Category: Network Multiroom Audio

Articles

IKEA SYMFONISK Sonos-compatible floor lamp speakers that fit in well in a lounge area

Sonos and Ikea made a floor lamp speaker that could be perfect for surround sound – The Verge

From the horse’s mouth

IKEA

IKEA and Sonos launch the new SYMFONISK floor lamp speaker (Press Release)

My Comments

IKEA have, for a few years, established a partnership with SONOS in order to create speakers that they can sell through their furniture stores. As I have mentioned before on this Website, I value IKEA’s approach as an affordable path to “cotton on” to the SONOS network-based multiroom audio ecosystem or build out a multiroom audio setup based on this platform.

Here, the speakers come as a traditional bookshelf speaker, table lamp or wall-art panel. but work like other SONOS speakers as far as reproducing audio content is concerned. You won’t be able to use these speakers as smart speakers for voice-activated home assistants.

.. can work well with Sonos Beam soundbar or similar Sonos soundbars for full-on surround sound

You could even team a pair of these IKEA speakers up with a Sonos soundbar like the relatively-affordable SONOS Ray unit in order to create an elementary surround-sound home-theatre setup without spending too much. This capitalises on SONOS implementing network-based multichannel audio for stereo setups with like speakers or surround setups where the surround speakers are a pair of like speakers. Even households who invest in a full-bore home-theatre setup may find these setups attractive for having surround sound in other lounge areas of their home like the family room.

But IKEA have premiered the SYMFONISK floor-lamp speakers that are like the table-lamp equivalents but are on a wire-frame stand so they can be free-standing. These would be equivalent to the traditional floor lamp a.k.a “standard lamp” that is used as a free-standing light in a lounge area.

Again these are a pair of speakers that increasingly earn their keep in a lot of situations. With an open-plan living area where the lounge furniture acts as a room divider in its own right, they would come in handy as surround speakers for a SONOS soundbar without standing out like a sore thumb. Oh yeah, a pair of these can make a pair of unobtrusive speakers for most rooms.

SONOS could take this further for IKEA by allowing a pair of speakers normally deployed as surrounds for a SONOS sundbar to work as a pair of stereo speakers that are their own zone. Here, it could come in to its own with the SYMFONISK table lamp or floor lamp speakers acting as part of a room divider between a lounge area and a dining area, where you may want to use them for music during dinner for example.

I would also see this come along with DTS Play-Fi, the HEOS ecosystem promoted by Denon and Marantz or the MusiCast ecosystem promoted by Yamaha or even the WISA wireless speaker platform where a pair of aesthetically-pleasing speaker/lamp combos are sold for one or more of these systems by the homewares fraternity. This is more to court those of us who have a soundbar or AV receiver capable of network or open-standard wireless surround setups could expand to full surround in an innocuous manner especially with an open-plan lounge area.

DTS Play-Fi Home Theater setup based around a Philips TV

Google, Apple and Amazon implemented “home-theatre” setups for their set-top-box and smart-speaker platforms. That is where their smart speakers and set-top devices work together in order to provide improved TV sound from audio or video content sources hosted on these set-top boxes. But these are focused primarily about improved stereo separation for the video content’s sound.

Similarly, Denon, Yamaha and Sonos have used their own network-based multiroom audio platforms to support multichannel sound across multiple Wi-Fi-based speakers that work on their platforms. This even extends to 5.1 surround sound with the IP-based packet-driven home network as the backbone between the speakers.

These setups have answered issues associated with the IP-based packet-driven small network that can affect proper in-sync in-phase multichannel sound delivery such as latency affecting one or more channels. Here, it’s been about using a single audio device, typically one the receives the stereo or multichannel audio stream from the source, working as the “reference sync device” for the multichannel audio setup and making sure all speakers refer to that device for the time sync information.

The DTS Play-Fi network-based multiroom audio platform has been supported by a significant number of “names of respect” within the hi-fi world. But lately a few TV manufacturers have come on board to extend this platform towards TV and video use cases including wireless network-based surround sound.

Initially this use case, driven by Philips, applied towards “extending” TV audio towards other logical rooms within a DTS Play-Fi setup. But it is now extended towards DTS Play-Fi surround-sound setups which use this technology and your home network as a backbone between the TV and the speakers that are part of a multichannel surround-sound setup.

