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  • Raven / Teenage Engineering

    Teenage Engineering and Raven's 'H' and 'R' aren't typical smart speakers

    by 
    Nathan Ingraham
    Nathan Ingraham
    11.15.2017

    Most people still don't know who or what Teenage Engineering is. But, those that do probably think of them as a music company — the iconic OP-1 synthesizer, OD-11 speaker and line of tiny Pocket Operator synths have earned Teenage Engineering that reputation. But more than that, the company is made of of people who love getting weird with hardware design; pushing the boundaries of what can be created is in Teenage Engineering's DNA. Two new products Teenage Engineering designed in partnership with Raven were just unveiled at the Baidu World conference in Beijing, China, and they most definitely fit with that ethos. Simply referred to by the single letters "H" and "R," the easiest way to identify devices is to call them smart speakers. But they don't in any way resemble what Amazon and Google have trained us to think of when we think of speakers that you talk to.