Tag Archives: home speaker

A Detachable Kitchen Speaker that Adapts to Your Needs as a Host

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Music has always been an integral part of human gatherings and social events. Whether it’s hosting a backyard barbecue, having friends over for dinner, or simply enjoying a relaxing evening with loved ones, music sets the mood and brings people together. However, finding the right speaker that seamlessly adapts to different situations has been a challenge for many homeowners. That’s where CHORD, the innovative kitchen speaker, steps in to address these common problems and provide a delightful audio experience.

Designer: Alexander Marovec

One common issue faced by hosts during parties or gatherings is the struggle to fill the room with sound while still maintaining a comfortable volume for conversations. Traditional speakers often force hosts to crank up the volume, resulting in a loud area near the speaker and reduced audio quality in the far corners of the room. This problem has been a constant hindrance to creating a vibrant and enjoyable atmosphere for guests.

When it comes to choosing a speaker for our home, we usually have several key values in mind. Flexibility ranks high on the list, as people desire a speaker that can be easily moved around and set up in different areas of their backyard or home to ensure high-quality sound throughout the property.

Convenience is another crucial factor, as hosts seek a speaker that effortlessly connects to and plays their music without any hassles. Moreover, homeowners want a high-quality speaker that delivers exceptional sound, ensuring that their guests and themselves can enjoy the music while cooking or conversing.

Aesthetics play a significant role too. Many homeowners desire an at-home speaker that not only provides fantastic audio but also complements their interior décor, making it both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

Currently, the market lacks a speaker that offers the perfect blend of flexibility for parties and the consistent performance needed for a good home-based speaker. This presents a golden opportunity for an innovative solution that enhances the food preparation and party hosting experience.

CHORD is a revolutionary kitchen speaker designed to cater to all the needs and values of modern homeowners. It aims to provide an unparalleled audio experience that adapts effortlessly to different situations, making it a must-have addition to any household.

With CHORD, controlling your music has never been easier. You can effortlessly connect your devices through Bluetooth, and for added convenience, there’s an e-ink display on top of the device, allowing for intuitive and user-friendly interactions. The e-ink display offers several advantages, including low power consumption, easy readability, high visibility even in bright light, and the ability to hold an image without power. This ensures reduced eye strain and fatigue, as well as sharp text and high contrast for improved readability.

Moreover, CHORD’s main speaker is portable and lives within the speaker tower, providing a mobile sound option that can be easily moved around. This allows you to take the music wherever you go, be it in the kitchen, the backyard, or even another room.

CHORD features cutting-edge inductive wireless charging technology, eliminating the hassle of dealing with tangled cords and making it incredibly convenient to charge the speaker tower. With an impressive battery life of 8 hours, CHORD ensures that the music keeps playing throughout the party.

Designed with a fold-up portable handle, CHORD can be carried around effortlessly, making it the perfect companion for outdoor activities or spontaneous gatherings. Additionally, the speaker offers a 30ft Bluetooth 5.0 range, allowing you to connect your devices with ease and control your music from a distance.

CHORD understands the importance of maintaining the right volume balance. With separate volume controls, you can easily adjust the sound output according to your preferences and the setting of the party.

Furthermore, CHORD supports multi-room music, enabling you to have synchronized audio playback in different areas of your home. This feature allows you to set up multiple CHORD speakers throughout the house, creating an immersive audio experience for all your guests.

CHORD comes in three stylish colors – matcha foam, blueberry mousse, and whipped cream – designed to complement your kitchen’s taste and interior décor. It blends seamlessly with your surroundings, adding a touch of elegance and modernity to your living space.

CHORD has set out to redefine the concept of kitchen speakers, addressing the common problems faced by hosts and homeowners. With its adaptability, ease of use, high-quality sound, and aesthetic appeal, CHORD stands as the ultimate solution for anyone looking to elevate their music experience in both indoor and outdoor settings.

Experience the convenience, flexibility, and superb audio quality that CHORD offers – the adaptable kitchen speaker that reimagines how you enjoy music in your home.

The post A Detachable Kitchen Speaker that Adapts to Your Needs as a Host first appeared on Yanko Design.

Puppy-inspired speaker concept to help elderly communicate with loved ones

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Depending on which part of the world you live in, elderly or senior citizens living on their own may either be an uncommon occurrence or a growing problem. If you live somewhere where the latter is becoming more prevalent, you may also see several products that are now trying to solve the problem of alienation and loneliness that comes from older people living alone. There are of course the usual gadgets like smartphones and tablets but there may be some limitations to those for the elderly.

