Riding the wireless music wave at home

By Mike Snider / USA TODAY

As consumers stream more music, device makers have tuned in with new ways to stream tunes at home.

Spending on streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora surged to $1.4 billion in 2013, up 39%, the Recording Industry of America says. Digital download sales remained stable at about $2.8 billion, the largest spending category.

As consumers embrace digital sound, they are looking for ways to fill their homes with it. Sales of Bluetooth-enabled speakers rose 46% to $385 million, the Consumer Electronics Association says. Rising even more: sales of multiroom audio and video components, which nearly doubled in 2013, to $586 million.

Interest in streaming music will likely drive healthy increases in both categories this year, says Steve Koenig, CEA's director of industry analysis. "These streaming services and streaming your own music is the big thing right now," he says. "It's liberating because you don't need to dock anything. It's all wirelessly transmitted."

With interest in digital music turned up, companies such as Beats Electronics have expanded their speaker repertoire.

Launched late in 2013, the 13.3-inch Beats Pill XL ($300) is a larger version of the Pill portable Bluetooth speaker ($200), brought to market in 2012. This helps Beats keep pace with competitor Jawbone, which most recently has added the slimmer pocket-fitting Mini Jambox ($150) to its lineup. Both speaker lines connect wirelessly to Bluetooth-enabled smartphones and tablets and have input jacks.

Samsung has incorporated Wi-Fi and streaming video apps into its smart TVs for several years. It recently debuted its first wireless speaker, the Shape M7 ($350). The wedge-shaped M7 has five individual speakers built-in — two tweeters, two midrange drivers and a woofer — along with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and near-field communications (NFC) compatibility.

The speaker can be used individually, in pairs for enhanced stereo sound and used to create a surround sound system. You can connect via Bluetooth to play stored music or a streaming service from a smartphone or tablet stream stored.

A Samsung Shape Wireless Audio Hub ($50) connects to your home Wi-Fi network and lets you add more speakers into other rooms — all connected and controlled with a free Samsung Multiroom App on your Samsung Galaxy or Note device. And networked speakers can deliver better-sounding music than that of Bluetooth-connected devices.

"It's phenomenal from a consumer standpoint because it's all about building blocks. I can choose to buy one of these speakers now, and then later on when I want to expand from my living room to bedroom sound, I can buy another speaker," says Dave Das, vice president of home entertainment marketing at Samsung. "All of it connects seamlessly and wirelessly, so it's really easy and clutter-free."

Even more focused on multiroom audio is custom electronics company NuVo Technologies. After providing hardwired multiroom audio systems for more than 20 years, NuVo began offering wireless systems in 2012.

Its research and development paralleled the advent of Apple's iPod and arrival of streaming services such as Pandora. "The rise of the Internet of Things has led us, as a consumer buying group in the U.S., to also have the idea that you can have anything and it should be able to be wireless," says Desiree Webster, NuVo's marketing communications manager.

This system is ideal if you have a pair or two of stereo speakers sitting around the home collecting dust. NuVo's system can be easily set up with a $199 Gateway that connects to your wireless router and a Player (either the P100, priced at $479, or Bluetooth-supporting P200 at $599, available at www.smarthome.com or www.partsexpress.com; find a local dealer on the company website).

You connect a pair of speakers to a player in whatever room or rooms you want music in. NuVo's Android and iOS apps for phones and tablets walk you through the setup.

Once you are operational, the system will find and play music on any devices connected to your home network — computers, phones, tablets and hard drives — as well as USB drives plugged into the NuVo players. And you can stream audio from Net radio services, too. NuVo players also support playback of high-resolution tracks, including FLAC files, maintaining the CD-like quality.

"You can do up to 16 zones, and it can be in combination of any of the players we offer," Webster says. The room that most people want to add music to is the kitchen, she says. Next, they want music in the living room, the master bedroom-bathroom and on the patio.

"This isn't a one-to-one music relationship where you have one song somewhere and just send it to this one set of speakers. This is a whole-house system that accesses your music anywhere you have it, and you can control it and play it anywhere in your home. Even outside for that matter."

Market leader Sonos continues to add to wireless music system options. Its most recent speaker, the Play1 ($199) is smaller and works as an individual speaker or in pairs as stereo or surround speakers.

Sonos saw its wireless speaker sales nearly double in 2013 to $535 million, says senior public relations manager Eric Nielsen. "Streaming is finally going mainstream," he says.

