OpenAI's first consumer device will be a doughnut-shaped smart speaker priced above $300 and released in 2027, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Key Points: The device is a screenless, battery-pow
OpenAI's first consumer device will be a doughnut-shaped smart speaker priced above $300 and released in 2027, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
- The device is a screenless, battery-powered speaker roughly the size of a hockey puck, designed by Apple's legendary Jomy Ive and meant to be carried by hand.
- Internal pricing discussions have ranged from $300 to $400, above most rival smart speakers on the market.
- A trade secrets lawsuit and an injunction request from Apple could complicate the planned 2027 launch.
People familiar with the work have described the product as a smart speaker without a display, shaped like a doughnut and roughly the size of a hockey puck.
The idea is to let a person pick it up and carry it around the home with one hand. Internal discussions have put the price between $300 and $400, and the company plans to position the speaker as an AI-first computer rather than a voice assistant.
Parts of the circular body move on their own to show when the device is responding, while lights indicate when it is listening. A camera system and other sensors feed information about the surrounding room into the model, and a battery lets the unit sit in a hand, on a nightstand or on a kitchen counter.
Also Read:SpaceX Stock Worth $100B Just Became Sellable For The First Time
Apple sued OpenAI in July, accusing the company and two former employees of taking trade secrets through recruiting interviews and supplier relationships. OpenAI asked a federal judge on Wednesday to throw the case out. Its lawyers argued that Apple's own policy of letting staff use personal iCloud accounts for work created the access the complaint now calls theft.
The filing calls the suit baseless and pretextual, and says Apple is trying to compensate for its own difficulty keeping engineers. Apple's complaint states that more than 400 of its former employees now work at OpenAI.
Apple asked the same judge this week for a preliminary injunction barring OpenAI from using the disputed material while the case proceeds, along with expedited discovery from named employees. Such an order could complicate the launch. OpenAI must respond by Aug. 17, and the judge has set arguments for Oct. 1 in San Jose, California.
The speaker was designed with LoveFrom, the design studio Jony Ive started after leaving Apple, and uses upscale materials such as high-quality metal. The $300 to $400 range sits above most rival speakers sold by Amazon and Alphabet's Google, though below the cost of a standard iPhone.
OpenAI moved into hardware last year when it acquired io, the device startup Ive co-founded, in a deal valued at about $6.5 billion.
Earlier accounts had already outlined a screenless companion built around voice. The company has said it eventually wants a family of devices, and over the longer run something that could replace the smartphone.
Read Next:JPMorgan Questions Whether HYPE Can Overtake Solana And XRP By Market Cap
