Apple HomePod Mini featuring a seamless knitted spacer textile speaker cover and injection moulded transparent plastic touch panel. In the development of the HomePod, a tubular spacer textile construction was developed to remove the need for an unsightly seam. Spacer textile is a highly breathable warp-knitted fabric consisting of two faces connected with filaments in the middle. The mesh acts as both an acoustically transparent cover for the speaker and cushion to protect the electronics within.
In this ultra-thin product cover demonstrator, a Tepex woven carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) sheet is formed and over-moulded with polycarbonate (PC-GF50), and decorated with a Kurz in-mould lamination (IML) film, in a single process on an Engel press.
In this ultra-thin product cover demonstrator, a Tepex woven carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) sheet is formed and over-moulded with polycarbonate (PC-GF50), and decorated with a Kurz in-mould lamination (IML) film, in a single process on an Engel press.