Designer: YoungEun Ahn

The Puppimily is a touch screen speaker that uses Artificial Intelligence to help out those who may have some visual and aural difficulties because of their age. But it’s more important purpose is to help the elderly deal with the psychological issues of living alone by connecting them with loved ones through the device. The design of the speaker is that of a puppy as both the word and the animal itself evokes a certain comfort and warmth with the name itself a mix of puppy and family.

The main colors of the device are black and white with the colors coming into the display and representing the different interactions that the user may have. There is also a character that can help express the different emotions from the user. LED lights and the movements of the speakers’ ears may be used to indicate certain emotions or indicators like yellow for notifications, blue to indicate that they are listening, etc. The monitor can move 360 degrees from left to right and 60 degrees from top to bottom.

The icons shown in the display are intuitive and easy to understand and there are no more than five icons at a time to avoid confusion. There are also very few buttons to make it more user-friendly for the elderly. There are only three in the body: up, down, and the power button. The device uses intuitive visuals, text using voice recognition, voice recording, and other AI-powered functions that will help lessen the burden of being on screens too much. But on times when you need to do video calls, you can do so on a wide screen with other intuitive elements added.

I don’t know if we really do need another gadget to add to the one million ones in the market but this concept does have a different market in mind. The smallish screen based on the renders may be a deterrent to elderly people’s use since they prefer to have a bigger screen so maybe if it does become an actual product, this is something they can improve on.

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OLi Home proves again less is more even in speaker design

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OLi Home Features

Speaker technology has not peaked yet as there is more room for improvement. We can probably say technology is at the point where we can just work on innovations, style, software, and design. Of course, customer demand must be met by brands. The prices of the speakers should be more affordable, but for those interested in design, there are still plenty of things to do and explore.

For OLi Home, it aims to improve the audio listening experience by coming up with a speaker that offers excellent sound quality. It is possible by directing and projecting sound from an optimal height and location. In addition, the brand’s designer believes furniture can be part of the home, so it conceptualized the OLi Speaker looking like a furniture item.

Designer: Joshua Han

OLi Home Concept

The OLi Speaker features different materials that can blend and match your home interiors. According to the designer, there’s a combination of wood, fabric, and matte color that can harmonize with other furniture and home surroundings. Joshua Han is the same guy who introduced to us the Solo Headset and the Teledining Table.

Judging from Han’s previous creations, he provides solutions to common problems that others think may seem trivial. The Solo Headset can make capturing videos easier by just wearing the video camera on your head. The Teledining Table is another practical innovation we never knew we’d be needing during the pandemic. As for the OLi Speaker, it solves the problem of trying to figure out where to position your speaker to match your home.

OLi Home

OLi Home Details

There are other beautifully-designed home speakers in the market today. This OLi Speaker is attractive but not in an overwhelming way. It has a clean design, making it minimalist even with colorful options. It looks retro-modern, looking like a lamp, especially with the nostalgic pull switch.

OLi Home Speaker

The OLi comes with a simple look—providing less interface and more experience. There are no buttons or displays here because you have to connect a smartphone for the controls. The pull switch is to be used only for power as with lamps or wall and ceiling fans.

OLi Home Design

The main speaker is oblong-shaped similar to Dyson electric fans. It appears the build is plastic while the speaker area is covered by fabric. The stand and the pull switch are made of wood. We don’t see any cable, but a hole in the rear could be a port for charging.

OLi Home Conceptual Speaker

OLi Home Speaker Concept

OLi Home Speaker System

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Blooming Product is a speaker vase and a flower subscription service to beautify your home

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Most of the time, I would like my speakers to look like actual speakers. But there are also times when I want them to be part of my living room decorations and not stand out so much. I’d want the smart speaker to still do what it needs to do like play music and answer my questions but also be either decorative or hidden in plain sight. This product concept can do both and maybe a bit more as it’s a speaker, a vase, and also gives you a flower subscription.

Designer: Yeongseok Go

The Blooming Product line is supposed to make ordinary things more important to us instead of being just forgotten or neglected even if they’re just there in front of us. The first in the concept product line is a vase that doubles as a speaker or a speaker that doubles as a vase, depending on how you look at it. It looks like a vase with a charging base and from the product renders, you can actually put water in it to keep flowers fresh. I don’t know how that will work in terms of water and electricity though.

What makes the concept of Blooming Product even more special is that it comes with a flower subscription service. This means that you’ll get fresh flowers every month or season so you’ll be able to replace the flowers in the speaker vase every once in a while. Just like with other subscription services, you won’t know what kind of flowers you’ll be receiving so every box that comes in will be a surprise which is good news for those that love surprises.

