The market is flooded with Bluetooth speakers, ranging from the cheap to the expensive, and in variety of shapes and sizes, but none touts sustainability like the Woori Elec. Cork Speaker does. Cork Speaker is, as the product name implies, a portable Bluetooth speaker designed to be plugged to the opening of an empty bottle. The speaker is tiny but its designer thought of an ingenious way to bring out the sound and that is to leverage on an empty vessel.
The bottle serves as a resonance body, thus boosting sound depth and quality. In this way, Cork Speaker does not sacrifice sound quality just because of its tiny form. What makes Cork Speaker intriguing is, the sound reproduction can vary according to the shape, size and material of the bottle it is plugged into. Woori Elec., the Korean electronic company behind the product, said that the bottle creates effect that is as good as a large size speaker.
The idea behind Woori Elec. Cork Speaker is not just to create another Bluetooth speaker, but to make people unknowingly protect the environment by not discarding used bottles. About that, I think it is a long shot because, how many bottles can each person NOT throw because of this speaker? Probably not a lot, I would say. It is a commendable effort nonetheless.
Each speaker comes with two sizes of washable silicon ring for the speaker to sealed snugly to the bottle’s mouth. Woori Elec. Cork Speaker Portable Bluetooth Speaker is designed by Jeongjae Lee and Yeontaek Lee of Leedeyeon Inc. and it is not a concept product. It is a real product which you can buy, or at least you can if you read Korean and resides in South Korea. The product is listed on a South Korean online store, retailing for 39,000 Won (or about US$36).
Images: Woori Elec.