Samsung bought Harman... Harman just bought Arcam

Samsung Electronics bought esteemed AV Receiver company Harman Kardon back in March of this year (2017).   The move was seen by many as a shrewd move from Samsung to get into the AV amplifier business.  In a shock move Harmon have now bought out Arcam, Arcam's products always had a great reputation for sound, especially their AV receivers.

Arcam is based just outside the famous university city of Cambridge in the UK, their story started the classic way: two friends with a passion for music and electronics met up while engineering students at Cambridge University, and founded Amplification and Recording Cambridge in 1976.

This brings Arcam into Samsungs AV fold which now includes; AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Mark Levinson and Revel. Consolidation is natural but I have misty eyes for the days of small companies being able to come out with great audio products.

HARMAN International who was acquired by Samsung in March this year have announced today that they have acquired the Cambridge, U.K based ARCAM brand.

"StereoNET first heard of the potential acquisition back in May this year, however ARCAM executives denied the rumour at the time."

In a joint statement dated 14th July 2017 and sent to ARCAM and HARMAN customers, they said:

ARCAM and HARMAN share a likeminded passion for bringing the highest quality sound into people's lives and we believe bringing the power of the two companies together will benefit the partnership we have with you. 
Scott Campbell, ARCAM Director Sales & Marketing continued:

Nothing will change in our day to day business. Richard and his team will continue to represent the ARCAM brand as normal. Charlie Brennan and the current management team will remain in Cambridge and become part of HARMAN’s Lifestyle Audio division.  

Søren Majlund, Commercial Director EUN, Harman Lifestyle Audio Division said:

HARMAN recognizes the value and potential of Arcam’s people, technologies and brands, and we expect the combination will deliver growth opportunities and benefits to our customers. We believe this is an unprecedented opportunity to grow Arcam’s engineering capabilities and extend its product reach into new markets.

ARCAM have enjoyed considerable growth and success in recent times with their current line-up of audio-video products, and in particular their AV Receivers. This acquisition makes a lot of sense for HARMAN International who have struggled in the AV Receiver market with their Harman/Kardon brand previously."

http://www.stereo.net.au/news/breaking-harman-international-acquires-arcam

Chiang Mai Home - Multi Room Audio

This week we are completing the speaker installation and additional wiring for a customer in Chiang Mai.  They've opted for our Nuvo wireless range of multi room audio for their home sound system.  We will also be on hand to offer additional audio visual work installing TV's and media centres once the property has been completed.

Nuvo whole home audio systems guarantee an unparalleled listening experience, with wired and wireless distributed audio solutions specially designed to match incredible fidelity with the latest in streaming source variety and intuitive control. Easy to install, easier to enjoy, Nuvo systems are the perfect fit for any home.

A superior home audio experience is closer than you think with the flexible, high-performing Nuvo Player Portfolio. Conveniently available in both wired and wireless configurations, it’s easy to build the perfect solution to fit your home. Each player features access to both networked music libraries and the near-infinite variety of Internet Radio.

Our client chose the Nuvo sound system because they wanted an easy to use AV experience, it had to be simple to use and control.  The Nuvo range of wireless music systems are certainly easy to control simply open up the app, choose a room (or all rooms) and hit play.  

The last couple of years has seen us working on more Chiang Mai homes and a Chiang Mai office is on the cards for the near future.  The Chiang Mai property market is featuring more and more new-builds for successful individuals looking for something special with value for money and bigger landholding than equivalent homes in say either Bangkok or Phuket.

Knightsbridge Blockbuster Home Cinema Battle

This one has gone all the way to court, neighbours arguing over plans for a massive basement home cinema in Luxury Knightsbridge for more than six years, this week went to court. 

"Two multi-millionaire neighbours have been at loggerheads for five years over plans for a basement and home cinema beneath one of their Knightsbridge homes.

Nick Hill, 56, claims he has been repeatedly “thwarted” by property developer Russell Gray since announcing plans in 2012 for excavation under his £4 million mews house.

He said he planned as large a basement as possible — to include a private cinema room — to be finished swiftly and cheaply, and he is suing Mr Gray for £200,000 for delays to the project. 

The neighbours have run up hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal bills in the dispute and returned to court for the damages claim last week. 