At market tracking firm The NPD Group, analyst Ben Arnold expects the nearly $1 billion streaming speaker market to continue to grow, though consumers are just starting to become educated on the subject. "I think this is where home music listening is going," he says.

Join @mikesnider on April 8 at noon ET for a Twitter chat about high-tech music. #usatodaytech

High-tech home theater is the ticket for well-heeled

By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

The home movie-watching experience continues its technological evolution.

The combination of an HDTV and a Blu-ray Disc player delivers a cinematic experience rivaling that of the multiplex. And thanks to the ever-improving caliber of streaming video, massive movie libraries are just a few clicks away.

Just when you think you are straddling the cutting edge of home cinema, a new standard emerges: Prima Cinema.

The wealthy few who have a $35,000 Prima system can watch first-run movies in the comfort of their own home on the same day many films debut in theaters.

That's a pretty penny to pay, but for some it is money well-spent. Busy business executives, celebrities and professional athletes alike can find themselves with little time for family night at the movies or may prefer home viewing rather than a harried night out.

"What we saw was a sleeper market," says Prima CEO Jason Pang. "Right now, the person who spends $1 million on their custom home theater is watching the same $20 disc as the kid that works at McDonald's."

During the analog decades, studio VIPs and A-list celebrities had movie reels delivered at their residences for special viewings. As the home video market has declined — from $24.5 billion in the DVD boom year of 2004 to about $18.2 billion in 2013 — Hollywood studios have become more willing to discuss a digital system for high rollers.

So far, Pang and Prima have convinced Paramount and Universal to make its films available on the system. Recent releases that Prima customers could watch at home on opening weekend included Dallas Buyers Club, Despicable Me 2 and Rush. Upcoming releases include Neighbors and Draft Day. Prima recently announced a partnership with IMAX to provide opening day availability for IMAX films, too.

"Our goal is to get everything that is in the box office into your home," Pang says. "There are a lot of people out there who are law-abiding citizens who will pay top dollar for the privilege."

Hollywood and tech companies are catering to high-end movie lovers in other ways, too. New Ultra HD TVs that offer four times the resolution of today's HDTVs have been in stores since late 2012, and prices have dropped to $3,000 for 55-inch displays.

Since there's little Ultra HD content available, Sony has been selling a $669 Ultra HD Movie Player, a 2-Terabyte hard drive loaded with 10 films in the higher resolution format, often referred to as "4K" quality. The player, which comes free with some newer Sony 4K Ultra HD TVs, connects to Sony's Video Unlimited service which has more than 200 UHD titles including Captain Phillips, American Hustle and The Monuments Men, as well as hit shows like The Blacklist.

Similarly, Samsung this month begins making available a $299.99 1-Terabyte Video Pack loaded with UHD movies including Night at the Museum, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and World War Z. And Ultra HD TVs from Samsung and LG will be the first to be able to display 4K streaming video from Netflix, which has begun its higher-res delivery of House of Cards.

Other providers planning to stream Ultra HD 4K content include Amazon, Comcast, DirecTV and M-Go.

Even though home theater owners are getting closer to bypassing the theater altogether and watching movies at home, "Hollywood is still incredibly sensitive about their rights and intellectual property," says John Sciacca of Custom Theater and Audio in Murrells Inlet, S.C., and a columnist for Sound and Vision magazine. Studios are "just very slowly dipping their toes into this water," he says.

So for now, Prima is in a league of its own. Films are not streamed as with Netflix; instead you order movies ahead of time, from the constantly updated roster, and they are delivered over broadband. Dual copies are stored on a secure RAID (redundant array of independent disks), so that even if one disk drive goes bad, the specially mirrored hard drives keep playing the movie.

Each movie costs $500, and to prevent unauthorized rentals, the Prima has a built-in fingerprint scanner. Once installed by an approved local firm, Prima provides 24-7 monitoring of the system.

Prima's initial target audience is the 2 million or so homes with home theaters that have cost $500,000 or more. "What we are hearing from our dealers and our own technicians is that initially it seems like an incredibly expensive item," Pang says, "but it's usually the cheapest item in the rack" of home theater components.

"We look at it as a way to entertain. We like to make it into an event," says Karen Freedman, a Prima owner in the Los Angeles area. She and her husband, an entertainment industry executive, will build dinner parties and children's gatherings around a film showing.

