Klipsch, a company whose bread and butter is the
full scope of audio gadgetry you could possibly think of, has just unveiled
what's quite possibly the most out-of-place new smart home speakers at CES
2018.
You'd be forgiven for mistaking Klipsch's new
products for a vintage 50s radio that weighs a good 40 pounds. Dubbed The One
and the Three, these smart speakers are part of Klipsch's Heritage Wireless
series and feature materials that you'd rarely stumble upon in this day and
age: wood veneer as well as genuine copper knobs and switches that are calling
back to an era when everything was a tad simpler and lasted a bit longer.
This steampunk aesthetic might be a bit odd for an
innovation expo like CES, where everything is shiny and chromey and synthetic.
The Three wireless speaker is a turntable with a subwoofer under the trunk,
whereas The One is more portable thanks to the rechargeable battery inside, and
both devices are Google Assistant enabled, which means that they'd always
respond to the 'Hey, Google' hotword although they look like something from the
past century.
Priced at US$ 499, The Three will launch in the US this
fall, whereas the smaller-sized The One will cost US$ 349 but will launch in early
2019.
