Light Speaker

The Light Speaker is a portable bluetooth speaker inspired by a traditional lantern. It has a simple and functional form. The light feels like a real flame, glowing together with your music.

It is designed to be easy to carry, so you be inspired by music and podcasts through out the day. 

Livingroom podcasts

Bathroom Spa experience

Outdoor adventure

Transparent Sound 

The Light Speaker has a big, open, omnidirectional sound delivering rich bass, stable mid tones and crisp high notes. The solid borosilicate glass cylinder creates a sealed valve for the passive 3” woofer sitting in the bottom. The dome shaped enclosure on the top holds a powerful 2.5” full range driver sending out 360 degree sound. 

Exploded view of drivers

The Light Speaker features our signature ‘Transparent sound’ meaning it’s tuned to channel the true intention of the artist. It gives natural and immersive sound typically not found in portable speakers.  

The 2.5 inch full range driver

Natural glowing light

People have gathered around campfires since the beginning of time. Even now, the soft glowing warmth of campfires, fireplaces and open candles still bring us together and make us feel good. We figured if we can make a light that comes anywhere close to that we would be on to something.  

Turn the light knob just like a dimmer

The Light Speaker has two separate knobs, one for light, one for sound. As you turn up the brightness, the light appearance goes from a dark glowing ember, to a living candle, and all the way up to a bright natural light – with a light temperature of around 3500 kelvin.

Dancing after sunset

Double up

The Light Speaker features the latest Bluetooth 5.0 technology, which includes ‘True Wireless’ dual speaker wireless streaming. That means you can easily connect two speakers together and set them to be the left and right (stereo) channels of your music. 

We also made the Light Speaker so it can work as a satellite together with our two previous stationary Transparent speakers models. 

Use two speakers together for an even bigger stereo experience.
 

Modular electronics for circular economy

We aim for our loudspeakers to transcend trends and potentially live forever. They are completely modular, designed so that any component can be removed, repaired or upgraded over time.

This circular design approach goes for the Light Speaker and for all our loudspeaker models. 

Crowdfunding 1: Large Speaker, Crowdfunding 2: Small Speaker, Crowdfunding 3: Light Speaker!

The Light Element

Inventing the light element

We spent many hours analyzing the properties of real flames. The light temperature, the brightness, the characteristic movements… Our aim was to make the light glow with your music like a natural flame, creating a unified mood setting experience of light and sound. 

Turning the light knob changes both the temperature, behavior and brightness of the element

To achieve this goal we invented a glowing, vibrating bass-and-light element that sits in the bottom of the device. The color variations and the subtle flicker that follows the music has been carefully tuned to give the atmosphere of a glowing flame. The harmonious vibrations and flickering creates a natural, living light experience. 

Easy to handle

The light speaker only weights 0.6 kg (1.3 lb) and comes with an elegant handle accessory. In true Swedish tradition we include an Ikea-style wrench for attaching the handle to the light speaker.

Simple use and setup 

We believe that less is more. So we have focused on making the setup as simple as possible. You will be playing your music in no time after you unbox. No app, no voice control and definitely no hidden microphones recording you.   

What you get 

When we are successfully backed from you here on kickstarter you will get the product as a reward as fast as we can make it. The amount you back with will be a much lower price than you would be paying later in retail. You will also be part of our bigger mission and journey to take on wear and tear tech and you will get behind-the-scenes updates directly from us founders and the key staff that will help us turn this into reality.   

Bluetooth 5 Module — optional upgrade for our older transparent speakers

We designed a Bluetooth 5 Module to our old customers and Kickstarter backers. An upgrade to make their old speaker become top modern. With this module you are able to stream True Wireless Audio to a Light Speaker and an older Transparent Speaker model together at the same time. If you’re an original Transparent Speaker backer — awesome! Do check out the special pledge level including a BT5 Module.

Transparent Bluetooth 5 Dongel – An optional add on, if you want to upgrade your current speaker with Bluetooth and play it together with the light speaker.

Built to last

The single most important thing that an electronics product can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save natural resources is to extend its lifespan. That’s why we have invested so much time in making a completely modular design that can be repaired and upgraded over time. 

Our mission is that Transparent products will actually get better with age and we will do what we can to remove electronic waste from the world. 

Our vision is to be the first circular tech brand.