Mr Gray, 60, an insolvency practitioner, argues he does not owe his neighbour anything as the basement plan is “unbuildable”, accusing him instead of trespass because building work had strayed on to his land.

Nick Hill is suing Russell Gray for £200,000 over delays to his project to build a basement under his £4 million property.

Representing himself at Central London County Court, Mr Gray denied he was to blame for the “five-year scrap”, saying of his neighbour: “(He) does not declare war, but wages it from behind the scenes.

“I submit that this dispute as a whole is quite unnecessary and is a product of Mr Hill’s character,” he told Judge Edward Bailey. 

“Mr Hill alleges routinely that I am dishonest and impossible to deal with. The reality is, however, that he refuses to talk to me and always has done.”

He added: “If he had been willing to enter into a dialogue with me, we might have been able to avoid five years of wasted time and costs.”

Mr Gray, 60, an insolvency practitioner, argues he does not owe his neighbour anything as the basement plan is "unbuildable" (Paul Keogh )

The court heard Mr Gray himself had begun work on a basement beneath his house in a cobbled mews close to Harrods in Knightsbridge in 2001. 

The feud began a decade later when Mr Hill, through his company Elite Town Management Limited (ETML), lodged plans for his own larger basement next door.  Mr Hill’s project involved underpinning the party wall between the two houses, maximising the size of his basement, which Mr Gray branded “entirely selfish” because of the risk to the building. Mr Hill eventually won a legal fight over the party wall, but claims he suffered eight months of delays in 2014 and 2015 because Mr Gray unsuccessfully appealed against the ruling.

Crispin Winser, for Mr Hill, said the row had become a “personal crusade” for Mr Gray, who “refuses to accept” his neighbour is entitled to build as planned. He argued Mr Gray had taken “extraordinary steps in a blatant attempt to thwart the implementation of the works”, including claims of trespass when Mr Hill’s contractors dug and filled pits with tons of concrete extending onto Mr Gray’s property. 

Mr Gray claims his neighbour then tried to hide the concrete with spoil, an accusation Mr Winser dismissed as “without foundation”.  Mr Gray told the court his neighbour had not suffered any losses by the delays, pointing out work has still not restarted on the basement even now, and is fighting any award of damages."

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/millionaire-neighbours-blockbuster-row-over-basement-cinema-plan-a3584141.html

It's a shame it has come to such a head over a home cinema, I believe that any worry about noise could be put to rest with acoustic treatment and the creation of a room within a room - Although I think these neighbours just don't like each other very much.

Hue do you think you are?

This week we are adapting some downlight fittings for the Philips Hue GU10 bulbs for a home cinema room we are working on.  Because they will be using a Logitech Harmony Elite remote control with the smart hub we will be able to control the lighting directly from the one-touch remote.

Personally I'm a great fan of the Philips Hue range of smart lighting control.  What started a few years ago as just a range of bulbs has slowly blossomed into a nice home lighting ecosystem. They (Philips) now have a smart sensor available that can be easily programmed, I have one in my kitchen attached to my fridge so when I walk into the kitchen at night (and only at night) then the lights come on whilst I'm in there and dim down 5 minutes after I leave.

I won't go into too much detail about the Alexa integration, that's another article, suffice to say that this is almost exclusively how we control the lights in my home. unless we are turning them all on or off (when we enter or leave) voice is for us the easiest way to control.

Also because the API's are freely available and the bulbs are so widely used (guesstimates put it at around 12-13 million Hue bulbs sold) Hue lights are often the first to get integrated into control systems such as Samsungs Smartthings, GE's Wink, Apples Homekit etc... let's not forget either   Amazon Alexa or Google Home where the Philips Hue was one of the first home technologies to get integrated into voice control and regular updates add even more functionality.

As nice as the app is (opposite) there are a number of ways to control the lights.

As a systems integrator, what is really cool about the Hue lights is that anyone can have them, there isn't any special wiring or light switches or racks of dimming in the M&E room.  They are a bit tricky to initially set-up, but let us handle that and you can download the app (or apps) and have a play around, they are fun - yet turn on and off exactly the same as normal lights, so no need to worry about it being complicated for the maid or guests.

Also you can add smart lighting to your home, room by room or just wherever needed. It's probably the easiest way to create a Smart Home.

Apple unveils interactive Homekit experiences in-store.

