@@vinylcabasse I think the whole thing's quite interesting. They seem to generate rage and ardour in equal quantities! having seen loads of reviews of the OP1 and being a (very) amateur musician, they have a lot of fanbois in the online influencer community but I must admit, I sometimes struggle to see what the fuss is about. 4 tracks and pretty basic features for all that money? I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that, but seems like back to the TDK SA90 and the yamaha four track but I appreciate that people love the presets....
Completely agree with your assessment. At first I thought it would be something with hundreds of selectable animations and maybe automatically change. Being monochrome is a style choice but possibly not the best. At £35, even with the fairly good physical construction, its lack of functionality makes it a complete fail. Maybe they pushed in a circuit from some £3 device after realizing they'd gone over their build costs. A simple improvement would have been a USB interface to allow download of custom animations and maybe an onboard battery. Multicolour LEDs would have been good too. As it stands, maybe worth £10 although I wouldn't want to risk that dodgy potted Chinese PSU running unsupervised, an external DC supply would have been better.
That doesn't look like a dodgy power supply at all. Nicely designed, and it looks plenty big enough for heat dissipation at that power rating. I've seen some much dodgier external supplies that I've taken apart. You'd also think that ikea would be able to specify components that won't burn down your house.
Not sure what processing unit is in there, but addressing 16² lights seems easier than addressing 16² lights in four colours. I guess they aimed for a fancier lamp rather than an LED screen, which explains the price segment. So something going for 50+ would have defied the purpose. Same for the USB interface. What wouldn't have cost significantly more is coming up with better animations. But ever there I think they went with the lamp idea and the main purpose was to get loudness represented as brightness, especially when those thingies get bundled.
Overpriced maybe, but would you really call the OP-1 underfeatured? For the original $700 MSRP I thought it offered a lot. That said, hard to believe that this is the company that make the legit awesome Pocket Operators :)
@@menhirmike They've massively gone up in price since then and the design is unchanged. I had one and I loved the sound engines but the "sequencing" method was annoying and you really had to use it every day or you forgot the shift key options. It's like a virtual 4 track but with cut and paste ability. For some people that might be novel and you can do some whacky live remixes on it, but for me it wasn't up to it. I tried an MPC live next and that was the opposite, too feature laden, too much depth.
@@periurban Dedicated tactile controls and knobs are better than a touchscreen by a mile. Does an iPad do sampling and FM radio capture? (which is a slight gimmick yes) it doesn't even have a mic input or headphone jack.
Matthew (TechMoan) has the most polite and friendly way of completely dressing down a product as cheap rubbish not worth the quid or the space it would take up in your flat!
damn I was half considering getting one of these since I like ikea stuff and was looking for a graphic equaliser type thing for the stereo, it looked good in pictures at least - glad I can keep my 35(!) quid now
Can we all just take a moment to recognize that he didn't pad it out to 10 minutes to appease the algorythm? He just said what he wanted to say about the device and ended the video. Thank you!
There are 16 drivers on that panel, with 16 channels per driver. They really wanted "true" individually addressable LEDs. They could've easily went with just two drivers and multiplexing, it's not like it has super high frame rat. I guess the brightness could've suffered slightly from multiplexing, but I doubt it would be noticeable. I really like the aesthetics of the series (especially in the promo shots), but it seems that it's just this LED panel and a LED spot (without any additions) still being sold (or maybe it's just those two products that got released)
Those SCT2024 LED drivers are $0.57 in quantity according to Octopart, that adds about $9 to the BOM cost. No wonder the product is so expensive for what it does. Time to stick an ESP32 into it.
@@3zuli They are the CSSG variant, so a little bit cheaper: $0.419 for 2.5k (or $.427 for 10k according to octopart) at TME*, $0.224 for 1340+ at WinSource. But still like $3-$6 (probably at the lower scale, in regards to volume and where they are manufactured) extra for 16 instead of 2 ICs. (*Or is it TEM‽ Confusing logo)
The industrial design is nice and solid but they really failed on the software side. Pretty sure the micro-controller can render proper visualizations but nobody bothered to program them in :(
I don't think you know what industrial design actually is. You called it good, but this product features practically zero industrial design. It's a black box with a LED panel on it. Nobody has designed shit.
@@UnitSe7en Do you know what industrial design is? No, it's not made of steel with a pair of handles on the front, but as consumer products go it's pretty good. The internal structure looks like it will keep everything together solidly, and the part that holds the LED matrix in place seems to improve rigidity. Would like to give it a physical look before I pass any more judgement. As for it being a black box, with an LED panel on it, all my designs for industry have kept things simple. Less to go wrong. Remember also that "industrial" is being used loosely as a adjective here. It's not supposed to be taken literally as though it's actually designed for industry.
@@gavincurtis oh common, when technmoan and me were teenagers, we coded demos and music-graphic art in assembler on C64s. in todays day and age, when everything is available as a library to link in - a monkey could do better
@@henryokeeffe5835 it's badly designed because it is too complex, the chinese will redesign it, held togeter with plastic clips and goo, and sell it for a tenth of its cost, with RGB LED's
They're not sold out in other regions btw, they were sold out from the original 2020 run with all of the other pieces; they've weirdly decided to restock just the lights. Some people worked on hacking them before but the limited run nature of it all stopped that pretty quickly. It's a bit baffling they've brought these back without the other pieces. They look alright alongside the other parts but it's terribly limited and oddly bulky just by itself. The lights on the matrix very much feel like they're missing a diffuser too.
It's not odd - It's simply an out-of-touch company (or important-decision-making people). They make crap and they're aware that they make crap, but some people bought that crap and they don't understand why.
@@UnitSe7en yeah I reckon you're right; iirc the lights sold out in loads of places quite quickly but the speakers stuck around for ages so the lesson they learned was "wow, these lights are really popular!" Either that or the original order had a _massive_ delay and now they've to offload all the extra stock.
That off-centre arrow is unforgivable for Teenage Engineering ! Lol, their stuff is always really well designed, but this is like seeing really bad kerning on an Apple product's logo/text.
Teenage Engineering tend to always make me react with "wait, it looks that cheap... and it is that expensive?" I can't say I am all that hyped about anything they have done that I have seen. I mean... if it was one of those 16x16 gif-players, I would be more interested. But the limitations really kill any excitement here.
I mean, to be fair, their pocket operators are pretty fun. Years after buying some, they are still a lot of fun to play with. But yeah, pricey. The rest... Yeah, hype-ware.
What would make it more enticing is using an app to make your own animations and I think also having full colour LEDs would be even better. Hopefully IKEA May do something like that in the future
Divoom has a bunch of products that are better than this. This really needs a more powerful microcontroller/DSP to make it do anything interesting. The user creating actual visualizations (rather than cycling through animations) through an app would be tougher but it could be done.
