The company isn’t offloading all responsibility. It’s promising to contribute new features to the project, including a developer kit package for the Unity game engine. This will mainly help developers adapt to new phone displays and other changes without waiting for Google.

The open source effort might be a relief to some. Cardboard is widely considered one of the most affordable ways to experiment with VR, and Google said it still has “consistent” uses in entertainment and schools. If Google simply halted work on Cardboard, the future of those efforts would have been uncertain at best — open code gives creators at least some options for keeping their projects alive.

You might not need extra gear depending on your artistic inclinations. It includes two 50W speakers to pump out music all on its own, and a 3,000mAh battery will keep it running when you’re nowhere near a wall outlet. This isn’t a completely stand-alone instrument, to be clear — you’ll want to use either a digital audio workstation (it’s compatible with apps like Ableton and GarageBand) or Rhythmo’s own smartphone app to complete your music production workflow.

It shouldn’t take long to get one in your hands, at least. Provided all goes well with crowdfunding, you could get a unit as early as spring 2020. It might come just in time to help you soundtrack a few summer parties, or to help teach kids the ins and outs of electronic music making. And those are really the goals — this is an entry point and educational tool for people who have little to no experience with creating music.