More than meets the eye
The world of smart speakers is filled with a lot of modern-looking towers with rounded corners. Some of them have lights, some of them have cloth finishes, but all of them start to blend together.
Como Audio is taking a different approach with the SpeakEasy, building a Google Assistant smart speaker with a wood finish that’s up on Kickstarter right now. This is a typical product for Como, which creates modern speakers in retro or glossy shells, giving your smart home a minimalistic and refreshing speaker option.
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Not only does it have a retro look, it has retro controls. There are three knobs on the front, one for volume, one for playing/pausing and a third for turning Bluetooth on and off. There’s a Google Assistant button up at the top and an LED that’ll always show you the time and can function as an alarm too.
The SpeakEasy comes with a 3/4 soft dome tweeter, 3-inch custom dual voice coil woofer and custom DSP equalization. All of that is wrapped in furniture-grade wood cabinet in either hickory wood veneer or real walnut. Don’t want wood? There’s also high-gloss piano black and white.
Because it’s got Google Assistant built in, you also have the ability to do multi-room audio. However, you will need to buy a separate Google Chromecast device for each speaker and plug them in to get it all working. There’s also an optional 2200mAh battery that’ll make the SpeakEasy portable. Speaking of options, there’s a second right-channel speaker you can buy to create a two-channel stereo option.
Como Audio is a regular on Kickstarter. All of its products go through crowdfunding campaigns before going on sale at its website, and the SpeakEasy is no different. So we’ve every reason to believe Como will deliver on the goods. Right now the SpeakEasy is available for $199 to $249, but when it’s available at retail it’ll go for $349. It’ll ship in November 2018.
