Cobble Bluetooth Speaker by Eric Wu is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 A' Design Award in Digital and Electronic Device Design Competition Category.
IronConsumer Electronics· 2025
Cobble Bluetooth Speaker
by Eric Wu
Client: EW Design
A' Design Award Winner in Consumer Electronics Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #167221The Design
About Cobble Bluetooth Speaker
Cobble is a Bluetooth bookshelf speaker with an interactive interface on the top surface. Four magnetic pegs can be placed in different patterns on a grid. When a preset pattern is completed, the speaker plays a saved sound profile, such as a nature or white noise loop. Cobble also works as a normal Bluetooth speaker for audio from a connected device. The placing of pegs recalls the board game Go and invites a short moment of quiet concentration. The prototype uses a wooden casing, sand-blasted acrylic panels and LED light strips.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award
Cobble Bluetooth Speaker is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Cobble Bluetooth Speaker is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Cobble Bluetooth Speaker is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Where to Get It
Innovative Product Design Services
We specialize in designing innovative technology products that enhance daily life. Our expertise spans consumer electronics, smart devices, and mindful design solutions. With experience in academic research and startup environments, we create products that balance functionality with human-centered design principles.
Discuss Your ProjectBehind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Cobble is a speaker with an interactive interface at the top. The user has access to 4 pegs that they can place in various patterns. When preset patterns connect, the speaker plays a saved tone. The speaker is made with the concept of "inadvertent mindfulness." Studies have found that the simple action of concentrating on one's actions offer moments of respite. By placing pegs, much like how one places stones in a Go game, the user enjoys a moment of peace.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 7 1/2" (width) * 7 5/16" (depth) * 2" (height)
- Tags
- Speaker, Office, Mindfulness, Audio, Music
- Production Technology
- The prototype was constructed with a wooden casing with a four-panel construction. Sand-blasted acrylic panels are used to diffuse the lighting from LED light strips. The prototype control panel was made from an Arduino nano and will be replaced with more efficient chips in mass production. We experimented with various sensing methods and settled on magnetic sensing with Hall effect sensors as they appeared to be the most reliable.
- Design Challenge
- The hardest part was figuring out the sweet spot of a big enough surface area and a compact enough footprint, the product being a shelf speaker after all. People wanted to engage with the interface but too much of it offered diminishing returns and research participants had more complaints of space constraints.
- Research
- User research was conducted in collaboration with co-working spaces. We tested hypotheses like the following:
- How much spacing and how big do people prefer the pegs to be
- How many rows and columns work the best, offering novelty and comfort without overloading the user
- What footprint works the best without sacrificing too much room for interaction - Inspiration
- The design originated in a desire to question the prevalence of active mindfulness practices today. We have meditation apps, mindfulness sessions offered by corporations, and many more. While mindfulness is great, there are alternative activities that humans go to for similar purposes, without bearing the label of "mindfulness." Go, the Asian board game using stones, was a primary inspiration. What if we could have something built in that stimulates a sense of mindfulness, just like Go?
- Project Duration
- Duration: 6 months
Location: Rhode Island, United States - Operation Flow
- The product behaves like a normal bluetooth speaker, so the user can connect to it with an end device and play whatever they want.
The unique interaction is that it can save and activate various sound profiles, which can be activated via placement of the magnetic pegs. The user would have to download a mobile app to change the default profiles, which are nature and white noise sound loops. - Team Members
- Eric Wu
- Image Credits
- Photos: Eric Wu
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