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Microcontroller connected to the OB-4 from Teenage Engineering
It's 2019 and a friend tells me: "Once you find good music, it just starts to find to you".
Not as keenly aware then as we are now, this was by corporate design and today we feel its consequence:
music applications that feed you sounds they already know you will enjoy.
On the other side of the internet, and just around everyone's block springs the antidote:
web-based, independent radio stations. These intimately human projects are passionate about
showcasing wonderful and often strange musical landscapes, and giving you the context you need to
appreciate human culture, something humans are really really really good at.
But where's the product?? I dream of independent radio access as a feature of my speaker system,
but with no patience, I went about working on my own full-on device.
Around the time I had finished the core software section, I came upon Neri
Oxmann's design principles, all positively radical and one that
struck a chord: "Nature as co-client". Considering this, should I then go through with making this toy?
Or should let go of my convenience and return to the orginal version: a dimensionless feature?
Dedicated access to these radio initiatives can break us away from optimization algorithms, but the stations are actually already
accessible, and making another audio device just to get to them is not worth the plastic, lithium or cobalt.
On that note, listen to independent, Internet-based radio with these custom-built features:
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Hand-drawn animation using Looom
Idea
The original design was a handheld Walkman-style device with a few controls:
- On/Off and Set Up
- Next Station
- Previous Station
- Volume Wheel
Full Version Specs: 10 Stations, 3 Clunky buttons, One wheel, Bluetooth/Wifi, 3.5mm Jack, 10 Hour Battery, Great Sound, IPX-5, Optional: SIM card.
Low Impact Version Spec: 10 Stations, same Interfaces, Quality and Wifi, but with Direct Power and 3.5mm Audio Jack only (think home audio). This would mean: no battery or charging, no Bluetooth set up, and less chance of misplacing/dropping it.
Stand-alone Product Strategy
Through web/app, user can either:
- choose 10 Stations of their preference to toggle through, or
- tune into the 10 Stations selected by the supplier for that quarter. They span the globe and are submitted by the product community. Opportunity to collaborate with radio/music makers.
Commerical Strategy: Station Exclusive
A likely commercial strategy is to reach out to an independent station to back the project exclusively for their broadcast and sell the product as part of their revenue.
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