Phukets Best Burger - Winners of the Roth Oli RA2 speakers

H3 Digital's System Designer Rob Hobbs, Installation Manager Wirut and Electrician and Burger enthusiast Wit were on hand at the Phuket's Best Burger awards ceremony to present Thavorn Beach Village and Spa with their Roth Oli RA2 Speakers for winning Phuket's Best Burger 2017 at the end of March.

Congratulations guys, well done on the win in such a competitive field.

Second place went to Novotel Phuket Karon Beach Resort and Spa and Third to Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon Beach.  I think 2018 is going to be even bigger and better, we are looking forward to it.

Read more at Phukets Best Burger on Facebook.

Sweet Sounding Roth Oli Ra1

We had the pleasure to install some of the great sounding Roth Oli RA1 stereo speakers and our own Reference:Music amplifier system at a friend of ours new office in Phuket recently.

Roth Oli RA1 Speakers in White

He wanted a music system to provide a great sound without huge speakers, we chose to use the RA1's because of their diminutive size and ability to punch above their weight in terms of Bass and sound clarity.

In-ceiling speakers were out of the question as the ceilings were just too high and no mounting space, the Roth speakers were mounted directly to the curved wall as pictured below.

How does it sound? Great!

We are constantly impressed by the audio quality of these little speakers, fantastic sounding with a musical presence of much larger speakers.

They mount directly to the wall and really look the part, we love the white finish.

34 Foot LED Cinema Screen (non Projection)

Samsung just launched a world first, a 34 foot diagonal LED HDR Cinema Screen,

Samsung is one of the industry leaders when it comes to digital displays. Now they are looking aggressively at the Cinema/Movie Theatre business with its new Cinema Screen, a LED 4096 x 2160 resolution screen that measures a massive 34 feet.  That's not big for a cinema screen but this is an actual LED Screen and not a projector based reflection.

Unveiled during the Cinemacon 2017 conference earlier this week, Samsung says its screen is the world’s first High Dynamic Range LED theater display, able to show movies at a peak brightness level that’s nearly ten times greater than standard cinema projectors (146fL versus 14fL). It also comes with very high contrast and clever grayscale settings that “enable the screen to showcase both brightest colors and the deepest blacks at a nearly infinity:1 contrast ratio”.

 It is, however, smaller than most current cinema screens, which usually measure up to 65 feet wide, or around 72 feet in the case of IMAX.  You won't likely see anything near this size for home cinema

The massive screen is currently undergoing currently undergoing the DCI certification process, having just completed compliance testing at Tokyo’s Keio University.

VP of Samsung Electronics America, Sang Kim, says the LED screens would benefit those cinemas that rent out their auditoriums for corporate events, concerts, or even gaming competitions.

Disturbing lessons of the Smart Home (in film and tv)

Some recent television series and films have made good (scary) use of the ways in which Smart Home technology may come back to haunt us (in some cases literally) TV series like "Mr. Robot", "Black Mirror" and "The Expanse" and movies like "Her" give us a glimpse of some of the worst case scenarios of technology in the home.

"Jarvis, remind me to develop a personality for you later."

Jarvis is the quintessential artificial intelligence of film ("Iron Man", "The Avengers"), and now Mark Zuckerberg has used his Stark-like fortunes to build his own. So is film invading your smart home or is it vice versa?

Still, another security threat presents itself. Adobe's "Photoshop of speech" software (not yet released) can manipulate an audio recording to include words and phrases, imitating the recorded voice. So, potentially, you could fool someone's smart home into not being so smart and opening its doors.

Amazon and Apple save voice data from Echo and Siri recordings; data which is supposed to help improve the tech and instead presents both a privacy question and a potential investigative tool. Police obtained a warrant for recordings from Amazon over a murder in 2015, involving an Echo that was found at the crime scene. The device had been triggered and was playing music; police hoped background noises would provide clues. Amazon declined to hand over the recordings, because users' queries to Alexa are protected under the First Amendment.

The future of the smart home

If these filmmakers aim to comment on anything, it's that you won't be able to escape the smart home. One day our very own Jarvis will leave the baby crib, go to university, then come back and take care of us.

"Sir, the more you struggle the more this is going to hurt."

