ABOVE HOME WORK NEWS SERVICES ABOUT JOIN CONTACT Aether - Cone Music made simple Cone is the first music player to create personalised musical journeys based on your taste, mood, habits and world around you. It uses advanced AI to calculate the perfect song for the moment and if you happen to disagree spin the dial for next track or genre or simply ask it to play the song you want. Beautifully simple and simply beautiful. Challenge The Aether team took us onboard early on a highly ambitious and disruptive path of creating a music experience that was as advanced in technology as it was simple to use. The mission was to build a range of products that all broke new ground in contextual learning while also pushing the boundaries of how modern technology should work, look and feel. The core challenge was understanding how to bring music back into people’s lives by contextual relevance and personalised inspiration , all embodied in a simple and non-technical product Approach Through a deep collaborative process we and the exceptional Aether team distilled the user insights into simple user experience drivers as the foundation for the creative exploration. We really wanted to design an experience catering to all your moods and modes of listening to music throughout your day. Even if this meant designing both simple physical interactions for personal curation as well as an entire voice command experience, long before e.g. Alexa. These ambitious interactions should then seamlessly blend into the design to create a purposeful, beautiful , de-technified product for your contemporary home. Result The result is the first ever voice controlled & AI driven music player, making music inspiring, social and personal again. The Cone balance contemporary interior design with simple analog interactions and advanced technology so you can just relax, enjoy your favourite music and let Cone do the job for you. Cone was the first product in a extensive range of larger, smaller and more wearable products all built on the idea of simple controls for advanced contextual AI curated content. “The Aether Cone is magically simple” — Wired User experience drivers Derived from the ethnographic studies and user research we distilled the key parameters for both the brand, the products and the signature user experience. Just the right song for the moment Simply spin the front dial for the next song or if you feel like a different genre or even type of content, then just give it a big spin and the journey starts over. Oh, and everything you do will be overlay with context to curate the music even better over time. “Cone is one of the most beautiful pieces of technology to come across my desk in years.” — Gizmodo About Aether Aether was a San Francisco based start-up company funded by Janus Friis, co-founder of Skype and Rdio. Founded in 2011 by talent from Nokia, Apple, Google, Logitech etc. Aether rose quickly to great potential, size and ambition and launched it's first product Cone in 2014 followed by years of further portfolio expansions before closing down late 2015. Aether mission was to develop thinking devices that integrate hardware, software, and services into intuitive user experiences. Capabilities Head of Industrial Design Design Strategy User Experience Design CMF Capabilities beyond Aether Cone Portfolio roadmap Design Strategy Industrial Design UX Mechanical Engineering Electronics Software Supply Chain Recognition Stockholm Smedjegatan 2c 131 54 Nacka Sweden Malmö Grimsbygatan 24 211 20 Malmö Sweden San Francisco 600 California Street CA 94108 San Francisco USA Shenzhen 3031 Shennan Ave 518000 Shenzhen China Company Info Above is a Scandinavian innovation agency driving positive change through a seamless fusion of strategy, design and tech. Our team helps some of the boldest people and companies in the world to unfold tomorrow via agency services offered on a global market, with primary studios in Stockholm and Malmö in Sweden and satellites in Shenzhen in China and San Francisco in the US. Above is a team of 80+ creatives and was founded 2017 in the merger of the design agency Howl and tech agency Frankly. Newsletter Sign up to keep in the loop of news and inspirational goodies. SIGN UP We respect your privacy. extended family﻿ inside.above.se privacy policy