Most wireless speakers fall into two visual camps: squat cylinders that look like tech, or anonymous black boxes that try to disappear. There is a third path, treating a speaker like a small piece of architecture in the room, something that stands tall and holds its ground even when it is silent. Sonique is a vertical aesthetic speaker that leans into that idea, more road sentinel than soda can, more monument than gadget.
Sonique is a speaker inspired by global monuments, aiming to embody the idea of a road sentinel that seamlessly integrates artistry and functionality. The form language borrows from tall, narrow towers and arches, and the goal is to create an object you would be happy to leave on a shelf even when it is off, because it reads as a small, calm monolith rather than a piece of hardware waiting to be told what to do.
Designer: Eshaan Gupta
The basic form is a tall, rounded-top shell with a recessed fabric front and a small control strip at the bottom. The vertical posture lifts the drivers and makes the speaker feel more like a portal or doorway than a box. The controls are reduced to a simple strip with minus, play/pause, and plus, integrated into the front plane, so they do not break the silhouette or shout for attention when you are not using them.
The inspiration keywords, unbalanced, monolithic, and timeless, show up in how Sonique stands in a room. Unbalanced in its narrow footprint, tall stance, and slight backward lean that creates an asymmetrical, deliberate posture. Monolithic in the continuous outer shell, timeless in the fabric and soft grey palette, avoiding obvious tech trends. The speaker is meant to be a quiet marker in a space, a little tower of sound.
The technical block lists a Class-D amplifier with 2 × 30 W RMS output, a 60 Hz–20 kHz frequency response, splash and dust resistance, and up to 18 hours of playback at moderate volume. This puts it in the realm of a capable, battery-powered home speaker, with enough low-end extension for most music and enough stamina to move around the house without living on a charger or needing to stay tethered to an outlet.
Sonique fits into everyday scenes, on a bookshelf in a reading corner, on a sideboard in a living room, or on a desk as a vertical counterpoint to a monitor. The combination of fabric, soft light, and vertical form makes it feel more like a small lamp or sculpture than a piece of audio gear. The splash resistance hints at kitchen or bathroom use, where a bit of steam or a stray splash should not be a problem or an excuse to hide it away.
Treating a speaker like a road sentinel nudges the object out of the black box category and into the realm of things you curate in a room. Sonique suggests that you can have a plausible, battery-powered Class-D speaker that also behaves like a small monument on your shelf, a reminder that sound hardware does not always have to look like sound hardware to do its job well, and that a speaker can hold space in a room the way architecture does, vertical, quiet, and present.