"And the cost, relative to taking 10 kids out to the movies is pretty comparable," Freedman says, "and we get to do it in the privacy of our own home. We get to start at whatever time is convenient, and we don't have to worry about driving and parking and all those other logistics. It's really about spending quality time with our family and our friends."

Pang says he hears that a lot. "We thought if you are a person that can have everything, this is the one thing you can't have, a first-run film delivered to your home," he says. "That is really exciting even for billionaires."

Smart home tech could start at your ceiling

David Kender, Reviewed.com / USA TODAY

The light bulb, the very icon of a good idea, is itself getting smarter thanks to a surge of interest from major brands. Simply illuminating a room may someday become an afterthought as new bulbs add entertainment and notification to their list of attributes.

The current movement toward a connected home coincides with new government regulations attempting to abolish most incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient bulbs. LED lights appear to be the preferred replacement. They fit into nearly any existing socket, and because most have a 10-year-plus lifespan, investing a few extra dollars for high-tech features begins to make sense.

Philips Leads the Pack

Philips retains its spot as the front-runner in smart lighting with new expansions to its Hue lighting system. The first generation Hue, released in 2012, uses LED bulbs that produce almost any color of your choice. Each bulb talks to a "bridge" device that plugs into your wireless router, all of which is controlled from a smartphone.

Philips has also encouraged the development of third-party apps that interface with the Hue platform, adding features like music responsiveness or blinking alerts when you've received a new e-mail. Hue is definitely fun, but the $199 buy-in for the starter pack — three bulbs plus the bridge — and $60 for additional bulbs might be a bit steep for some.

The new Hue Lux bulbs aim for a lower price by dropping the multiple-color feature in favor of a warm, white light. However, Lux still connects to the same bridge, should you already own one, and can take advantage of the many available apps. The Lux starter kit — two bulbs and a bridge — is $99, with additional bulbs for $39.

The Dutch giant has also turned its attention toward the humble light switch, announcing the wireless Tap. And when Philips says wireless, it means completely wireless, because the Tap does not require any external power source. Instead, each tap from your finger adds just enough kinetic charge to operate the device. Each of the three buttons on the Tap can be programmed to control specific lights or groups of lights. It's also likely to be a more convenient lighting control than a smartphone.

Samsung and LG Join the Party

Though Philips was the first big name to capitalize on smart bulbs, others are quickly following. Samsung and LG announced their competing products within a week of each other. With these two electronics titans entering the field, it's evident that smart lighting is headed beyond the gimmick phase and into an integral part of the smart home arms race.

The Samsung Smart Bulb uses Bluetooth wireless, rather than the Philips Hue's Wi-Fi. This eliminates the need for a bridge device and allows up to 64 bulbs to be controlled directly from a smartphone. The bulbs are also tunable from 2700K (warm) to 6500K (cool) hues of white light. LG unveiled a very similar device, the Smart Lamp, that also connects via Bluetooth. While it's possible that some may prefer the large, gray ridges under the glass (required to cool the bulb), Philips and other LED bulb manufacturers have expressed that removing these elements from the design was important to increasing consumer acceptance of LED.

Far more futuristic looking is LG's OLED Table Lamp, assembled with a curved OLED as the light source. Again, it may not be to everyone's taste, but the technology opens a number of possibilities for designers. Just keep in mind that the OLED Table Lamp may still be in the proof-of-concept, as no pricing or availability has been announced.

Smart apps help run a smart home

Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

Talk smart home apps with USA TODAY’s @jeffersongraham Wednesday, 1-2 p.m. ET on Twitter using #hightechhomes

LOS ANGELES — Remember the days when if you forgot to turn off the lights or stove before you left home, you would — gasp — actually have to drive home to take care of it?

No need for any of that anymore: Apps can do it for us.

Smart technology has really come far, in a very short period of time.

Today's homes have off-the-shelf consumer options like Belkin's WeMo system to turn on and off and dim your lights, the Sonos music platform for wireless music, smart thermostats and various kinds of smart locks for all the doors in the house.

Each has its own app to run efficiently, used as a remote control.

The WeMo products start at $49.99 and begin with a switch that can be plugged into an outlet. You plug in lamps, TVs, coffee makers — anything you want to turn on and off with the accompanying smartphone app.

The WeMo products have become so popular that alternative third-party WeMo apps are out there as well.

