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Design Student Bring Physical Charm to Spotify

by Terrence O'Brien on February 20, 2011 at 10:00 AM

Spotify Radio
In case you hadn't noticed, physical media are dying. Digital audio files long ago replaced CDs, movies are regularly available to stream, and games will download at the click of a mouse. There's no more reason to ever run to your local Best Buy . But there is still something alluring about physically touching your content source (just ask a vinyl fetishist). Jordi Parra, a Spanish design student, decided to combine that physical charm with digital convenience by creating a Spotify player, which streams tracks identified by small discs embedded with RFID tags.

Constructed of wood and plastic, Parra's Spotify radio has a decidedly analogue feel. While it takes its external design queues from old transistor radios, an Arduino processor resides inside, reading the tokens' RFID tags and looking for their associated music in the Spotify database. The device is a prototype constructed as his Masters thesis in Interactive Design at the Umea Institute of Design. Parra hopes to keep the project alive and wants to create a standalone version with an embedded version of Linux, Spotify and a speaker. (The current model actually plays the tunes through a computer; it must be connected via USB or Bluetooth.) To feast your eyes on more of the stunning creation check out the gallery below.

Spotify Radio


Tags: Arduino, Design, Jordi Parra, JordiParra, Music, Rfid, Spotify, Top

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