The CRT of the future. maybe.

What would happen if a lava lamp & a white noise machine had a baby, call her Louise, and the same thing with a TV and a radio? Say we this one Ted. Now if Ted and Louise so happened to cross paths naturally, or even say they match on Hinge. They hit it off, one thing leads to the next, they have a child. What the hell would that child look like? Beats me. But it's the closest I have come to describing this passion project I have working on. The github repo placeholder is crtv.

Maybe some explanation is in order. I work from home. I work, clean, cook, sleep, and do basically everything in my apartment; I sure hope the game devs add a new map in the next release. Issa joke. I go outside. To do things. So judgy of you to think otherwise. Anyways, my humble abode is a place for a variety of activities. And no matter the activity, I often curate the vibe with some form of media. Lemme give some context:

• LoFi stream on my laptop for focus during work
• Sometimes during work, I achieve inner peace via youtube videos of rushing waterfalls, ocean waves, or just the birds chirping. Ahh, nature.
• Every once and a while I'll throw on medieval shire themed music so reading makes me feel like Bilbo Baggins
• Can't explain it, but playing some vintage calming 1950s to cook is soothing
• Essentially any Spotify playlist when cleaning, gaming, etc
• running seasons of how i met your mother in the background to combat loneliness and generate artificial company (issa joke– but I do play tv shows).
• Random throwback home videos for the background NOSTALGIA

Okay so, I realize, my point isn't obvious. Let me give it a go. I enjoy consuming various forms of media (music, tv, movies, lofi, etc). I have many devices (laptop, tv, phone, tablet, speakers) that can play multimedia on demand. At the cost of various clicks through screens, buttons and menus, with many platforms requiring subscription services, loading / buffering because everything is in the cloud, and that device is kinda tethered to that task.

I don't have any dedicated home device or "appliance", if you will, that will take an oath as the Senior Vibe Curator (SVC?). All those devices can in theory accomplish this goal. At the cost of various clicks through screens, buttons and menus, many require subscription services, loading / buffering, and bogging up that device with a task.

For most, I understand, this likely isn't an issue. Your phone & computer can do all of that. Curate your multi-media, download it to avoid buffering, make shortcuts for quicker access, etc etc. I get it. You're right. But vibes guy (me) isn't feeling that.

Personally, I value devices designed for dedicated purposes. Don't get me wrong, the Swiss Army Knife is f–ing awesome. But product design is just a series of trade offs. Any multitool will sacrifice size, ergonomics, and quality of each tool in exchange for unified portability. That's what makes it such a great tool. It isn't the best knife, the best screwdriver, or the best pair of scissors. It's the best tool to have when you can't carry all three. It's job is versatility and portability.

The point I am trying to make is this:

Every product has its job, and trying to make one product do too many jobs inevitably dilutes its ability to do any job exceptionally well.

The multitool is my laptop. And I'm at home, dammit! I don't need portability OR versatility. I need quick, easy, and no distractions! For someone gravely susceptible to the Paradox of Choice, that last one is important. Anyone else ever spend an uncomfortable amount of time deciding what tv show or movie to play in the background while I do something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. What the hell is that?

Okay, by this point, I hope to have convinced you of my extremely important, completely and utterly valid problems. And if not? So what. C'est la vie. I move on, with or without you.

I thought about buying a real old school CRTV and hooking up a pi, running all my media/music/tv through there. But after looking at the prices for a fully working vintage tv, having to pick up or wait weeks for risky shipping, it hit me. I don't need a tv. I'll just make one. I have so many damn little screens & raspberry pis at home! And so this journey began.

At first, it was just streaming youtube videos & twitch on a pi and a screen. But it rapidly evolved into more. At some point, I had to replicate the entire aesthetic of an old retro CRTV. The knobs, buttons, whole nine yards. I love a good old fashion hardware interface. Who doesn't? We know how to flip a switch and turn a knob. A good design for an interface communicates to the user how to use it, and also communicates clearly that they used it.

I still don't know exactly all that this machine will do. And who it will do for. But I am leaning towards the techy consumer space. I believe a first derivative of the snappy, just works requirement is an Offline first approach. The thing works without internet, but doesn't mean we can't have it. I imagine it comes with some preconfigured load outs for different vibes of curated media. But simply, maybe a usb drive or via a locally hosted web app, you load your own media into the thing and choose your vibes / channels.

And it only gets better when you add connectivity. A home assistant integration would go cool. You could trigger different vibes from your phone, set up vibe automations with your lights. You could probably stream media from a network drive, and if it fails, fallback to whats local. Or make local copies. The possibilities are endless. If you could get their approval, it could be a Spotify client, play your playlists and media from Spotify!

The really important design aspects come down to prioritizing audio quality, the design aesthetic, the snappy responsiveness and consistency in feedback (no lagging, no turning a knob and nothing happens on screen), and I would say the cost. I doubt anybody would buy this for more than $50-100. So it would have to stay under that. I think battery powered would be great, but feels a bit out of scope for this one. So yeah. That is where I am at. There is a ton more, but I wanted to get a baseline first pass of this topic through.

I miss the days when most products were designed with deep thought and intention. This concept isn't extinct. However, it feels more endangered than it should be. Maybe it's just saturated by the sheer volume of crappy products these days. I'll tell you what. This bad boy is gonna be built with deep intention.

Well now I ranted and you probably have less of an idea of what is going on, lets throw you into some early concepts.

The project kicked off with the screen, and I wanted to control it with a hardware interface. I dove into designing knobs with custom detents. They give that haptic clicking feel, and it's so satisfying and rewarding. You turn it, and the knob speaks back to you. "Hey, good job buddy. You f--ing did it". That, paired with some other indicator that something changed, is necessary feedback that drives user confidence

And I love these types of interfaces. Simple. Can't f--k it up. So I leaned further, added a volume slider, and push button to turn it on and off, which really is a hyper reactive sleep mode. Regardless, it needs to be snappy. Reactive. Enjoyable, simple, intuitive, yet highly functional. What a rant. I need to get back on track.

Below are some early designs for the project. I have included an early mood boards, a first prototype of the UI/UX navigation for the device, as well as some vibes / channels / media concepts to be preloaded into the machine for offline first!

I actually built a working first prototype out of hardware, using raspberry pi, a DSI screen, some shitty lil speaker (speaker hardware or software pipeline is so bad I actually use external speakers to test run the experience haha). The following are some of the physical prototyping build images. Take a look.

Obviously we are far from there. But as an early idea, I love it, use it, and it is a ton of fun. Take a look below for a video demo of the current state (be delicate with you criticisms, I am well aware of how rough it is in this stage HAHA).