Designing Native (Part 1): Problem to product
Why we built it, how Native was born, how RO purifiers actually work, how we started building hardware that was different.
There’s a kind of order in Indian kitchens. That order comes from generations of habits layered on top of each other. You see it in the way the spice box always returns to the same corner. In how the dosa pan is never scrubbed too hard. In the towel that lives beside the sink. Even the rhythm of cooking has a repeating flow of rinse, cut, boil, stir, clean. Everything seems to have found its place. Everything, except the RO water purifier.
It sticks out. You rarely see someone proud of it. Often it’s covered with cloth. Or hidden in a cabinet. Or propped up on a stool with wires showing. It does its job, but always on the sidelines.
The more homes we visited, the clearer this became. You could tell a lot about a kitchen just by watching someone fill a bottle. Not by asking them questions. Just by paying attention. Which hand they used. Whether they bent their neck. How long they waited. Where the cloth was kept. These weren’t data points. They were signs. Signs that the RO had never really been designed for the Indian kitchen. It had only been installed there.
And yet, it’s one of the most used appliances. It touches almost everything from chai, rice, dal, soaking, pooja, to the water you sip before sleeping. The moment it stops working, the entire household adjusts. But as long as it works, no one talks about it.
We had been servicing these machines for years. And what we saw up close was worse than what we saw in kitchens. Customers were replacing filters every 4–6 months. Some were paying nearly the cost of the RO machine itself in parts and servicing within a year and a half. This didn’t sit right with us.
At some point, we asked ourselves: what if instead of servicing these machines, we built one?
It wasn’t an obvious question. None of us had designed hardware. We were a services platform. Not a product company. But we had spent enough time in enough kitchens to start asking different questions. Why does the purifier look like it does? Why is the internal layout always crammed? Why is the servicing cycle so frequent? And most importantly: why doesn’t anyone seem to care?
Once you start noticing this, it’s hard to unsee. We began ordering every purifier model across brands, price points, marketing claims. And we opened them up. Some were packaged better. Some had more polished plastic. But inside, the story repeated: filters jammed into odd corners. Pipes kinked. PCBs zip-tied. Small RO membranes. Tanks unprotected. Generic Carbon filters. Taste enhancers without documentation. It all looked patched together.
That’s when we realised the product was not built to last. It was built to be monetised. The business model wasn’t the machine. It was the maintenance. If you replaced a filter every 6 months, signed up for an AMC, and called a technician once a year, you were part of the plan. Most ROs had warranties tied to servicing.
This felt backwards. You don’t build a product so that people keep fixing it. You build it so that they don’t have to.
So we started again. From zero. What would it take to build a water purifier that didn’t need an AMC?
For context, here’s how a typical RO purifier works:
Turbidity and particle removal: This is handled by external & internal sediment filters, which catches dirt, rust, and suspended solids.
Odour and chemical removal: A carbon block filter removes chlorine and organic compounds that cause bad taste or smell.
Dissolved salt removal: The RO membrane removes dissolved salts, heavy metals, and bacteria by forcing water through a semi-permeable membrane.
Taste improvement: A mineral cartridge adds back essential minerals like calcium and magnesium to improve taste.
Storage protection: A UV LED or similar mechanism prevents microbial growth in stagnant water inside the tank.
Each of these stages matters. And each one can fail if designed poorly, which is what we set out to change.
We began with filtration. Most machines used a single sediment filter. But the problem with a single filter is that it takes the full load of particulate matter. It clogs fast. Especially in cities with hard water or rusty pipes. Instead, we designed a multi-layer external sediment filter with different micron levels stacked, so each layer took a different load. Large particles stopped at the top. Finer ones passed through. Less clogging. More flow.
We paired it with an internal sediment filter to trap the finer ones that pass through external sediment filter. Then came the carbon block. Most brands used granular carbon or weak compressed blocks. But we found chlorine levels in municipal water to be higher than expected. And chlorine damages RO membranes. So we worked with an OEM to develop a high-surface-area block that could neutralise chlorine over 40,000+ litres.
The RO membrane had its own problems. Most machines didn’t flush it. Over time, this led to salt accumulation and degradation. We introduced an automatic flush mechanism. It ran after every fill. And every few hours. This small change extended membrane life significantly.
For the mineral cartridge, we found most brands used mystery mixes. So we partnered again for a consistent mineral block with known release rates. Tested for two years.
Then came the tank. Tanks are perfect breeding grounds for microbes. We integrated a UV-C LED, controlled via PCB, that activated every few hours. Not just when dispensing. So water stayed clean even after days of no use.
And then, the PCB. This was perhaps the most overlooked part of every RO. Most were relay-based. No smart control. We built ours from scratch: it tracked filter life not by time, but by water flow. It managed the flush cycles. The pump. The UV. The TDS measurement. It connected via Wi-Fi. It showed real-time status. It could diagnose issues. And it let people book service only when actually needed.
But function was not enough. We designed a silhouette that looked different than anything that existed but matched kitchen counters. A front panel that felt less like medical equipment and more like an elegant object. We reduced noise. Added presets. Made filter changes tool-less. We tested touch sensitivity with wet fingers. We routed pipes with bend radii in mind.
Coming up with the brand name wasn’t easy. We tried over 50 names. Some were clever. Some were safe. One we liked early on was ‘Better’. Better was short, assertive, and clear. But it always felt comparative. Better than what? Than whom? It didn’t stand on its own.
Then, one evening just over two Slack DM exchanges, we landed on ‘Native.’ It immediately felt different. Honest. Not clever for the sake of cleverness. Every object looks right in its native setting. A tiger in the zoo is majestic; a tiger in the wild is breathtaking! We wanted the product to feel not like a showpiece but something that belongs in your kitchen, in your daily routine like it had always been there. This name was honest. This name didn’t feel like it’s trying to be clever.
Designing hardware is not like designing software. You can’t push an update. You can’t A/B test silently. What ships, ships. And it stays shipped. Which is why the urge to launch fast, grow fast, to beat a competitor is dangerous. We resisted it. Every extra week of testing felt worth it. Because you can’t recall something people drink from. You only get one shot.
And now, months later, when we see someone filling a bottle without switching hands, or watching their child use it unaided, or noticing that they haven’t needed service in a year, we remember what we set out to do. Not to make a product people talk about regularly but the opposite. One they never have to think about.
There are objects that demand attention. And there are those that earn trust. The best hardware does not show off. It fits. It lasts. And it respects the home it enters.
That is what we wanted to build.
Not just a better RO. But an appliance people don’t need to hide.