The year 1926 has gone down in history as the year of the first big crisis in the automobile industry. In order to remain competitive, existing Bosch products had to become cheaper. But it was essential, above all, to develop new products. One day, remembers development assistant Hermann Heidenreich, Robert Bosch came to see the head of the construction department, Hermann Steinhart, and said: "Mr Steinhart, we need other products to keep our production lines running!" Whereupon Steinhart showed Bosch a handy electric hair-trimmer. This device had been brought to him by Ernst Eisemann, founder of the company of the same name taken over by Bosch some years before. Eisemann was a gadgeteer who had designed and built this little machine in his own workshop. The handle of the machine contained a little electric drive motor, a considerable improvement on the traditional hair-trimmers with suspended motors and flexible shafts. Steinhart had, however, criticized the inadequate electrical safety of the device. When Bosch had looked at the machine, he immediately commissioned Steinhart to develop the device further. In a very short time it was then possible to present a marketable product. Resitex was used for the casing, an unbreakable plastic which had already been used in many products made at the Bosch Isolith factory. The motor was worked over once more and provided with double insulation. In 1928, it was possible to present the new hair-trimmer to potential customers under the trade name "FORFEX". Manufacture and distribution of the machine were undertaken by the Bosch subsidiary Eisemann, though the motors themselves were made by Bosch.

A few years later Steinhart’s men developed the first Bosch power tools with the electric drive motor in its handle, nowadays known all over the world.