This is based around a TV working as a “master device” or “anchor device” with the sound delivered to DTS Play-Fi speakers that serve the front left and right, surround or bass channels of the surround-sound setup. The TV’s own speakers would serve as the centre dialogue speakers and this cluster of speakers is set up as a logical room when it comes to streaming audio around your home network.

DTS Play-Fi Home Theater surround sound setup – this time the soundbar is the main audio device

This concept is now extended towards a soundbar serving as a “master device” for these setups, due to the desire to have it work with all TVs rather than those equipped for DTS Play-Fi. In a lot of cases, the soundbar is used as a cost-effective and visually-attractive step towards improving one’s TV sound, with these devices appealing to households that maintain the “TV in the corner” arrangement or prefer a separate stereo system for music.

It is in addition to the “home theatre” application being extended to Dolby Atmos / DTS X setups that implement “height” audio channels. Here, a DTS Play-Fi setup with suitable equipment can be set up to encompass upward-firing speakers or speakers installed up high to create that “sound-above-you” effect but using wireless speakers and your home network.

Again this offers the advantage of wireless surround speakers where you only need power outlets near these speakers to have them work. This still comes in to its own with the open-plan living area with the lounge furniture serving as the room divider – there is very little in the way of cabling to deal with and the surround speakers can be relocated at a moment’s notice.

Similarly, the “sound bar” application could come in to its own with AV receivers where the goal is to move towards a full surround setup but without the ugliness associated with speaker cables run to the back of the room. This is something that some of DTS Play-Fi’s member companies like Onkyo and Pioneer who manufacture AV receivers, could aspire towards especially if they are trying to target some of their products towards the “value” market segment.

Here, some users may use a comprehensive AV receiver for their music playback and home-theatre needs, whether with a stereo amplifier and speakers optimised for music playback handling the front speakers or not. As well, a manufacturer could be offering value-priced AV receivers  that have up to four power amplifiers but support surround sound with DTS Play-Fi speakers.

Lets not forget that Philips could be a brand that pushes DTS Play-Fi towards the territory of affordable equipment and speakers being available from many household names. This could lead to speakers that are priced in a manner similar to IKEA’s SYMFONISK did for the Sonos ecosystem. That is to allow you to build out a network-based multiroom audio system or start a surround-sound setup based on the DTS Play-Fi platform for a reasonable price. It also includes creating one of these setups from scratch using affordable speakers then aspiring to use higher-quality premium speakers in the main living areas of the home while the affordable speakers end up in secondary areas like the bedroom.

The DTS Play-Fi approach to network-based surround sound is demonistrating the use of your home network for full surround sound distribution. As well, this is facilitating the use of a heterogenous setup with speakers from different manufacturers this allowing for the existence of innovative hardware that excels or is affordable for most people.

Articles

The Apple TV set-top box – part of a HomePod / AirPlay enhanced audio setup for online video content – and now to stream TV sound

Apple TV 4K can use HDMI eARC to play any TV audio on your HomePod | Engadget

Apple TV 4K supports ARC and eARC – perfect for your HomePod – Techno Stalking

Apple Working on eARC Support for Newly Announced 2021 Apple TV 4K | iPhone in Canada Blog

Previous coverage on set-top box / smart-speaker integration and HDMI-ARC setups

Apple, Google and Amazon create home theatre setups around their platforms

Video peripherals increasingly offering audio-output abilities

Philips and DTS implement full network multiroom audio functionality in a TV set

My Comments

Apple’s up-and-coming Apple TV 4K is to capitalise on the idea of using set-top and smart-speaker platforms to provide enhanced stereo sound or home theatre setups that they, Google and Amazon are dabbling in.

Here, it is about using the smart speakers as a means to play the sound from video content streamed through the Apple TV, Amazon Fire or Google Chromecast with Google TV set-top devices. This is about either using a pair of like smart speakers to provide increased stereo separation for the video content’s sound. As well, it can be about using a smart speaker for remote listening to the video content’s sound.

As well, there have been approaches towards having various video peripherals offer their own audio output abilities usually for their own sources along with soundbars and the like implementing HDMI-ARC to play TV audio through their own speakers, In some cases, some of the soundbars that are part of network multiroom speaker platforms have the ability to stream sound from the TV to one or more remote speakers.

