Gurbani Box
A screen-free device that plays Gurbani and tells the saakhiyan, for a Sikh home
What it is
A small mains-powered device with no screen. It plays Gurbani, and it tells the saakhiyan — the stories of the Gurus — in Punjabi and in English. You put it on a shelf, and it is ready. There is no app to learn, no account, no notifications.
It is closer to a clock than to a computer. The nearest thing most homes already have is the radio that used to sit in the same corner.
Who it is for
Households where scripture is part of the day and a phone is the wrong object for it. Elders who want Nitnem at the right time without navigating a touchscreen. Parents raising children outside Punjab who can see the language and the stories slipping a generation, and who would rather their child heard a saakhi than scrolled past one.
What it will do
- Scheduled Nitnem. The banis, in the correct sequence, at the correct times, starting at Amrit Vela. The device knows where it is, so the times are right without being set by hand.
- Gurbani playback on demand, with physical controls a child or a grandparent can use without being shown twice.
- A saakhiyan library, narrated properly, in both languages, meant to be listened to end to end rather than dipped into.
- Content updates over Wi-Fi, optional, for when the story library grows.
Promises about how it behaves
These are design commitments, not preferences. They are written into the firmware’s state machine, and they are part of what the product is.
- A shabad is never interrupted. Not for a notification, not for a low-battery chirp, not to change track. Transitions happen at natural boundaries or they do not happen.
- No shuffle across scripture. Whatever randomisation exists lives in the saakhiyan library. Gurbani plays in order, as it was recorded.
- Nitnem is scheduled, not stumbled into. The sequence and the times are the point of the product, not a setting buried three menus deep.
- It is designed to be placed with respect. The enclosure and its mounting are drawn for a shelf or a wall, never for the floor. That is an industrial-design decision taken at the start, not a label added at the end.
What it will not do
It will not be a smart speaker. It will not listen to the room, it will not answer questions, and there is no microphone in the plan. It is not trying to replace SikhiToTheMax, iGurbani or YouTube, all of which are good and free — it is a different kind of thing, an object rather than an application, and the case for it rests entirely on that.
Where this is
An idea, written down and dated. Nothing is built, and nothing is being sold. We are sizing interest before committing to anything, so if you would want one, say so — that is the whole of what is being asked for at this stage.