Apple are making moves to drum up interest in their Apple Homekit ecosystem in the run up to the launch of the Homepod later this year.  Competitors Google (with Google Home) and Amaxon (with Alexa) have a headstart in voice control of the home, this move will help align Apple customers with the possibilities of the Apple Homekit smart home ecosystem.

"Unless you’ve had a chance to try some Apple HomeKit products in someone’s home or apartment, it can be hard to understand how it all works. In order to help with that, Apple has unveiled interactive HomeKit experiences in 46 of its retail stores worldwide.

Now, when you go into Apple’s new retail stores, you’ll be able to use the Home app from either an Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad to control devices like the Phillips Hue light bulb, the Hunter ceiling fan and many others. If you tap to the lower the shades in the living room, for example, you’ll see the shades lower in the house shown on the screen.

In the U.S., people can check out the experience at Apple’s Union Square store in San Francisco, its World Trade Center and Williamsburg stores in New York, and 28 other stores throughout the country. Outside of the U.S., Apple offers these experiences in 15 stores, including ones in the UK, UAE, Germany, Mexico, Singapore and Taiwan. A non-interactive HomeKit experience will be offered at all of Apple’s other stores — the ones without “The Avenue” window displays.

   For those unfamiliar with Apple’s move into automation, Apple’s Home app lets people control all of their HomeKit-enabled smart devices from one app. You can group together certain HomeKit devices in the app to create or edit a new scene. Doing so enables you to activate multiple devices with one command — either a tap of the screen or via Siri.

I first had the chance to experience HomeKit last November, when Apple invited TechCrunch to a house in Alameda that it decked out with HomeKit-enabled devices. But before I went, I had a very limited understanding of what it would be like to interact with those devices. And up until today, everyday people didn’t have a way to experience what HomeKit is all about unless they bought some devices.

By offering HomeKit experiences inside retail stores, Apple is bringing the experience I had inside that house to its physical retail stores in order to better familiarize everyday people with the capabilities of HomeKit. And with the HomePod smart speaker set to debut in December — going up against Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home devices — Apple is clearly looking to put a greater emphasis on the role it can play in your home.

Apple marketed the HomePod at its Worldwide Developers Conference as a Siri-enabled speaker for your home. It also presented the HomePod as a device that can serve as a hub for your HomeKit-enabled devices, such as lights, a garage door, air conditioner and other gadgets. A hub, which both the Apple TV and iPad can function as, is what makes it possible to set up automation, remote access and grant access to additional people.

It’s not clear what success would look like for Apple’s retail store experiences for HomeKit in terms of numbers of visitors, purchases and whatnot, but the ultimate goal seems to be to get people more comfortable with HomeKit devices and help to democratize home automation.  Apple also doesn’t have a clear timeline for how long this will be available inside retail stores, but it seems that it will be relatively constant, at least through December when the HomePod comes out."

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/apple-unveils-smart-home-experiences-in-its-retail-stores-worldwide/

4k projectors upgrade

A new wave of affordable 4k Home projectors have arrived, we've sent some personalised mailouts to those of our customers with the largest cinema screens who have the most to benefit, detailing what they will require and what 4k means for them.

Voice integration companies start to surface

As voice control becomes a major component of home automation we are starting to see more companies arise to help leverage the power of Amazons Alexa, Googles Home and Apples Homekit technologies.

"One of the promises of voice-based computing is the ability to make home automation simpler – something that major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and Google, are now tackling with their own voice assistants and smart speakers. But their solutions are still somewhat clunky, both in terms of the software interface for configuring your smart home and the voice commands you use to take actions. That’s where the startup Josh.ai comes in.

The company has now raised $11 million to design a better voice-controlled system for smart homes, and will later this year release its own hardware dedicated to this purpose.

Headquartered in Denver with offices in L.A., Josh.ai is the product of serial entrepreneurs Alex Capecelatro, CEO, and Tim Gill, CTO. The two previously worked together on a social recommendations app Yeti, which had begun its life as At The Pool, and was sold back in 2015. Gill, who had previously founded and sold Quark (Quark XPress), had joined Yeti as a technical advisor, and wrote a number of the algorithms used in the app.

Following the sale of Yeti, the two teamed up again to work on a project in the smart home space – something they were both interested in for personal reasons.

