ROLI Airwave

The Lounge Other Gear
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ROLI Airwave, coming Oct 8th

Camera plus AI based modern theremin

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Official page is 404 until the 8th:
https://roli.com/eu/product/airwave-learn

And the ad:

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No connection to the Ableton announcement thankfully

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Airwave is also the Britain’s police radio service.

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Haha I knew I remembered that name from somewhere :rofl:

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Stick an iPhone in front you someone and it’s possible to do motion capture in real-time … so that type of device less ‘wave your arms to impact audio’ is much more accessible
Add ‘ai’ or rules to interpret that data and it can do more fun things.

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me jamming out on my Roli Airwave

IMG_2804

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Something connect to this pending patent?

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No thanks. I’d rather move in a different way.

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That actually makes a lot of contextual sense. Hypergrowth, investors, AI… not saying it’ll be successful, but as a bet from a company with their background it’s not a huge stretch/surprise

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My dreams of a bigger lightpad have been crushed

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I found the link is now live

Your intelligent practice assistant

ROLI Airwave’s cameras see your hands and track every finger movement with incredible precision to deliver a truly personalized and interactive learning experience. Paired with ROLI Piano M, it helps you build better habits, improve faster, and have more fun.

so basically a tool to help you learn piano via the piano m (aka Lumi)

so not a new instrument.

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has Roli lost its focus as a company???
seriously though, in my opinion they haven’t released a single interesting product since that full-size standalone MPE piano thing was discontinued a few years ago.

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What a piece of garbage…

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The Lumi (sorry, ‘Piano M’) is still a deeply flawed product. You can’t hope to properly learn piano on a 2 octave keyboard that isn’t particularly sensitive.

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yeah, similar first impression - though bare in mind… we haven’t had the sales pitch yet.

I do find the tech specs interesting

Tech Specs

  • Expressive controller
  • ROLI Vision Hand-tracking Camera
  • 3.5mm TRS Headphone Output 3.5mm
  • TRS Pedal input (incl. 6.3mm dongle)
  • 2 x USB-C ports (data and power)
  • Magnetic USB port for use with compatible ROLI Hardware
  • Class-compliant MIDI over USB
  • Class-compliant audio interface
  • 65W USB-C PD power supply
  • 221mm x 122mm x 369mm / 812g

why is it listed as an expressive controller and also class compliant midi.
I get the feeling, they might have other plans for this…
(though a down facing camera is somewhat limiting, I dont see a pivot point on it)

Im intrigued to see the marketing video, as I dont really see how it’ll help the learning process much… especially. as the Lumi/Piano-M already has visual feedback

at 299 euros, perhaps it just seen as an ‘intelligent hub’ for the piano-m

also its announced incredibly early, its not shipping till March 2025 !

another oddly… piano-m. looks bigger - no?.. perhaps a refresh?
(or perhaps it just 2x piano-m … so an illusion?)

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reminds me instantly of this thing from long ago:

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So 479€ and an iPad for a 2 octave piano + “teacher”?
It’s clearly targeting new piano players.

Instead, get a cheap 73 key electric piano and hire an actual piano teacher, you could get around 15 lessons after the e-piano purchase, not counting the iPad cost that I assume it’s required for this to work.
Bonus of helping another human financially.

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yup, feels like Roli really want to push/extend their ‘learn piano’ with its associated subscription model.

… and I get it, self learning is a big market segment (regardless if its a good idea or not). however, I think most that want to learn to play piano, will want to buy a piano !

I’m sure there is going to be a slick marketing video to go with airwave…
but if you look at it, and dont immediately understand why you need / want it, then surely its going to be an uphill sales pitch.

then again, Im suspecting the angle is… its basically a music focused tablet hub/stand… hence the IO on it… plus add camera for something ‘different’.

I dont know confusing really… at least for me.

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It’s a camera out of a vr headset with some software hooked up to the hand tracking api ? Or maybe a version of Kinect tech.

Why not just release an app for quest 3 / apple headset ? They all have hand tracking…. Plus I’d be able to play games and do other things.

Quest is similar price , the apple route is obviously ££££££££

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