Music is meant to be felt. At least, that’s what the team over at Lofelt believes. Ask pretty much anyone, and they’d most likely agree with them. There’s just no arguing the massive difference between music heard and felt through a powerful sound system versus the dinky white headphones most everyone has.
Lofelt’s Basslet brings the bass out from the ritzy city clubs and dank basement dance parties to wherever someone goes. It just does so in a pretty petite, sleek package that immediately casts doubt as to how truly effective it is. But while it looks like any other smartwatch, you won’t find any heart rate monitors or pedometers in its slim frame: Basslet was designed with nothing but bass in mind. Inside is Lofelt’s proprietary Losound haptic engine that recreate bass frequencies as low as 10 Hz.
This wrist-worn subwoofer can connect to any device that pumps out sounds — phones, laptops, VR headsets, whatever — using Bluetooth or a headphone output to get across that bassy quality and richness of sound usually lost with just headphones. (It can’t connect to Bluetooth headphones, though.) Basslet can last for about six hours on a single charge and takes less than an hour to do so, ensuring users are able to keep moving to the beats, drums and bass. Interested backers can grab their very own Basslet for $154 and is slated to be delivered December 2016. Lofelt is looking to raise about $56,000 by July 25th, 2016 to make it happen.
The Basslet is no doubt a clever idea and an even cleverer idea. But the biggest hurdle it has to jump over is the general lack of music quality on most people’s devices, as combining a new sense of bass with subpar music doesn’t sound particularly appealing. Perhaps those interested in Basslet could combine it with the Cobble or a Seiun Player to guarantee an improved audio experience.