Bose’s New Bluetooth Speakers Are Made for Modding

Craft & Design Music

DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

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@dalepd

June 28th, 2016

At the National Maker Faire, I met Lee Zamir of Bose. They had a BOSEbuild exhibit at the event that cleverly demonstrated how speaker technology works. Lee introduced himself to me as a charter subscriber to Make:. (Thank you.) He told me about a new Bluetooth speaker from Bose that is designed with makers in mind. It’s called the BOSEbuild Bluetooth Speaker and it’s meant to be modified and customized. Their motto for the project is “Discover how your world works.” It reminded me of one of Make:’s early mottos: “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.” This is a speaker you can truly make your own.

I’m happy to see Bose embracing the maker movement by producing a product that is not only designed for makers, but one that can turn its buyers into makers.