French startup Aurasens is taking CES music lovers on a "visceral, trans-sensory journey" in Las Vegas this week as it launches its high-end audio recliner. The hi-fi chair uses haptic touch points to gently massage the listener as music plays through a pair of headphones.
Aurasens was founded by French audiophiles Olivier Zeller and Nicolas Leroy in 2016, who wanted to use haptic technologies to create a unique immersive listening experience. That desire led to the development of a hi-fi listening chair that the pair refers to as a high-tech pod.
The setup includes an eye mask to block out all visual distractions and a pair of noise-canceling headphones, through which the tunes are played. The chair itself uses proprietary Vibro-Haptic technology that translates into 32 points of contact from head to toe which tap and pulse in time with the music, gently massaging the reclined music lover "in an immersive symphony that caresses the skin, suffuses the senses and suspends the user in a transcendent moment in time."
The sensory experience is all controlled from an iPad, but users will have to choose from a tailored list of available tunes rather than just loading up their favorite MP3 or FLAC tracks. Aurasens says that the catalog of compatible music will grow every month, so there'll likely be something on the list to suit every taste.
The first batch of Aurasens pods will go up for sale in February, with a €20,000 (US$24k) price tag and possibility for monthly rental that are clearly not aimed at budget-conscious audiophiles but rather to pamper guests at high-class convention centers or top-tier hotels.
Source: Aurasens