Except the Pocket Operators. They sound great and are quite reasonably priced for synth hardware. The OPs seem very good as well, but yeah the cost is ridiculous.
@@thegrinderman1090 that's only because almost all synth hardware is that way... With any keyboard controller and a bunch of free plugins you can replicate all of them. You're not buying synth hardware for the functionality usually. So to me they all count as overpriced novelty keyboards... They just have a good branding niche.
@@SquintyGears I don't disagree, but personally I find making music on dedicated hardware so much more fun that it's worth the cost. Maybe it's because my job is on a computer, but using VSTs kind of feel like work in comparison. A hobby isn't necessarily about taking the straightest path from A to B, the pleasure is in the journey!
The equipment they've been making since the beginning has value. But they've decided to also expand their business to slapping a sticker with their logo on random lots of electronics imported from China, which is unfortunate but probably makes more money than selling a few items to musicians.
@@dc9662 they use very cheap electronic components and very primitive algorithms. I like them and I own a few of them but I feel they should still be at least two times cheaper...
These were for sale in the Cardiff store a few years ago. I remember looking forward to seeing what Teenage Engineering had done with IKEA before I got there, and the massive disappointment when I found out...
Yeah this product lineup was part of a strange modular set all meant to attach together. They had like 5 or 6 different module types between flashing strobe lamps, speakers, woofers, fake visualizers, and stand/extension pieces. All together it makes a pretty fun looking “DJ-esque light show party toy” but that many modules together gets expensive fast. I have just one of the strobe cubes with the yellow comb filter attached on my desk being used as a literal up-firing lamp. On their own the individual components aren’t much. Together they add up to something mildly interesting. TE was evidently trying to work with Ikea to hit a price/profit ratio with these and didn’t bother with any pricier internal processing components that could actually analyze waveforms and output smoothly to the LED Screen. If they made one that could do that for a little more cost IMO it would’ve been potentially worth while.
It's very discriminatory against capitalism not to allow every atom in the local environment to be converted to products for profit. We're making everything in nature more valuable and worthwhile!!! It would be blind, selfish, and evil to stand in the way of all that potential revenue. People will be much happier when they're money, they just don't understand that, yet...::
A few years ago they were also available from Ikea Germany. If I'm not mistaken, different modules were also available. But it disappeared very quickly because nobody seemed to be buying it. Even I've never seen a part like this before.
I remember buying that a few years ago before throwing in the closet. They were a new product about 5 years ago in the US. Looked more interesting in the store with like 5 or so stacked together…
That's pants, the first pattern not centered would drive me mental to the point where I'd have to hide it when people come round. It's just tedious without any creative thought at all. Hmmm, I fancy making one with an ESP32 running Dave Plummer's NightDriverLED library. Oh, I've done it now!
I actually did retrofit two of these with ESP32s, with some custom firmware to drive the LEDs (there's some videos on my channel). It's not that hard, you can easily fit it on the original size of the castellated PCB.
@@q3kq3k Very impressive Mr q3k. Now that would be worth £35 of anyone's money. This is a link to q3k's video: th-cam.com/video/X-ckCeE_HUs/w-d-xo.html
Teenage Engineering at it's best. As always. If you're interested, recently they made a tiny, overpriced, underwhelming audio mixer that costs 1100 quid. And no way it's targeted at pros. 🥴
Lol, the mixer in question is a micro DJ suite meant to compliment the new OP-1 field when touring. Just because you can't afford either doesn't make them bad gear. 😊
@@SK83RJOSH I think many people can afford that. The question is do they want to buy it. This "design focus" device is clearly (mis)targeted at children and man-childs with tiny hands and somewhat shallow understanding of audio equipment. 😉
@mipmipmipmipmip You always get a better price if you can buy it directly from the factory. Retailers are there to facilitate the exchange so you do not have to bother with things like finding a factory, inspecting the product, fixing with customs, and so on. That being said. IKEA tend not to be the cheaper. Though this product seems even to be low value compared to what they regularly sell.
@mipmipmipmipmip sometimes you can get some good prices there. I’ve had some good furniture purchases for things that have been much more elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean it also doesn’t have rubbish.
It used to be good value in the 90s. But prices have been gradually creeping up for years. Then Covid / Brexit happened and some things doubled in price. It's not really my aesthetic anyway, I prefer to trawl charity shops and marketplace for 1920s and 1930s stuff that is much better made from real wood and (because dark wood furniture is still unfashionable) costs a fraction of the wobbly IKEA equivalent. The few IKEA pieces I do have are real wood and were also purchased used. I see a lot of it stacked up in front gardens of student digs and bedsits when tenants move out and once it gets rained on a couple of times it's basically a pile of cardboard mush. Like a lot of things now it's barely fit for purpose and should probably be dropped off directly at the landfill to cut out the middleman.
I think it depends. Usually very simple furniture is a lot cheaper because they have very good manufacturing infrastructure and use cheaper to produce materials such as composites from easily recycled substances. But there are also "vanity" items as well.
Up until 1m21s that looked like a great product. Thanks for saving my cash! Great video and nice to see it getting the destruction it deserved. Dare you to send it back 😁
I agree totally with it being a missed opportunity; there must be dozens of more interesting open-source Arduino/STM sketches out there that could have been burnt onto the microcontroller instead. And it’s not worth modding or hacking IMO, because I can confirm that those parts can be sourced much cheaper individually.
As a photo-sensitive epileptic, I appreciate the warning and I was able to take precautions (without tuning out, just looking away). I was hoping for a bigclivedotcom style teardown and you even did close up shots of the boards and chips. The only thing that was missing was a diagram of the board, lol.
Initially I was thinking; 'Is the video properly sync'd? Doesn't seem to be hitting the beat?' Only for the reveal that, no, it's just tat. Well done Ikea.
I like Ikea but sometimes yeah they just bring out bits that are wasted and pointless where a bit more time spent on its features and purpose could turn into something real special and fun to have that is accessible. They are certainly moving into more electronics and smart units so maybe one day they will have units like the Lametric that is often in shot showing the TH-cam subs. Then it would be at least worth the price.
All the chips on the white board are shift registers, so you get the 256 LEDs represented by 1 bit each. It looks like a very simple and low end microcontroller on the green board w/ an op-amp driving everything - The MC is not powerful enough to analyze waveforms.
I'll keep that in mind if I ever find one in a thrift store bin. At least it would be simple enough to take out the stupid part and use it as a simple display, but it's not worth it at that price. If just the display was on Amazon for five or ten dollars I might care, but the rest of it is merely well-engineered crap.