• WeMo Coffee, a $2.99 iPhone app, is an alarm clock that also allows you to turn on your coffee maker when you awake, or have it start automatically the minute the alarm goes off. (You'll need to buy the WeMo first to interact with the coffee maker.) The WeMo technology is now built into the $49.99 Crock-Pot Smart Slow Cooker, so the app that turns the lights on and off will do the same for the Crock-Pot.
• HomeSpace, a free app from SpaceNation (for Apple devices) will operate WeMo or smart bulbs from Philips (Hue) or LIFX from one main application. Lightbow has a similar app for $4.99, available for just Apple devices.
• The Philips Hue system — bulbs that can be turned on and off and change color via a smartphone — has official Apple and Android apps, as well as third-party ones.
• Hue Fireworks, a $1.99 app for Apple and Android, does much more than just turning the bulbs on and off and making them change colors. Fireworks produces many colors for themes that include New Year's Eve and the July Fourth, says developer IJS Design, which also makes the $2.99 "Hue Disco" app to turn your living room "into a dance floor."
• Ambify, a $2.99 (Apple only) app, syncs your music with the Hue lights.
• Goldee (free; Apple,) lets you adjust the lights in your room for various colors and moods.

What if you want to mix and match smart lights, the Sonos music system and your smart lock in the front door, which all now require different apps?

Call entrepreneur Mike Soucie. He wants to eliminate "app fatigue" with just one app to operate everything.

At a certain point after smartening up their homes, he says, consumers begin to ask, "Why can't these devices talk to one another?"

Soucie, co-founder of Boulder-based Revolv, sells a small but pricey $299 central hub, available at Amazon, Home Depot stores, Build.com or Revolv's website. It's about the size of a Roku or Apple TV box. It collects all the smart devices in the home and puts them in one central location. His app (available now only for Apple devices; Android is coming later this year) ties all the devices together.

His customers usually buy Revolv after they get two or three devices, Soucie says. There are many, many "smart" home products out there, but "they weren't designed to work together to fulfill the home automation promise," he says. Instead, their mandate is to do their various jobs — stream music, control temperature or dim the lights. "We don't care what protocol the device uses: Just buy what you want, and we'll solve that part of it for you inside our hub."

Follow Jefferson Graham on Twitter

How to go the whole 9 yards for a smart backyard

Brandon Carte, USA TODAY

With one in five Americans working from home, we need a new place to escape, and what's a better place than one's own backyard?

As technology evolves, backyards are doing the same. Although the cool summer breeze will still operate better than a Dyson bladeless fan, our backyards are more high-tech than ever.

"People have always wanted to have a nice outdoor space, especially in the summertime," says Mario Armstrong, a TV and radio commentator on digital lifestyle topics. "They are looking to get out of the house and want to maximize what they have; they have this space, so why not turn it into another area?"

The futuristic outdoor movement is definitely in swing, from the Bluetooth-boasting iGrill thermometer to wireless speakers camouflaged as rocks.

"We are willing to pay for the convenience of getting time back and as long as there are tasks and repetitive things like cleaning a pool or mowing the lawn, robotic technology is out there to do that for you," says Armstrong.

For now, having a high-tech yard doesn't come cheap. Husqvarna's Automower, for instance, is a robotic lawnmower that starts at about $2,700.

You can save by shopping wisely.

PoachIt, for instance, is a site that will set price alerts for your favorite products. Users then get an alert when the price goes down.

Armstrong's advice: Assess what you need or want, and then make sure the features are suitable for your outdoor setting.

A speaker by the pool really does need to be water-resistant. And there are many durable and affordable Bluetooth speakers on today's market.

Take Braven's BRV-1 water resistant Bluetooth speaker for example. The $149 device can play music from 30 feet away, has a rechargeable battery and a built-in microphone for speakerphone calls.

When it comes to building a high-tech outdoor space, it is easy to overlook some things.

"Many experience Wi-Fi signal issues and don't know how far their router goes or how to amplify or repeat that signal," Armstrong notes. "It just isn't mainstream yet."

The NS2L Ubiquiti NanoStation Loco2 wireless router is weatherproof and has a 6-mile signal range and costs about $50.

Armstrong said many people forget about lighting when redesigning an outdoor space.

"I think lighting is so important," he said. "A floodlight is inexpensive and can shoot down on everybody at the house, or solar lights will work, too."

Other solar gadgets to consider are solar chargers such as Solio's Classic 2 to juice up smartphones and other devices, or Game's 8002 Solar light-up duck, which doubles as a pool chlorinator.