Gill, for example, had spent years developing his own home automation system – his version of Mark Zuckerberg’s “Jarvis” – to run inside the large residential property he was building in Denver.

“He was well underway in building the house and understanding what the competition looked like…what the product offerings looked like,” explains Capecelatro. “And he was pretty dissatisfied with what was out there.”

Meanwhile, Capecelatro was also building a home for himself in L.A., and running into the same problems.

“I was just amazed that all of the big automation systems – Crestron, Control4, and Savant – they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the [user interface] looks like it’s from the 90’s,” he says. “It was weird that for a ton of money in my home where you want to have a delightful experience, the best offerings on the table just weren’t that good.”

The founders saw a need in the market for something that sits above mass market solutions, like Apple’s Home app, or Alexa’s smart home control, which focus more on tying together after-market devices, like security cameras, smart doorbells, or smart lights like Philips Hue.

They founded the startup Josh.ai in March 2015, and shipped the first product the following year.

The solution, as it exists today, includes a kit with a Mac mini and iPad, and software that runs the home. After plugging in the Mac, Josh.ai auto-discovers devices on the network. It can identify those from over 50 manufacturers. For example, it can control lighting and shades like those from Lutron, music systems like Sonos, dozens of brands of security cameras, Nest thermostats, Samsung smart TVs, and even more niche products like Global Caché’s box for controlling IR devices (such as your “not-so-smart” TVs).

The automatic speech recognition (AKA speech-to-text) portion of Josh.ai’s system is handled in the cloud, while Mac mini handles the natural language processing to know what your commands mean.

What makes Josh.ai unique is not just its software interface, but how users interact with the system. You speak to the voice assistant “Josh” to tell the home what to do. (You can also change its name if that’s an issue, or even pick from a variety of male and female voices and accents.)

“Josh,” or the wake word you’ve chosen, precedes your command, which can be spoken using more natural language. The system is better than many when it comes to interpreting what you mean, by nature of its single-purpose focus on home automation.

For instance, you can tell Josh to “turn it off,” and it will know what “it” means because it remembers what it had turned on before. Or you can say, “it’s hot in here,” and Josh will know how to adjust your thermostat.

It can also deep-link to streaming video content, so you can ask to watch “Planet Earth,” and Josh will turn on the TV, switch to the right input, launch Netflix, then start playing the show.

Josh.ai supports “scenes,” as well, allowing you to configure a number of devices to work together – like lights, shades, music, fans, thermostats, and other switches. That way, you can say things like “turn everything off,” and Josh knows to shut down all the connected devices in the home.

Where the system gets really smart is in its ability to handle complex, compound commands – meaning controlling multiple devices in one sentence.

You can say to Josh, “play ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ and turn on the lights,” for example. Or, “play ‘Explosions in the sky’ in the kitchen, and play ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ in the living room.” Other systems could get tripped up by the “and” and the “in the” in the artists’ names, but Josh.ai understands when those words are a break between two commands, and when they’re part of something else.

The current system – which was largely designed for high-end homes – is sold by professional integrators at around $10,000 and up, depending on the components involved. To date, the team has sold more than 50 and fewer than 100 installations.

Josh.ai can work over your Echo or Google Home, if you prefer, and includes interfaces for iOS, Android and the web. But the company is now preparing to launch its own, farfield mic solution in a new hardware device that’s built specifically for use in the home.

While the new hardware will perform some basic virtual assistant type tasks – telling you the weather, perhaps (the company isn’t confirming specific features at this time) – the main focus will be on home automation.

The hardware won’t be a cylindrical shape like Echo or Google Home, but will be designed with an aesthetic appeal in mind.  It also won’t be super cheap.

“It will still be a premium product, but it will be a lot less than where the current product is. And the idea is this will enable our mass market rollout in probably a year to eighteen months,” notes Capecelatro, speaking of his plan to keep bringing Josh.ai’s technology to ever larger audiences.

Josh.ai, a team of 15 soon to be 25, recently closed on $8 million in new funding, largely from the founders’ personal networks. The investors’ names aren’t being disclosed because they’re not institutional firms. To date, Josh.ai has raised $11 million, but has not yet added anyone to its board."