Hi Matt, thanks for another interesting video even if the product is 'pants'. A good follow up would be the Pixoo from Divoom. I purchased one for my son's birthday and was really impressed. It was a similar price of £38.
Coincidentally I was looking at these yesterday and they appear pretty cool. How is the music visualisation on those? Microphone based visualisers tend to be poor.
@@mattlm64 Dunno about all the Divoom products, I have a Pixoo 64. The music visualization is ok, better than this "visualization", but I would not get it for that purpose. I use it for animated GIFs.
What turned me off at the first instance was the light leakage from LED to the adjacent ones. But after the tear-down, I can see that the light leakage is via the lenses above the LED array. It would probably look better without the lenses… But the animation routines are pathetic. …Caveat Emptor I was curious about the price here, down-under, but its not available.
I'm a long time viewer going back to 2015. Have you ever done a video talking your background? You really sound relaxed on camera (of course I know you can edit out out and such). Also, a lot of the retro tech you've covered over the years (such the wire recorder), do you still have them and if so, where do you keep your collection?
I may be able to help somewhat. Mat has mentioned in the past that he has a storage unit, I imagine some of his less-used toys go there, plus items for upcoming videos that may be awaiting repair.
It would have been almost trivial to stick a USB port on the rear - and along with an app - allow users to program their own patterns / displays / animations.
Did you see the product? A USB port would require a different microcontroller, documentation for the customer on using the USB port (how do you teach to program in an 'ikea' style manual?), possible addition of a flash chip, and software for the unit (and looking at what this does, improving the software would be a tremendous effort for the company... like they would probably have to hire someone to do it), and probably some online resource for this. If you also expect an app (assuming ios or android or web (javascipt or something), then the device would also need wifi or bluetooth support. That's way beyond the current capabilities and would require a ground-up redesign for the microcontroller board.
@@brucemblue _"A USB port would require a different microcontroller"_ Yep, it would require a very cheap off the shelf micro-controller. _"documentation for the customer on using the USB port"_ Lol : ) _"possible addition of a flash chip"_ I think you are conflating micro-controllers and microprocessors, micro-controllers have memory built in (Eeprom / flash / Ram . . . ). _"software for the unit"_ Open source libraries already exist for every conceivable use case, I could write an app to design a grid patterns (or a series of grid patterns), change frame rate, chaining, control over audio response (and so on) in an afternoon, and I'm not even that competent, someone more skilled could knock something basic off (for approval) in a couple of hours, refine the code - and the UI/UX - over a couple of days . . . the work for something like this is - as I say - trivial. _"they would probably have to hire someone to do it"_ Oh no ! IKEA would have to pay people to work for them ! We can't have that, I'm sure they would be horrified at this new and disturbing concept . . . paying people to do work ! : ) _"then the device would also need wifi or bluetooth support"_ Quotes my own use of the phrase . . . "USB port". By the way I only recently bought a wifi chip for a project, and they were so cheap ($0.60 each - USD) that I couldn't buy individual ones, so had to buy a whole strip (they come on a sort of rubberised plastic strip) of 20 ! Look up the prices for yourself, whatever you see, whether it's $0.50 or $1 for a wifi or bluetooth controller, remember IKEA will be sourcing them at a fraction of this this price. None of your points stack up . . . . apparently they couldn't have done something like this as people don't work for free, writing software is a new and dangerous frontier, especially something as vastly complex as sending a few lines of basic data to a multiplexer / shift-register, never having been done before, and the whole project might require components that are normally sourced for pennies (example - USB ports - 100 pieces for less than $2 wholesale) . . . I agree it's impossible and I'm glad they played it safe : )
@@davelordy it's just a cheap piece of crap, you won't get any of those things you've pointed out, because people will buy it anyway, and it might not be feasible for ikea to do.
@@izimsi _"you won't get any of those things"_ I'm not asking for them, I was simply pointing out that it would have been trivial to include the ability for the user to upload their own designs/patterns.
So satysfying watching Techmoan breaking something instead of fixing😂Not a usual thing to see here on this channel. C'mon, Mat, that should be a regular sunday content!!!😄
So much potential, yet this device really doesn't amount to anything very interesting. While I have several music visualizers I'll be taking a pass on this one. Stay safe Mat despite those UK temps!
Apart from the physical construction, that is the quality of gadget I'd expect to see on sale for £5 at poundland. I mean, really? Some proper addressable RGB LEDs and a better microcontroller and you would have a decent unit. Make them communicate with each other so you can build a wall. Add bluetooth and an app and it might be worth £25-30ish.
It reminds me a of the halogen blinder walls that are used at big music events. If this had some kind of external input like Artnet it would look cool on a lego-sized model.
screwdriver + solder iron + arduino + multiplexer (or 2) = might be fun . . . but as it stands it's a great looking design, but the display is really underwhelming, especially given what you can do these days with a cheap micro-controller.
Add a 3D printer and some round LEDs to that list and you can keep the £35 instead of buying the original product :) Nice idea, too bad it got a terrible execution ...
Even with its limited functionality, RGB LED would have added a great look to it. It looks very easy to program. the conroller board has all the inputs labeled for CLK etc.... Buying one might be worth it if you wanted bright white LED panel :D I dunno.
Ha ha at 3secs I saw the off-set “quick vid” pixelated title. Brilliant. You typed it and left it without bothering to centre it…..Genius. Must have been a quick vid. Thumbs up.
This product is what happens when you hire designers to do engineers' work. Designers fresh out of school no doubt. What a piece of junk! Thanks Mat for taking one for the team.
So happy to hear the reference to, and see so many other comments about, the off-centre arrow. For a horrible few minutes I thought I might be the only one bothered by it. It was driving me crazy. I see little reason for these things to even exist, and certainly not at £35 a throw. I guess if someone had more money than sense they could strap three of them each side of an RC helicopter and recreate the "Welcome" sequence from _Independence Day..._
So many components on the PCB for very little happening. Imagine buying 6 of these to stack on top of each other as shown for £210 what a waste of money. Straight back to IKEA for a refund. lol
If this was reviewed by pretty much ANY other "tech" channel, they'd swear blind it was great value for the money. Only HERE do you get the straight up "it's rubbish" answer and that's why we stick around. Cheers Mat :)
You can replace the controller board with something like a Wemos D1 mini and program it using Ardiuno or even better ESPHome. It's a pretty good deal for a nice programmable matrix display with a great enclosure that allows you to tile them easilly
This would actually be nice for my Lego Christmas DJ setup. It's a 'live' stage with lights, dj and booth, a screen with Christmas clips and a Bluetooth speaker. This simple thing could work as a background. Might paint the clear lights in Christmassy colours🤔
This reminds me of a Make/100 project I bought from called PIXO Pixel. It’s a programmable 16x16 RGB LED grid, though a bit smaller than your box. I was 70 of 100. And when I say programmable, it has a esp32 to allow you to do whatever you want. It wasn’t cheap though. And I’m fairly certain only 100 we’re ever made and sold. The guy might still sell kits, not sure.
