I’m sure that there’s a non-zero percentage of people who saw the first HomePod and were reminded of the paper lanterns that decorate each house during Chinese festivals. These lanterns use a thin crepe paper, joined at intervals to create a diamond-shaped honeycomb pattern not too different from the one seen on Apple’s HomePod, albeit at a much smaller scale. Designer Shengtao Ma saw this as an opportunity to more deliberately design a speaker that pays a hat-tip to tradition. The Sirocco Speaker is a slim audio unit with a decorative cover that tributes the lanterns seen in Chinese culture. The speaker’s cover folds open and close just like the lantern, attaching around the speaker’s slender stem-shaped design. The result is something that’s sculptural yet functional, with a cover that can be changed on demand, and a tactile knob on the bottom for controlling the speaker’s volume.

Designer: Shengtao Ma

The Sirocco Speaker comes in multiple shapes and sizes, resembling the traditional lantern seen in Chinese and other Asian cultures

Shengtao Ma makes a case that the speaker’s foldable outer structure plays a role in amplifying the sound. The speaker itself is a slim, vertical number, but the different diamond-shaped elements act as acoustic chambers, helping channel and amplify the audio much like cupping your hands around your mouth. Whether this theory works in reality is yet to be determined, but the concept secured an A’ Design Award this year.

“This speaker further conducts and diffuses sound through its unique honeycomb structure design, thereby further enhancing the user’s experience and music quality. This speaker is foldable. The speaker’s shell is stowable and modular, and comes with a variety of shell shapes that can be replaced at any time according to the user’s mood and home environment,” Shengtao says. “The foldable honeycomb structure at the upper end can be assembled and disassembled by rotation, making it easy to replace, store, and clean.”

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No it isn’t a neck pillow, and it isn’t even one of those wearable air conditioners, the BRAVIA Theater U is – wait for it… a neckphone. Sort of like a headphone but not placed on your head, the Theater U is Sony’s alternative to booming soundbars and complicated home theater setups. If speakers are for human ears to listen to, why not just directly place them near your ears to begin with? The Theater U immerses you in 360° spatial sound without immersing your entire house. Wear it around your neck, pair it with a device using either a cable or Bluetooth, and the Theater U brings great audio to your ears without blocking the entire world out. Moreover, you can pair multiple neck-speakers to the same playback device like your TV, so that more than one person can listen to a movie or TV show at any given point in time.

Designer: Sony

This isn’t the first attempt at a neckband speaker, but Sony is incorporating its latest tech to create a compelling option. The key feature is Sony’s X-Balanced speaker unit, housed in a lightweight and flexible design. This unit promises clear acoustics and powerful sound pressure for a rich and satisfying listening experience.

But the real magic lies in the 360 Spatial Sound Personalizer. This tech, combined with compatible BRAVIA TVs, creates a customized Dolby Atmos experience. Essentially, the speaker tailors the sound to your unique head shape for a truly immersive effect. It’s like having a personal mini home theater draped around your neck. Given its proximity to your ears, you don’t need to crank up the volume to hear sounds the way you would an actual speaker system – this means fairly personal listening that won’t disturb anyone else beyond a certain radius.

The BRAVIA Theater U’s versatility extends well beyond movie nights. With an IPX4 splash-proof rating, you can wear it worry-free during light workouts or even take it poolside (just be mindful of splashes). Built-in voice pickup technology ensures clear communication during calls, making it a handy companion for work-from-home video conferences.

The speaker boasts Bluetooth connectivity for seamless pairing with various devices, not just your BRAVIA TV. Think laptops, tablets, and smartphones – you can use it for gaming, listening to music, or watching videos on the go. And for those who want to share the immersive experience, the Speaker Add function lets you connect another BRAVIA Theater U for a synchronized audio experience with a friend.

Battery life is a respectable 12 hours on a single charge, with a quick-charge function that delivers an hour of playback with just a 10-minute plug-in. This makes it ideal for extended movie marathons or long commutes.

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Stepping into the highly competitive personal audio market, Sonos launches the Ace, their first over-ear headphones. In a landscape dominated by heavyweights like Apple’s AirPods Max, the Sonos Ace aims to be the brand’s ace in the hole, promising to deliver an unparalleled listening experience. Crafted with precision and care, these headphones are designed to combine high fidelity sound with exceptional comfort and a sleek, timeless design. The Ace better live up to its name, offering a compelling alternative in a market where excellence is the baseline expectation.

