Coachella brings the music, Bose Frames put on the show: sunglasses, speakers, & Augmented Reality’s audio future
For most people, thoughts of spring tend to include a change in wardrobe, the excitement of getting more sun, and daydreams about summer barbeques and trips to the beach. But within the past few years, thoughts of spring now include the buzz around one word in particular — Coachella.
With over 125,000 visitors expected to attend each weekend and thousands of additional viewers streaming performances online, the outdoor music festival taking place in mid-April gives both music lovers and brands something to get excited about. And, that’s not just because this year’s line-up includes top-performers like Childish Gambino, Tame Impala, Ariana Grande, and CHVRCHES among many others.
Along with festival goers, dozens of brands find Coachella an enticing opportunity to reach a highly connected and influential group of young digitally-native festival attendees. With the average ticket price hovering around $429 and VIP passes priced at $999 and with the revenue of the festival exceeding 114 million in 2017, these festival attendees are exactly the type of customers brands hope to reach. In order to connect with this audience, brands are using new (and not so new tech) to give festival goers what they want — an elevated experience of a weekend to remember.
With that in mind, one brand, in particular, known for manufacturing top of the line speakers — Bose — decided to use Coachella to showcase some of its newest tech — a fusion of sunglasses and speakers.
Available in two different frame-styles (Rondo and Alto), Bose Frames utilize speakers embedded in the frames to direct audio into the ear of the user without broadcasting that audio to everyone else standing nearby (theoretically). As a pioneering product in audio augmented reality (AR), Bose Frames free users from their screens by using Bluetooth technology to connect smartphones with the glasses themselves.
Without checking their phone, those wearing the glasses can answer calls, skip through songs, play and pause music, receive navigation directions and listen to Yelp reviews of local restaurants seen through their shades by simply nodding their head or by pressing a discreet button on the frames of their sunglasses. Freedom from the distractions of their screens allows users to keep a larger portion of their attention focused on living their lives.
For those wearing Frames at Coachella, it’s not so much about the novelty of sunglasses with speakers in them as it is about what those speakers allow the wearer to have — an enriched experience of Coachella rather than a distraction from it.
Instead of overstimulating and distracting users by flashing annoying messages and images across the inside of its lenses, Bose Frames remove visual distractions entirely. By using audio to gently remind Coachella guests of when their favorite artist is about to perform or by helping the user keep their focus on a busy street while giving them clues on when to turn, Bose utilizes audio technology to both simplify and elevate life’s experiences without distracting from them.
With its sunglasses, Bose capitalizes on the same principles that inspired screen-free products such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple’s Siri and other products that use audio technology to deliver information to users in less-intrusive ways.
But, for Google, Amazon, and Apple, innovating using voice technology doesn’t stop with the products mentioned before. Like Bose, Google, Amazon, and Apple currently sell or are developing smart earbuds that use audio AR technology to deliver information to customers and free them from their phones.
Yes, phones still do the heavy lifting for smart headphones and Bose Frames. But, these smart audio innovations add value to the customer’s experience by delivering information and music without the need to whip out a phone. In essence, audio augmented reality simplifies and liberates where visual technology often complicates and distracts.
So, what can brands do to utilize augmented audio in elevating brand experiences for their customers?
Start by asking the following Qs:
- What barriers in the shopping experience hang people up and how might the use of audio lower those barriers?
- How could smart audio tech enhance the physical shopping experience?
- What other aspects of your brand experience outside of the retail space could augmented audio improve or augment in terms of how customers experience the brand?
- How will commerce, overall, shift if augmented audio becomes mainstream to the point where nearly everyone has a personalized assistant like Siri or Alexa in their ear?
Want to learn more? Feel free to reach out at any time. We would love to chat!
The above piece was written by Connor Beck in collaboration with Carter Jensen and the Latitude research team.
Resources and original reporting of the above points covered by the following publications — PC Magazine, Forbes, Retail Dive, The Drum, Apple.com, Bose.com, Google.com, LA Times, DMR
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