Bought this. It’s nice but I was more in love with the Ikea headphone holder which is a head that lights up in several colors. Just as pricey, but useful and easier on the eye. ;) Reminded me of the early 80s headphone stands.
Kind of shocking, given that TE's Pocket Operator product line is a set of the most amazing low-end electronic music devices. This is so underpowered compared to even a Divoom device with color, bluetooth, and customization. The feeling when a product or toy is deterministic/simple is such a letdown, so common, so specific - there should be a word for it. Anyway, a great video, as usual; master of the form. The teardown turns it into something I can't look away from.
Probably not, actually. The chips on the central unit are a dual opamp and one unknown chip, which may be custom. And the effect could be done entirely with the opamp detecting beats, and the chip having one counter that moves through the animations and another counter that multiplexes them out to the LEDs. So it can be done with zero computing power, and I doubt they would waste even half a dollar of computing power on this. It's a low-margin operation.
I preferred my coloured disco light box from I think Woolies in the 70s. That was sound responsive and really good. Contained in a teak effect box about 2ft by 1. With a frosted glass effect front.💙💙💙💙
I remember looking at the bluetooth speaker in this series because I thought it looked cool, but bought the Eneby speaker instead. An Ikea employee could confirm that the Eneby has been built to sound good, while the Frekvens is just designed to look cool.
Would of expected that to be at most £5 in poundland. In fact in the past they (or one of the other budget stores) have stocked sound activated displays that did indeed react to sound (not just step though animations).
Almost exactly what I'd been thinking, "I can see Poundland selling that for £10 max, and quite probably less". The reliance on bland and lazy pre-canned excuse-for-"responsive" animations might have been more forgiveable at that sort of price. Utterly meh.
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Great review. “Not impressed with this at all. It’s rubbish”.
Brilliant. Proper techmoan candour. ❤️
An Ikea product is Rubbish? What is this world coming to?
It would make a great piece of Techmoan merch . . .
The _'Not impressed with this at all. It’s rubbish'_ T-shirt ?
: ) I'd buy it.
this has to be by far the most disappointing thing i've seen with teenage engineering's name on it
@@vinylcabasse I think the whole thing's quite interesting. They seem to generate rage and ardour in equal quantities! having seen loads of reviews of the OP1 and being a (very) amateur musician, they have a lot of fanbois in the online influencer community but I must admit, I sometimes struggle to see what the fuss is about. 4 tracks and pretty basic features for all that money? I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that, but seems like back to the TDK SA90 and the yamaha four track but I appreciate that people love the presets....
@@davelordy love that, so would I !
Completely agree with your assessment. At first I thought it would be something with hundreds of selectable animations and maybe automatically change. Being monochrome is a style choice but possibly not the best. At £35, even with the fairly good physical construction, its lack of functionality makes it a complete fail. Maybe they pushed in a circuit from some £3 device after realizing they'd gone over their build costs. A simple improvement would have been a USB interface to allow download of custom animations and maybe an onboard battery. Multicolour LEDs would have been good too. As it stands, maybe worth £10 although I wouldn't want to risk that dodgy potted Chinese PSU running unsupervised, an external DC supply would have been better.
Every sensible musical instrument is mono: viola, trumpet, flute, etc. Mono is often a very good choice.
@@extraleben6734 they're saying mono colour.. White LEDs only
That doesn't look like a dodgy power supply at all. Nicely designed, and it looks plenty big enough for heat dissipation at that power rating. I've seen some much dodgier external supplies that I've taken apart. You'd also think that ikea would be able to specify components that won't burn down your house.
All of that adds a lot. But it's too complex to hack, and too useless to use
Not sure what processing unit is in there, but addressing 16² lights seems easier than addressing 16² lights in four colours. I guess they aimed for a fancier lamp rather than an LED screen, which explains the price segment. So something going for 50+ would have defied the purpose. Same for the USB interface.
What wouldn't have cost significantly more is coming up with better animations. But ever there I think they went with the lamp idea and the main purpose was to get loudness represented as brightness, especially when those thingies get bundled.
As someone who owns an OP-1, overpriced and underfeatured is Teenage Engineering's speciality.
But it looks cool tho
Overpriced maybe, but would you really call the OP-1 underfeatured? For the original $700 MSRP I thought it offered a lot. That said, hard to believe that this is the company that make the legit awesome Pocket Operators :)
@@menhirmike Okay but they aren't selling for the original MSRP are they. I think the op-1 should've been 3-500 MAX. Now its just hipster bait.
@@menhirmike They've massively gone up in price since then and the design is unchanged. I had one and I loved the sound engines but the "sequencing" method was annoying and you really had to use it every day or you forgot the shift key options. It's like a virtual 4 track but with cut and paste ability. For some people that might be novel and you can do some whacky live remixes on it, but for me it wasn't up to it. I tried an MPC live next and that was the opposite, too feature laden, too much depth.
@@periurban Dedicated tactile controls and knobs are better than a touchscreen by a mile. Does an iPad do sampling and FM radio capture? (which is a slight gimmick yes) it doesn't even have a mic input or headphone jack.
This would drive me nuts. There are 16 LED's across. Meaning it can never come down to a single point, so the first arrow one is off centre. Nooooo!
That’s the teens bit. All image and no thought!
Was just about to say the same - right away the whole thing looked offset to the left by a pixel, which would drive me round the bend.
My OCD went nuts over this!
The arrow should point diagonally, then it would have been perfectly in the middle.
Seems a bit like a modern version of these dancing coke cans we had in the eighties.
Except less good.
I second that motion!! 🤠👍
Man - I thought was just the drugs I was doing at the time.
Man,... I forgot all about those... far more interesting to watch than this thing. Off to figure out where I stored my dancing Groot...
We had a dancing flower with sunglasses on. LOL
Matthew (TechMoan) has the most polite and friendly way of completely dressing down a product as cheap rubbish not worth the quid or the space it would take up in your flat!
damn I was half considering getting one of these since I like ikea stuff and was looking for a graphic equaliser type thing for the stereo, it looked good in pictures at least - glad I can keep my 35(!) quid now
Can we all just take a moment to recognize that he didn't pad it out to 10 minutes to appease the algorythm? He just said what he wanted to say about the device and ended the video.
