Smart Speaker
Disclaimer: This article was not written using AI! Billions of voice interface enabled devices have been shipped in the last 5 years and voice assistants are used by millions of consumers across the world. Assistants such as Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri are household names, but is interest starting to subside? How might the industry […]
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Qualcomm has announced upgrades to some of its sound platform chips, with the S3 gen 3 and S5 gen 3. Here we look at the major changes made. The S3 is aimed at mid-tier audio devices. Looking at the specs for gen 2 and gen 3 the major upgrades on the previous generation include: 2 x compute power An additional Kalimba DSP (2 instead of 1) Improved DAC […]
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The integration of microphones into smart TVs has been an increasing trend for a few years now and one highlighted by our Soundbar market report back in 2021. The integration of microphones was/is the missing link that propels the smart TV into the role of the smart home hub. SAR shows that approximately 200m Smart TVs […]
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Getting back to normal? Are we “getting back to normal”, CES 2024 suggest so. This was my 8th year attending in my current role and anecdotally it felt as busy as it ever was pre-COVID. The CEA stated that there were 135,000+ attendees, which is close to the usual 150,000+. As always there was a wide range of […]
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November 27, 2023, Harman announced the acquisition of Roon, a music software company most well-known for its Roon app. Roon Labs was founded in 2015, but its journey in music technology began much earlier, in 2004. The founders were involved in developing music software for companies like Sooloos, Meridian Audio, and HP before establishing Roon […]
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Urbanista has continued its venture into sustainable consumer devices by releasing a new light-powered speaker made from recycled materials. The speaker, which retails for $149, is fully waterproof and offers a USB-C charging port if the solar charge is not fast enough. While at SAR we don’t expect solar to be the primary source of […]
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Futuri, a US company based in Cleveland, Ohio, has developed an AI-driven radio technology called RadioGPT that can broadcast voice, music, local news stories, and even create social media posts. The company claims that all content created by RadioGPT can be localized to the area where it is broadcasted. RadioGPT can use AI-generated voices to host shows, create scripts, and even […]
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Sonos has announced its new line of speakers. The Sonos Era 300 and 100 are coming in March. One huge update from previous Sonos speakers is that you can now line-in, and use Bluetooth. The Sonos non-portable range has previously only worked through Wi-Fi. The announcement that the Sonos sound will be enabled to other […]
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The soundbar market does not enjoy the rapid growth it once did. Even though this has been a market showing superiority to home theatre in box systems—and even AVRs—the trend is a slowing in shipment growth. The use of wireless (sometimes battery powered) speakers incorporated into a multiroom setup may be a good trade off as this […]
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Infineon has announced it is building an ecosystem of partners to help drive its MERUS™ class D amplifier into new markets. This particular announcement focuses on a partnership with Eleven Engineering and the use of class D amplifiers in battery-powered speakers. With the touted 1/10 idle power possible with MERUS multilevel switching technology there are […]
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