IKEA and Spotify are upping the ambience with VAPPEBY
Few things brighten up a space quite like music and light. With VAPPEBY, IKEA and Spotify bring that and more to the table in and outside the home. Stjepan and Sarah at IKEA tell us just how the first outdoor IKEA Bluetooth speaker lamp came to be, while Nils at Spotify breaks down the added Spotify Tap function.
Most people enjoy at least the occasional outdoor social gathering. Whether it’s a sit-down dinner, fresh air activity, or full-on garden party, there tend to be many moving parts and people to it – and space for a centrepiece of music and light to set the mood.
”We always work to cover needs in all rooms at home, and the outdoor of the home was a ’room’ we still needed to fill”, says Stjepan Begic, Product owner at IKEA working with sound products. ”Being curious about how our speakers play into everyday life, we found that our customers wanted them to not only work outside as well, but also create a feeling of cosiness, campfire, and entertainment”.
Enter VAPPEBY, the first outdoor Bluetooth speaker and lamp in the IKEA range made especially for livening up, lasting, and weathering moments in life in and outside the home.
The making of a character
Insights and learnings from life at home fuelled the brainstorming sessions for VAPPEBY, in which a few main points soon fell into place.
“It needed to be a combination of 360 sound and light, which made the cylindrical shape a given”, says Stjepan. “It gave us the idea of this principle for the speaker element to sit in the “hat”, playing sound downwards in a way that spread it evenly towards all directions. Then there was the question of how powerful the sound should be in relation to its size. If it’s big, the expectation is for it to be very loud, but we wanted it to be easy to take with you.”
When Stjepan then introduced IKEA designer Sarah Fager to the project, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. It was just around summertime, and Sarah and her family were right in the middle of developing their own outdoor environment at home. As such, VAPPEBY quickly became personal.
”My kids spend ages jumping on the trampoline, and they always want to bring a speaker out with them. It actually doesn’t matter whether it’s sunny or practically winter out – you’ll find them out there anyway”, she notes with a smile.
”We play a lot of music at home, we live with children, we host guests. I was already thinking about what kind of speaker could work for us in the backyard, and I kept all these things in mind when I started sketching VAPPEBY.”
For Sarah, developing the best form for function became the focus in designing VAPPEBY – her first-ever design with technology inside.
”Everybody is a user, and everybody has a user perspective – designer or not. I tapped into that more than ever for this project. It needed to be rational and appealing to myself to start with”, she says.
Being a stand-alone product, it was also important to Sarah that VAPPEBY be not just a speaker or lamp, but a recognizable character with a strong IKEA identity. Fortunately, function also lent itself to making a handy device with a characteristic form.
”You build in a lot of communication in design on what a product is and how you use it”, says Sarah. ”I worked with one of our UX designers to make sure the buttons were intuitive and easy to manage, even for kids. For a long time, we envisioned it without a handle and for the hood to double as something to grab it by. But that didn’t feel clear enough – the user would have had to think too much.”
Early in the design process, a big question was whether it was a lamp with sound or a speaker with light. The latter becoming the answer contributed to the eventual development of a completely opaque plastic hood. One that also serves as an umbrella to protect the speaker technology while communicating the product’s splash resistance.
“Often, when you draw an item, whether it’s ceramics or glass or plastic, you can’t get the real function of the product until you’re completely finished with it. Here we could get a feel for how the sound worked early on, through 3D printing, and it was really good”, Sarah recalls.
An IKEA speaker lamp with a Spotify feature
VAPPEBY is also the first-ever speaker to feature an integrated Spotify Tap function, making it the first collaboration on a product between the two Swedish brands.
”At Spotify, we want to be a part of people’s habits, of every moment in their lives. I think we share that with IKEA”, says Nils Montan, Product Lead at Spotify. ”It should be easy to listen to what you want, anywhere at any time, and Spotify Tap makes it much more simple.”
The function, previously only featured in head- and earphones, enables Spotify users to pick up listening exactly where they left off – on any device – with the simple press of a button. Each following press of the button will signal Spotify to switch things up by finding and playing the next track with the help of learnings from the user’s taste profile and habits.
Spotify Tap came halfway into the development of VAPPEBY, but integrating it wasn’t much of an issue. It’s an added perk for Spotify users, but won’t affect the listening experience for anyone without an account.
”It was a perfect match. Imagine how great it is to get another suggestion through a simple press of a button at a party or gathering”, says Stjepan. When asked to elaborate, he smiles in a moment of recognition. ”It removes the pressure to be a DJ or the risk of somebody having to dive into their phone to change the music, only to get stuck on some text message and disappear from the moment.”
Where will you be taking your VAPPEBY?
”Exactly where I imagined it when I first started drawing it: our backyard. From daytime disco for the kids as they bounce away on the trampoline through to the cosy evenings for us adults”, says Sarah.
”I think VAPPEBY will be with me all the time in and out of the home”, says Nils. ”I like the feeling of listening to music out loud, and I do have an extensive sound system at home. But it’s too much for some occasions, too powerful. And when I wear headphones, I shut out the world in a way I don’t really enjoy. VAPPEBY is the product that fills the gap in between the two experiences.”
”We have a summer house where we spend a lot of time on the terrace in the evenings. It’s not a place for plugging things in or playing very loud music, but it’s perfect for soft light and music to set the mood for a good while”, says Stjepan.
And with a battery life that lasts 12 hours with the light on, VAPPEBY is perfect for the occasion.
VAPPEBY outdoor speaker lamp will be available in most IKEA markets from April 2022.