Thank you!
@@tooltime9260 What are you talking about? I"m pretty sure you posted that reply to the wrong comment.
There are 16 drivers on that panel, with 16 channels per driver. They really wanted "true" individually addressable LEDs.
They could've easily went with just two drivers and multiplexing, it's not like it has super high frame rat. I guess the brightness could've suffered slightly from multiplexing, but I doubt it would be noticeable.
I really like the aesthetics of the series (especially in the promo shots), but it seems that it's just this LED panel and a LED spot (without any additions) still being sold (or maybe it's just those two products that got released)
Those SCT2024 LED drivers are $0.57 in quantity according to Octopart, that adds about $9 to the BOM cost. No wonder the product is so expensive for what it does. Time to stick an ESP32 into it.
@@3zuli They are the CSSG variant, so a little bit cheaper: $0.419 for 2.5k (or $.427 for 10k according to octopart) at TME*, $0.224 for 1340+ at WinSource. But still like $3-$6 (probably at the lower scale, in regards to volume and where they are manufactured) extra for 16 instead of 2 ICs.
(*Or is it TEM‽ Confusing logo)
Maybe they didnt want flicker
“Super high frame rat” would be a nice band name
@@helge. Or: Super high fame rat
The industrial design is nice and solid but they really failed on the software side. Pretty sure the micro-controller can render proper visualizations but nobody bothered to program them in :(
Or still learning....teenage engineers afterall. :)
I don't think you know what industrial design actually is. You called it good, but this product features practically zero industrial design. It's a black box with a LED panel on it. Nobody has designed shit.
@@UnitSe7en Do you know what industrial design is? No, it's not made of steel with a pair of handles on the front, but as consumer products go it's pretty good. The internal structure looks like it will keep everything together solidly, and the part that holds the LED matrix in place seems to improve rigidity. Would like to give it a physical look before I pass any more judgement. As for it being a black box, with an LED panel on it, all my designs for industry have kept things simple. Less to go wrong. Remember also that "industrial" is being used loosely as a adjective here. It's not supposed to be taken literally as though it's actually designed for industry.
@@gavincurtis oh common, when technmoan and me were teenagers, we coded demos and music-graphic art in assembler on C64s.
in todays day and age, when everything is available as a library to link in - a monkey could do better
@@henryokeeffe5835 it's badly designed because it is too complex, the chinese will redesign it, held togeter with plastic clips and goo, and sell it for a tenth of its cost, with RGB LED's
I love the disappointed voice when you say "I think it's rubbish"
Adds to the global scrap heap.
Thank you!
They're not sold out in other regions btw, they were sold out from the original 2020 run with all of the other pieces; they've weirdly decided to restock just the lights. Some people worked on hacking them before but the limited run nature of it all stopped that pretty quickly.
It's a bit baffling they've brought these back without the other pieces. They look alright alongside the other parts but it's terribly limited and oddly bulky just by itself. The lights on the matrix very much feel like they're missing a diffuser too.
It's not odd - It's simply an out-of-touch company (or important-decision-making people). They make crap and they're aware that they make crap, but some people bought that crap and they don't understand why.
@@UnitSe7en yeah I reckon you're right; iirc the lights sold out in loads of places quite quickly but the speakers stuck around for ages so the lesson they learned was "wow, these lights are really popular!"
Either that or the original order had a _massive_ delay and now they've to offload all the extra stock.
That off-centre arrow is unforgivable for Teenage Engineering ! Lol, their stuff is always really well designed, but this is like seeing really bad kerning on an Apple product's logo/text.
If it had good software, it could have been something. Oh well, teenage engineers....
Well, teens *are* known for being spotty...
@@CantankerousDave And off centre...
Exactly the reason the Galactic Unicorn has an odd number of horizontal LEDs!
Thought exactly the same. Made me feel unsettled from the beginning and put me off the device. Off centre and sloppy.
Thank you for wasting your money to find out this is a piece of junk. Now the viewers don’t have to do that.
Teenage Engineering tend to always make me react with "wait, it looks that cheap... and it is that expensive?"
I can't say I am all that hyped about anything they have done that I have seen.
I mean... if it was one of those 16x16 gif-players, I would be more interested. But the limitations really kill any excitement here.
Teenage Engineering sounds like code word for "rebranded chinese junk" resold at a higher price than what it's really worth.
Just something for pretentious rich people.
I mean, to be fair, their pocket operators are pretty fun.
Years after buying some, they are still a lot of fun to play with.
But yeah, pricey.
The rest... Yeah, hype-ware.
Also a horrible name for a brand. When I think of good solid engineering, teenagers are not at all what I picture.
@@GrannyBender The pocket operators are an operpriced bare pcb for 100$
What would make it more enticing is using an app to make your own animations and I think also having full colour LEDs would be even better. Hopefully IKEA May do something like that in the future
Divoom has a bunch of products that are better than this. This really needs a more powerful microcontroller/DSP to make it do anything interesting. The user creating actual visualizations (rather than cycling through animations) through an app would be tougher but it could be done.
Don't count on it
This is a perfect demonstration of the kind of stuff teenage engineering makes... It's all silly novelty but it's priced 5x higher than others.
Except the Pocket Operators. They sound great and are quite reasonably priced for synth hardware. The OPs seem very good as well, but yeah the cost is ridiculous.
@@thegrinderman1090 that's only because almost all synth hardware is that way... With any keyboard controller and a bunch of free plugins you can replicate all of them.
You're not buying synth hardware for the functionality usually. So to me they all count as overpriced novelty keyboards... They just have a good branding niche.
@@SquintyGears I don't disagree, but personally I find making music on dedicated hardware so much more fun that it's worth the cost. Maybe it's because my job is on a computer, but using VSTs kind of feel like work in comparison. A hobby isn't necessarily about taking the straightest path from A to B, the pleasure is in the journey!
@@SquintyGears on a channel that celebrates novelty, nuance, and over engineering, this is a rather ironic comment lol
The equipment they've been making since the beginning has value. But they've decided to also expand their business to slapping a sticker with their logo on random lots of electronics imported from China, which is unfortunate but probably makes more money than selling a few items to musicians.
Big Clive ? no, its Techmoan!😂
I was thinking the same, except the lack of an explosion stained MDF bench!
Finally, a Teenage Engineering product that won't bankrupt you. 🙂 Edit: But somehow it is still overpriced.
It's no $500 white T-shirt
Their Pocket Operator series is cheap, and a lot of fun. Plus, now they have a series of individual analog synth modules that won't break the bank.
