Speaker that crowdsources to create mixtapes

Image via Chune

Music is meant to be shared, and heard by droves of people. The makers of Chune have created a dynamic music sharing experience, tailored for use at events, stores, and other forums where music is communally heard.

The Chune app makes music more social. Users simply install the app on their smartphones, tap their phones, and then their music preferences will be read from the phone to create a playlist.

Chune uses a near-field communication (NFC) breakout board, allowing users to transfer their favorite genres of music to the speaker. Here, a crowd-sourced playlist is created. 

Chune’s 8 x 8 LED matrix display creates animations when a user’s music preference is technologically understood by the device. The controls for this speaker are arranged in a grid, including buttons for skipping songs, controlling volume, and “vibe.” The “vibe” button allows social groups to decide on the level of intensity for the songs, then leaves the decision of which tunes to play to the device. 

Chune was developed by interns at the English design firm Clearleft that includes Amnesty International, Mozilla, and UNICEF UK on its roster of cutting-edge clients. This internship was atypical; instead of completing mundane busy work, interns were assigned the task of “turning a current active digital behavior into a passive one.” And a really rad sound system is what they came up with.

Image via Chune

The design team was composed of multimedia designer, Kilian Boching; Victor Johansson, an industrial designer; and Zassa Kauvuma, a creative technologist. The participants first researched pertinent technologies, the current market, and how they could incorporate the technology into Chune. The prototype of Chune was then constructed from a Raspberri Pi, laser-cut MDF with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE.

Traditional social-media infused methods of listening to music, like tweeting about a song, or listening to a song on Spotify and having it broadcasted to your Facebook news feed, have somewhat been included in Chune. The interns have created a “musical punchbowl” speaker of sorts, encouraging people to interact with each other and the machine. The LED-Matrix of lights encourages this integrated interaction with people, their music, and their smartphones.

In the future, the team plans to collect musical data with a music service’s API. The first model of Chune is the only one in existence, so keep your eyes peeled for more news about this device and how it could potentially change how consumers listen to music. 

Story via Wired