Smartphones are for most of us the kind of universal remote used for almost everything. Ranging from unlocking cars to controlling alarm sensors in our homes, with the right app a smartphone can access a wide array of devices. Bang & Olufsen however, being traditionally the acoustic and high-quality audio device makers that they are, propose the single-purpose device solely dedicated to music. The BeoSound Moment tablet with its two sides accesses your music located in the cloud while at the same time trying to play what you want to hear. One of these sides is also the most interesting aspect of the Moment as it is made of oak wood with a slight protruded indentation in the shape of a wheel. Bang & Olufsen stated that it is the first time that wood has been used as a touchable interface.
By tapping the centre of the wooden wheel music will start playing and dragging the finger around the indentation the volume adjusts according to your needs. The level of responsiveness is very good with almost no delay but the cool factor is in the centre here as it does feel pretty neat to swipe a finger around Bang & Olufsen’s wooden version of the Click Wheel. The front side of the slate is made of metal also having a large Click Wheel on the right with a large display on the left that can be used for browsing music stored in the cloud. Or you can just tap the colour wheel and the music will start playing and the colours will jump from red to green depending on the mood you’re in. Red is for aggressive music and green is when you listen to something soothing. Touching closer to the wheel the Moment will start playing music familiar to you and when you touch the outer edge the music that it plays you might not know it yet.
BeoSound Moment front metal side. Bang & Olufsen design
The BeoSound Moment can access your music library from your phone via Bluetooth and can connect either wired or wireless speakers to the device and not necessarily be Bang & Olufsen. Moment remembers the type of music you play and after a few weeks it can guess what you want to listen to and start playing it just by tapping the wooden button wheel. This system was designed to help you not browse through your whole music library if you feel you don’t want to and simplifies all this for you by simply tapping once to let your music play. And this stylish tablet can sit comfortably in any modern residence, and can connect to cloud services like Deezer or Spotify thus giving you a the choice to have larger content. Bang & Olufsen said the BeoSound Moment will arrive later this year with no word on the pricing yet, but given B&O’s notoriety I bet it will be pricey. However, you could think of it as a really cool music controller and one stylish looking device. A great conversation topic too.