It used to be that the central audio hub in every household was the Hi-Fi system. A combination record player, tape deck, and CD player, unified in a single system, hooked up to two stereo speakers.
The advent of digital media has undermined these old familiar ways. Smartphones and mp3 players now carry shelf-fulls of music within their tiny cases. Users now listen to music by either headphones or tinny Bluetooth speakers, while 10,000 old speakers are sent to UK recycling centres every month. But now, inventor Paul Cocksedge has developed a bridge between old and new: the Vamp.
Vamp is a Bluetooth smart cube that can be hooked up to a conventional speakers via terminal or cable. Pair the Vamp with a smartphone or mp3 player and the audio is output to the connected speakers. Your Hi-Fi may be obsolete, but Vamp offers its speakers a new lease of life. The only downside is that, as of yet, the Vamp does not support stereo sound, meaning both left and right channels are combined into mono output.
“I kept seeing Post-it notes on old speakers saying, ‘Please take me home’. I thought, these are beautiful and functional. Their designers cared for them. Why are people throwing them away?” Cocksedge lamented. He realised that “people are communicating with technology differently now. We play music through our smartphones. No one has a CD player or record player any more. So how do I design something that links the new to the old?”
Vamp is available now, priced at £49.99.
Source: The Guardian
