Tag Archives: bluetooth speakers

Teenage Engineering’s EP-35 Amp Has a Hidden Cable Compartment

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The back of Teenage Engineering’s EP-35 opens to reveal a compartment for cables and accessories. It’s a wonderfully unglamorous feature to put on a music gadget. An amp can look perfectly composed in a product photo, but taking it anywhere means figuring out where the supporting cast goes. Giving those loose pieces a home inside the speaker feels like an acknowledgment of how people actually use their equipment.

That practical streak extends beyond storage. Listed for sale at $399, the EP-35 combines a portable speaker, an instrument amplifier, and a USB audio interface. It accepts guitar, microphone, line-level, Bluetooth, and USB audio, with multiple sources able to play together. The problem it addresses is straightforward: playing guitar over a backing track, or adding vocals, shouldn’t require assembling a small equipment department. Here, those connections meet in one box.

Designer: Teenage Engineering

Visually, the EP-35 has the charm of equipment that might belong in a very stylish school science lab. Its gray body, square grille, integrated handle, and orange accents are deliberately matter-of-fact. I like that the speaker drivers remain visible behind the grid. They give the front a slightly awkward, almost characterful expression. Nothing about the proportions suggests an object desperate to disappear into your decor, which is part of its appeal.

The controls make a similar impression. There are physical dials for choosing effects and adjusting their intensity, with eight presets each for guitar and microphone. That’s an approachable arrangement: select a sound, turn a control, hear what changes. I’d rather see that direct relationship on something intended for casual playing than a screen full of options. The microphone effects even include presets called “robo choir” and “frog,” which gives you a fair idea of the intended mood.

The USB audio interface is less visually entertaining but potentially more useful. Connect the EP-35 to a computer and it can serve as a recording interface, giving the same object a role at a desk after it comes home. That continuity makes sense to me. A portable device earns its shelf space more easily when it doesn’t become redundant the moment you’re near a power outlet and a laptop.

Inside the storage compartment, Teenage Engineering has also included a small camp light. It can illuminate the compartment automatically when opened, stay on, or react to incoming audio in disco mode. Tilting the speaker backward makes those LEDs display the battery level. Some of this is useful, some is cheerfully unnecessary. I’m happy with that balance. Checking a battery through a small physical gesture is a more memorable interaction than another tiny percentage readout.

Portability does need a little perspective, though. At about seven pounds, the EP-35 is something you carry by its handle, not casually toss into a small shoulder bag. Teenage Engineering rates battery life at 12 hours with the volume set to five, so that figure shouldn’t be treated as an all-day guarantee at any loudness. It’s also splash-resistant rather than waterproof. Those distinctions matter if the appealing camp light has you mentally packing it for a weekend outdoors.

There’s room to expand the setup, too. Two EP-35s can play Bluetooth audio in stereo through broadcast mode. Teenage Engineering’s instructions let you assign left and right channels by tilting each speaker before starting that mode. Connected instruments take a different route: linking their sound between speakers requires a line-out-to-line-in cable. That’s worth understanding before imagining a completely wireless mini stage. The wireless convenience applies specifically to Bluetooth playback.

For me, the $399 price makes the most sense if those musical connections will get regular use. Someone who only wants background listening would be paying for considerable capability they might never touch. Sound quality still needs a listening test; clever packaging can’t settle that question. But I appreciate the attention paid to what happens between sessions. The music stops, the cables come out, and the EP-35 gives you somewhere to put them. That’s a modest design decision with a very recognizable payoff.

The post Teenage Engineering’s EP-35 Amp Has a Hidden Cable Compartment first appeared on Yanko Design.

Xiaomi Built a $29 Speaker That Snaps to Your Phone and Stands It Up

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The compact Bluetooth speaker category has been fighting the same battle for years. Every new entry promises to be louder than your phone, smaller than a can of soda, and tough enough to survive a bag. Most deliver on those basics reasonably well, and most of them occupy the same category of objects that you put next to your phone rather than on it. That distinction tends to go unexamined, and it’s the one Xiaomi decided to question with its latest accessory.

