(iTers News) - Imagination Technologies reports significant developments in the delivery of new technologies enabling the mass market adoption of wireless multiroom audio and associated streaming music systems. The technologies are helping to drive the on-going revolutionary transition of home audio and music systems to wireless operation for both local and cloud-based content, and working in conjunction with phones, tablets and PCs.
Imagination is enabling the four crucial components for this wireless multiroom revolution.
- Caskeid, a technology developed by Imagination to deliver exceptionally accurate synchronized wireless multiroom connected audio streaming. The unique and patented Caskeid technology delivers outstanding audiophile-quality stereo playback with less than 25µS delay; a true ‘Wi-Fi Hi-Fi’ that is good enough to replace wires, satisfying even the most demanding audiophile
- Caskeid enabled speakers powered by devices using Imagination’s Wi-Fi technologies and processor cores
- FlowAudio, part of Imagination’s FlowCloud platform. Developed in partnership with 7Digital, FlowAudio provides a digital warehouse with over 22 million high quality tracks
- A full implementation of all of the above, supported by mobile phone and tablet Apps as well as PCs, launched today in the USA by Imagination’s Pure division across the major retailers. Other manufacturers have already licensed the technologies and are expected to enter the market in due course
Based on the above technologies, Imagination’s Pure division today launched its Pure Connect on-demand music service in the U.S alongside comprehensive retail availability of its new Jongo family of wireless speakers. Jongo is the first Caskeid-enabled multiroom system to deliver the sync performance and quality of a wired system in a wireless setting, and is a superior technological solution compared to others on the market today.
Pure Stream
The launch by Pure has support from independent and major music labels – including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. The Jongo multiroom speaker system is available now in approximately 2,800 Walmart stores and on Walmart.com, in addition to more than 300 Best Buy locations and can be ordered now online at Amazon.com.
Hossein Yassaie, CEO of Imagination Technologies, said: “Wireless audio is reaching a tipping point. More than half of U.S. consumers say they are likely to buy a wireless speaker product and engage with streaming digital music but this huge audience hasn’t yet found the right solution. By delivering a platform that caters to this mainstream audience Imagination is enabling manufacturers to deliver music the way people now want to listen to it.”
Audio has been a key consumer category in recent years with first the boom in iPod docking systems and then the recent explosion in Bluetooth speakers and premium headphones for casual listening. Analysis shows that Wi-Fi multiroom speakers, which are suited for a more immersive and connected listening experience, are poised to be the ‘next big thing’ in consumer audio and will represent a growing part of the wireless speaker market, which will quickly eclipse the speaker dock market.