Name’s Bond. James Bond
Sup?
We all have that friend with a slick home theater setup (or for you millennials, your parent’s). While you’re visiting one day, they whisk you away to show off their creation and all its’ features — like Q from James Bond (side note: chill out over the new Bond, Twitter).
They take you through all the features of their system — the audio quality, the smart devices, the picture quality, massage chairs, etc. etc.
After the tour, it’s time for them to bore you, I mean explain to you, about the trials and tribulations they endured to complete their masterpiece. Prepare to sit through a list of the deals they scored on Amazon, duels with a wi-fi router, and a Mission-Impossible-like tale about burrowing wires through the walls.
For many people, setting up their home theater system is a rite of passage. Not me. I want to click a button and have it magically set-up for me. I guess you could say I’m millennial AF.
The walls have eyes….
So here’s what I’m thinking…
First, we got to figure out the size of the room. For this step, a user would take a quick video of the room. When they submit their video, the dimensions of the room would be guesstimated by a computer vision algorithm. This algorithm would also tag what’s in the room (like couches). It’d likely mimic this app by the storage company MakeSpace
Using all this data, the app would know the dimensions of the room and (ideally) where people sit and where sound might bounce off.
Once we know what is in the room, we have to design the perfect audio experience. To do that, we have to get a bit creative — figure out how to turn your smartphone into an ear.
The inspiration for what I’m going for comes from the HomePod. Perhaps the most compelling feature of the HomePod is that it is ‘spatially aware’. When you move it and give it a shake, it figures out the optimal combination for direct sound and ambient sound throughout the room. I think you’d want something similar, but just inside a phone. Click below for a super slick Apple rendering.
Now that you’ve scanned a room and determined its audio properties, ideally you’d submit it, get quotes on set-up, schedule an implementation, then voila… a home theater system James Bond would be proud of.
Who should build this?
Simple enough. Now when on a tour with a tenant, you could show them the dimensions of the space. Instead of a render or a virtual walk-through, a prospective tenant could literally walk the space to get a sense for how big it is.
(Can you tell what’s real?)
But wait… there’s more!
A swarm of designers (Pt. II)
The market for home theaters systems is not going away. Nearly half of all Americans are most interested in viewing movies on home release rather than going to a theater. There are over 280 million homes with a television. Combined with the growth of smart speakers and our shift to binge-watching and you’ve got yourself a pretty compelling market. key with this idea is that it would make the service/shopping experience more accessible, hopefully creating new market space.
There are a few different ways this could come to market. A startup like Handy or Houzz could launch something like this. It could be an add-on to an online marketplace like AngiesList or HomeAdvisor.
Perhaps most compelling in my mind would be to see Best Buy launch this.
Yes, Best Buy is still in the market. While you were sleeping, their stock has climbed over 157% in the last year. Guggenheim investments just called them the “most undervalued name in large cap retail”. Best Buy has had a strong name in home theaters via their Magnolia brand. They already have a mobile service team (Geek Squad) as well as the warranty infrastructure to cover everything in the home. It’s a new touchpoint with a younger consumer that feels endemic to Best Buy’s brand.
What do you think?
If you haven’t already, be sure to Sign up for RIOT!