The Xiaomi Bluetooth Speaker Magnetic Edition attaches directly to the back of a smartphone. The connection is magnetic, and a built-in Hall sensor detects the moment it locks on, triggering the speaker to power on automatically. No button to find, no pairing ritual to repeat. You put it against your phone and it starts. Pull it off and it stops. The whole interaction is designed to be immediate enough that the speaker stops feeling like an accessory and starts feeling like part of the phone itself.

Designer: Xiaomi

The stand function is the idea that makes this more than a magnet trick. Rather than simply hanging on the back while the phone lies flat, the speaker’s base props the phone upright at a comfortable viewing angle. That solves two things at once: you get a better listening experience than the phone’s own speaker provides, and you get a hands-free viewing position without hunting for a stand or balancing the phone against something that will slide the moment you look away.

The audio hardware is modest by design. A 1.5-inch full-range driver running at 3W isn’t built for a living room, and the 200Hz to 20kHz frequency response tells you this is tuned for clear, near-field playback rather than bass-heavy output. For someone cooking in the kitchen and wanting to follow a video without holding their phone, or listening at a desk without headphones, that kind of output is exactly right. The speaker isn’t competing with a dedicated tabletop Bluetooth speaker; it’s competing with a phone’s built-in speaker, and that bar it clears comfortably.

RGB lighting rings the base of the speaker and syncs its colors to the audio playing, adding some visual presence in lower light and keeping the device from reading as purely utilitarian when it’s sitting on a desk as a stand. The 650mAh battery powers the speaker independently from the phone’s own charge. Bluetooth 6.0 handles the wireless connection with AAC and SBC codec support, and the pairing typically carries over automatically each time the speaker is magnetically attached.

Two color options are available, with dark gray confirmed. Priced at 132 yuan during the Xiaomi Youpin launch period, with a suggested retail price of 199 yuan, roughly $29 or €25, it sits in a price range where the two-in-one premise doesn’t need to be flawless to be worth trying. That’s a meaningful advantage for an accessory built around a function that most people are currently meeting with improvised solutions anyway.

Most desk setups already include an accidental phone prop. A charging pad, a book corner, a keyboard edge, something doing the job that wasn’t designed for it. The Xiaomi speaker makes the argument that the prop might as well be a speaker too, and that at this size and price, consolidating both into one small object costs nothing in practicality and improves the experience every time you sit down to watch something, take a call, or simply want your hands back.

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One Speaker, 10 Drivers, 400 Watts: DALI’s Vega Changes the Game

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The audio world has always had a bit of a hoarding problem. Amplifiers, preamps, turntables, towers, subwoofers, cables that cost more than a weekend trip. The traditional hi-fi setup has never been known for its minimalism. It’s a rabbit hole, and a beautiful one at that, but a rabbit hole nonetheless. So when a 43-year-old Danish speaker company decides to put everything into a single box and call it done, it’s worth paying attention. That’s exactly what DALI did with the Vega, and I’ll say upfront: I didn’t expect to be as interested in it as I am.

The Vega is an all-in-one wireless sound system built from the ground up. Drivers, amplification, DSP control, all of it developed in-house. The result is a single unit that sits in your room like a piece of furniture and quietly does the work of an entire rack of equipment. It packs 10 drivers into its slim 683mm-wide enclosure, including ultra-light 25mm soft dome tweeters and bass-midrange drivers arranged back-to-back to minimize cabinet resonance. Total amplification lands at 400 watts across eight channels. For a single speaker, those are serious numbers.

Designer: DALI Speakers

What makes the Vega interesting beyond the specs is how it actually approaches the problem of sound in a room. DALI developed a proprietary technology called Adaptive Stereo Enhancement (ASE), which creates a wide soundstage from a single unit in real time. It’s not a gimmick simulation of stereo. It’s an adaptive system that reads the incoming signal and responds accordingly, without introducing the artificial artifacts that can make these kinds of technologies feel forced. Whether it fully delivers on that promise is something we’ll have to wait until it reaches more listening rooms to confirm, but the approach itself is genuinely thoughtful.

