OpenAI and Jony Ive's first device is a $300 hockey puck speaker

OpenAI’s highly anticipated hardware collaboration with legendary Apple designer Jony Ive might not be a radical phone replacement after all. Instead, it sounds like an expensive, moving metal donut.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the duo is working on a display-less smart speaker scheduled to hit shelves in 2027 for somewhere between $300 and $400. The battery-powered device is expected to be the first in a broader family of OpenAI hardware gadgets, designed through Ive’s studio, LoveFrom.

A moving hockey puck for your kitchen counter

The device is reportedly shaped like a donut and sized roughly like a hockey puck. Crafted from high-end metal with a premium finish, it is engineered for easy one-handed carrying around the house, letting you move it from the kitchen island to the nightstand like Amazon’s long-discontinued Tap.

The strangest detail is the inclusion of physical moving parts. Sources say parts of the chassis will physically animate and move on their own to signal when the device is listening or responding, paired with lighting effects, an integrated camera system, and additional sensors.

Under the hood, the gadget will run an advanced evolution of ChatGPT Voice Mode powered by next-generation models tuned for humanlike dialogue. Interestingly, Gurman notes that the unit looks and feels nothing like traditional Apple hardware, despite Apple currently suing OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft.

Why it matters

We think this sounds both surprisingly cautious and wildly over-engineered at the same time.

It is cautious because OpenAI is retreating into the familiar smart speaker territory rather than chasing the wearable illusions that doomed Humane’s AI Pin and Rabbit’s r1. Confining the device to domestic spaces sidesteps brutal outdoor connectivity hurdles and lets an ambient assistant quietly live where people actually talk to themselves.

Yet, turning it into a $300 to $400 hockey puck with motorized moving parts feels borderline bizarre. Adding moving mechanical elements introduces major wear-and-tear risks, drains internal batteries, and balloons manufacturing costs. Amazon and Google already spent a decade proving that smart speakers are notoriously tough to monetize, selling basic pucks for as low as $40. Asking consumers to shell out luxury prices for a screen-free conversational desk toy is an extraordinarily tough sell, no matter how clever the underlying voice model is.

Still, if Ive and Sam Altman can turn physical animations and camera awareness into genuinely intuitive domestic presence, it might just reinvent ambient computing. We just hope that moving parts do not turn this premium donut into an expensive paperweight.