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/07/josh-ai-raises-11-million-for-a-premium-home-automation-system-with-a-smarter-ai/

SoundCloud cuts 173 jobs in San Francisco and London office closure.

SoundCloud, the ‘YouTube for audio’, cuts 173 jobs, closes San Francisco, London offices

This could have implication for the music streaming industry with Spotify and Pandora both currently still operating at a loss and IPO's a long way away for either.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

"Some rough news today for SoundCloud, the audio streaming site whose content is largely based around uploads from its 175 million users in 190 countries. The company has announced that it is laying off 173 employees, and it is closing offices in San Francisco and London. The moves are being described as cost cutting measures “to ensure our path to long-term, independent success,” in the words of co-founder and CEO Alex Ljung, who revealed the news in a blog post. The startup, which was founded in Berlin in 2008, will continue to have offices in Berlin and New York.

The news comes after a rough period for SoundCloud. After entering into talks but never closing two potential acquisitions, first to Twitter and then to Spotify, Soundcloud arranged a $70 million credit line in March of this year to help the business continue to operate as it worked on closing a round of funding believed to be in the region of $100 million.

Today’s news could mean one of two things: either the funding never closed and/or investors who are considering it have laid down some cost-cutting conditions in order to see it go through. The fact that there is no funding round being announced today makes me guess that the round has yet to close.

SoundCloud — which was co-founded by Ljung and Eric Wahlforss — to date has raised around $193 million. Its current investors include Universal, Sony and Warner Music — who all took stakes as part of the company’s efforts to move away from a strong issue around licensing for tracks uploaded to its platform.

Other backers include as a number of VCs and others including GGV, Index, IVP, KPCB, Twitter (who invested about two years after the acquisition deal fell through) and Union Square Ventures.

At the time of the credit line, the company told us in a statement that it was expecting 2.5-times year-on-year growth at the company:

“We are pleased to have secured a flexible $70 million credit line from Ares Capital, Kreos Capital and Davidson Technology that is ideally structured for a company with our strong credit rating and in our stage of growth,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement. “This new funding will enable SoundCloud to strategically grow our technology and personnel resources to fuel our expected 2.5 times year-over-year growth in 2017, while building a financially sustainable platform on which our connected community of creators, listeners and curators can thrive for years to come.”

In today’s blog post by Ljung, he noted that revenue has “more than doubled” (notably leaving out the 2.5x figure). But in any case, those revenues are not massive: in the company’s last UK filings, a condition of operating in the UK, it noted that 2015 revenues were at €21.1 million, or $24 million, implying fiscal year 2016 revenues of about €50 million.

But at the same time, SoundCloud’s losses have continued to grow: 2015’s net loss was just over €51 million.

In addition to funding and financial issues, there are questions about what direction the actual business is taking.

SoundCloud has been making a lot of efforts to build out revenue-generating services, currently focused mainly around subscription tiers for premium content for users; special tiers for content creators; and advertising. However, it’s not at all clear how many users it has picked up in these areas, or how well the ad play is working as the company has never disclosed numbers.

It has also faced a lot of changes in its personnel. Most recently, the company parted ways with its chief content officer, Stephen Bryan. It’s chief revenue officer, Alison Moore, who joined last year, appears to still be with the company.

The bigger picture has been a somewhat grim one for the digital music industry: although digital has overtaken recorded, physical music as the primary way that people “purchase” and consume music today, the economics of the business have never added up. Pandora and Spotify, the two biggest streaming companies today, are both operating at a loss. Pandora recently picked up a new investor, Sirius XM, but it appeared to come at its own cost: the company also sold off its Ticketfly ticketing business, parted ways with its iconic CEO and closed its small international operations.

Spotify, meanwhile, is still inching its way to an IPO, but you can see why the company is taking it slow: given the number of casualties and challenges in the digital music industry, I’m guessing the company wants to build up as large of a business as it can, both in terms of users and revenue-generating services, as it can before debuting in the unforgivable public markets.

I wouldn’t write off SoundCloud just yet, though. The company has a massive user base and, for now, at a time when video continues to be what everyone focuses on, occupies a unique place in the market as a platform for creators to share their audio work. Whether that gets superceded by others with bigger pockets, is one big question; as is the other of whether SoundCloud finally figures out a winning formula from making money out of this still-popular format."