The next direction for set-top-box and smart speaker platforms

But Apple is bridging their Apple-TV/AirPlay/HomePod set-top and smart-speaker platform with HDMI-ARC technology including the eARC revision to do more. This time, it is to allow a user to stream audio from the TV’s own sources such as the broadcast-TV tuner to Apple HomePod speakers. This can be about remotely listening to a sports call or 24-hour TV news channel via a HomePod speeaker or using a pair of HomePod speakers to have better stereo separation for your favourite TV shows.

At the moment, this is intended to work with the original HomePod speakers rather than the HomePod Mini, with this causing confusion in the press as Apple is discontinuing the original HomePod speakers. The question that will come up is whether this kind of setup will apply to other AirPlay-compatible devices connected to your Apple TV 4K set-top box, including an AirPlay-based multiroom setup which your Apple TV device is part of.

This could have Amazon and Google looking towards ARC / eARC support for their set-top devices with the idea of playing TV audio via their Echo or Home / Assistant smart-speaker products.

As I mentioned in my article about video peripherals offering audio-output abilities, there will be the issue of using HDMI-ARC and HDMI-eARC more for delivering TV audio to these devices and how that can be improved upon. For example, I would see a requirement for an “any-HDMI-socket” approach to ARC/eARC connection rather than connecting the ARC-capable audio peripheral to one particular HDMI socket. Similarly, a TV may have to support streaming TV-show sound to multiple HDMI-ARC ports concurrently as well as passing PCM or bitstream audio streams representing surround sound to multiple HDMI-ARC ports.

But I am surprised that Apple supports HDMI-ARC with their Apple TV 4K device and HomePod smart speaker setup which would facilitate access to traditional broadcast TV via their equipment. That may be considered “out of touch” by some of the trendy Apple fanbois who aren’t necessarily in to the traditional way of consuming TV content. But I do see this as a significant trend in bringing traditional TV to smart-speaker platforms especially where a company owns a set-top media player platform and a smart-speaker platform.

The Apple TV set-top box – part of a HomePod / AirPlay enhanced audio setup for online video content

Apple, Amazon and Google have or are establishing audio-video platforms based around their smart speaker and set-top devices. This is in order to allow you to stream the audio content from video you are watching through their companion audio devices.

The idea with these setups is to “gang” the platform-based set-top box and the speakers together to provide improved TV sound for online services like Netflix. Some like Amazon describe this approach as home theatre but what happens is that if you have a pair of like speakers ganged with the set-top device, you have stereo sound with increased separation at least. It is based around these companies building it to their platforms the ability for users to have two like speakers in one room set up as a stereo pair for that same goal. Amazon’s setup also allows you to use their Echo Sub subwoofer module to improve the bass response of their setup.

These new Amazon Echo speakers can work as part of an enhanced-audio setup for the Amazon Fire TV set-top platform

It is in addition to being able to stream the sound from an online video source you are watching using these set-top devices to a smart speaker of the same platform for remote listening.

The current limitation with these setups is that they only work with online sources provided by the set-top device that is the hub of the setup. This is because neither of these devices support HDMI-ARC functionality in any way, which allows sound from the TV’s own tuner or video peripherals connected to the TV to be played via a compliant audio device.

These companies who are part of the Silicon Valley establishment see the fashionable way to watch TV content is to use online video-on-demand services facilitated by their own set-top devices. But some user classes would benefit from HDMI-ARC support in many ways.

For example, the TV’s own tuner is still relevant in UK, Europe, Oceania and some other countries due to these areas still placing value on free-to-air broadcast TV. This is centred around the ingrained experience of switching between channels using the TV’s own remote control with the attendant quick response when you change channels. It is also becoming relevant to North America as cord-cutting picks up steam amongst young people and they look towards the TV’s own tuner alongside an indoor antenna to pick up local TV services for current news or local sport.

Google to have Chromecast with Google TV work with their Nest Audio speakers at least

As well, some users maintain the use of other video-peripheral devices with their TVs. This will apply to people who play games on their TV using a computer or games console, watch content on packaged media like DVDs, use PVR devices to record TV content or subscribe to traditional pay TV that uses a set-top box.

It will be interesting to see whether this operating concept regarding set-top devices and smart speakers that is driven by Apple, Google and Amazon will be developed further. Here this could exist in the form of set-top devices and platforms that are engineered further for things like HDMI-ARC or surround sound.