Sonos Ace in Black and Soft White

Designer: Sonos

Reflecting a meticulous design process that spans over three years, the Sonos Ace emerges as a product of intense collaboration across technical and creative disciplines. Aki Laine, director of industrial design at Sonos, described the Ace as a pair of headphones that feel as good as they look. Available in two sophisticated colors, Sonos Black and Soft White, these headphones were carefully selected to ensure inclusivity and appeal. The headphones use flexible plastics for a lightweight feel and sturdy metals for structural integrity. The ear cushions and headband are covered in vegan leather, providing a durable yet soft touch that supports extended wear.

Sonos Ace in Black

Sonos Ace Soft White

Sonos Ace Soft White

Aki Laine emphasized the importance of comfort in the Ace’s design, noting, “The lightweight memory foam and vegan leather ensure comfort for long-term use.” The headband and ear cushions are padded with memory foam, designed to conform to various head shapes and sizes. This attention to detail ensures a secure fit without exerting excessive pressure, even accommodating accessories like glasses and earrings. The design also incorporates visual and tactile cues, such as the textured logo and color-coded ear cups, to help users quickly orient and operate the headphones. Comfort is a key focus for the Sonos Ace, ensuring that users can wear the headphones for long periods without discomfort. Extensive testing was conducted to achieve the right clamping force and weight distribution, making sure the headphones are stable and provide a snug fit without causing hotspots. The ear cups are designed to accommodate various ear sizes and shapes, enhancing overall comfort.

Engineered to deliver a high-quality audio experience, the Sonos Ace excels in acoustic performance across different media types. Each ear cup houses custom-designed 40mm dynamic drivers, providing precise and accurate sound across all frequencies. With eight microphones, four on each side (three external and one internal), the Ace delivers advanced active noise cancellation. The external microphones detect ambient noise, while the internal microphones monitor and adjust the sound in real-time to optimize the listening experience. This setup ensures that whether you’re immersed in music, podcasts, or movies, the audio remains clear and immersive.

Controls on the right ear cup: Slide the Content Key up or down to adjust volume. Press it to pause or resume content and take calls. Another button lets you quickly switch between ANC and Aware mode.

Reverting to an analogue hardware user interface, the Sonos Ace enhances ease of use without relying on visual confirmation, and I’m so delighted that they did. The tactile, mechanical slider—dubbed the Content Key—allows users to adjust volume, skip tracks, and manage calls with ease. It provides a reliable and intuitive alternative to touch controls, which can be prone to errors. This thoughtful design extends to the headphones’ connectivity options. The Ace supports both wireless and wired connections, making it versatile for various use cases. Multipoint connectivity allows the headphones to connect to two devices simultaneously, enabling effortless switching. Additionally, a single button press lets the Ace connect with Sonos home theater systems, offering an immersive Dolby Atmos experience with dynamic head tracking.

Integrating several eco-friendly features into the Ace supports sustainability. The headphones incorporate 70% post-consumer recycled plastic in their construction. The carry case, made from 75% recycled polyester derived from plastic bottles, complements this commitment to sustainability. Additionally, the ear cushions are easily replaceable, extending the product’s lifespan and reducing waste. Aki Laine highlighted Sonos’s dedication to creating long-lasting products, saying, “At Sonos, we are committed to creating products that last. The Ace incorporates 70% recycled plastic and features replaceable ear cushions, aligning with our sustainability goals.”

Boasting impressive battery life and convenient charging options, users can enjoy up to 30 hours of listening with active noise cancellation enabled. A rapid charge feature provides three hours of playback with just a three-minute charge, ensuring you never miss a beat even when time is short. The smart power management includes auto-pause sensors that stop playback when the headphones are removed, conserving battery life.

Sonos Ace is perfect for remote work

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Wireless speakers have become all too common now thanks to multiple factors, from the rise of voice-activated smart home assistants to the popularity of streaming services to the demise of the headphone jack from smartphones. These audio devices have also outgrown their initial designs which seemed to be limited to blocks or cylinders, adopting more fluid forms that are almost artful than technical. Of course, there is no need to go to opposite extremes to have a good speaker design, as this concept proves with a simple and clean shape that immediately strikes one as something that isn’t your regular wireless speaker while, at the same time, clearly tries to deliver the basics of an omnidirectional audio source.

