OM/ONE levitating speaker will float into your heart

Wait… is that ball floating?
Oh yes. Except it’s not really a ball – it’s a speaker. A Bluetooth speaker called the OM/ONE, in fact. It’s an orb that floats on its base through the use of magnets.

A bit like a maglev train?
Precisely. The ONE itself uses Bluetooth 4.0 to wirelessly connect to audio sources like your smartphone or laptop, and pumps out music via a “finely tuned” 75mm driver.

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How does it sound?
Its makers say it sounds amazing, but then of course they would. We haven’t heard it with our own golden ears, so we’ll have to reserve judgement on that. We can say, however, that it looks “pretty neat”. It’s a mono speaker, which might upset some, but you can combine two of them for full stereo.

What else can it do, other than play music and float?
Well, it’s fully portable, so you can take the sphere away from the base and use it on a picnic or at the beach. There’s 15 hours of music playback via the built-in battery, which charges through USB. It also has a microphone, so you can use it as a Bluetooth speakerphone for hands-free or conference calls.

And how do I get one?
The ONE is currently a prototype and OM Audio, its creators, are crowdfunding its launch here – but given that they’ve hit their target with plenty of time left, it’s safe to say the speaker will be released as an actual product.

You can back the campaign to the tune of US$179 (£107) to reserve your own ONE speaker (they’ll be US$20 more expensive after the campaign ends), with postage to the UK costing an extra US$20 (£12). The estimated delivery date is December 2014. So float over to the site and you’ll have the coolest Christmas bauble around come the holiday season.

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