That sounds great!
Current problems for people
There’s a war going on in the living rooms of the world – the never ending battle between home electronics and interior design. It might be the huge TV that really doesn’t work with the nice old cupboard, or maybe the heaps of cables that for some reason needs to connect to our stereo system. Just making it all connect in the right way is tricky enough. Making it blend in often feels impossible unless we would build it into our walls. The thing is, hiding stuff behind walls is both expensive and difficult, and a lot of people actually want their hi-fi stuff to be visible. So we realized there are some improvements that should be made to this situation, and set out to meet the three following issues:
• People want music to sound good. How can we let the music equipment blend in nicely, while still be proudly perceived as high tech?
• These days people keep music in many different digital places. How can we allow people to play it without hassle or cables everywhere?
• Electronic waste is a huge environmental problem. How can we design something that doesn’t add to that huge landfill?
This speaker tries to answer all of the questions above.
How we designed it for people
The transparent design lets the speaker blend in to any living room out there. The size can be big enough to offer a good sound quality, yet the speaker takes little visible space. The box is transparent, but the sound creating components are clearly emphasized.
Usability
The speakers come with a small wifi antenna, that can plug in to any computer, music player or smart phone out there. It will also work for old stereos or vinyl equipment. The aim is to set the music free regardless where it’s stored.
Rechargeable WiFi antenna that plugs into any headphone socket
Sustainability
Being big is good for sound quality, but not so good for shipping. Any other speaker will ship a lot of air around the globe before ending up in your living room. This speaker ships in a small, flat package that goes in through your mailbox. The glass sheets making up the box is being ordered through the glass repair shop closest to every single customer. In that way the speaker reduces shipping with up to 90%, and supports local handicraft in one go. A very economical and ecological solution.
The speaker is then assembled at home, IKEA style. This also means that the components that breaks first (the rubber ring and the speaker cone) can be easily replaced, keeping the product away from any landfill.
A well established definition of sustainability is to satisfy the needs of people, planet and profit. Our speaker design tries to accomplish exactly that. Sounds great doesn’t it?
Update with some info: The speaker is still under development, and not available for purchase yet. If you are interested you can drop a mail to speaker[a]peoplepeople.se and we will keep you posted on the progress. Thanks! /Per
Image courtesy of convoy.tumblr.com
Keywords: electronic waste, glass, interior design, speaker, WiFi-speaker, wireless