Designer: Fran Rossi, Javier Bianchi

Many wireless speakers today try to deliver sound in 360 degrees to cover the entire room, which is especially needed if it’s meant to respond to voice commands coming from anywhere in the area. Thanks to the likes of the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, cylindrical shapes seem to have become the most common design for wireless speakers. Of course, there are conical or even spherical speakers, but these aren’t the only round objects that can be used to the same effect.

Orbit adopts a lesser-used shape that, along with a sphere or ball, is immediately associated with fun things. A torus can be a donut, a wheel, a piece of candy, or even a floatation device, and the way it can roll on a floor and wiggle and spin before falling down flat is often a game played by children. That playful charm is further emphasized the by concept’s choice of colors and materials, with a bright orange accent against a cool white body, and reflective plastic instead of fabric. It looks almost like a toy, though its functionality is far from being child’s play.

Thanks to its ring shape, it can also transmit audio 360 degrees, though it also has more freedom on where the sound is sent. When standing, it can bounce the sound off the ceiling, though it can also be placed down on its back for a more conventional horizontal output. The Orbit is almost a perfect torus, so it requires a stand to, well stand up. Its other functions, however, are all built into the device itself, like the large backlit power button in front and the embossed playback controls on top.

Despite the playful nature of its shape, small variations to the design can result in a totally different character. Covering the entire ring with dark gray fabric and switching the accents to wood or gold gives it a more luxurious appeal that could proudly stand as an art object in your living room. Switching up the colors and materials also generates different imagery, turning what looks like a simple design into a highly flexible and customizable one.

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Although most people would call these headphones an abomination, I kind of think the ADV. Spider TWS on-ear headphones are the good kind of weird. They come with drivers as big as the ones you’d see on headphones, but are designed to be individual earpieces like most TWS earbuds. The result is almost Princess Leia-ish, with two cans attached to each ear, giving you a TWS earbud experience but with the power-packed audio punch of much bigger headphones. And the headband on top? Well, that’s extinct now, just like the headphone jack…

Designer: ADV.

TWS earbuds offer a distinct benefit – they’re ridiculously compact, and don’t have wires or cables that get tangled or broken. However, they don’t match the sound output of larger headphones. On the flipside, larger headphones have MUCH better audio output, but they’re significantly bulkier than TWS earbuds. ADV.’s Spider headphones try to create a bizarre but funky compromise. In what I can only describe as subtractive design at its best, these TWS on-ear headphones remove the one thing giving wireless headphones their bulk – the headband. By making large earpieces with ear-stems (like the kind you see on hearing aids or spectacles) , the Spider TWS on-ear headphones let you strap great audio directly to your ears. No headband, no bulk, no problem. Plus, these headphones don’t need a case either the way TWS earbuds do. Just slip them into your pocket or bag and you’re good to go. With TWS earbuds, the case does three distinct jobs – charging the earbuds, protecting the earbuds, and allowing you to quickly differentiate between the left and right earpiece. The lack of a case with the Spider headphones means it becomes slightly more difficult to tell the left and right wearables apart… but a clever design detail fixes that. A red ear stem on the right earpiece lets you quickly identify which headphone is which, letting you quickly and correctly wear your TWS headphones every single time.

Channeling the retro vibes of classic Sony or Koss headphones, the Spiders sport a familiar aesthetic. But under the hood, they’re packed with modern tech. At the heart of the sound experience lies a 30-millimeter dynamic driver, a well-regarded size for delivering clear and balanced audio across genres. The 30mm drivers deliver a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz (encompassing the full range of human hearing), and an impedance of 32 ohms, which means they should work well with most devices without needing a dedicated headphone amplifier. It’s worth noting that the headphones currently only support the SBC Bluetooth codec, a widely compatible option, but not the highest fidelity one. The headphones boast an impressive sensitivity of 105 decibels, ensuring they can get plenty loud without distortion.

Connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 5.2, ensuring seamless pairing with most smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Gamers will appreciate the inclusion of a low-latency mode, which minimizes audio delay for a more responsive experience. Perhaps the most compelling feature for everyday users is the lengthy battery life (which is another benefit of that large size). ADV. claims the Spider TWS can deliver up to 28 hours of listening on a single charge, making them ideal for long commutes, workdays, or travel adventures.

What’s most bizarre about the ADV. Spider headphones, however, is its price tag. You’d expect it to be in AirPod Pro or AirPod Max territory, given its size and novelty, but the TWS on-ear headphones start at just $35, which is quite the steal. The headphones are currently available for preorder on Drop.com’s website, with shipping estimated in July.

