Agura - The Soundscape Meditation Speaker  


Inspired by Nomads and their use of meditation as a daily practice, Agura is a speaker which seeks to ease the user into the meditation process with a more focused experience through the use of frequency modulation and soundscape creation.

A short video can be viewed here.


What exactly does Agura do?


The Agura speaker allows sounds recorded by the user to be used as a meditation jump pad.

This is to essentially use that recorded moment to help the user meditate better, help them remember that ‘moment’ and propel them into the meditation ‘zone’ at a faster rate with lower frequency modulations.

︎︎︎



Photos edited by Sean Sui ︎



︎Who?


  Nomadic individuals and anyone willing to give meditation a try.

︎Why?


  They find it hard or impossible to meditate easily, harder to focus because of their frequent environment changes.

  Immerse themselves in nature for a calmer experience.

  Speakers today rarely give the user the ability to change the soundscape created.






︎Lower frequency?


Listening to lower frequency sounds helps to:

  Remove anxiety and stress.

  Improves your memory.

  Attain emotional catharsis.

︎

It’s in the name.
‘Agura’ is the Japanese term for the position normally referred to as sitting cross-legged in English. The most optimal position for meditation to begin.



Meditation is frequently done primarily in the theta state (4-8Hz) range.

To allow the user to progress faster into their meditation phase, recorded sound pushed through the wood panels are modulated to this specific frequency range. This allows the user to progress faster into their meditation phase. 


- Swapping panels for soundscape creation

            

Due to the very small sound exciters inside the product, sound is created once they vibrate (20,000 cycles per second) against the wood panel. ︎︎︎



The sound output can be customized depending on which panels you use to allow the creation of that ‘safe space’ or ‘soundscape’. 
︎︎︎

For example, the curved panels allow the vibrational sound to push through at those angles while the flat panels give a more focused but frontal output.

- Radial Sound Soundscape Panels (All-around sound)


- Combined Sound Soundscape Panels (Focused + Radial Sound)



The Agura side of the product where sound/frequency changes are made and adjusted according to whatever the user needs for his/her daily meditation. ︎︎︎



Power and output side. 
- Bluetooth
- USB-C
- 3.5mm Audio Input︎︎︎




Panel combinations are very important here.

To allow the user to create that ‘safe space’ for meditation, the product allows them to customize that ‘space’ however they like in 3 possible combinations. This gives them total control over the spatial sound and how much it affects them.


- Panel Combinations




- Top View of Panel Changes



As sound is pushed through the wood panels, I wanted it to feel as if you were listening to the sounds recorded through a nature-like lens. 

As such a more earth-like colour scheme was chosen to tie the look of the product together. Ardent Ash and Lax Brown were the colourways created from this.



- Flat Panels (Ardent Ash) Colour


- Curved Panels (Lax Brown) Colour