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/06/soundcloud-the-youtube-for-audio-cuts-173-jobs-closes-san-francisco-london-offices/

Brace Yourselves...

Our new office is having the final touches done on the roof, some more structural braces are being added to make sure it doesn't rain down on us.   Once the roof is up we can lay the concrete floor and start to seal up the building.  Then when it's all sealed we can build the best Home Cinema demo and Sonos / Nuvo multi room audio testing suite in Thailand :-) Not to forget the Roth Speakers demo lounge.

Before Bracing

Welding Some Structural Bracing

H3 Digital - Cinema, Audio, Lights

Structure

Bracing Going On

Structural Bracing for the Roof

We've already got Black UPVC Windows on Order from our good friend Nathan at Project Supplies Direct, These will go in shortly after the concrete floor has been laid.  Then we will concrete and brick up the other gaps, add doors and then we can move onto the interior and electrics etc...

Amazon Echo device sales to surpass 10,000,000 units in 2017.

Amazon Echo series device shipments expected to surpass 10 million in 2017

Amazon has recently cut the price for its Echo Dot from US$99 originally to US$49 and the reduction is expected to greatly boost the company's smart voice assistance device shipments to surpass 10 million units in 2017. This will not only boost the worldwide smart voice assistance device market's overall demand, many first-tier IT players are also ready to have a share of the market, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Google has already announced to release its Google Home smart voice assistance device and several other IT players including Facebook, China-based Alibaba and Baidu, are also expected to launch their in-house developed smart voice recognition products. Apple is also reportedly considering entering the market with products using Siri.

The sources pointed out that the market's feedbacks on Amazon's voice assistance device are mostly positive and the new Echo Dot has already achieved the company's annual shipment goal planned originally for 2017 in only a couple of months. The popularity of such devices and the first-tier IT vendors' eagerness to enter the enter the market are expected to significantly shore up fast the worldwide smart voice assistance product shipments, which stand a chance of achieving over 100 million units a year in the upcoming few years.

Amazon's original concept for the product line was to have each family own one Echo, but now Amazon is looking to have each family purchasing an Echo and an Amazon Tap for its living room, while every room in the house can be equipped with one Echo Dot. Because of the change of the idea, Amazon has decided to almost halve the pricing for its Echo Dot in order to create even bigger demand from the end device market

Some Amazon's upstream suppliers revealed that their production lines for the smart voice assistance device have been fully running to meet the shipment schedules since the fourth quarter of 2016. Compared to Amazon Echo's estimated shipments of around three million units in 2016, the suppliers expect related volumes to grow dramatically in 2017 especially since the price-cutting strategy has successfully brought in new demand for the device. Some suppliers even noted that Amazon has already increased its orders to over 10 million units for 2017, more than triple the 2016 volume.

Seeing rising demand, other IT vendors have also begun making their moves recently. Google has announced its Google Home project for the smart voice assistance market and the sources believe Google Home-based products will have a good chance to see strong sales if their pricing is able to hit the sweet spot since Google's operating system already has a complete ecosystem for smart voice assistance applications as well as partners for development.

In the best-case scenario, Google Home-based smart voice assistance product shipments are expected to reach several million units in 2017.

Meanwhile, many first-tier Internet service providers including Facebook, Alibaba and Baidu, have also been aggressively pushing development for smart voice assistance devices and are on the verge of overcoming the last hurdle presented by issues concerning the integration with cloud resources. Apple is also reportedly looking to enter the market by the end of 2017. Because of the vendors' aggressive moves, demand is expected to be stimulated and in turn create business opportunities from Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI).

The business opportunities are also growing large in the upstream chip industry and chip suppliers including Texas Instrument (TI) and Marvell have already prepared solutions for the devices. MediaTek has also recently released SoC solutions that have been inquired by several vendors.

Currently, three chips are required to create a smart voice assistance product: CPU/DSP, which is in charge of computing and simulation to convert analog signal to digital; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication chips for connection to the cloud system and other home equipment; and RF chip. These chips may not be too complicated to work with when handled individually, but integrating all of them into one SoC is expected to be the direction and a ajor challenge for chip suppliers.

Source: DigiTimes

Roth Speakers customer install

We recently started stocking the fantastic sounding Roth Oli series in White after a specific request for a white home cinema surround set from one of our regular customers.  When they arrived we were very happy to see that they looked just as beautiful in the flesh.

