Many of us are already aware of the Ataribox, something that sounds like an attempt to follow in the footsteps of the Ouya project. But you may not have heard about this.

On what appears to be an introduction to the "Atarilife" brand of lifestyle products, Atari has a splashpage dedicated to the virtues of this new product.

What is a Speakerhat?

A new listening experience
The Atari Speakerhat is a baseball-style cap with high-fidelity stereo speakers and microphone that can connect instantly to any Bluetooth-enabled device.

Connect to any smartphone, tablet, personal computer to play any music or other media content, initiate or accept phone calls, receive voice commands, etc.

The Atari Speakerhat feels natural and normal to wear for long periods of time, and achieves a balance of weight vs. sound quality and functionality. The intent is to continuously improve on design and engineering, until the technology is completely invisible.

Interested parties also have the chance to sign up for a future beta program.


http://www.atarilife.com/

 

[dAVID_]

Now imagine speakers. Now imagine the hat sending all audio inputs to a remote server where the CIA can listen to every single word you say.

 

[ScarletDreamz]

• Moms Wheres my hat?

• Its on the washing machine sweetie~

 

[Bateees]

Atari proves after 30 years to still have the strangest ideas in the industry.

 

[Benja81]

too many douche bags wearing thoose big caps around here, and i am yet to meet one "cool, nice" dude that wears theese hats
i wonder if this will be the new fad
it looks kinda weird, but i am hoping to see what it comes from this

Whoa, you are like hat-racist.

 

[Nirmonculus]

Nobody even asked for this

 

[gudenau]

I don't see this being a great listening experience. I would think you would put them in the sides with a little clever duxting to reflect the sound to your ears.

 

[YuseiFD]

Are they gonna make a buttplug sub-woofer like apple did ?

 

[WhiteMaze]

Ooookay Atari. We get it. You're here. We notice you.

Just please don't make another Jaguar kay buddy? Okay.

 

[AaronUzumaki]

So, I got to try one of these hats today and I've gotta say, not super practical. The quality isn't bad and not having to have headphones to listen to music at a constant volume feels nice, but I would never use it in public and there's a million more practical devices to use in private. Plus the hat is a tad heavy, making it annoying to wear.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

i'll take "shitty things public transit douchebags will wear on the bus for $1,000" Alex

 

[Benja81]

I'll be DA since all I've seen is negative comments. Two benefits no one has mentioned:

• minimize hearing-loss as the sound is not going directly into your ears
• able to hear background noises like cars/trains/bears

 

[Captain_N]

hey Atari? make a console that playes nes/snes/n64/sega gen/ps1 with out hardware emulation. i want you to reverse them chips and clone it. and i want the origional ganes supported as well as games burned on disc/usb..

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Are they gonna make a buttplug sub-woofer like apple did ?

Wait, what? Do you have a link for that?

 

[YuseiFD]

Wait, what? Do you have a link for that?

I really hope i don't get banned for this xD

 

[Xzi]

ehm no

Lol, motion control has come a long way, it could work. I'd buy it for the novelty of being '80s cool' if nothing else.

 

[RandomUser]

What is this, 2008? This shit was cool back then but now...
All we need is RGB 7.1 LED 4k@60fps baseball cap. Seriously.

Why stop there. Go for augmented reality with hololens.
Kinda Microsoft thing though.

 

[RandomUser]

Edit: don't know how I double posted, must have been my internet connection on my end.

 

[petethepug]

Welp, the new eggcelent hat just hit the town. Now how do I beat that record again?

 

[slaphappygamer]

Because you all want to hear my conversation on speakerphone.

 

[ov3rkill]

Mario approves!

 

[Ev1l0rd]

This... this isn't a good idea. This is a worse idea than the Google Glass.

To summarize:

• It is super obvious if you wear one. I mean, look at the fucking thing. Those two mickey mouse earspeakers stand out. And not in a positive way.
• You cannot clean it. At all. Especially with that speaker design water will seep into it the moment you try and clean it.
• It looks stupid.
• I cannot imagine it would be nice to have your eyes constantly be tormented by music. That is what your ears are for.
• And finally, bluetooth is awful on batteries. Are we expected to be able to carry a battery around with us the entire time? I own a Bluetooth headset. Those things may have good batteries, but after 8 hours the thing does need to charge. And the bluetooth headset is noticably heavier than a non-bluetooth one.

So yeah, I expect this to flop or be a niche product that people mostly buy because they want to buy stupid stuff.