OpenAI’s First Hardware Device Reportedly a $300 to $400 Hockey Puck-Sized Speaker With Moving Parts
Bloomberg reported Thursday that OpenAI's first hardware product, developed with former Apple design chief Jony Ive's LoveFrom studio, will be a screenless, battery-powered, hockey puck-sized smart speaker priced between $300 and $400 and expected to launch in 2027.
Word of OpenAI’s hardware ambitions first surfaced last month, when Bloomberg described a screenless, humanlike speaker in early development. Thursday’s report answers the two questions most people have: what it looks like and how much it will cost.
The answers may not help OpenAI, as its expected $300 to $400 price puts it well above what many shoppers are used to paying for smart home devices.
A Design Built Around Personality, Not a Screen
As MacRumors reports, the device will have moving components meant to help show when it’s responding, alongside lights indicating when it’s listening, effectively substituting physical animation for the visual feedback a screen would normally provide.
That tradeoff is central to the device’s design. Instead of competing with display-based smart home devices like Apple’s upcoming Home Hub, OpenAI is betting that voice controls and movement alone will be enough to attract users.
The outlet also noted that Jony Ive’s team says it is building “something entirely new and different from anything at Apple,” according to an OpenAI statement released the same day.
Importantly, this claim reads as much like courtroom positioning as the company’s product philosophy given the ongoing legal dispute with Apple.
A Price Tag That Ignores the Market It’s Entering
TechCrunch put the pricing into perspective, noting that most Amazon smart home speakers cost between $40 and $240, meaning OpenAI’s device would be priced well above the rest of the market.
The report also pointed out that smart speakers have historically struggled to make money, even for companies like Amazon with established retail and cloud businesses.
That makes OpenAI’s premium-priced device a risky bet, especially since the company has no experience selling consumer hardware.
The bigger challenge is that Amazon and Google spent years selling smart speakers at little or no profit to build their ecosystems. The ChatGPT maker is taking the opposite approach by launching at more than $300, betting people will pay a premium from day one.
The Timing Doubles as a Message to Apple’s Legal Team
One detail stands out in Bloomberg’s report: the device is reportedly “not something Apple has come close to launching.”
Combined with its reported $300 to $400 price, the leak appears carefully timed as OpenAI pushes into hardware.
A distinctive, unmistakably non-Apple design is exactly the kind of detail a company facing actively growing litigation would want circulating in the press, regardless of whether the pricing ever proves commercially sound.
This makes Thursday’s report read less like a straightforward product leak and more like a company managing two narratives, one for consumers and one for a courtroom, at the same time.
Source: OpenAI’s New Device Will Be Hockey Puck-Sized and Cost Over $300
