Mighty Audio recently launched a Kickstarter campaign with a goal of raising $250,000. With this funding, the project will bring to life something runners all over will rejoice for: a small, lightweight and durable device that plays streaming music without being connected to a smartphone. It’s the first and only device of its kind.
The idea for Mighty was born from personal frustrations with exercising with smartphones. During their research, the team found that many people only bring their smartphones with them so they can stream music. Streaming being the key word, as the iPod shuffle does not currently support streaming and there’s no telling if that will be Apple’s next move with Apple Music.
To use Mighty, you download the Mighty App and it will automatically search and detect your device to pair with via Bluetooth. Once connected, you are asked to sign in to your Spotify Premium account. (Note: you have to have a Spotify premium account to use Mighty.) After logging in, you can sync all your playlists to Mighty in the same way that you sync them for offline play on your phone. After a quick sync, your music is available on your Mighty device and you’re ready to go on a run leaving your bulky phone behind.
Anthony Pu, Head of Operations at Mighty, adds that, when you’re actually using Mighty, there is a playlist selector button that allows you to scroll through the various playlists you’ve synced—and a voice will actually read the playlist name to you via VoiceOver technology. Once you’re in the playlist you want, you can use the back and forward buttons to scroll through songs within the playlist.
“The quick and easy sync process is another differentiator with other products like the shuffle,” says Pu. “There are no cords or a computer required—just Bluetooth and your smartphone.”
Pu is one on a team of four people working on Mighty, with the guidance of three advisors—Robert Wolfe, CEO of CrowdRise and Moosejaw, Jeffrey Wolfe, CTO of CrowdRise and Moosejaw, and Mike Czapliski, an engineering advisor from Microsoft. The rest of the team consists of former employees from Samsung, Qualcomm and Live Nation.
Though Mighty is not currently an official Spotify partner, Pu says they have had multiple discussions with Spotify about a potential partnership. For now, Mighty functions just like any other offline device that has the ability to store music.
“Your smartphone is defined by Spotify as an offline device. Their Terms of Use allow each Spotify Premium user to sync up to three offline devices with their account and each device can store up to 3,333 songs offline,” says Pu. “Mighty is fully compliant with these terms.”
The Mighty team hopes to prove a point with their Kickstarter – that people want this kind of product. Pu says himself and his team is all huge fans of Spotify and think Mighty could help them continue to be a major player in the music and fitness worlds.
“We know Spotify is regularly approached by tons of bigger, more established companies that they can do partnerships with,” says Pu. “We’re hoping this Kickstarter will show them that people want a product like this.”
Mighty comes equipped with Bluetooth and WiFi, is compatible with iPhones and Androids, and can play 48 hours of music without any Internet connection. Since they launched their campaign, they have already raised over $200,000.
If they successfully fund their Kickstarter, Mighty will ship its first products in November 2016.
After the campaign ends, they intend to continue with pre-orders on their website and Pu says selling direct to consumers online will be their main channel for the near term. It will be exciting to watch how this project will change the way we interact with music in the fitness world—I, for one, can’t wait to be able to stream music on the go.