If you even remotely call yourself a “hype beast”, or have found yourself in the company of some of these people, then you’d have stumbled upon a Bearbrick at some point in your life. Once perceived by the public as nothing more than a toy, it rose to legendary cultural icon status in its decades of existence.
Rendered as “BE@RBRICK”, these started in 2001 when founder Tatsuhiko Akashi was tasked to engineer a toy that would properly celebrate the 100th anniversary of the teddy bear. At the time, his company, Medicom Toy, was still in its relative infancy being founded just five years prior – and even before that, he was working a typical desk job at an IT firm.
Who would’ve known that this figure would propel itself to cult status to become one of the most valuable collectibles today?
Now, regular Bearbrick figures are still sold, but there are limited-edition variants as well as those constructed in partnership with fashion brands such as KAWS, BAPE, and Nike. These figures eventually end up in museums or private collections with some of them selling for a value of $160,000 and above at auctions.
Wow.
Now in 2023, Bearbricks are beginning to stem out of their role as display collectibles and delve into the world of tech.
The Bearbrick Bluetooth Speaker
The company has partnered up with Ukranian acoustic engineering company RINARO ISODYNAMICS, a veteran in the field with more than 40 years of experience. They’ve played a part in the engineering of Meze audio products, among others.
This pride and craftsmanship have resulted in a portable Bearbrick Bluetooth speaker. The brand has claimed that it’s put thousands of hours into its engineering as well as designed more than 200 all-new parts for it to use.
The speaker features QUAD 360 – an omnidirectional sound technology developed by RINARO for this very product. It should help ensure that sound is not only front-facing but disperses throughout the space in a balanced manner.
Another feat the engineers have to be commended for is fitting four custom-engineered acoustic drivers in the Bearbrick’s head, consisting of a pair of 20mm tweeters and a pair of 40mm woofers. When operating together, the brand claims that this results in a fuller sound than what the figure’s size suggests.
Users who have two Bearbrick Bluetooth speakers can pair them to achieve a fuller studio-like sound.
Control Points and Connectivity
Even more interesting are the control points for this Bearbrick Bluetooth speaker.
The Power / Bluetooth button can be toggled via a spot on its belly button, while an AUX and USB Type-C port can be found under its right leg. Thankfully, the manufacturers didn’t put the ports where we thought they would.
Skipping tracks can be done by twisting the figure’s left arm, while the other one can be jerked to change volume levels. Isn’t that cool?
There isn’t any specific information released yet regarding the Bluetooth type to be used in this Bluetooth Speaker. However, we’d like to speculate that it would be either 5.1 or 5.2 Bluetooth technology.
Battery Life
The Bearbrick Bluetooth speaker will keep playing audio at presumably medium volume levels for six hours. The onboard 10.36Wh battery can easily be topped up in 1.5 hours via fast wired charging, and should it deteriorate over time, can also be replaced completely.
The Bearbrick Bluetooth Speaker will be officially launched later this year and is set to hit the store shelves this November at a retail price of $499.
What do you think? Is it worth adding this to your collection?
As someone who is very passionate about all things tech, Nath loves breaking concepts down into simple terms for even beginners to understand. In his free time, he travels, indulges in his automotive hobbies, or simply looks for new jams to listen to.