Camp Speaker Curiosity Teardown 🧰

[GANTZ]

So I don’t use the camp speaker mostly due the fact I already have plenty of other bluetooth speakers. I just don’t need another one, so I thought what if I could convert the camp speaker into a usable box. Well I didn’t but I did tear it down. I ended up putting back together to keep everything original.

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[mkg3]

Wow, its built like a tank!

The way the speaker looks, if Rivian stop adding it, they would turn a profit

 

[R1Tom]

Wow, its built like a tank!

The way the speaker looks, if Rivian stop adding it, they would turn a profit

That was my thought too! Some serious money being spent in that thing....should have at least offered as a stand alone option or part of a high trim level, but get rid of it to lower cost on lower trim specs...

 

[Tr4ckD4ys]

Am I seeing right that some of the foam has melted due to heat on top of the Thundercomm chip?

 

[COdogman]

Very interesting!

Impressed by the build quality. What made you change your mind about using it as a box?

 

[domoplaytime]

Were you able to find the bugs while you had it apart? Mine is teeming with them.

 

[jwardell]

Thanks for posting. The Camp Speaker is clearly way overengineered for what it is, and makes me think they intended so much more for it. Thundercomm is a chinese Qualcomm offshoot that makes SOCs out of QC processors as well as development boards for QC. The TurboX C404 is made for a very, very smart speaker with built-in AI capabilities.

https://www.thundercomm.com/product/c404-c405-som/

From the pictures, it looks like the speaker grills are just attached magnetically? Is there anything glued or welded or is this reversible? I've been meaning to take mine apart mostly to reverse engineer that speaker dock accessory connection for other ideas, but also because the speaker just sits dead in my garage as when it's stored in the car it malfunctions so often and will unexpectedly play noises or randomly connect to your phone from thin the house. It badly needs a firmware update, and now we know why, as it's running a system much more complicated than a typical bluetooth audio device.

 

[dradam]

Thx for the photos. From the tear down could you determine how the three contacts work to charge it and how it tells the vehicle it’s in correctly to be locked?

 

[R1Tom]

Thanks for posting. The Camp Speaker is clearly way overengineered for what it is, and makes me think they intended so much more for it. Thundercomm is a chinese Qualcomm offshoot that makes SOCs out of QC processors as well as development boards for QC. The TurboX C404 is made for a very, very smart speaker with built-in AI capabilities.

https://www.thundercomm.com/product/c404-c405-som/

From the pictures, it looks like the speaker grills are just attached magnetically? Is there anything glued or welded or is this reversible? I've been meaning to take mine apart mostly to reverse engineer that speaker dock accessory connection for other ideas, but also because the speaker just sits dead in my garage as when it's stored in the car it malfunctions so often and will unexpectedly play noises or randomly connect to your phone from thin the house. It badly needs a firmware update, and now we know why, as it's running a system much more complicated than a typical bluetooth audio device.

So what kinds of cool stuff could they be doing with that processor power that they aren't? I am just curious as most of what you are saying is over my head.

 

[VSG]

My guess is they designed it to be a full-blown Amazon Echo type of device. There's a mic mute button on the speaker that is currently unused, and I think the microphone array is under the 4 holes in the top of the speaker (your pictures don't show what's under that). I think voice control of the speaker functions and playback was intended, just like they have inside the vehicle.

However, the Alexa integration in the vehicle is a bit rudimentary - I don't know why. They clearly could be doing a lot more with it. I don't know if they intend to bring this up to speed or whether they intend to ditch Alexa in favor of something else.

 

[tahoer1s]

This is awesome! Thanks for sharing.

Any chance you have more pictures of the batteries and what they’re using?

 

[iansriv]

That is mind-blowing! I have yet to try the camp speaker out and here you are experimenting on it. Good on you!

 

[Chrisy]

As everything on the R1 platform this is waaay over-engineered.
I agree they could recoup all the lost 30 grand per vehicle by not including this speaker as standard
And the saddest part that probably 90% of user base does not uses it...

 

[Rivianready]

I wish they had partnered with Sonos to design and make it. It would sound a lot better. Also, why no Alexa?

 

[babalegba]

Thanks for the teardown! I'm probably the lone one here but I have multiple Bluetooth speakers but I love using the Camp Speaker. The connection issues do get frustrating every now and then though

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