HUMU Augmented Audio Cushion

The HUMU Augmented Audio Cushion is a different sort of device aiming to provide a comfy experience while you engage in music or video based content. You get to feel the experience you're taking in and it's actually a fairly enchanting time. I was able to check it out while at CES 2018 and had a pleasant test with it through their demo content. This shuffled through a selection of movie clips and music of various genres. It's difficult to get a true sense of how loud or quiet the device is considering the noise of the convention and I mainly mean for those that are in the same relative area. You can definitely hear it from a short distance, but I'm not at all sure how the audio was set due to the loud floor. It would have been optimal to see it in a general setting, but you make due with the type of setup at the convention.

That aside, when you're sitting down with it behind you the audio is clear and great. You can really feel it and while the time was limited I got a fair idea of how it performed which was well. It's a neat idea to take audio and present it in a new way since we generally like to just be relaxing. To get a soft almost pillow to rest against while actually feeling content greatly enhances whatever form of media you're enjoying. Moving onto details the cushion has a standard 3.5mm audio jack or general Bluetooth 4.2 support (ten meters distance) which makes the most sense. There's a nice sense of touch it all as you the feeling of ripples while listening which cascades across your connected body.

The HUMU basically attempts to create a bubble around the user for no delays, distortions, echoes or reflections. This in turn isolates the individual so you're able to fully feel what you're listening to. There's a unique personal touch to the cushion with a frequency of 20 to 20,000 Hz. It's great for not only listening to music, but perhaps feeling the effects of a game you're playing or the sense of 3D wonder when you're watching a movie.

The noted price of the HUMU comes at 299 EUR with that including the cushion and a micro USB charging cable, there's also a one year warranty. There's a Lithium Polymer 3.7V, 5.5 Wh battery. It's a low energy consumption device taking three hours of charging to provide eight hours of usage. It easily connects with all audio devices from consoles to phones or tablets to name a few. The cover material is Soft Microfiber (50% polyurethane and 50% Nylon). It comes in Light Grey and Dark Blue/black. The weight of the cushion is 1.5kg with dimensions of 480 (length) x 270mm (width) x 145mm (height). It felt like an intuitive way to feel audio in a calming way, definitely one of the more fun and unique things I got to engage with while at CES 2018.

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