Medea Vodka just took celebration to a whole new level. Since 2010, the Medea Vodka has allowed users to program messages on the LED screen wrapped around their bottles using the buttons provided on the beverage. Similar to a message in a bottle, but not quite. Customization will become easier in May when the company releases bottles that can be programmed using a new app.
Before, if users did not want to drink to any of the pre-programmed messages on the LED marquee (‘Happy Birthday,’ ‘Happy Anniversary,’ ‘Congratulations,’ ‘Merry Christmas,’ ‘Happy New Year’ or ‘I Love You’), bottles were customized using a rather tedious method of pressing buttons. The UP and DOWN buttons would take you through the entire alphabet, plus numbers 0-9, in order to find the characters you were searching for to write your message. After each character was selected, the ENTER button was selected to save the character.
Needless to say, that sounds more painful than using an old-school mobile keypad to send a text message.
The new bottles will have Bluetooth technology that will allow users to program messages on the bottles, share access to let others customize messages and even track the bottles location.
To use the app, users will need to register with an email address, which will give the company access to your age, coupled with your location based on the data picked up by the Bluetooth.
Medea Vodka will also be able to tell when the bottle is being shared with another person so that they can have some fun programming a message on the bottle.
“Basically, we are creating the understanding of who is involved in sharing this great gift, but the important thing is the technology and allowing the users to interact with the bottle,” said Medea Vodka’s chief operating officer Brandon Laidlaw in an interview with CNBC.
The new bottles and app will appear at an industry trade show next month. Program your own message on a bottle when it hits the shelves in May, retailing $29.99.
And of course, don’t drink yourself to the point where you can’t read the message on the LED screen.
