Sonos Planning built-in Alexa

Sonos are planning speaker products with built-in Alexa technology from Amazon. It's currently in testing but allows anyone with an Echo or Dot to control their wireless music system with voice control.

When asked if a Sonos speaker with Alexa is coming, CEO Patrick Spence said: “Yes, there will be.” He's also imagined a future where customers use multiple voice systems.

Instead of just Alexa, you could use any voice assistant to control your Sonos speakers. He compared the idea to how Sonos already offers support for a multitude of competing music services. Sonos is even open to supporting Google Home, which offers the Google Assistant.

Amazons Alexa had a very strong showing at the recent Consumer Electronic Show (CES), Despite not having a stand themselves there were a slew of products featuring Alexa voice technology.  It looks like we can expect more home technology to feature Alexa control, which is a good thing, because we like Alexa.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/140066-sonos-is-planning-a-new-speaker-with-built-in-alexa-voice-control

So What's the cinema like in America's most expensive home?

It's like this;

The James Bond-inspired cinema screening room features 40 plush motorised leather theatre seats, a 360" 4K cinema screen and Dolby Atmos sound system.

The home also houses the Original Airwolf Helicopter from the TV Series/Film. The swimming pool also has a pop up cinema screen.

More details on the $250 million Bel Air mansion can be found here

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/americas-expensive-home-250m-los-angeles-mansion-hits-market-965062

Fridges are cool at last

LG Electronics have launched a Smart Fridge and for once it looks like they've made all of the features genuinely useful.  For a start there is a 29"touchscreen that can turn transparent so you can see inside the fridge without opening it.  It can also be controlled with Alexa and manage and order food from Amazon.

Unveiled at CES® 2017, LG’s new flagship Door-in-Door® refrigerator features a 29-inch touch LCD display, which, thanks to its InstaView feature, instantly turns transparent with just two knocks of the screen and allows users to look inside the refrigerator without opening the door. Now with webOS, consumers can also explore a host of WiFi-enabled features directly on the refrigerator, creating a streamlined and powerful food management system all housed directly on the front of the fridge door.

Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service gives users access to an intelligent personal assistant that, in addition to searching recipes, can play music, place Prime-eligible orders from Amazon.com including groceries, add items to a shopping list and more. With over 6,000 skills available, Alexa can also control one’s smart home, request car service, set kitchen timers and check the weather – all hands-free by just using voice commands. With Alexa, daily tasks in the kitchen – such as cooking or planning for the day – turn into a dynamic, entertaining experience.

In addition to the services provided by Amazon, the LG Smart InstaView refrigerator offers a variety of other convenience-enhancing features. The Smart Tag menu allows users to add stickers and tags on the screen to indicate which foods are stored as well as the ability to input the expiration date of each item, so the refrigerator can issue reminders when foods near expiration. Family members can set up memos for each other and create to-do lists that display on the screen. To check inside the refrigerator remotely, a 2.0 megapixel panoramic super-wide-lens camera captures images of the interior from a variety of different angles which are accessible via smartphone, a must-have feature for anyone who would like to see what’s at home while grocery shopping.

“By working with Amazon, we are able to broaden LG’s Smart InstaView refrigerator’s capabilities and provide consumers with a new smart home service that enhances the at-home cooking and dining experience,” said Song Dae-Hyun, president of LG’s and Home Appliance & Air Solutions Company. “Our newest innovation will allow users to enjoy their kitchens like never before with new abilities to ‘speak’ to the fridge, control the home’s connected devices and connect with the family in a new way.”

“For many families, the kitchen is one of the busiest rooms in the house, and a place where they often find their hands tied. Now consumers have even more convenience in their homes, all just by using their voice and Alexa,” said Mike George, vice president, Amazon Alexa. “In working with an innovative home appliance company like LG, we can truly showcase how much better life can be for consumers everywhere starting with updating one of the most important appliances in the home.”

A Letter from John MacFarlane - Sonos Founder

The Next Generation of Sonos Leadership - John MacFarlane hands over the baton to Patrick Spence.

Here in his own words he describes the transition of SONOS.

As the founder and CEO of Sonos, I am always trying to find leaders who are capable of taking Sonos to the next level, part of that means assessing my own role. With Sonos now poised for a new phase of growth, I am excited to pass the role of Chief Executive Officer to a well-prepared Patrick Spence. Patrick demonstrated his leadership most recently with Sonos’ success during the holiday period, but more importantly, there isn't a person who better embodies Sonos’ values and culture.

Patrick's leadership comes at a magical moment for Sonos. Music has made the transition to streaming. It took longer than we expected but it's fully here now, leading with a handful of paid subscription services: Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, Google Play Music, QQ Music, Amazon Music, SoundCloud, Tidal, etc. There will be many more options for music lovers as the music labels learn to make a start-up friendly ecosystem and the paid subscription services build platforms. Today, a Sonos owner can play almost everything ever made, and tomorrow we will certainly be able to do that with all manner of preferences, niches, themes, and mixes. Music is a wonderfully unique and developing thing, making our mission and brand promise the most motivational in the world. It's never been a better time for connecting music lovers in their homes to music creators.

