B&O’s modular Shape speaker can be as big as your wall

Walls are stupid. We need a roof over our head, to keep the rain off, and we need a floor under our feet to keep us out of the grot, but for what do we need walls? For this: spendy Scandi sound-maker Bang & Olufsen has revealed BeoSound Shape, a wall-mounted wireless hi-fi system that you build by tessallating a mixture of hexagonal tiles. Some of them have amplifiers, some are speakers and the rest are stuffed with acoustic dampening material, although one must also contain the BeoSound Core wireless module – AirPlay, Chromecast, Spotify, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth. How much? B&O isn’t saying yet, except that a basic system of six tiles will cost about £3400. Yipes.

Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one.