This Smartphone-Driven Nail Art Printer Is Ingenious

When it comes to adding those all-important finishing touches to an outfit, it’s a given that having your nails aptly tended to amps your look up a notch. Some of us are all about embracing the latest nail trends and the more talented among us are brave enough to attempt nail art. In this day and age, this is a validated form of creative expression, and the advancement of nail technology plays a crucial part in this (Shellac has already changed our lives).

One company have created a product that will do much of the work for us, ensuring we have instant Instagram-worthy nails (always a plus), and also make new innovative, technology a part of our daily life.

Female-led Preemadonna, are a company that focuses on using technology to provide lifestyle products for women, and they have created the Nailbot.

Its premise is to instantly print art onto your fingernails, using your smartphone to do so. This is deemed its unique selling point; there have been nail art printers in the past, but never with smartphone technology.

CEO and co-founder Pree Walia explained that the idea behind the product came from wanting to encourage more women and young girls to embrace technology, while providing them with a tool to express themselves creatively.

“It is a beauty tool, but for young girls it’s a learning tool,” Walia said.

The printer uses your smartphone’s back camera and prints full-colour art on nails in just a few seconds. All you have to do before putting your finger under the Nailbot is prime your nail with white polish.

The system uses inkjet, and will eventually use actual nail polish, which is controlled through its system over a wireless connection to decorate the nail with a swipe or through a motorised solution. In addition to the Nailbot itself, users can create, design, modify and share their art with the accompanying app.

“Girls can design their own art,” Walia told NPR. “It’s a mobile platform for art with uses well beyond fingernails.”

?We’re focused on nail art as a form of creative expression,? she explained. ?We wanted to build an automated device to paint nails. We wanted to meet girls with technology that’s relevant to their lifestyle.?

The company plans to expand their vision beyond nail design and hope that through their ambassadors programme, young girls from various social organisations in the US can learn social media and digital skills such as computer programming and hacking, or digital and graphic design.

It’s retailing for $199 and is alas, only currently available in the US, but it sounds like the beginnings of a product that could really take off. If they managed to add a UV light and Shellac polish, we could see all our nail dreams coming true.

Is it too much to hope that we could get one before Christmas?

Via NPR