The stunning looking Roth Oli Range of Home Cinema speakers in White.

I recently put a black version of the Sub (Roth Oli KHO30) through it's paces as the subwoofer in my home system, so I know it sounded good, sounding more like a good 10" subwoofer than it's diminutive 8" suggest.  It looks fantastic in White, if Apple made speakers I think they'd look like this.

Our customer has now finished his Living/Viewing room here in Phuket for his new villa and sent us some of the finished pictures of how his surround speakers look in his setup.

Roth Oli speakers installed in front left, centre, right and sub configuration.

Roth speakers looking elegant overlooking the pool.

Roth speakers for front stage and in-ceiling speakers for rear and height (Dolby Atmos).

Orvibo S31 Smart Socket Review

Oh Orvibo how I wanted to hate you! I bought you on a whim after being bitterly disappointed with market leaders, TPLInk Smart Plug, offering.  I'd never heard of your company and you looked like a Posh piece of Lego (I bought the Red One).  Your packaging screamed out with it's slick styling promising things like ease of use and simple setup, I've been here before I think to myself, bet it's crap.

My Smart Home is fully Alexa enabled, that means I use voice control with Amazon's Echo and Dot products around my home to control my lights (Philips Hue), my Home Cinema (Logitech Harmony) and my sound system (currently Sonos).  I'm looking for an easy to use smart plug so that I can add some fans to my current setup, initially in the Lounge - The plan is to be able to control it with a simple "Alexa turn Fan off".

---

Step 1.

Once you have the app on your phone you simply choose to add a product, scroll down to Socket and choose the S31 model (it says US but is 220v-240v).

Download the HomeMate app and create account, this was available on the app store and called exactly what it was supposed to. No surprises here, still there shouldn't be *Cough* looking at you TPLink.

---

Step 2.

Next we plug in the S31 smart socket into an electrical outlet, and then hold and press the button on the top of the plug for 6 seconds, it starts to flash.  Once it starts flashing you press the Next on your phone and it will ask you for your wifi password.

Once you've entered the password the app will add the Smart Socket and you will be asked to name the socket. In my case I chose to call it simply "Fan" I wanted to make sure that on this initial test run it was as simple as possible for Alexa.

Eventually the aim will be to have all the fans powered by smart sockets and then be able to ask Alexa to turn the Lounge one or bedroom ones on or off, I could also group them and get Alexa to turn on and off all the fans at once.  If I get clever I can put a thermostat in and get them to come on automatically when it gets to a certain temperature.

---

Step 3.

Now so far this has been a breeze.  Within the app I now have my fan socket, I can set up timers and countdowns and name modes so that the plug can open and close at set times.  I don't do any of this as I just want to make sure that the plug is working as it should and I can control it over the network.

Pressing the fan button takes me to a screen with a large power button and access to those timers again.  Press the large power button and the fan comes on, it feels almost instantaneous but I'd guess there is a 0.2 second delay or so.  As soon as it turns on you are presented with a real time power draw, my fan seems to draw around 42.1 Watts, which sounds about right.

So all of this works, works great in fact, I'm secretly impressed but let's see how nicely it plays with Alexa.

---

Step 4.

I should be able to ask Alexa to discover devices but instead I'd like to use my PC, I want to see what Alexa thinks it actually sees.  You can access your Alexa by typing http://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html into a web browser, you will be asked for your Amazon password etc...

Next I search for the HomeMate skill and enable it.  You will then link your Amazon account to the HomeMate account. Once you've done this you will be prompted to discover devices.  It discovered the Orvibo device first time, it's called exactly what I named it.

View fullsize

View fullsize

---

Step 5.

Ask Alexa "Turn Fan On"....

Success, response is almost instantaneous, maybe 0.3 seconds. I don't have to do anything else, this is exactly what I have been looking for.  It's been an incredibly simple process, I was done start to finish within maybe 5-10 minutes.  I had to go back to take screenshots.

I'm impressed, If Orvibo can continue to come out with designs like this, that work as simply as this does, then they're definitely a company to keep an eye on.

---

Step 6.

Buy some more...

Seriously I just ordered another two, one for my kitchen fan and one for my coffee machine. Great Product.