Add to that the advent of useful experiences with voice assistants in the home to complement the smartphone, tablet, watch and laptop in finding the right music, at any given time of your day. Here at Sonos, we all came to this epiphany differently and at different moments, but the work we’re doing now will deliver meaningful experiences for music listening at home.

Other elements around our home ecosystem are maturing as well, home Wi-Fi is becoming mission critical, the reason we developed our mesh network and Boost, as reflected in the growing diversity and depth in the consumer Wi-Fi market. The smart home is on the cusp of becoming an experience beyond early tech adoption.

The pivot that Sonos started at this time last year to best address these changes is complete, now it's about acceleration and leading. I can look ahead and see the role of Sonos, with the right experiences, partners, and focus, with a healthy future. In short, the future of the home music experience, and the opportunity for Sonos has never been better. Never.

There are no typical transitions of leadership, especially for founder-led companies where the strength lies in a central interpretation of the culture that is essential for the formation and development of a new company in a complex and rapidly changing environment. However, the culture must move beyond the founder, and that's a unique path for every company. It is that moment for Sonos and I trust Patrick and the team with this growth.

Moving forward, I will remain as a Sonos employee, with a mission to help and advise. In addition to mentoring Sonos leaders, I will be focusing on two areas that I am most passionate about. First, I’ll help to center and potentially expand Sonos’ commitment to STEM education. Second, I’ll continue to work within the music and tech industries to help create a start-up friendly ecosystem.

It's been a pleasure and honor working toward a mission of filling every home with music. The fifteen-year journey has been filled with fantastic adventures, hard learnings, and everything in between, and I look forward to our next chapter.

Sincerely,

John

http://press-us.sonos.com/141425-the-next-generation-of-sonos-leadership

Curve Your Enthusiasm

The TV manufacturers (Samsung I'm glaring at you) seem determined to push Curved Tv's as the new standard of high-end televisions.

Their arguments are that compared to flat Tv's curved Tv's offer;

Improved Immersion
Greater Sense of Depth
Wider FIeld of View
Uniform field of view
Better Contrast

Now some of these may well be true, but in reality only if you are siting in the sweet spot, directly in the centre and at the exact right viewing distance.  It's incredibly rare for anyone to be in that sweet spot, let alone a couple or a family watching a movie. Also these are all minimal differences, it's not a new viewing experience in any way.

What they will not tell you is that Curved screens also brings issues when compared to normal Flat Screen Tv's.

For example curved screens tend to;

Exaggerate Reflections
Be tricky to place
limits viewing angles
Be Difficult to Wall Mount

In my opinion (and I've been wrong before) I think its a current fad, unlike 4K or OLED which bring real hard tangible results and are technology driven, That's where my money would be going, the biggest, flattest, OLED, 4k Tv you can afford.

Razer buys THX

Razer, made famous for gaming peripherals like mice, keyboards and gaming accessories has bought sound system supremos THX.  

THX will continue to operate as it's own entity with current management in place.

THX is an American company headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1983 by George Lucas. It develops the "THX" high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and video games.

Tomlinson Holman

Spun off from Lucasfilm in 2002, THX was developed by Tomlinson Holman at George Lucas's company, Lucasfilm, in 1983 to ensure that the soundtrack for the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, would be accurately reproduced in the best venues. THX was named after Holman, with the "X" standing for "crossover" or possibly "experiment" as well as in homage to Lucas's first film, THX 1138. The distinctive glissando up from a rumbling low pitch used in the THX trailers, created by Holman's coworker James A. Moorer, is known as the "Deep Note".

THX-certified theaters provide a high-quality, predictable playback environment to ensure that any film soundtrack mixed in THX will sound as near as possible to the intentions of the mixing engineer. THX also provides certified theaters with a special crossover circuit whose use is part of the standard. Certification of an auditorium entails specific acoustic and other technical requirements; architectural requirements include a floating floor, baffled and acoustically treated walls, non-parallel walls (to reduce standing waves), a perforated screen (to allow center channel continuity), and NC30 rating for background noise ("ensures noise from air conditioning units and projection equipment does not mask the subtle effects in a movie's soundtrack."

"For over 30 years, THX has maintained a proud legacy of being one of the leaders in audio technology and certification worldwide," said Laurie Fincham, senior vice president of Audio Research and Development at THX. "With their focus on quality, design and innovation, Razer supports our vision to optimize and deliver the best audio-visual experiences to audiences worldwide."

Razer Co-Founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan said, "Razer has a vision for innovation at every level of entertainment, a vision which THX has championed since its inception more than 30 years ago. This acquisition will allow us to reinforce Razer’s leadership in gaming and extend the brand into broader areas of entertainment, while at the same time empowering THX to develop into a global powerhouse, independently."

