Loa
Portable Smart Speaker
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Loa is a portable smart speaker with an integrated virtual assistant AI. It is a combination of a modern smart speaker and a wireless Bluetooth speaker.
Loa has the intelligence of a smart speaker, which capable of interacting with users in various ways and assisting users with many simple daily tasks. It also has the flexibility of a wireless speaker, which allows users to control and use it without an Internet connection.
Type: Personal Project
Duration: 10 weeks
Category: Consumer Electronics
Duration: 10 weeks
Category: Consumer Electronics
Brief
In the modern world, young people are getting busier with their jobs, schools, and families, their need for a device that can assist them with small tasks every day is increasing. Smart Speakers have become more and more popular since they can fulfill their needs.
The goal of this project is to find out about the user's perspective and opinions on smart speakers in the current market and from that develop a device that can fit their preference.
User Research
Conducting surveys and gathering online product reviews to get user data, experience, and preference about technology. From those findings, come up with some key insights that can help develop a better product and determine which features to focus on.
Ideation
The process of creating 3D models from sketches and refining their form to a complete product.
Prototyping
Disassembled the Google Home Mini to understand about the internal component structure, then used that knowledge to design a new internal configuration for the speaker.
Modern Design
Loa has a simple user-friendly design, with soft edges and corners, wrapped in fabric to enhance sound quality. On top of it is the control Touchpad, where users can turn the speaker on/off or adjust the volume. The pad has light to give users visual interaction.
Portable
Loa is a smart speaker featuring Offline Mode, which allows it to function and interact with users and other devices without an internet connection, making it a portable smart speaker.
Users can control it by voice, tell it to play music, set an alarm, search for information, it can recognize the user's voice, respond and answer any simple questions.
Touchpad Control
Besides voice control, users can turn the speaker on and off, control volume, switch songs through the Touchpad. It has a series of sensors that can detect input pressure. Once these sensors recognize the user's contact, they will then send a signal to the electromagnet in the center, which then releases a small vibration across the pad, and give users a feeling as if they were clicking a physical button.
CMF
Loa offers four color variations: Charcoal Black, Limestone White, Salmon Pink, and Pistachio Green; allows users to personalize their own smart speaker.
