The Meizu Gravity Speaker has been in development
for over two years now. News of the speaker first surfaced in May 2016 when
Meizu listed it on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. Fast forward to December of
the same year and Meizu announced the speaker would start shipping in the first
quarter of 2017. As you can see, that didn’t happen and Meizu had to refund
backers.
After more than a year since it was expected to
ship, Meizu has finally announced the Gravity Speaker is available for
purchase. The announcement was made today alongside the launch of the Meizu 16
and Meizu 16 Plus.
The Meizu Gravity Speaker has a unique design which
makes it appear to be floating in mid-air. The trick to the floating illusion
is a transparent rectangular glass prism that props the speaker’s main body up
in the air. When viewed from a certain angle, it appears as if the speaker
itself is floating. That isn’t the only cool thing about the speaker though.
At the top of the speaker is a triangular glass prism
that acts as a heads-up display. The prism is actually placed over the
speaker’s main display but thanks to the laws of physics, the light rays from
the display passes through the prism and it appears as if the display is in the
prism itself. Meizu calls this design “Half Mirror”.
The Meizu Gravity Speaker has two 40mm speakers each
with a power output of 10W. There is a Texas Instrument TAS5754M audio chipset
inside for audio processing. It also has Dirac HD Sound for improved audio
quality.
The Gravity Speaker can play music from your devices
via Bluetooth 4.1. It can also connect to the internet via the Gravity app
(available only for Android at the moment, iOS app in development) and then
stream music from a bunch of platforms like Spotify, SoundCloud, and TuneIn to
name a few. It also has an aux port. Wi-Fi connectivity is limited to 2.4GHz.
The Meizu Gravity Speaker is priced at ¥ 999 (US$ 146)
for a limited time (August 8 to August 10). Its original price is actually
¥ 1099 (US$ 160). The speaker is available for pre-order on Tmall.