There will also be the question about whether these setups will ever displace soundbars or fully-fledged home-theatre setups for improved TV sound. On the other hand, they could be placed as a platform-driven entry-level approach for this same goal.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

DTS Play-Fi has Philips as the first brand to offer a TV that is part of a network-based multiroom audio setup

XPeri (DTS)

DTS Play-Fi Arrives On TVs (Press Release)

My Comments

Over the last seven years, there have been a plethora of network-based multiroom audio platforms coming on board. Some of these, like Frontier’s UNDOK, Qualcomm’s AllPlay and DTS’s Play-Fi allow different manufacturers to join their ecosystems, thus allowing for a larger range of equipment in different form factors to be part of the equation. But these platforms only work with devices that use that same platform.

Well, how do I get sound from that 24-hour news channel or sports fixture that I am following on TV through the multiroom speaker in the kitchen with these platforms? Most of the platforms have at least one vendor who offers at least one home-theatre receiver or soundbar that connects to your TV using an HDMI-ARC, optical digital or analogue line-level connection. With these devices, they offer the ability  to stream the audio content that comes via those inputs in to the multiroom audio setup.

In this situation, you would have to have your TV on and tuned to the desired channel, offering its audio output via the soundbar or home-theatre system that has this technology for these setups to work. Then you would have to select the soundbar’s or home-theatre receiver’s “TV input” or “TV sound” as the source to have via your network multiroom audio setup’s speaker.

Bang & Olufsen, with their continual investment in their Master Control Link multiroom audio platform, even had the idea of TV sound in another room work out for that platform since the late 1980s. Here, most of their TV sets made since the late 80s could be set up as an audio endpoint for their multiroom system with the idea of having one’s favourite CD or radio station playing through the speakers built in to the TV installed in a secondary room. Or one could have the main TV “stream” the sound of a TV broadcast through a set of speakers installed in another room.

But DTS and Philips worked together to put full network multiroom audio in to a range of TV sets sold under the Philips name. This feature will initially appear in their 2020-model OLED premium “main-living-area” TVs.

Most of us will remember Philips as an innovative Dutch consumer-electronics brand that has existed over the many years. This is what with their name behind the audio cassette tape that effectively drove the 1970s and 1980s along with optical-disc technology such as the CD. But Philips devolved themselves of the consumer-electronics scene and had Funai, a Japanese consumer-electronics concern, continue to carry the flag in that market since 2013. This is due to a highly-saturated market when it comes to value-priced consumer electronics.

What will it offer? The TV can be a client device for online services and local content sources able to be streamed via the DTS Play-Fi platform. It will include the ability to show up metadata about the content you are listening to on the TV screen. There will even be the ability to have graphically-rich metadata like album art, artist photos or station logos on the TV screen, making more use of that display surface.

You may think that a TV isn’t an ideal audio endpoint for regular music listening from an audio source, what with integral speakers not suited to hi-fi sound or the screen being lit up and showing information about that source. But some of us do listen to music that way if there isn’t a music system. A common example would be listening to radio or a music channel in a hotel room through that room’s TV thanks to digital-TV or “radio-via-TV” setups that hotels provide. Similarly, some of us who haven’t got a separate music system to play CDs on have resorted to using a DVD player to play our CDs through the TV’s speakers.

On the other hand, the TV can be a source device for a Play-Fi device or logical group. This means that audio associated with the video content can emanate through a Play-Fi client device like a speaker. This means that you could have a Play-Fi speaker in your kitchen playing the sound from the sporting fixture that matters on the TV, typically by you using your Play-Fi app to “direct” the TV sound from your Philips TV to the Play-Fi speaker or the logical group it is a member of.

DTS even uses a special mobile-platform app which effectively turns your iOS or Android mobile device in to a Play-Fi client device that you use with your existing headphones connected to that device. This could avoid the need to set up, use and be within range of a Bluetooth transmitter adaptor plugged in to your TV for wireless headphone functionality. As well, with that setup, you could even be anywhere within coverage of your home network’s Wi-Fi for this to work.

I see this as a chance for any network-based multiroom platform who has a TV vendor “on its books” to draw out the idea of integrating the TV set as a legitimate member device class on their platform. This is whether it is a client audio device with a graphically-rich user interface or as a source device with access to audio from a connected video device, the set’s onboard broadcast-TV tuner or a connected-TV service viewed through its smart-TV functionality. In the context of smart TV / set-top box applications, it could be about having integration with one or more network multiroom audio platforms as a legitimate functionality case for these devices.