Then there’s the Adaptive Orientation Adjustment (AOA), which automatically optimizes the speaker’s output based on how you’ve placed it. Standing upright on a shelf, mounted flat against a wall in landscape, hung vertically in portrait. The Vega adjusts in real time for each scenario. It even includes an OLED display that rotates with the unit’s orientation. That’s the kind of considered detail that separates a product designed by people who actually care from one that was designed by committee to hit a price point.

And speaking of price points: $4,500 USD is not a casual purchase. I won’t pretend otherwise. But when you start comparing it to the cost of assembling a proper separates setup at equivalent quality, the math starts to look different. A decent amplifier, a quality streamer, a pair of speakers at this level, the cables to connect them all. It adds up fast. The Vega consolidates all of that into one device, one box, one cable to a power outlet.

Aesthetically, DALI made choices I genuinely respect. Real wood veneer in Dark Oak or Natural Oak, anodized aluminium details, custom woven fabric. It looks more like something you’d find in a well-appointed Scandinavian living room than a piece of audio equipment. The volume wheel alone is its own small obsession: glass, acrylic, and anodized aluminium riding on an aerospace-grade ball-bearing mechanism. That’s not a specification; that’s a tactile experience someone designed on purpose.

Connectivity is thorough without being overwhelming. BluOS handles streaming and multi-room audio. HDMI, optical, analogue, USB audio, and Bluetooth cover wired sources. Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, and Apple AirPlay 2 round out the wireless side. You can plug in a turntable or connect a TV, and the Vega handles both within the same system.

The Vega launches in select markets in September 2026, with broader availability following in October and November. Whether the hi-fi world embraces it or resists it on principle is a conversation that will be had loudly in forums and listening rooms for months. But the idea at its core, that great sound shouldn’t require great complexity, is one that’s long overdue for a proper answer. DALI’s version of that answer is elegant, ambitious, and a little bit expensive. Most good answers are.

The post One Speaker, 10 Drivers, 400 Watts: DALI’s Vega Changes the Game first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Tiny Sunrise Alarm Clock Replaced My Phone, My Lamp, and My White Noise Machine

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Imagine a small coastal diorama sitting on your nightstand, a sculpted seascape of rocky shores and a lone sailboat frozen in miniature, and then imagine it coming to life every morning as warm amber light builds from nothing inside it, flooding the scene like a real sun cresting the horizon. That single image is enough to explain why the sunrise alarm clock category has been waiting for something like the SOLUME Sunrise Wake Light for a long time. The science behind it has been settled for decades: circadian rhythm research consistently shows that graduated light exposure at dawn regulates cortisol and melatonin in a way that leaves you alert without the cortisol spike of an acoustic alarm, the kind evolution wired us to associate with immediate physical threat. SOLUME takes that research and builds a product around it that you actually want on your nightstand.

The enclosure uses a wood-grain finish with a wedge-shaped profile, housing that sculpted coastal scene behind an angled opening that glows through warm amber and orange during the sunrise sequence. A fabric-wrapped base below carries a clean LED clock display, a Bluetooth speaker, and controls for 12 built-in nature sounds and programmable sunset timers at 45 or 90 minutes, handling both ends of the sleep equation in a single object. Designed in the United States and grounded in over 35 years of phototherapy research, the SOLUME packages serious sleep science into something that reads, at a glance, more like a piece of tabletop art than a wellness gadget. The Philips Wake-Up Light held this category for two decades on function alone; SOLUME is making the same argument with considerably better aesthetics.

Designer: Solume

Traditional sunrise clocks solve the light therapy problem with a bare bulb behind a diffuser panel, which works but leaves nothing interesting to look at during the wind-down phase. SOLUME’s sculpted seascape gives the light somewhere to live, so as the sunset timer counts down in the evening, the amber glow retreating across those miniature rock formations actually mimics the quality of late golden-hour light in a way a flat panel never could. It turns a passive light source into something with depth, shadow, and a bit of theatre, which matters more than it sounds when you’re staring at it from a pillow for 45 minutes waiting to fall asleep.

Pairing your phone over Bluetooth means your usual sleep playlist or podcast winds down alongside the fading light, both cues working together rather than competing. The 12 built-in nature sounds cover the expected ground, rain, ocean, forest, and serve well enough for nights when reaching for your phone feels like too much friction. The fabric grille housing the speaker also does quiet acoustic work, softening the clock display’s LED glow so it reads cleanly without punching through a dark room at 3am.

