From the year 2009: The UR-hörbert

The first device. Built in 2009 and still in daily use! Nowadays, it plays a mix of “Harry Potter” and “The Prodigy”, a bit of “Münchhausen” and, of course, pop music. An English-learning CD has also snuck in…

What became of this original hörbert is a really nice story: After the neighbor’s children, godchildren, and own children were equipped with custom-made units, it became quite tedious to solder each electronic component separately and build each housing anew. Even back then, small improvements were incorporated one after another, but each device was built completely differently.

The joy in the children’s and parents’ eyes was always immense. In the “family council,” we finally decided to turn this idea into a product. It then took another 14 months of development to reach production maturity. The development motto was—and still is—the same:

We build hörbert just the way we imagine, and then we do not cut anything for cost reasons. Preferably less, but really right. Just right.

Finally, in December 2011, the first hörbert went over the online counter. From time to time, we are always pleased to be in contact with our first customers, who often bought the second, third, or even fourth hörbert for their growing brood.

The first series hörberts were created in Stuttgart Vaihingen in an attic apartment on the 2nd floor, which was previously only Rainer Brang’s office. The raw wooden housings, batteries, speakers, switches, and circuit boards, and everything else had to be hauled up. It was certainly interesting for the neighbors when a few pallets of housings were unloaded in the garden. The hauling of 200 kg of batteries was also quite mean. (Today, such small quantities are unimaginable, by the way)