Our environmental work has been recognized in China as Grand Finalist in Global IEIC Environmental Innovation Competition. We have been featured in the European Commission’s report on Circular Economy case studies, and listed as Green Heroes by Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs in the UK. After our first two projects we have also advised Kickstarter in New York on these topics and influenced the creation of the their Environmental commitments section.

The printed circuit board (PCB)

How is it made?

To make this product a reality in scale we work with our great partner in China. It’s a company founded by a woman. She later married a Danish man that then also became a partner in the business. It’s a truly unique company, well known internationally for its quality. We have worked together with them since our first kickstarter. 

Finding all the right parts and suppliers for this product has taken our combined efforts for more than a year.

Why we need your support

We’re a small team with big ambitions. And taking on an entire industry is definitely a big undertaking. To make the Light Speaker come to life we now need your help.

Transparent was born on kickstarter and has grown from this community. But making hardware is tough – even more so if you are breaking the mold of the tech goliaths, and investing in the tools necessary to make complex aluminum parts and newly innovated vibrating light elements. 

Basically have three reasons for returning to Kickstarted for our third campaign:

• Investing in upfront manufacturing costs like aluminum tooling
• Getting people involved in the final stages of product development
• Scoping out how many we should make  

We are Transparent

Being transparent means stopping corporate bullshit and talking honestly, at eye level, with our users, backers and extended creative community. Being born on kickstarter we shared our journey openly and frequently with our backers from day one.

Founders Per and Martin were part of the renowned Stockholm design studio People People for almost ten years. In between projects for major international consumer electronics brands, they envisioned the Transparent Speaker in a blog post. In the post they outlined sustainable design philosophy and a solution to the war going on in the living rooms decor – the never ending battle between home electronics and interior design. The post went viral, people in the comments literally asked them to put it on Kickstarter, this led to completing a successful crowdfunding campaign 2013 that has led us back here today.

Since our first kickstarter we have shipped thousands of units to over 60 countries. Our speakers can be found at design shops like Conran Shop and music stores like Turntable Labs. They have been used in music videos from artists such as Robyn and Snoop Dogg, and frequently get celebrity love on social media.

• What Hi-Fi? Calls us the best HiFi from Kickstarter with “high quality components designed for ‘any space’”
• The Independent (UK) says the Small Transparent Speaker is “the best buy.. and the best bluetooth speaker on the market”
• Stuff gave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  review and called us a “Scandi Supermodell”.  
• Elle Interior fulle page luxe list feature 

After Per & Martin sold their part in People People to work on Transparent full time, the core founding team of Transparent was joined by Magnus last year to help with the international expansion. Today our core team is 5 people sitting in central Stockholm. 

Big thanks to these behind the scenes backers

• Our supporting families
• Noel Edling for shooting the video
• Magnus Wiberg for being the best possible co-founder and communicator
• Julio & Daniel from Launch Studio for coaching
• Mira & Thilda for photos & campfire
• Joanna for taking care of our insta plus doubling as an extra in the shoot
• Grand Relations for letting us use their incredible showroom
• Gustav & Josefine for helping getting our web & emails in order
• Vic, Emma and the crew at Little Red for making the impossible PR situation more possible
• itradephoto for fast turnaround on flat shots
• Heather from Kickstarter
• Jake from Indiegogo
• Oskar K for jumping on last minute 
• Alex from Sieo

And all the previous backers that got us to where we are today! 

Follow us

Transparent on Instagram

Risks and challenges

This is Transparent’s third Kickstarter campaign. Both our previous campaigns were delayed but finally delivered to great praise. It has really taught us about transparency and the bottlenecks of producing something great (without compromising anything) at scale.
We have now established a solid relationship with our experienced contract manufacturer partner and we work together to set all the high standard protocols and processes for material suppliers to remove risks in the supply chain. We have built the prototypes you see in this campaign together with our pre-selected partners – so they fully understand our specifications and timeline. We can still not anticipate unexpected issues but we can guarantee that we are going to be fully transparent and keep you updated if anything affects our plans.

Ship Date: We are confident we can follow our schedule. But big outbreaks of Corona or other “force majeure” events arising from geopolitics or extreme weather (global warming) etc will off course potentially have effects on the shipping date. We will of course keep you fully up to date.