@@dc9662 Selling the same PCB design for 10+ years for $90 is not "cheap". Growing up I got those LCD games in McDonalds happy meals.
@@dc9662 they use very cheap electronic components and very primitive algorithms. I like them and I own a few of them but I feel they should still be at least two times cheaper...
@@rubiconnn No, they are usually expensive high quality gimmicky products. The PO-33 is pretty great, though.
These were for sale in the Cardiff store a few years ago. I remember looking forward to seeing what Teenage Engineering had done with IKEA before I got there, and the massive disappointment when I found out...
My cat really enjoyed this video.
Yeah this product lineup was part of a strange modular set all meant to attach together. They had like 5 or 6 different module types between flashing strobe lamps, speakers, woofers, fake visualizers, and stand/extension pieces. All together it makes a pretty fun looking “DJ-esque light show party toy” but that many modules together gets expensive fast. I have just one of the strobe cubes with the yellow comb filter attached on my desk being used as a literal up-firing lamp. On their own the individual components aren’t much. Together they add up to something mildly interesting.
TE was evidently trying to work with Ikea to hit a price/profit ratio with these and didn’t bother with any pricier internal processing components that could actually analyze waveforms and output smoothly to the LED Screen. If they made one that could do that for a little more cost IMO it would’ve been potentially worth while.
Yeah the speaker is decent, I have one. All the other modules aren’t that much cop
The reluctance in Matts voice to even do this video is amazing. It makes for even better watching as a long time subscriber…
In my darker moments I sometimes think big box stores are just directly in hock with refuse disposal companies and landfill management operators.
Those are my lighter moments you are describing.
It's very discriminatory against capitalism not to allow every atom in the local environment to be converted to products for profit.
We're making everything in nature more valuable and worthwhile!!!
It would be blind, selfish, and evil to stand in the way of all that potential revenue.
People will be much happier when they're money, they just don't understand that, yet...::
A few years ago they were also available from Ikea Germany. If I'm not mistaken, different modules were also available.
But it disappeared very quickly because nobody seemed to be buying it. Even I've never seen a part like this before.
I remember buying that a few years ago before throwing in the closet. They were a new product about 5 years ago in the US. Looked more interesting in the store with like 5 or so stacked together…
It reminds me of those random blinky lights on the sets of old Science Fiction shows and movies like Star Trek.
That's pants, the first pattern not centered would drive me mental to the point where I'd have to hide it when people come round. It's just tedious without any creative thought at all. Hmmm, I fancy making one with an ESP32 running Dave Plummer's NightDriverLED library. Oh, I've done it now!
I actually did retrofit two of these with ESP32s, with some custom firmware to drive the LEDs (there's some videos on my channel). It's not that hard, you can easily fit it on the original size of the castellated PCB.
@@q3kq3k Very impressive Mr q3k. Now that would be worth £35 of anyone's money. This is a link to q3k's video: th-cam.com/video/X-ckCeE_HUs/w-d-xo.html
for anyone wonder, the LED PCB have letters on it says "YINYUEPINLED" which is Chinese pinyin, just simply means "music screen LED"
Don't worry, Big Clive, your job is safe.
Teenage Engineering at it's best. As always. If you're interested, recently they made a tiny, overpriced, underwhelming audio mixer that costs 1100 quid. And no way it's targeted at pros. 🥴
Lol, the mixer in question is a micro DJ suite meant to compliment the new OP-1 field when touring. Just because you can't afford either doesn't make them bad gear. 😊
@@SK83RJOSH I can afford them. They still suck for the asking price.
Ah, yes, the TX-6. What a joke that is.
@@SK83RJOSH I think many people can afford that. The question is do they want to buy it. This "design focus" device is clearly (mis)targeted at children and man-childs with tiny hands and somewhat shallow understanding of audio equipment. 😉
@@SK83RJOSH having a row of knobs that are too small to turn without turning others to either side makes it bad design and bad gear.
Admit I’ve seen many things that are a waste of money but this really takes the cake. And £35!!! At IKEA!
@mipmipmipmipmip You always get a better price if you can buy it directly from the factory. Retailers are there to facilitate the exchange so you do not have to bother with things like finding a factory, inspecting the product, fixing with customs, and so on.
That being said. IKEA tend not to be the cheaper. Though this product seems even to be low value compared to what they regularly sell.
@mipmipmipmipmip sometimes you can get some good prices there. I’ve had some good furniture purchases for things that have been much more elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean it also doesn’t have rubbish.
Oh, how many overpriced, crap product I bought at IKEA. 😞
It used to be good value in the 90s. But prices have been gradually creeping up for years. Then Covid / Brexit happened and some things doubled in price. It's not really my aesthetic anyway, I prefer to trawl charity shops and marketplace for 1920s and 1930s stuff that is much better made from real wood and (because dark wood furniture is still unfashionable) costs a fraction of the wobbly IKEA equivalent. The few IKEA pieces I do have are real wood and were also purchased used. I see a lot of it stacked up in front gardens of student digs and bedsits when tenants move out and once it gets rained on a couple of times it's basically a pile of cardboard mush. Like a lot of things now it's barely fit for purpose and should probably be dropped off directly at the landfill to cut out the middleman.
I think it depends. Usually very simple furniture is a lot cheaper because they have very good manufacturing infrastructure and use cheaper to produce materials such as composites from easily recycled substances. But there are also "vanity" items as well.
that offcenter arrow is KILLING ME!!!!!!!!!
send those composants to Big Clive for retro engenering 😃
"composants" lol
Up until 1m21s that looked like a great product. Thanks for saving my cash! Great video and nice to see it getting the destruction it deserved. Dare you to send it back 😁
@@aserta cheers muchly for that, was wondering how the link was entered 😁
I agree totally with it being a missed opportunity; there must be dozens of more interesting open-source Arduino/STM sketches out there that could have been burnt onto the microcontroller instead. And it’s not worth modding or hacking IMO, because I can confirm that those parts can be sourced much cheaper individually.
Techmoan doing his Big Clive impersonation. "One moment please"
As a photo-sensitive epileptic, I appreciate the warning and I was able to take precautions (without tuning out, just looking away). I was hoping for a bigclivedotcom style teardown and you even did close up shots of the boards and chips. The only thing that was missing was a diagram of the board, lol.
One moment please!
Initially I was thinking; 'Is the video properly sync'd? Doesn't seem to be hitting the beat?' Only for the reveal that, no, it's just tat. Well done Ikea.
I like Ikea but sometimes yeah they just bring out bits that are wasted and pointless where a bit more time spent on its features and purpose could turn into something real special and fun to have that is accessible. They are certainly moving into more electronics and smart units so maybe one day they will have units like the Lametric that is often in shot showing the TH-cam subs. Then it would be at least worth the price.
