Kanso

Type

Reverse Engineering, Consumer Electronics

Duration

6 Weeks

Team

Avery Litton & Julian Timm

Project Brief

Reverse-engineer an existing speaker to create a new, fully functional audio solution tailored to the professional needs of fitness instructors.

Size Constraints

9x11x11 Inches

Design Requirments

The final product must be fully functional, utilizing the original electronics while improving the user experience for a specific target market.

A minimalist, tactile audio solution designed to enhance the tranquil atmosphere of yoga and meditation spaces.

Target User

Demographics

Professional yoga and meditation instructors, ages 30–50

Key Needs

Effortless operation and Seamless atmospheric integration.

Pain Points

Managing technical "clutter" in meditation-focused environments.

Research & Insights

Market Opportunity

Reverse engineering revealed that while the original Tribit speaker was portable, its interface was "clunky" and lacked the tactile feedback or aesthetic warmth required for professional wellness environments.

User Insights

Interviews with yoga instructors and market research identified a need for "invisible" tech—audio systems that blend into the room rather than standing out as plastic gadgets.

Design Principle

Kanso (Japanese Minimalist Aesthetic). Focusing on the elimination of clutter and the inclusion of natural, biophilic textures to add to the serene space of a yoga studio, rather than detract.

Ideation and Concept Development

This design phase focused on our key design points of

Wireless
Modular
Portable Option
Adds to atmosphere
Suspended off floor

To create our final direction. We created protypes out of cardboard and foam, then one prototype out of wood to fully test the function before moving on to the final model.

Mood Board

We explored many different concepts in our protypes, focusing on form, size, and function. For our final concept we first started with a foam prototype then a wooden prototype fully test the function before moving on to the final model. With this process we were able to ensure that our speaker fully functioned and that the original components fit inside our new case.