Does PRISM+ actually design its own products? The Straits Times went into our labs to find out.

What actually goes into a PRISM+ product?

It is a fair question, and one we hear often. If a brand does not own a factory, how much of the product is really its own?

That was the question The Straits Times set out to answer when correspondent Yamini Chinnuswamy spent time with our team in July 2026. She visited the test labs next door to our Ubi headquarters, met some of the 16-person product development team that spends up to a year prototyping each new product, and looked closely at how the Solaris Pro laundry rack went from a list of everyday frustrations to a Singapore Good Design (SG Mark) Award 2026 winner.

The story covers the parts of the business you do not usually see, and something we don't often talk about. Why we built offline voice control so a grandparent or a helper can operate a drying rack without an app. Why we service and warranty our own air-conditioners instead of passing you between a retailer, a brand and an installer. And what ClimateSync, launching later this year, will do when your air-conditioner and ceiling fan start working as one system instead of two.

It is behind-the-scenes work that admittedly we've been too quiet about, but we're ready to show how Singaporean brands can also innovate by focusing on localised lifestyle issues faced by consumers, even with access to lesser resources.

See the product that started the conversation

The Solaris Pro was built around a simple observation: clothes in the middle of a drying rack take the longest to dry, because most racks vent from the ends. So we ran the ventilation edge to edge, worked with our fan supplier for the fastest motor that still fit the form factor, and added offline voice control so anyone in the household can use it without an app or a smart home setup.

It won the Singapore Good Design (SG Mark) Award 2026, under the Product Design category in July. You can see it in person at any PRISM+ store, or take a closer look here.

Explore the Solaris Pro

For the full story, read The Straits Times article.