Electronics more complicated than lamps has always been their weakest side
"It's bright, I'll give it that". You're too nice!
"Yeah, I think it's rubbish"....
I had the same reaction.
Oh my god, the off center arrow drove me nuts, thanks for addressing it
All the chips on the white board are shift registers, so you get the 256 LEDs represented by 1 bit each. It looks like a very simple and low end microcontroller on the green board w/ an op-amp driving everything - The MC is not powerful enough to analyze waveforms.
I'll keep that in mind if I ever find one in a thrift store bin. At least it would be simple enough to take out the stupid part and use it as a simple display, but it's not worth it at that price. If just the display was on Amazon for five or ten dollars I might care, but the rest of it is merely well-engineered crap.
To quote The 8-Bit Guy “In the garbage it goes!”.
Hi Matt, thanks for another interesting video even if the product is 'pants'. A good follow up would be the Pixoo from Divoom. I purchased one for my son's birthday and was really impressed. It was a similar price of £38.
Hi Dave, Thanks for the heads up that looks like an interesting product.
Divoom products are pretty nice in comparison to this kiddie science fair project.
Coincidentally I was looking at these yesterday and they appear pretty cool. How is the music visualisation on those? Microphone based visualisers tend to be poor.
@@mattlm64 Dunno about all the Divoom products, I have a Pixoo 64. The music visualization is ok, better than this "visualization", but I would not get it for that purpose. I use it for animated GIFs.
Nice to see someone using a Swiss army knife, not see one in ages!
I’m with you on that one! :-) Got a few myself but not this giant one we see in the video. I do wonder if it’s too big to be practical.
What turned me off at the first instance was the light leakage from LED to the adjacent ones. But after the tear-down, I can see that the light leakage is via the lenses above the LED array. It would probably look better without the lenses…
But the animation routines are pathetic.
…Caveat Emptor
I was curious about the price here, down-under, but its not available.
I'm a long time viewer going back to 2015. Have you ever done a video talking your background? You really sound relaxed on camera (of course I know you can edit out out and such). Also, a lot of the retro tech you've covered over the years (such the wire recorder), do you still have them and if so, where do you keep your collection?
@@defcreator187 I’m sure Matt can speak for himself if he feels like it’s an intrusion on his privacy. They are perfectly reasonable questions though.
@@defcreator187 Are you his agent? Don't worry you'll get your 1o%
@@defcreator187 He can say to me himslf, boy! Where did I demand he tell us???
@@NightTracer101 Thank you, David! Much appreciated!!!
I may be able to help somewhat. Mat has mentioned in the past that he has a storage unit, I imagine some of his less-used toys go there, plus items for upcoming videos that may be awaiting repair.
It would have been almost trivial to stick a USB port on the rear - and along with an app - allow users to program their own patterns / displays / animations.
Did you see the product? A USB port would require a different microcontroller, documentation for the customer on using the USB port (how do you teach to program in an 'ikea' style manual?), possible addition of a flash chip, and software for the unit (and looking at what this does, improving the software would be a tremendous effort for the company... like they would probably have to hire someone to do it), and probably some online resource for this. If you also expect an app (assuming ios or android or web (javascipt or something), then the device would also need wifi or bluetooth support. That's way beyond the current capabilities and would require a ground-up redesign for the microcontroller board.
@@brucemblue _"A USB port would require a different microcontroller"_
Yep, it would require a very cheap off the shelf micro-controller.
_"documentation for the customer on using the USB port"_
Lol : )
_"possible addition of a flash chip"_
I think you are conflating micro-controllers and microprocessors, micro-controllers have memory built in (Eeprom / flash / Ram . . . ).
_"software for the unit"_
Open source libraries already exist for every conceivable use case, I could write an app to design a grid patterns (or a series of grid patterns), change frame rate, chaining, control over audio response (and so on) in an afternoon, and I'm not even that competent, someone more skilled could knock something basic off (for approval) in a couple of hours, refine the code - and the UI/UX - over a couple of days . . . the work for something like this is - as I say - trivial.
_"they would probably have to hire someone to do it"_
Oh no ! IKEA would have to pay people to work for them ! We can't have that, I'm sure they would be horrified at this new and disturbing concept . . . paying people to do work ! : )
_"then the device would also need wifi or bluetooth support"_
Quotes my own use of the phrase . . . "USB port".
By the way I only recently bought a wifi chip for a project, and they were so cheap ($0.60 each - USD) that I couldn't buy individual ones, so had to buy a whole strip (they come on a sort of rubberised plastic strip) of 20 ! Look up the prices for yourself, whatever you see, whether it's $0.50 or $1 for a wifi or bluetooth controller, remember IKEA will be sourcing them at a fraction of this this price.
None of your points stack up . . . . apparently they couldn't have done something like this as people don't work for free, writing software is a new and dangerous frontier, especially something as vastly complex as sending a few lines of basic data to a multiplexer / shift-register, never having been done before, and the whole project might require components that are normally sourced for pennies (example - USB ports - 100 pieces for less than $2 wholesale) . . . I agree it's impossible and I'm glad they played it safe : )
@@davelordy it's just a cheap piece of crap, you won't get any of those things you've pointed out, because people will buy it anyway, and it might not be feasible for ikea to do.
@@izimsi _"you won't get any of those things"_
I'm not asking for them, I was simply pointing out that it would have been trivial to include the ability for the user to upload their own designs/patterns.
So satysfying watching Techmoan breaking something instead of fixing😂Not a usual thing to see here on this channel. C'mon, Mat, that should be a regular sunday content!!!😄
So much potential, yet this device really doesn't amount to anything very interesting. While I have several music visualizers I'll be taking a pass on this one. Stay safe Mat despite those UK temps!
It's amazing how basically all visualizers kinda suck these days, even the expensive ones
I might have been tempted, but I'm board with it just from watching the demo!
This makes some of those other bad VU meters look good.
Apart from the physical construction, that is the quality of gadget I'd expect to see on sale for £5 at poundland. I mean, really?
Some proper addressable RGB LEDs and a better microcontroller and you would have a decent unit. Make them communicate with each other so you can build a wall. Add bluetooth and an app and it might be worth £25-30ish.
It reminds me a of the halogen blinder walls that are used at big music events. If this had some kind of external input like Artnet it would look cool on a lego-sized model.
screwdriver + solder iron + arduino + multiplexer (or 2) = might be fun . . . but as it stands it's a great looking design, but the display is really underwhelming, especially given what you can do these days with a cheap micro-controller.
