Warming Mug Maker Ember Is Now Keeping Vaccines Cool With Smart Shipping Cubes

Ember made its first debut with battery-powered mugs that are capable of keeping your beverages at the perfect warm temperature. Now, it’s flipping over into creating a shipping container that can keep vaccines at optimized cool temperature during their transport. 

The Ember Cube is, essentially, a large refrigerated shipping box that just so happens to be cloud-trackable, too. It does away with things like styrofoam packaging and disposable ice packs, which is the level of technology most cold chain transport is still working with today. 

Built to be reused “hundreds” of times thanks to “return-to-sender technology,” this new shipping solution will also help to save on packaging and subsequent waste. 

Partnering with Cardinal Health on this launch, Ember states that the Cube will be able to keep contents between 36ºF and 46ºF. Fast Company reports that this temperature can be maintained for up to 72 hours, even in places like the desert. 

Onboard cellular radio will be used in the Cube to report temperature in real time, as well as humidity tracking. Its location can be tracked with GPS, all with the ability to view and control these aspects via Ember’s own cloud-based dashboard.

With vital cargo like vaccines, this will ensure that nothing goes wrong during transport that might put them at risk. 

Once it arrives at its destination and contents have been delivered, the Cube can use irs cellular radio to communicate with a shipping service, arranging for pickup from its GPS location. A new shipping label is generated through its e-ink screen, ready to be sent back to Cardinal’s distribution centers. 

“Since Ember’s inception, it has been our goal to leverage our temperature control technology to serve the healthcare industry, with the ultimate mission of helping to improve and save lives,” Clay Alexander, founder of Ember, shares in a statement. 

Apart from vaccines, the Cube will also come in handy when transporting cell and gene therapy solutions. These are temperature-sensitive, of high value, and require real-time tracking, according to Heidi Hunter, President of Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions.

[via Fast Company and TechCrunch, images via Cardinal Health and Ember]