It would be very similar to what is happening with the Frontier Smart UNDOK network multi-room audio platform. This is where a significant number of member companies for that platform are offering Internet radio devices as part of their device lineup where most of them have FM and or DAB+ broadcast-radio functionality with some units having integrated CD players. Here, the UNDOK platform is allowing a user to listen to broadcast radio or CDs played on one of these devices through one or more other platform-member devices that are on the same home network in lieu of listening to online sources through these devices. A similar approach has also been undertaken for the Qualcomm AllPlay platform with Panasonic having AllPlay-compliant stereo systems equipped with broadcast-radio or CD functionality streaming the sound from a CD or radio station to other Qualcomm AllPlay-compliant network multiroom speakers on your home network.

What is being underscored here is that a network-based multiroom audio setup doesn’t have to be about listening to online audio content. Instead it is also about making legacy audio content available around the house through your home network.

Smart speakers like the Amazon Echo are outselling traditional radios

The traditional radio broadcast industry are finding that the smart speaker as a threat to their business models.

This is because that there are more Amazon Echo, Google Home or similar smart speakers being bought than traditional radio sets. It is in addition to us using smartphones that don’t have traditional broadcast-radio tuners as our “go-to” information and entertainment devices.

Although these smart speakers can, at your voice command, pull up a traditional radio station thanks to TuneIn or similar Internet-radio directories, an increasing number of users are using them to summon podcasts or music playlists through the various podcast and music-on-demand services.

Pure Sensia 200D Connect Internet radio – an example of how to keep the traditional radio relevant

At the moment, traditional radio whether through traditional broadcast technology or Internet streaming is primarily being listened to in the car or at businesses we frequent. It is also being seen, whether for information or entertainment, as a valid casual-listening content-source by Generation X (people born from the late 60s to the early 80s) and prior generations thanks to it being seen that way for a long time. This is due to the ubiquity of increasingly-affordable radio sets in many different form factors along with radio stations making a strong effort to keep listeners tuned to their output.

It is although advertisers and others have seen and are seeing the younger generations as “where the money is”. Here, they end up sponsoring podcasts or playlists to reach that audience with their message in order to stay relevant.

The ABC, like other traditional broadcasters, are offering their own podcasts, whether to do with an existing radio show or not

But what can be or is being done about this? At the moment, traditional radio stations are creating podcasts, whether as a byproduct of an existing radio show or as a new product. Similarly as I have experienced, most radio stations are planting their regular broadcast output on the Internet and making sure this still happens so as to work with smartphones and smart speakers. It is even though they face battles with music rightsholders and sporting leagues about international streaming rights for music or sports content.

RadioDNS “hybrid radio” has surfaced as a way to bring together traditional radio and the Internet. The key method offered by this platform is through a “single-dial” approach that provides a seamless handover between local radio frequencies / DAB multiplex locations and Internet streams for the same radio station.

This Internet radio is tuned in to Heart London and is playing the same audio as what would be delivered on FM or DAB from the “Turn Up The Feel Good” station within the London area

Reliance on Internet audio streams as often done with smart speakers and smartphones can be problemsome if you don’t have the right kind of network and Internet connection. This represents the typical home or small-business network connected behind most home / small-business routers.

You will run in to problems with setting up a smart speaker or similar device to work with a headline public-access / guest-access Wi-Fi network that depends on Web-based authentication or having these devices work with an enterprise-grade network that uses per-device-based authentication approaches. It also includes dealing with mobile broadband services that charge an arm and a leg for continual bandwidth use but services that operate in a highly-competitive market may make this factor easier.

The stations listed on the TuneIn Internet radio app are the Internet-hosted simulcast stream of their regular radio output

Similarly broadcast-radio technology tends to appeal to listenership on battery-operated devices because the technology associated with it is optimised to work for battery efficiency. It is due to the broadcast-radio technology working on a one-way approach to receiving the radio signals rather than being dependent on a two-way transceiver demanded of Wi-Fi or mobile-broadband.

What can be done to bridge these technologies

One approach would be to have an Internet radio that also receives radio content via broadcast technologies work with at least one of the common voice-driven home assistant platforms.

This can be in the form of the radio working alongside a smart speaker based on the common platforms and using RadioDNS to pull up local radio stations under voice control.

