OLi is a stand-alone Bluetooth speaker that allows music to fill up your surroundings. OLi can stand in different areas of the house instead of filling up spaces on tables or shelves. This speaker stylistically differentiates itself more as a furniture piece rather than a tech-product.

Design Team

Joshua Han

Nowadays, there are so many players in the audio industry. Together these companies can be classified into two big categories: premium and trend. The traditional players approach the market with premium quality whereas the newcomers show sensitivity to today's trends and styles and aim for different target consumer groups.

It is easy to notice how newcomers approach or target the market differently. Unlike the traditional audio companies, many newcomers outsource the sound technology and design the product housing and functionality. It might be due to the fortune it takes to develop a quality sound technology or might really be because design and method of approaching the market holds more stake than the quality of sound like the Ammunition Design Studio proposed.

In this project, Appart_ tried to develop a new product and brand that could penetrate into today's audio market and characterize it's independent position and style.

Choice of material

Traditional players portray high quality by using metal, glossy surface and static colors with high definition. However, new players are diversifying CMF in their products with vibrant and trendy colors, matte surface, fabric and minimalistic form. They are very sensitive to today's young culture and style and approaching the market in a complete different way compared to the traditional players.

Research and Development

I use a Bose Soundlink Mini at home. I'm a great fan of Bose and I love the speaker. It's small, has great sound, the battery lasts for a reasonable amount of time and it's beautifully designed. It's a great product for a person like me who enjoys to travel but can't leave music out. But I started to notice some interesting things about speakers after I started using this product.

The overall quality of the Bose's speaker sound is very satisfying, however there is a general spot in front of the speaker where the quality of the sound is at it's highest. With the Soundlink mini, I have a good idea how far or how high the speaker should be placed to hear the best sound; and interestingly, I noticed that most speakers are the same. Then I started thinking about how I can bring the quality of the sound up.

Through some small experiments and some inspirations from other products, I figured out that putting the speaker inside a hard box made the sound louder and deeper. Secondly, I figured out that placing some soft fabric in front of the speaker also makes the sound more pleasant—and this is how came up with OLi.

OLi is a stand-type speaker that allows sound to fill up your entire room in connection through Bluetooth or wifi with your music device. OLi is to be stood on the corner of the room instead of wasting space on the table.

The speaker only has one button, a switch that allows OLi to turn on and off. By pulling down and letting go of the switch OLi automatically activates wireless connection to the music device.

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