OpenAI smart speaker is a $300 donut, and IKEA already sells the charm for $30
OpenAI’s first consumer gadget will be a donut-shaped smart speaker about the size of a hockey puck, built with moving parts, lights, microphones, and a camera system, and priced somewhere above $300. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports the company has discussed $300 to $400 per unit, with a release planned for 2027 and a reveal that OpenAI has long wanted to do this year.
The device has no display. You carry it around your home in one hand, put it on a nightstand or a kitchen counter, and talk to it. Jony Ive’s LoveFrom studio handled the design, so expect upscale metal and a shape nobody else is making. My first reaction was that OpenAI has spent two years promising to reinvent computing and has arrived at a very expensive bagel.
Moving parts, and the pitch for buying one
Those moving elements are the part I keep circling back to. According to the people Gurman spoke with, bits of the device shift on their own to show when it’s responding, which is meant to make the object feel alive rather than inert. Lights signal when it’s listening. Sensors and a camera feed the surrounding room into the model, so the assistant can see what you’re doing.
OpenAI seems to want you to think of the product as an AI-first computer rather than another smart speaker. The software is basically a more capable version of ChatGPT’s voice mode, with the added promise that it gets to know you over time. I can get behind the idea more than the hardware. A battery-powered puck sitting in your kitchen and watching what happens around it feels like a much bigger privacy ask than anything Amazon or Google tried. And at least they had huge ecosystems that made their speakers feel useful enough to justify having one around.
OpenAI has a lot to prove at $400
An Echo Dot turns up under $50 on sale often enough that nobody treats buying one as a decision, and Amazon and Google spent a decade dragging each other down to that number. OpenAI wants six of those for one screenless puck whose core job already runs free on the phone in your pocket. Something has to close that gap, and nothing reported so far tells me what.
The price only makes sense if the camera does something I can’t already get from my iPhone 15 Pro. Voice works fine on my phone, and a $30 Bluetooth speaker handles the audio. That leaves the camera as the main reason to spend another $400.
With my cats, I can at least see a use for the camera. I’d want to check what they’re doing when I’m out, or ask it to tell me whether they’re sitting by the food bowl or sleeping on the couch. Beyond that, I’m not sure what keeps a $400 puck on my kitchen counter. And if OpenAI puts the useful camera features behind a subscription, $400 starts to feel like the entry fee rather than the full price.
Playful objects, IKEA prices
IKEA VARMBLIXT
LED table/wall lamp
The whole “give the object a personality” idea keeps reminding me of IKEA’s speaker range, and not flatteringly for OpenAI. IKEA has been shipping character-driven audio for years, at prices that make the OpenAI figure look like a typo. The GREJSIMOJS portable Bluetooth speaker looks like a mouse and costs $29.99, while the KALLSUP portable comes in at $9.99. Step up to the SOLSKYDD line and you’re at $54.99 to $99.99 for something that pairs into stereo.
IKEA even sells speaker lamps, which is a more useful hybrid than a puck you’re supposed to tote from room to room. BLOMPRAKT starts at $59.99, KULGLASS at $129.99. The one IKEA product that approaches OpenAI’s rumored price, the SYMFONISK Sonos picture frame speaker at $299.99, is a Sonos system hidden inside wall art, and it’s currently marked as last chance.
IKEA’s designers wrote about wanting objects that invite touch and spark play, which is close to the emotional territory OpenAI’s moving-parts device seems to be chasing. The Swedes got there with a mouse-shaped speaker and a price starting at $6 across the collection. Charm has never been the expensive part. Charm plus a frontier model running in the cloud is where the money goes, and OpenAI still has to prove the second half is worth carrying separately.
Apple’s lawsuit hangs over the launch
Apple and OpenAI are in court over whether the AI company took Apple’s intellectual property, and the suit specifically cites a metal finishing technique. Apple claims OpenAI approached a long-running Apple supplier to develop a finish similar to what the supplier provides Apple, alleging the partner was misled into believing Apple had signed off. OpenAI called the claim too vague and generalized, and filed to dismiss.
OpenAI’s filing argues it’s building something entirely different from anything at Apple. People familiar with the device told Bloomberg that an internal probe found no Apple trade secrets in use. The company’s outside counsel, Patrick Curran of Quinn Emanuel, wrote to Apple’s lawyers describing the suit as built on misrepresented facts and speculative allegations.
The practical risk is timing rather than damages. Apple asked for an injunction this week, and a granted injunction could complicate the release schedule for a product OpenAI has already spent years teasing. Internally the company is reportedly pushing ahead at full speed regardless, which tracks with a business that needs hardware revenue and can’t afford a year of legal paralysis while Amazon and Google keep the shelf space.
