Furniture accidents are a real thing causing severe injuries and even death. According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, one child dies every two weeks due to a television, appliance or piece of furniture falling on them. Eighty percent of these deaths are children between the ages of one to five years old. Although great strides have been made both with consumer awareness and anchoring kits, children are still being injured or killed by ordinary pieces of furniture. IKEA hopes to solve that problem with its new line of GLESVÄR furniture.
The new line includes three dressers designed with extra safety features to help ensure they don’t tip. One of the dressers is designed to prohibit more than one drawer being opened at a time with an interlocking mechanism. That mechanism is active until the dresser is properly secured to the wall with an anchoring system. The other two GLESVÄR dressers won’t allow the drawers to open at all until the dresser has been secured. Thus, alleviating room for human error. Furniture anchoring has proven effective, but consumers have to install the anchors for them to work.
When asked how they came up with the GLESVÄR line, IKEA tells Parentology, “We developed and tested several stability innovations in collaboration with customer focus groups. Based on the feedback, IKEA is now launching GLESVÄR.” The product line is scheduled to launch in December 2019 with limited availability around the world.
While this is an impressive stride, it could prove to be even more impactful. According to Statista, IKEA is the most valuable furniture retailer in the world with an estimated value of over $18 billion dollars. If IKEA chooses to incorporate these safety features into future furniture it will be far-reaching.
It appears the Scandinavian company may be hoping for the same, telling Parentology, “The limited-edition sales of GLESVÄR will help IKEA learn how customers interact with these safety innovations and inform future product development.”
Hopefully, IKEA will be the first of many furniture manufacturers to utilize the latest technologies to ensure safety. When asked if they would share their designs with other manufacturers, they told Parentology, “IKEA is hoping that GLESVÄR will create awareness and encourage other companies to adopt similar solutions.”
Sources:
Ikea Media
Consumer Safety Product Commission
Consumer Reports
Fast Company