Most sleep gadgets optimize for one end of the night or the other, a sunrise clock wakes you up, a sound machine helps you fall asleep, and never quite reckon with the fact that these are two halves of the same problem. SOLUME treats the full cycle as a single design brief, which is the right call, and the hardware reflects that clarity. The Classic and Pro versions sit at $68 and $75 respectively, with the Pro adding a handful of premium features for the small premium. For a device that credibly replaces your alarm clock, your bedside lamp, and your white noise machine simultaneously, that math works out fairly cleanly.

The post This Tiny Sunrise Alarm Clock Replaced My Phone, My Lamp, and My White Noise Machine first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Zipper Is the Button. Finally.

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We’re used to devices and gadgets that have all complicated buttons and controls. But what if it wasn’t that way always? The gesture is almost embarrassingly simple. Pull a zipper open and sound plays. Pull it shut and the room goes quiet. No tapping a screen, no asking a voice assistant, no hunting for a button that somehow always ends up on the wrong side of the device. Just the same physical action you’ve been doing since you were old enough to dress yourself.

That’s the entire premise of ZIP, a concept speaker designed by Korean designers Taeyang Kim, Dugyeong Lee, Yejin Na, and Gijeong Shin. It’s one of those ideas that, once you see it, makes you wonder why it took this long. The concept draws directly from the universal expression “zip your lips,” mapping the act of silencing onto the most tactile and satisfying closure mechanism we use in everyday life. The zipper isn’t decorative here. It isn’t a style nod or an ironic wink. It is the interface. And that commitment is what makes ZIP genuinely interesting rather than just aesthetically clever.

Designers: Taeyang Kim, Dugyeong Lee, Yejin Na, gijeong Shin

Physically, the object is composed and self-assured. A compact rectangular body in brushed silver aluminum sits below a band of dark fabric bisected by a metal zipper, the kind of heavy-duty hardware you’d find on a quality jacket, not a flimsy fashion detail. The lower half houses the speaker grille: a grid of evenly punched dots that reads like something out of a Dieter Rams archive, which is very much a compliment. The visual language is minimal without being cold, functional without being dull. It looks equally at home on a credenza beside art books and on a desk next to a keyboard.

The prototype photos on Behance pull off something a lot of design projects fail to do: they make you feel the weight of the thing. The exploded component layout is especially good. You can see the actual speaker driver, the PCB, the battery, the zipper hardware, all laid out like a dissected argument for why this object should exist. It’s a working prototype, not a render, and that matters. Renders are promises. A functioning prototype is a proof.

What I keep coming back to is the conceptual integrity. A lot of tech and industrial design right now is obsessed with reducing interfaces to nothing: invisible touch surfaces, gesture sensing, proximity triggers. The instinct is understandable, but there’s a real cost to removing physicality from control. You lose feedback. You lose certainty. You lose the tiny neurological satisfaction of knowing you actually did a thing. ZIP goes in a different direction by betting that a familiar mechanical action can carry more meaning than a capacitive button ever will.

The “zip your lips” metaphor also does something a lot of design thinking misses. It’s cross-cultural in its clarity. You don’t need to read a manual to understand what zipping something shut means in relation to silence. The designers describe it as proposing “a new interface that controls sound, inspired by the gesture of closing your mouth.” That isn’t just product language. It’s a considered philosophical position on what intuitive design actually means. Intuitive doesn’t mean invisible. It means immediately understood.

The styling throughout the Behance project reinforces this with a dry, confident visual wit. The image of someone holding the zipper module over their mouth says everything the project text says, but in about half a second. It’s the kind of visual shorthand that designers spend entire careers trying to achieve.

Whether ZIP ever becomes a commercially available product is, frankly, beside the point right now. What it demonstrates is a design team that understands the difference between novelty and concept. Novelty fades. Concept compounds. And the concept here, that the best interface is the one that already lives in muscle memory, is solid enough to carry a lot more than a speaker. It’s rare to look at a design concept and feel like the people behind it already know something important. ZIP is that kind of rare.

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