It’s easy to miss interesting things in the mass of press emails that flood a journalist’s inbox before SXSW, but the invitation to try Soundwall stood out to me because the entire premise sounded so ridiculous that I just had to check it out.
Soundwall is a wireless speaker and work of art combined. Why would you want that? It turns out that a large flat-panel speaker provides better clarity of sound than many standard wireless speakers can provide. This isn’t a canvas with a speaker attached, the entire canvas is the speaker. Because you probably wouldn’t want a to have a speaker of between 24″ x 36″ and 40″ x 60″ taking up wall space, the art gives you something to look at.
Nestled behind the art is a Raspberry Pi computer that can receive firmware updates to automatically improve Soundwall over time. Prices range from $949 to $2,499 depending on the canvas size that you choose.
I met the founders of Soundwall in downtown Austin to discover the story behind this unusual combination of sound and vision. You can listen to the interview below.
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