Add a 3D printer and some round LEDs to that list and you can keep the £35 instead of buying the original product :)
Nice idea, too bad it got a terrible execution ...
Even with its limited functionality, RGB LED would have added a great look to it. It looks very easy to program. the conroller board has all the inputs labeled for CLK etc.... Buying one might be worth it if you wanted bright white LED panel :D I dunno.
a 16x16 neopixel display is ~€20, an Arduino nano is €2 (!)... I don't think that case is worth €70... even 3D-printing that would come in under €30
Ha ha at 3secs I saw the off-set “quick vid” pixelated title. Brilliant. You typed it and left it without bothering to centre it…..Genius. Must have been a quick vid. Thumbs up.
This product is what happens when you hire designers to do engineers' work. Designers fresh out of school no doubt. What a piece of junk! Thanks Mat for taking one for the team.
I'm pretty sure his Patreon donors helped as well.
So happy to hear the reference to, and see so many other comments about, the off-centre arrow. For a horrible few minutes I thought I might be the only one bothered by it. It was driving me crazy.
I see little reason for these things to even exist, and certainly not at £35 a throw. I guess if someone had more money than sense they could strap three of them each side of an RC helicopter and recreate the "Welcome" sequence from _Independence Day..._
So many components on the PCB for very little happening. Imagine buying 6 of these to stack on top of each other as shown for £210 what a waste of money. Straight back to IKEA for a refund. lol
Never seen that animation before when clicking the like button.👍
If this was reviewed by pretty much ANY other "tech" channel, they'd swear blind it was great value for the money. Only HERE do you get the straight up "it's rubbish" answer and that's why we stick around. Cheers Mat :)
You can replace the controller board with something like a Wemos D1 mini and program it using Ardiuno or even better ESPHome. It's a pretty good deal for a nice programmable matrix display with a great enclosure that allows you to tile them easilly
You can get similar devices for a fiver - Love the Big Clive style tear down.
This would actually be nice for my Lego Christmas DJ setup. It's a 'live' stage with lights, dj and booth, a screen with Christmas clips and a Bluetooth speaker. This simple thing could work as a background. Might paint the clear lights in Christmassy colours🤔
Thanks for taking the time to show this to us. Clearly disappointing and not worth the price you paid
"I think it's rubbish" was the highlight for me. It almost had a Birmingham twang to it. 🙂
Getting some Bigclive vibes
Even Clive's trash has more class than this box.
This reminds me of a Make/100 project I bought from called PIXO Pixel. It’s a programmable 16x16 RGB LED grid, though a bit smaller than your box. I was 70 of 100. And when I say programmable, it has a esp32 to allow you to do whatever you want. It wasn’t cheap though. And I’m fairly certain only 100 we’re ever made and sold. The guy might still sell kits, not sure.
"Teenage Engineering" is just a more elaborate way to say "overpriced".
A bunch of amateur teens and they charge £35. Geez imagine the cost if it has been professionals.
Teenage engineering sounds like "We let the intern do it"
All I can say is don't quit your day job in fast food.
Looks like some of the leds don’t even get used. Still a bit of decoding and a raspberry pi would drive it nicely.
Yeah, a bit disappointing. 😑 An "oscilloscope-like" real display mode would be cool.
Bought this. It’s nice but I was more in love with the Ikea headphone holder which is a head that lights up in several colors.
Just as pricey, but useful and easier on the eye. ;) Reminded me of the early 80s headphone stands.
a small expensive box of "meh"
Big Clive: "I'm having trouble getting into it! Techmoan: "Hold my beer!"
The actual product was lame, more interesting seeing him take it apart.
Kind of shocking, given that TE's Pocket Operator product line is a set of the most amazing low-end electronic music devices. This is so underpowered compared to even a Divoom device with color, bluetooth, and customization. The feeling when a product or toy is deterministic/simple is such a letdown, so common, so specific - there should be a word for it. Anyway, a great video, as usual; master of the form. The teardown turns it into something I can't look away from.
I've actually seen more exciting barcodes. I'll pass.
I think "missed opportunity" is the sentence that best describes this product
£35 could half bought you a decent bottle of scotch.
I think I got a vision for it I can see them as background lighting in a dark club where the vague motion with the music would be kind of nice
More computer power in that light cube than the entire Apollo moon missions
Probably not, actually. The chips on the central unit are a dual opamp and one unknown chip, which may be custom. And the effect could be done entirely with the opamp detecting beats, and the chip having one counter that moves through the animations and another counter that multiplexes them out to the LEDs. So it can be done with zero computing power, and I doubt they would waste even half a dollar of computing power on this. It's a low-margin operation.
But the Apollo Moon missions actually did something :P
@@thhseeking .... though I can't think what at the moment
I preferred my coloured disco light box from I think Woolies in the 70s. That was sound responsive and really good. Contained in a teak effect box about 2ft by 1. With a frosted glass effect front.💙💙💙💙
Like all Teenage Engineering products, it's overpried and underdelivers
You turned it into a proper Ikea product - a self assembly kit 😀
e-waste landfill.
Thanks for the disassembly!
Wouldn't even pay 10...
As always, thanks for making it!
The mineral Chinesium always finds its way back to the earth.
Like IKEA, Teenage Engineering is a Swedish company... The quality of the Chinese manufacture would be the best thing about this device.
I remember looking at the bluetooth speaker in this series because I thought it looked cool, but bought the Eneby speaker instead. An Ikea employee could confirm that the Eneby has been built to sound good, while the Frekvens is just designed to look cool.
Landfill…. ! It’s sounds sooooo cheap and nasty
3:30 That reminds me of those old tap dimmer bedside table lamps. My Grand-Parents (used to?, (I can't remember)) have them!
They date back to the 1930’s…
Then your cat realises how they work and turns them off and on in the middle of the night :P
The irony is you can buy the components and assemble it for cheaper , than buy it assembled from IKEA
That's most things
@@doublebassYou missed the joke. An excellent one, too.
That is usually the case…. For everything.
Would of expected that to be at most £5 in poundland.
In fact in the past they (or one of the other budget stores) have stocked sound activated displays that did indeed react to sound (not just step though animations).
Almost exactly what I'd been thinking, "I can see Poundland selling that for £10 max, and quite probably less". The reliance on bland and lazy pre-canned excuse-for-"responsive" animations might have been more forgiveable at that sort of price. Utterly meh.
Good review but bad toy ❤️
The "I think is rubbush" hahaha. Good review
Overpriced and underwhelming. Teenage Engineering.
They sell a 75cm 3.5mm audio cable for £12. Tells you all you need to know about them.
Fun to see TechMoan channel his inner BigClive