An Internet radio can also serve as a speaker for online audio resources like on-demand music services, podcasts and Internet radio especially if the radio doesn’t have network-audio / Internet-radio functionality. The latter concept is being underscored with the Google Assistant platform where you can direct audio from an online-audio service to a device that supports the Google Chromecast protocol. Even if the radio has network-audio / Internet-radio functionality, it could be part of a voice-driven home-assistant platform, which a lot of manufacturers are heading towards and can be of relevance for the “big sets” like hi-fi systems and the network multiroom audio platforms.

A cheaper option could implement RadioDNS across a Bluetooth link with the voice-driven home assistant platform handling the RadioDNS logic. It may require the creation of a Bluetooth profile for sending RadioDNS-specific data between the radio and the smart speaker’s platform i.e. a set-appropriate pointer to the station on the broadcast bands.

It can also be about an Internet-radio / smart-speaker combination device, like the many combination devices available over the years that integrated radio reception and at least one other function. Such a set would have the ability to be an Internet radio but it would have a microphone array and a button to activate Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, whereupon you would have the full “smart speaker” abilities of an Amazon Echo or Google Home speaker. As well, it would tie in with the RadioDNS functionality to pull up stations on the local wavebands as if you are pulling them up using the assistant’s Internet-radio functionality.

Conclusion

To keep the classic radio medium going, the manufacturers, broadcasters and other stakeholders need to look at whatever technologies can be used to make it relevant in this day and age.

IKEA’s affordable path to the SONOS multi-room audio ecosystem

I have seen IKEA present a set of speakers that work with the premium SONOS multiroom audio platform but are more affordable than the SONOS speakers. Then I did some research on IKEA’s Tradfri smart-lighting infrastructure and found that the affordable smart lights offered by them can work with other Zigbee Light Link compliant home-automation setups.

A very similar practice is taking place with some of the German hypermarkets who are offering multiroom audio products under their private labels such as SilverCrest by Lidl / Kaufland.

But there are attempts especially by telcos who are offering “smart-home” systems where they don’t disclose what technical platforms their system supports. This is more so when users buy “starter packs” then want to “build out” their smart-home setup by adding on the devices that suit their needs.

What benefit does this offer?

Here, a retailer or telco’s retail arm can provide a set of equipment that is part of a particular multiroom-audio, smart-home, distributed Wi-Fi or similar device platform at a price affordable for most people. This is more so where they offer the products under their own private labels that are dedicated to value-priced or budget equipment.

Such a system can allow for a low-risk entry path to the multiroom-audio, home-automation or similar platform for most users. This is more so where a user wants to start out small, typically to suit a particular need like having a few lamps managed by a smart-lighting system.

Another advantage that exists for those of us who have invested in that platform is that we can build on it in a cost-effective manner. In the case of IKEA Symfonisk speakers, a person who has one or more SONOS speakers serving one or more primary living areas like the living room or the family room could extend their SONOS multiroom-audio setup to other rooms like the bedrooms in a cost-effective manner by using Symfonisk speakers. IKEA even took this further with Symfonisk by allowing you to have a compatible SONOS soundbar and a pair of the Symfonisk speakers in order to set up a full-on surround-sound system for your TV.

The retailer also benefits from the fact that they don’t need to reinvent the wheel if they are heading towards multiroom audio, smart-home or similar technology. Here, they can come on board with a range of products that suit their brand identity and focus on their specialities like, perhaps, home furnishings.

How does this work effectively

The key devices that are part of the device platform have to be designed as entities that can work with any systems or standards that drive the home-automation, multiroom-audio or similar platform. This means that they are to be interoperable with other devices working on that platform in a transparent manner.

If the retailer is offering a “hub” or “controller” device under their label, they may get away with something focused around their identity. But they could gain better mileage out of these devices by making them work to common technical standards so the devices can become part of the system that you want.

Some systems that allow a device to perform a supporting role like a pair of speakers augmenting a soundbar as “fronts” or “surrounds” for example could open up the path for accessing the desirable functionality.

Conclusion

When common retailers, telcos and installers offer equipment that works according to one or more common technical platforms and is affordable, this means that we can get in to the technical realms that the platforms offer with minimal risk. It also means that we can build out and add functionality to these systems in a cost-effective manner even if we use premium equipment based on these platforms.