Designed to be like an Amazon Echo Show but in the shape of an Amazon Echo, Royole’s new Mirage smart speaker tries to integrate flexible displays into smart speakers. The Mirage is a cylindrically shaped smart-speaker (with a floating halo) that responds to Amazon’s Alexa, but the most noticeable element about it is the screen that envelops nearly half the device, wrapping around from side to side. Royole’s always been an advocate of flexible electronics, with a folding tablet, phone, and even keyboard in its catalog of products. The Mirage adds itself to that list with the flexible display, which provides a new way of showcasing information that your smart speaker relays to you.

You talk to the Mirage just the way you’d talk to any other speaker… except when you ask it the weather, it shows you the weather in a graphical format on its wrap-around 7.8-inch AMOLED screen. Ask it to play a video and it does that too, except making it mildly inconvenient because of the curved nature of the display. It seems more of a gimmick than a feature really, and apart from the fact that it could possibly have some really cool visualizations display on it as it plays back music, Royole still needs to define a clear purpose for the Mirage other than the fact that it’s possible to make a smart-speaker with a curved screen on it. Unlike the Amazon Echo Show, the Mirage doesn’t do video calls either, so that definitely leaves a LOT to be desired considering the speaker retails for a cool $899. You’d honestly be better off buying a JBL Pulse 4 for almost a third of the price.

Designer: Royole