MINI Jambox Speaker for Jawbone

The design explorations for MINI JAMBOX started with a blank sheet and the idea to completely re-invent the wireless speaker, as we knew it.

The user-centered insight and starting point for MINI is that people love the small JAMBOX size, and yet they want to take the product with them without hesitation about size or weight, from a jacket pocket to a small handbag. Delivering high quality sound in a small space requires a very rigid enclosure with inherent structural integrity. Eventually aluminum extrusions combined with a very advanced and patented assembly method became the clear winner.

This new approach enabled us to achieve the most efficient use of space, as outer skin and structural skeleton are one and the same. Form and function are truly intersected, as the overall size is the smallest, yet the rigid acoustic cavity affords maximum volume for the sound chamber. The extrusion and material also confers MINI with the strength and robustness needed in a physical object made for portability.

“In order to innovate, we have to take a process and push it somewhere entirely new,” says Yves. The demanding pursuit of refining the aluminum extrusion into an entirely new construction, flexing what might be possible with a mechanical engineering assembly that requires fewer parts and assembly steps, stewarding major leaps in production capabilities at scale.

"The result is that the MINI exterior skin is also the internal skeleton, in one fluid gesture; we are not just wrapping internal components with a sexy package, the package is the sound chamber."