Hit the link (but beware of spoilers if you haven't seen the aforementioned TV and Movies).

https://www.cnet.com/news/disturbing-lessons-of-the-smart-home-in-film-and-tv/

Apple Smart Home - Made to Order

In the US Apple is partnering directly with home builders to offer new houses with Apple HomeKit products already installed throughout.

Homekit enabled on-wall lighting and audio control.

For US residential property developer and builder of homes KB Home, the biggest threat to business is resale, not other builders.. "We're always differentiating against or compared to resale homes," said Jacob Atalla, KB's vice president of sustainability. "And this adds one additional layer of differentiation."

Atalla is talking about their technology partnership with Apple and it's Apple iOS smart home platform, HomeKit. They are on of small list of builders such as  Lennar and Brookfield Residential to build into their homes pre-packaged smart home products, these are all specified as as part of the home design process. Want smart window shades? You pick the style and KB will handle the install for you, wireless control of your hifi - you choose the speakers and hifi systems and they will build it in.

This happens all over the world but this is the first time that the technology provider is working directly with the homebuilder to help them specify their products.  Apple's foray into the Smart Home has been a long drawn out one, they might be thinking this is a great way to leapfrog their products into buyers homes, especially if they like Apple products and have iPhones and iPads to command their new home.

https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/an-apple-smart-home-made-to-order/

The Sonos Playbase (Wireless TV Speaker)

The Sonos ecosystem keeps on growing, They have the Sonos amplifiers, the wireless speakers such as the Play1, Play3 and Play5 - The Surround sound enabling Sonos Playbar and Sub and now their new Playbase.

At it's basic it is a Playbar encapsulated into a base for your TV to sit on, so if you never wall mounted your TV or had no room for a Playbar this will be perfect for you, or if you are just getting started in wireless audio this and a Sonos Sub would be a great start.

Sonos launched a new advert featuring The Big Lebowski to launch the Sonos Playbase.

othing ruins a great movie like bad sound. Now you can enjoy The Big Lebowski with a home theater speaker that transforms your movies (and plays all your favorite music, too). Introducing the all new PLAYBASE. It really ties the room together.

Let's Talk Toilets...

Unusual discussion point for an Audio/Visual and Smart Home company Blog.  We are currently building our brilliant new Phuket office which will hold a veritable treasure chest of home cinema, wired and wireless audio and lighting control products, for people to come and play with. Those people (you) and us will need to use toilets, so we are trying to make sure our facilities are nice to use and as cool as we (think we) are.

Here we are about 1/2 way through construction, this is actually an upcycle of the Burmese work camp toilets that were here previously.

If the toilet block seems unreasonably large for a Smart Home company it's because we are going to have a coffee shop and cool hang out place as well, next door. More on that later.

Bikinis and Martinis

Our latest advert is out...

Bikinis & Martinis Phuket Magazine reflects the dreams of a carefree tropical life, while highlighting our discoveries of art, culture and style around the world.

The perfect place to showcase our expertise in bringing homes to life.  Our exciting home cinema, whole home audio and smart home lighting systems make your home a more fun, enjoyable place.

As the advert says;

We bring homes to life...

Your very own cinema to enjoy the latest movies
Your favourite music playing all around your home
Your lights automated to your mood.

Sonos vs Denon - Multi Room Audio Patents

Sonos was certainly one of the first companies to simplify the operation of multi room audio and it seems that they may have a patent or two to prove that.  Recently Sonos took Denon to court and has won a partial victory against their owners.

Sonos Play 5

Sonos has won a partial judgement against D&M Holdings, the owner of Denon, concerning patent infringements relating to their multi-room audio products.

They brought the lawsuit back in 2014, alleging that the "manufacture, distribution, and/or sale of the HEOS system infringes a number of Sonos patents related to wireless audio products".

The lawsuit concerned a total of 12 patents relating to control and operation of multi-room systems, which Sonos claimed Denon's HEOS speakers infringed.

Last year, D&M Holdings moved for a partial judgement on four of the patents, which the company claimed were "directed to ineligible subject matter". These four patents broadly related to volume control and the method of grouping multi-room speakers together.

This week a US court ruled against D&M Holdings, citing Section 101 of the Patent Act, which says: "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title."

The court ruled that the patents did not cover "abstract ideas" and were eligible for patent protection.

http://www.whathifi.com/news/sonos-wins-patent-ruling-in-denon-lawsuit