A unique product that lets you connect deeper with your music collection

Brilliantly promoting a more engaging listening experience by reintroducing the suspense of playing analogue music with a hands-on prototyping focus – Kay van den Aker, Oscar Olsson, Emile Chuffart and Tobias Ertel bring to life a music player ‘Tiles’.

“Music is currently consumed instead of enjoyed – we feel that streaming apps today lack engagement and character due to being too streamlined! Tiles aspires to connect people to each other and to their digital music collection” says the team. 

The analogue process of listening to music makes the user very engaged, from the act of collecting the records to putting on a track – which in turn is way more memorable.

“We wanted to explore how a tangible interface in combination with artificial sounds could convey the message of music listening as the sophisticated and social process it was intended to be” they add. 

This minimalistic lifestyle product with smart technology is skillfully divided into two parts – the top displays the user’s highly personal and beloved music library, offering a clear view of the beautiful art covers. 

Whereas the lower part is the actual player – here, a song is mechanically inserted from the top and information about the current album is conveyed to the left on the E-Ink screen. 

Using the dial on the right, users can for instance adjust the volume or do other playback controls. 

“Further with the help of other buttons on the top right corner, one can easily filter between a song, album, artist and playlist when scrolling through the library” they say.