Royole’s Mirage smart speaker takes folding screens in a new direction: It wraps an entire OLED screen around the outside of a cylindrical smart speaker.
Remember Royole’s FlexPai, that folding phone, shown off last year at CES? It garnered a lot of press for the new folding phone craze. Well, Royole has done it again this year, wrapping an 8-inch AMOLED touchscreen around an Amazon Alexa-powered smart speaker, the Mirage Smart Speaker.
It’s not entirely clear how Royole will use the Mirage’s touch capabilities—in general, most smart speakers are hands-free, voice-operated devices. However, the Mirage will be more than just a smart speaker, as there’s a 5-megapixel camera embedded in it, allowing you to beam your face as well as your voice to friends. The camera has a physical mute switch, though Royole didn’t give any confirmation that there’s a physical shutter to hide yourself. A T-shirt or towel will probably do just as well.
Inside the Mirage are three full-range drivers and a passive bass radiator. A pair of far-field mics will serve to pick up your voice and allow you to order more pizza rolls from Amazon from the comfort of your recliner.
If you’ll remember, there were questions over whether Royole was serious about shipping devices like the FlexPai, or whether the company was simply searching for partnerships with American manufacturers. At this year’s CES, Royole has tried to put questions to rest with an actual price and ship date: The Mirage will cost a whopping $899 when it ships in the second quarter. That’s about the price of eight Echo Show 8s, but who’s counting?