Eric Wu's Cobble Bluetooth Speaker emerges as a compact rectangular form presenting a sophisticated material dialogue between warm blonde wood grain surfaces and an illuminated translucent panel…

Eric Wu's Cobble Bluetooth Speaker emerges from a pale birch or maple enclosure whose honey-toned warmth and visible linear grain patterns establish an immediate materiality rooted in Scandinavian…

Rendered in pale ash wood grain with a smooth matte finish, this compact Bluetooth speaker manifests a sophisticated compositional geometry wherein the rectangular prismatic body serves as both…

A polished ash base forms the primary structural foundation, its horizontal grain pattern running continuously across the rectangular platform, interrupted by precisely machined circular apertures…

Warm-toned ash wood grain flows across the front panel and body of this compact wireless speaker, establishing a naturalistic material presence that harmonizes organic texture with refined industrial…

Iron Consumer Electronics · 2025

Cobble Bluetooth Speaker

by Eric Wu

A' Design Award 2025 in Consumer Electronics
CLIENT: EW Design
Estimated Number of Design Views: 40,651
Verification code F71A3B134D · Verify this award

View at A' Design Award Press Release

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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.

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.

Press Kit

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.
Image Credits: Photos: Eric Wu