Since you’re getting fresh flowers every so often, this also means that you’ll be continuously “caring” for your speaker. Although if you use it often for listening to music or as a smart assistant, then you probably are not “neglecting” it anyway. But at least you get to empty the water out and then arrange the flowers that you receive to your liking and in the process, check on your speaker as well.

Design-wise, the vase speaker isn’t something extraordinary but it’s most likely the flowers that will give it the extra factor. I’m not that great when it comes to taking care of living things, including flowers, so I’m not sure if this is something I’d actually want. But for those with green thumbs or those that want to regularly have flowers in their home, then the Blooming Product may be something to appeal to you.

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Brionvega Totem rr231 stereo system transforms from minimalist art piece to functional audio machine

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Even audiophiles might not be listening to music all day, so this modern take on a 70s audio system transforms into a piece of minimalist room decor when not in use.

As with almost everything in design, fashion, and culture in general, there has been a revival in interest and sales of vinyl records. Those naturally required the production of equipment that could play that old-school media and even recreated the little flaws that made them sound unique. Many modern turntables, however, are pretty basic and try to also recreate the look of their predecessors a bit too faithfully. One company, however, took inspiration from a design that was already way ahead of its time when it came out decades ago, reviving a stereo system that blends form and function in a truly unique way.

Designer: Mario Bellini (via Brionvega)

When famed Italian designer Mario Bellini created the original Totem rr231 back in 1971, he was already thinking outside the box, literally and figuratively. In contrast to the turntable designs of that period, Bellini included speakers to create a fully integrated and independent audio system. But rather than just create a set of separate pieces, the designer created a single piece that embraced minimalism ahead of current design trends.

In its “dormant” state, the Totem rr231 deceptively looks like a simple white cube with seems that run across its width and down the middle. Those seams, however, give way to two speakers, each with a two-and-a-half-way system, that swing out like the wings of a futuristic machine. Those speakers can actually be separated from the main body and positioned in other parts of the room to fill it with your favorite tunes.

The rest of the box houses the ProJect turntable and a set of buttons and dials that match the minimalist aesthetic of the Totem rr231. Unlike the original, this modern-day version naturally embraces current audio technologies, including Bluetooth connection for streaming from mobile devices. In more ways than one, Brionvega’s recreation blends the past and the present in a deceptively simple design.

Admittedly, the Brionvega Totem rr231 requires a bit more physical work to use, especially if you keep it closed in its box form. Of course, that has the benefit of having a minimalist piece of art in the room at no extra cost, but that user participation in opening the box also creates a sort of “ritual” that makes the act of listening to music more personal and, in a way, more human.

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This portable home speaker is a sculptural design that rocks a very Dyson-like aesthetic!

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Reminiscent of a Dyson fan, Stelae is a portable home speaker designed to deliver quality audio through a technical build that could be mistaken for a piece of sculptural artwork on your coffee table.

Home speakers have a reputation for looking too high-tech to fit into modern living rooms. When placed beside gleaming photo frames and metallic light fixtures, the wires and bulky build of speakers take away from an otherwise clean, minimal interior design. Merging an abstract sculptural look with a metallic chrome finish, Stalae is a portable home speaker designed by Lucis Ceng to bring the subtle taste of sculptural work to electronic design.

While Stelae’s physical build is reminiscent of a Dyson fan’s, the inspiration for Stelae’s distinct form stems from sculpture work. Standing out from other home entertainment systems, Stelae’s speaker plumes from its circular base into the shape of a feather for a slim design that doesn’t take up too much room on the coffee table. The long tube-like portion of Stelae is also lined with four woofers.

Portable by design, Stelae comes with a wire for at-home charging but can also be run on its charged battery for wireless listening. The vertical control panel of Stelae is located at the top of the speaker, equipped with volume and play buttons, users can also connect to Bluetooth and turn the speaker on and off from the control panel. Along the outer edges of Stelae’s circular base, users can find the speaker’s USB type-c ports to connect their own smartphones and control the music from there.

While speakers are generally seen as bulky electronic hardware, Stelae looks to sculpture work to solidify itself as a statement interior design product, seamlessly blending in with other artwork around the house. Since Stelae is also portable, the artful design can be taken anywhere – from the beach to the streets.

Designer: Lucis Ceng

Inspired by sculptural artwork, Stelae has an appealing and distinct design.

The transparent tube-like portion of Stelae houses the speaker’s woofers.

Finished in chrome, Stelae merges sculptural artwork with electronic tech design.