OpenAI's Jony Ive-designed speaker faces an Apple lawsuit shadow

OpenAI is preparing a hockey-puck-sized, donut-shaped smart speaker for 2027, built with LoveFrom, the design studio founded by former Apple chief designer Jony Ive. The timing is awkward: Apple has just sued OpenAI, alleging the company stole trade secrets tied to metalworking and hardware development.

The device itself sounds like a deliberate departure from the flat, static smart speakers already on the market. Reports describe a metal-bodied unit with moving parts that shift to signal when it's listening or responding, an attempt to make the hardware feel less like an appliance and more like a companion.

Inside, it packs a camera system, microphones, speakers, and lights, all running on battery power rather than requiring a permanent plug-in. OpenAI reportedly intends for the assistant to learn from ongoing conversations and adapt its behavior to individual users over time, rather than treating each interaction as a blank slate.

Price and positioning

Reporting on the price has varied slightly. The Decoder described it as priced "above $300," while TechCrunch specified a tighter range of $300 to $400. Both figures point to the same premium bracket, positioning the speaker well above budget smart-home hardware and closer to flagship consumer electronics.

The Apple lawsuit adds a complicating backdrop to the product's rollout. Apple's claims center on hardware and metalworking know-how it says OpenAI misappropriated, a pointed accusation given LoveFrom's deep roots in Apple's own industrial design language.

OpenAI denies Apple's allegations and maintains it has not violated Apple intellectual property.

Beyond the initial speaker, OpenAI is said to be planning an entire family of hardware devices, suggesting the 2027 launch is intended as a first entry point rather than a standalone experiment. If the strategy holds, the company would be positioning itself not just as a model provider but as a hardware ecosystem builder, a shift that puts it in more direct competition with Apple, Amazon, and Google on their own turf.

None of the specifications are final this far ahead of a 2027 ship date, and the ongoing litigation could still shape how, or whether, certain design choices reach consumers unchanged. For now, the reported details offer the clearest picture yet of what OpenAI's first physical product might actually look and feel like.