"Our focus has always been on ensuring that anyone can experience high quality entertainment, regardless of their medium of choice. With Razer, we can now continue to strengthen our core lines of business while delivering excellence for our customers’ ever-changing needs," said Ty Ahmad-Taylor, CEO of THX. "As a standalone company, THX will work with Razer but will primarily continue to service our partners in the industry in order to deliver great products to consumers."

Sonos has a new CEO

Wireless audio company Sonos have promoted a new CEO from within the company to take over from founder John MacFarlane.

The billion dollar a year company is expecting further growth after growing sales 20% in 2016. Sonos is now 15 years old as a company and its wireless music systems are among the most well known, especially within the multi room audio market.

Former Blackberry manager Patrick Spence will take over as chief executive.

Former CEO (and founder) John MacFarlane

New CEO Patrick Spence

The change comes as Sonos readies itself to work alongside the growing number of voice assistants and connected SMart Home technologies such as Amazon's Alexa and Google's Home. 

2017 should see the Sonos music system be able to play music simply by calling out requests for an artist, album or track.

Roth Oli Range of Speakers

We recently unboxed the entire range of Oli RA speakers that we distribute here in Thailand. These are some seriously good looking speakers, The finish is beautiful and the modern look will fit in with most decor.

We also gave the entire range a listen to, I own a couple of pairs already so I knew what to expect, They sound great will go into that side of things in further details later in another post.

What does 2017 hold for the Smart Home

Voice control apparently, specifically Amazons Alexa technology. It's been taking the CES (Consumer Electronic Show) in the USA by storm.

PocketLint reports

Some are saying that CES 2017 is all about AI - artificial intelligence - but it isn't. It's very specifically about Amazon Alexa.

We saw an emerging trend through 2016, expanding the smart personal assistant, going far beyond the sort of thing that Google Now and Apple Siri had been offering through various phones. 

CES 2017 has seen the launch of an unprecedented number of devices that aren't "compatible" with Amazon's Alexa, they're powered by it. There's an important point of distinction to be made here: your thermostat and lights are compatible with Alexa, not powered by it.

The deluge of devices powered by Alexa at CES 2017 confirm one thing: Amazon Alexa isn't a step ahead of its rivals in the battle for smart connectivity, it's a full country mile in the lead. 

You might say that that simply comes down to timing. Amazon launched the Echo in the US in 2015, taking the UK by storm in late 2016. The Amazon Echo is a device that sells itself: anyone who plays with it can't help but be drawn to the range of things that it does so simply, and the more technical love the wide support for third-party devices and services. The Echo is a true home hub.

There are two important things happening here: firstly, in June 2015, Amazon announced the Alexa Voice Service, making the brains available to developers; secondly, Alexa is established, meaning everyone wants to play nice. 

With more and more third-parties moving to work with Alexa, Amazon is in a position of critical mass: it's the product you need to work with, it's the natural interface within the emerging smart home, just as Philips Hue is for smart lighting. 

That's all come to fruition at CES 2017 with an overwhelming number of companies launching devices that take advantage of Alexa Voice Service. It's found its way into cars, with Ford confirming it's coming to its Sync service, it's in fridges, with LG adding the smart technology to appliances. Alexa appears in Huawei's Mate 9, it's the interface for home robots and is even appearing in TVs. 

Then there's more regular rivals to the original Amazon Echo that started this Alexa trend in the form of the Lenovo Smart Assistant.

If there's a theme that's pulling CES together, it's that Amazon has stolen a march on its rivals and that Alexa is going to be everywhere in 2017.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/139910-the-machines-are-coming-ces-2017-is-all-about-amazon-alexa

Unboxing the ROTH Oli RA1 (White)

Towards the end of last year we received our first shipment of ROTH Speakers, In this video I unbox a pair of the ROTH Oli RA1's for the first time.

These speakers are fantastic sounding, What HIFI awarded them 5 stars and they really punch above their weight, some of my favourite small speakers ever.  That's why we became the Thai distributor.

These Retail for 6,000 baht per pair, an absolute bargain. Fantastic speakers.

Before Your Cinema - The 4 Important Questions To Ask Yourself

I was thinking about the Home Cinema that I will be building at my home this year and I caught myself asking 4 main questions. I thought I'd draw them up whilst fresh in my mind.  The 1st question is the main question of any home cinema. All the questions are in order of importance.

Acoustic Foam

The acoustics of your room probably have more to do with sound quality of your system than any other component, that's right - those expensive speakers can sound crap in a room with poor acoustics. Inversely mid-level equipment can be made to sing with a properly treated room.

Acoustic foams are generally found as pyramid or wedge shapes. They work not only to absorb sounds, by enhancing the quality of sound and speech in a room. They are able to help tame both mid and high frequencies at the same time to minimize sound echoes and reflections which would colour or muddy the sound.

By reducing the amplitude of the waves, our acoustic foam helps to dissipate the sound energy. This in turn helps the clarity of sound. Bass Traps help to trap the Bass energy to stop booming in the room.

Typically we would use acoustic panels in home cinemas or dedicated stereo listening areas.