.com or ask any of the people on the show floor."
"We are all experts in these products, and we'd be happy to share all of our great technology with you.
Brilliant. Joshua, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you."