The post These Absurd TWS On-Ear Headphones are like if someone combined the AirPods and AirPods Max first appeared on Yanko Design.

London-based tech company Nothing is making waves in the tech world by expanding its integration of ChatGPT, a powerful AI language model, to a wider range of its audio devices. This move comes just a month after the feature debuted on the company’s latest earbuds, the Ear and Ear (a), and their smartphone lineup… and coincidentally, just hours before Google’s I/O event, where the company’s expected to announce an entire slew of AI features and upgrades.

The earlier-than-expected rollout signifies Nothing’s commitment to bringing advanced AI features to everyday tech. This integration isn’t limited to Nothing-branded devices; it extends to their sub-brand CMF as well. Users with older Nothing and CMF earbud models, including the Ear (1), Ear (stick), Ear (2), CMF Neckband Pro, and CMF Buds Pro, will be able to leverage the capabilities of ChatGPT starting May 21st with a simple update to the Nothing X app. It also cleverly pre-empts Apple, which is allegedly working with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to future models of the iPhone.

Read the Nothing Ear (a) Review here

There’s a caveat, however. To enjoy the benefits of ChatGPT through your Nothing or CMF earbuds, you’ll need to be using them with a Nothing smartphone running Nothing OS 2.5.5 or later. The good news is that activating ChatGPT is a breeze. Once you’ve updated the Nothing X app, you can enable a new gesture feature that allows you to initiate conversations with the AI assistant by simply pinching the stem of your earbuds.

This development signifies a growing trend in the tech industry: embedding AI assistants directly into consumer devices. By offering voice control through earbuds, Nothing is making it easier for users to perform everyday tasks hands-free, like checking the weather or controlling music playback. Imagine asking your earbuds for directions while jogging or requesting a quick weather update during your commute – all without reaching for your phone.

The move comes at a perfect time, right between OpenAI’s GPT-4o announcement, and Google’s I/O event, which will include multiple AI improvements including integration of Gemini AI into a vast variety of Google products as well as with the Pixel hardware lineup.

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LEGO Ideas and its obsession with retro builds will not die anytime soon. The vintage Polaroid SX-70 camera, the ingenious Tetris LEGO set, and now the LEGO Icons Retro Radio set are proof enough. The new 906-piece set is a nod to the musical era of the 50s and 60s when radio was an integral part of life.

The set is a part of LEGO’s Icons collection and is all set to arrive June 1 for $99.99 in LEGO stores worldwide and official online stores. The set will initially be exclusive to LEGO Insiders and from June 4 onwards anyone can get their hands on this one. While the set cannot (unfortunately) play your local radio station, it has something that’ll please online music listeners.

Designer: LEGO Ideas

Reviving the retro element are the bright color accents in white and brown of the bygone era. You’ll be more than keen to put it together and highlight it as your living room centerpiece or reserve the prime spot on your shelves. When fully assembled, the bricky radio stands over 13 inches high, 9 inches wide and 2.5 inches deep, making it a LEGO model that more than meets the eye. While we can go on talking about its nostalgic faux wood-colored trims, pastel bluish green exterior, classic speaker slits, extendable antenna and the tuner window; the functionality doesn’t take a back seat in any way.

The radio LEGO comes with prerecorded tunes such as fake sports stations that can be toggled using the dials. You can turn the dial to switch between these channels with the white noise of the radio taking you back in time. Another knob is used to switch on or off the unique radio While we believe the designers could have gone a step further by fitting in a transistor radio unit, you’ll have to emulate the feeling of listening to the good old radio by playing it on your phone. Yes, you can plug in your smartphone in a concealed compartment on the back panel and play your favorite music. Of course, you can play Spotify or Apple Music on this radio but we’ll stick to playing the classic music just to be in the retro feels! But to really enjoy a more authentic retro music experience, this Portable CD Cover Player lets you dust off your CD collection, slip in the cover jacket, and enjoy your favorite tunes wherever you go, without worrying about the player accidentally falling apart brick by brick.

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Purist audiophiles always come back to the DAPs and high-resolution audio players to enjoy their favorite music collection in high definition. Sony has a foothold in the hi-res audio game for as long as memory goes back, and they continue to offer some of the best players for music listening. Walkman MW-A306 released last year is a favorite one for music lovers.

Teenage Engineering resonates the same value for its consumers with a broader portfolio of innovative and unconventional audio gadgets. Both Sony and TE have things like modern design, Gen-Z targeting and sublime quality at their helm to attract a niche set of audio lovers. We certainly love TE and so does the community of designers who have been mustering up cool concepts inspired by the Stockholm-based electronics company. If you’re a purist audiophile, this portable CD player with built-in speaker is a must-have addition to your collection.

