A lot of us are guilty of poor work/life balance, of checking Slack or catching up on emails when we should be enjoying our free time. I know I am – which is why this unorthodox solution from Heineken caught my attention.
It’s a bottle opener, but no ordinary one. It’s actually capable of shutting down your work devices like a laptop or a phone at the precise moment you use it to crack open a cold beer. It’s called ‘The Closer’ (get it?), and you can see it in action in the short promotional film Heineken has released, below.
There is, shall we say, a wee bit of dramatic licence being employed in this video. The way the opener actually works is via a Bluetooth connection, so you’ll need to pair it with your chosen devices in advance – there’s no chance of going into an office and using it to shut down everyone’s computer at exactly 4:59PM on a Friday, as the video implies.
There’s a clever bit of engineering involved in the actual shut-off though. Essentially, the moment the opener touches a metal bottle cap, a circuit is completed, which allows the shut-off signal to be sent. Heineken sent an early sample of The Closer to tech and gadgets YouTuber Austin Evans, and you can see him try it out for himself on his channel. The way he giggles “It actually works!” is, I have to say, quite charming.
So it probably won’t cure you of your Teams-checking compulsions, and it’s not about to be used to shut down the New York Stock Exchange, but The Closer is a cute bit of branding from Heineken, and a solid reminder that we could all do with logging off and cracking a cold beer a bit more often.
The Closer is going to be officially unveiled at a tech-style launch event, hosted by comedian Billy Eichner, which is clearly designed to poke fun at the big product demos and events put on by the likes of Apple, such as Apple WWDC 2022, which is going on right now and you can follow at our Apple WWDC 2022 live blog. I rather suspect that the close timing of the two events was not coincidental.
(Image credit: Heineken)
If you’re based in the US, you can also enter a draw to win a Closer of your own by heading to heineken.com/closer on June 8th, between 10 am and 11:59 pm Eastern Time. There will be more available to buy in coming months though, so don’t worry if you miss out. And remember, until then, you can always shut off your laptop the old-fashioned way – check out our guide to the best laptops for graphic design if you’re looking for a new laptop to decisively slam shut in the evenings.
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Jon is a freelance writer and journalist who covers photography, art, technology, and the intersection of all three. When he's not scouting out news on the latest gadgets, he likes to play around with film cameras that were manufactured before he was born. To that end, he never goes anywhere without his Olympus XA2, loaded with a fresh roll of Kodak (Gold 200 is the best, since you asked). Jon is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq, and has also written for in Digital Camera World, Black + White Photography Magazine, Photomonitor, Outdoor Photography, Shortlist and probably a few others he's forgetting.
