Why Washing Machines Are Learning to Play the Harp
The roar of the MGM lion. NBC’s iconic chimes. The godlike C-major chord of a booting Apple computer. Companies have long used sound to distinguish their brands and to create a sense of familiarity with, and even affection for, their products. Microsoft went so far as to tap the ambient-sound legend Brian Eno to score the six-second overture for Windows 95, a starry ripple trailed by a fading echo. Lately, however, the sounds have proliferated and become more sophisticated. Amazon, Google, and Apple are racing to dominate the smart-speaker market with their voice assistants. But a device need not speak to be heard.
No longer do household machines merely or or , as they might have in a previous era when such alerts simply indicated that the clothes were dry or the coffee was brewed. Now the machines play snippets of music. In search of ever more tailored accompaniment, companies have turned to experts such as Audrey Arbeeny, the CEO of , which composes notifications for devices ands of an IBM ThinkPad or the whispery greeting of Xbox 360, you know her work. “We don’t make noise,” Arbeeny told me. “We create a holistic experience that brings about better well-being.”