Designer: Evgeniy Vakulich

This cool concept of collaborating together the two loved brands is surely going to bring the heat to the likes of Astell&Kern, Fiio, iBasso and Shanling. Interestingly called the Pony Project, the DAP has the design DNA and color theme of Teenage Engineering. It gets a digital display to show the currently playing music and library elements to search for tracks. All the other buttons for toggling the elements like the tempo, loop, mode or FX. The tactile input for the L-Shift, R-Shift, Mic, Select and Start is heavily inspired by the Teenage Engineering aesthetics.

The top of the gadget has the volume rockers, bass and treble, power and stop buttons. A lot of mind has been put into the design and conceptualization of the music player by Evgeniy. The popular color theme of the TE products is so good to see in a DAP which usually comes in contemporary dark hues. If you’ve already not noticed, the audio player comes with the Pony branding which dupes the Sony brand name.

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Hot on the heels of the new Beats Solo 4 headphones and Solo Buds earbuds, eagle-eyed fans spotted F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo and basketball star LeBron James carrying what appears to be a brand new Beats Pill speaker. This has ignited speculation about a potential revival of the popular portable speaker line, discontinued in early 2022.

The original Beats Pill, launched in 2012, quickly gained a loyal following for its compact size, bold design, and surprisingly good sound quality. After Apple acquired Beats in 2014, they introduced the slightly larger Pill+ in 2015, addressing some sound quality concerns and adding a Lightning port for charging (likely to be replaced with USB-C in the new iteration).

These celebrity sightings with the new Pill come across as a calculated marketing strategy, similar to how the Beats Pill gained traction in the past. The new Beats Pill maintains the familiar pill-shaped design of its predecessors, measuring roughly 8 inches long and 2.5 inches wide. It retains the clean look with just the Beats logo adorning the front grille. A continuous rubberized strip separates the front and back speaker grilles, and rubber feet on the bottom keep it from rolling around.

For reference, the discontinued Pill+ earned praise for its significantly improved sound quality thanks to an internal redesign. It also sported a Lightning port for charging, which will likely be swapped for USB-C in this new iteration. The Pill+ offered a respectable battery life of 12 hours. While details remain scarce, the leaked images show a design that stays true to the classic Beats Pill silhouette. A lanyard attachment hints at portability remaining a key feature.

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We seem to always be running out of space on our desks. Any free area that we get often quickly becomes occupied by a new thing, a tool, or a book, that we can always justify as necessary. And then there are purely decorative items that, while not serving any practical function, serve to put us in a good mood. Sadly, those reasons don’t remove the fact that they still take up precious space that could have been used for other things. Cutting down on the amount of “stuff” on your desk is one possible solution to this conundrum, but another is to use multi-functional products that serve more than one purpose, like these rather aesthetic bookends that are actually speakers in disguise.

Designer: Liam de la Bedoyere

If there are two things that are standard on a modern desk, it would be books and speakers. The former is often essential for work, even if just for appearance’s sake, while the latter is necessary to keep our minds sane with our favorite music and podcasts. They might even be necessary for the video meetings that are becoming more common these days. Naturally, these things will need some space on your desk, so why not combine them in a way that still retains each product’s identity while also bringing a fresh twist to their designs?

The Beat Bookends concept does exactly that by transforming bookends into two parts of a speaker system. Specifically, the triangular shapes that sit on either end of a row of books act not only as stable structures to keep your reading materials upright but also serve as front-firing speakers. Although it probably would have been enough to just have two wireless speakers performing this function, the design concept actually includes one or two more speakers for an even better audio experience.

The bookend speakers are actually just the “satellite” speakers, and a rectangular block serves as the main unit you connect to. This piece can stand in the middle of your row of books to add a bit of variety to the composition, or it can even be placed anywhere else to set up a spatial audio arrangement of sorts. Another rectangular speaker block can even be added to the mix for an even louder and more distributed audio output.

What’s interesting about the Beat Bookends concept is that it isn’t limited to actually being used as bookends only. With a flexible building block concept, you can mix and match pieces and arrange the speakers in different ways, even if you don’t have books to stand on your desk or shelf. You can combine the speakers in more interesting arrangements to provide not only audio but also a bit of decoration on your desk, hitting two birds with a single stone.

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