Mighty Audio
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Founded | July 2015 |
| Founder | Anthony Mendelson |
| Headquarters | Venice, California, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Mighty |
| Website | bemighty |
Mighty Audio (often marketed and stylized as Mighty) is an American company based in Los Angeles, California, known for its product Mighty, a portable audio player that plays Spotify and Amazon Music without a phone. The company was Spotify's first partner in the offline streaming music space when they publicly launched in July 2017.[1]
Products
[edit]Mighty
[edit]Mighty Audio is one of two official partners of Spotify in the offline streaming space, the other being Samsung. The first product Mighty is 1.5 x 1.5 inches, 0.6 ounces, drop and water resistant, Bluetooth and WiFi enabled, has an 8GB storage capacity, and up to 5 hours of battery life.[2][3]
Mighty Audio offers a mobile app for iOS and Android that is used to wirelessly sync Spotify Music to the Mighty via the player's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.[4] Once the app is installed on your phone, the rest of the setup process takes about 10 minutes. That includes creating a Mighty account, renaming your device something only you will understand, connecting it to Wi-Fi, downloading updates and linking your Spotify account. Once all of that is done, all you have to do is select which playlists to sync from Spotify to Mighty.[5]
Once the music is stored on Mighty, the user no longer needs a phone or Internet connection for music playback. Mighty has a 3.5mm headset jack and also works with Bluetooth headphones. Mighty makes Spotify mobile without using any of your phone's storage, battery or data.[6]
History
[edit]Development
[edit]The company was founded by Anthony Mendelson, an ex-Google employee.[7] The original Mighty was designed based on the idea that running or working out with a smartphone was not a great experience with no solution at the time to listen to streaming music outside of the phone.[8] The product has also been called the “iPod Shuffle for Spotify”, especially as the Shuffle was discontinued by Apple.[9]
Funding
[edit]Mighty Audio raised $300,101 through a Kickstarter campaign running from February 22, 2016, to March 23, 2016.[10] The company followed this by raising an additional $295,702 on Indiegogo and sold an additional $300,000 in pre-orders from November 12, 2016, to June 23, 2016.[11]
On February 1, 2018, it was announced that the company was part of the Techstars Music Class of 2018.[12]
Release Delay
[edit]Although the release date of Mighty for its Kickstarter and Indiegogo backers was November 2016, the product was not released until July 2017. The company had to rebuild the product alongside Spotify and go through the Spotify certification process, which lasted 8 months.[13]
Reception
[edit]Spotify
[edit]The device is currently limited to Spotify and Amazon Music content and users with a Spotify Premium account.[14] Mighty can only currently sync playlists, not albums or individual tracks. The workaround is to add albums or songs to a playlist and sync the playlist.[15]
Shuffle
[edit]The device was met with criticism when it first launched as it did not have a shuffle feature. Shuffle functionality was added in September 2017 via a software update.[16]
Connectivity
[edit]Users setting up their Mightys with the mobile app experienced connectivity issues. The company released software updates to address these connectivity issues.[17]
Software Releases
[edit]The company released several minor software updates and a major 1.0 software update in September 2017. Items included in this update were shuffle functionality, aux cable support for speakers, improved battery life, connectivity stability fixes, the ability to sync individual playlists rather than everything loaded onto Mighty, and automatic playlist updates to the device, dubbed “Stay Fresh” by the company.[18]
References
[edit]- ^ "This tiny $86 device can play your music from Spotify without a smartphone". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "Mighty Plays Your Spotify Music without a Phone. Finally". Mashable Shop. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ Andu, Greenburg. "spotify plays".
- ^ "Mighty Audio's tiny music player lets you take your Spotify playlists anywhere". Digital Trends. 2017-07-12. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "An iPod Shuffle for Spotify is surprisingly essential". Engadget. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "Get a Mighty portable Spotify player for $68.80". CNET. 2017-11-15. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "Anthony Mendelson LinkedIn Profile".
- ^ Heater, Brian. "Mighty fills an iPod shuffle-sized hole for Spotify subscribers". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "How Apple can make the iPod mighty again". Macworld. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "Mighty is a modern iPod shuffle that runs on Spotify". The Verge. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "Mighty - Spotify Without Your Phone". Indiegogo. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ Greenburg, Zack O'Malley. "Supersonic Startups: The Techstars Music Class Of 2018 Unveiled". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "You Might Actually Love This iPod Shuffle for Spotify". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "11spd: This week's best new bike gear". BikeRadar. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ Hermann, Andy (2017-09-09). "Is This the iPod Replacement We've Been Waiting For?". L.A. Weekly. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "The iPod Shuffle for Spotify can actually shuffle your songs now". Engadget. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "The Mighty — an iPod shuffle for Spotify — finally arrives for $85". The Verge. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "Software Release 1.0". Mighty. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
