Product Portfolio

Wireless Speakers

The Hammacher Schlemmer Indoor / Outdoor Wireless Speakers work with almost any audio source and are rugged enough to be left outside overnight during a storm and used the next day to play your music with amazingly high quality.

  • Wireless Speakers
  • Wireless Speakers
  • Wireless Speakers

Wireless Speakers Click photo to view larger

Strategy

Back in 2005 the catalog company Hammacher Schlemmer partnered with Marche to develop a set of outdoor / go anywhere wireless speakers. Hammacher Schlemmer, through their analytics department, had realized that there were very few options for outdoor wireless speakers.

Because Hammacher Schlemmer is a high end catalog company with high end products, Marche was afforded the luxury of designing and engineering for a relatively high price point. This meant high quality components and materials, but also higher customer expectations.


Wireless Speakers Click photo to view larger

This image shows the product in black and gray, a popular option for our online sales.

Design + Engineering

Our designers provided a number of concepts for this project. A key goal for our designers was to make the speakers very portable while making the handle that integrated cohesively with the design.

The portability of the final design was a hit with both stakeholders and customers. While the quality of the speaker components caused a bit of heft, the feel of the product in tow gives the perception of quality as well as comfort.

Another key was styling. These speakers would most likely be used in social situations, often on the owners boat, dock, deck or other property. In these situations it’s important that the product be an extension of the users personal style.

Without being too ‘flashy’ the final design solution offers a unique aesthetic. The contrast between the textured grill and the ultra polished main housing creates an eloquent parting line while the soft rubber bright orange handle grip gives a nice focal point.

This project provided plenty of challenges for ours engineers as well:

  • A fully weatherproof housing. The outer body of the speakers was designed to have the fewest amount of seams possible. This made weatherproofing much easier, since less gaskets could be used. Proper strengthening with interior ribs ensured that the gaskets would remain tight during transportation or the occasional drop.
  • UV protected plastics for outdoor use. Most plastics tend to change colors when left outdoors. Marche was tasked with sourcing UV protected plastics to keep the speakers looking good even if the user leaves the speakers outside for an extended amount of time.
  • High consumer expectations. Hammacher Schlemmer customers are usually willing to spend more money for better, more unique products. They also expect their products to be very reliable. While engineering for reliability, our engineers rigorously tested every design iteration with drop tests, water tests, continued use tests and much more.
  • Wireless sound technology. In 2006, when we developed the speakers, there were few standards in home wireless audio communications, but many options. Our engineers were tasked with researching and testing solutions, even implementing some custom functionality. In the end, our wireless solution was close to flawless, able to extend through walls and communicate unencumbered by wifi systems.

Plastic Injection Tooling

The most notable feat our engineers accomplished while creating the plastic injection tooling was creating the main housing, whose surface was completely polished. It is very common for large plastic parts to be textured. This is because textured finish will hide or mask imperfections in the tooling. When you choose to create a polished surface, all imperfections are magnified. The main housing not only looks sharp with its polished finished, it also highlights the quality of our tooling as it shows almost no imperfections.