#Pentagon-shaped foldable speaker concept changes its form to adapt to your life

Speakers today come in all shapes and sizes, but the one thing they all still have in common is that they all have a fixed way of emitting sound, either in a single direction or in all directions. Yes, you can move a directional speaker to face somewhere else, but you can’t turn it into a 360-degree speaker or vice versa. It isn’t exactly a limitation of technology but more of a limitation of design, something that needs a bit more creative thinking to solve.

Fortunately, it’s not an impossible puzzle, as this concept design proves. Using a simple folding mechanism, this Bluetooth speaker turns from a pentagon-shaped barrel into a flat panel or anything in between, giving you the flexibility to use the speaker in a way that matches your lifestyle or your needs, instead of forcing yourself to adapt to the speaker’s unchanging design.

Designers: Andrew Lim, Anthony Saul Lopez (All Design Lab)

Think five gold bars all laid out side-by-side in a row, except they’re made of aluminum. That’s pretty much the unfolded appearance of the Pentatonic speaker concept, with all the drivers facing forward. The four outer panels actually house the speakers, a combination of regular drivers and bass, while the middle panel has the controls for volume and pairing with a Bluetooth audio source.

Although the panels are made of aluminum, they are all held together with a luxurious leather backing that contrasts with the metal in both texture and appearance. The material also gives the arrangement some flexibility, letting you roll the speaker up into a pentagon shape, with the speakers facing inward, or a rough star shape with the speakers facing outward. Or you can even have them alternate in a snake-like formation depending on where you need to direct the sound.

This flexibility is what gives the Pentatonic concept its appeal. You lay it all out with the speakers facing forward like a regular speaker, or spread the sound around like an omnidirectional speaker. You can even use it while it’s rolled up, with all the speakers facing inward. Not only does this mean that you can continue using the speaker even as you carry it around like a duffle bag, it also creates a sort of echo chamber that amplifies the sound.

As interesting as the design might be, there could be reasons why this design is difficult to implement in reality. The flexible backing, for example, might leave little room for wires connecting the different speakers. There might also be the question of durability, as wires tend to wear down faster when bent in this or that direction frequently. Still, it does touch on the subject of how speakers are designed today, demonstrating that there’s definitely still plenty of room for innovation.