Amazon Fire TV × Star Waggons

The challenge

Amazon tasked us with a unique challenge: prove that their Fire TV and Echo ecosystem could function reliably in the high-stress environment of active movie sets while delivering a premium, intuitive experience for the A-list talent living in them.

The objective was to retrofit a fleet of 20 luxury Star Waggons trailers into fully voice-activated smart environments. This required a seamless fusion of hardcore engineering and high-touch experience design.

What I did

I served as the Creative Technology Director, bridging the gap between the technical and the creative. On the technical side, I architected a custom infrastructure using industrial-grade “ambulance modems” to solve connectivity issues caused by the trailers’ metal shells acting as Faraday cages.

Simultaneously, I led the creative vision, directing a designer to craft a cohesive visual system, including custom stickers, wayfinding, and printed user guides, that made the complex tech feel approachable. I also designed the voice user interface, scripting custom Alexa utterances (“Alexa, I’m home”) that triggered orchestrated lighting and entertainment sequences.

The initial deployment of 20 trailers to active productions (including Disney’s corporate HQ) was so successful that the client commissioned us to scale the concept for a major industry trade show, where I led the expansion with updated creative assets and new custom voice interactions for a live event audience.