Can Smart Devices Help You Escape the Algorithm?
We have all been there. You’re listening to a recommended playlist from your streaming service of choice when all of a sudden a song that in no way sounds like one you’d normally listen to starts playing.
Sadly, we’ve all become so caught up in the world of algorithms that many of us have lost the ability to think through song choices ourselves, meaning that we’re beholden to whatever it is that Spotify or Tidal thinks we should be listening to.
Now, though, a screen-free streamer has hit the market that might help us be able to break free of this world of algorithms, letting someone else choose the music for us when we want to listen.
A Neat Little Device
There is an extent to which the sheer amount of choice available to us on our favourite streaming platform is simply too much to know what to do with. There is so much music in the world that being able to sit and listen mindlessly to something is a task that we’ve all handed over to the algorithm.
Having spent a little while listening to songs of your choice, the algorithm makes up playlists according to what it thinks you might like. The fact that music created by Artificial Intelligence is now ubiquitous on many of the streaming services is making it even harder to just listen to the sort of thing you want to without feeling as though you’re funding a war.
@nts_radio Introducing the @atonemo.electronics NTS Radio Player. Feat. @Steven Julien ♬ original sound – NTS Radio
Step forward Atonemo, who have released their NTS Radio Player that promises a minimalist design alongside the ability to listen to curated online radio stations of your choice. It has just two buttons and a dial, but can be hooked up to your existing sound system thanks to the 3.5mm line-out port, which combines well with the AUX and RCA adapter that is inside the box.
Instead of having to pick out music yourself, you hand the pressure over to online radio stations that are curated and run by NTS, which is much more interesting than some of the garbage that the likes of Spotify is likely to force on you via its algorithmic playlists.
Pointless….and Amazing
The views of one Reddit user might most succinctly sum up the Atonemo NTS Radio Player. ‘oprimo’ said, “It’s not useful, it’s pointless, and it’s also amazing.” The user also said that that sentence could easily be a description of ‘music itself’, which feels like the sort of thing that runs the risk of sending you into an existential crisis.
One of the two buttons on the device will load up Channel 1, whilst the other loads up Channel 2. From there, you then use the dial to access 16 different ‘infinite mixtapes’, with icons on the outskirts of the dial letting you know what it is that you’re going to be tuning in to.
Atonemo and NTS launch Radio Player with icon wheel for genre selection
Tech company Atonemo and radio station NTS partnered to produce a pocket player for “omakase listening” – a curated experience decided by “someone whose taste you trust”.
Dezeenhttps://t.co/kFrGjdQYF6 pic.twitter.com/qOBz6zNjiT
— beep_R | AK_m14 (@beep_roadrunner) June 23, 2026
You could, for example, choose the violin icon, which will give you Sheet Music. Maybe the water drops icon is more your style, offering a Sweat playlist of upbeat bangers. Whichever one you settle on, you’ll be getting your music in 24-bit/192 kHz lossless audio, with hapless playback and the ability to fiddle with a 10-band graphic equaliser courtesy of the app.
If you’d rather play your own music than trust the NTS DJ, you can do so from your phone courtesy of AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Tidal Connect or Spotify Connect, so that ensures that it doubles up as a way of adding your phone to a set of speakers. It’s useless, but fun in equal measure.