Beovision Harmony — How Bang & Olufsen created the best television LG ever made
Today, at Salone del Mobile, in Milan, Bang & Olufsen announced its latest cinematic TV experience, the Beovision Harmony. It is not only a cutting-edge product, but also a great example of delivering magic via partnerships.
The Beovision Harmony addresses one of the fundamental downsides that large screen TVs have in a home: they are dominant and a necessary “evil”. A piece of technology taking massive space in your living room, especially when turned off, standing like a huge black hole on your wall, among all your otherwise well curated objects.
When Beovision Harmony is turned off or just playing music, the thin 77” OLED screen is placed close to the floor partially covered by two crafted oak wood and aluminum fronts that house the powerful sound center. When turning it on, a finely choreographed sequence plays out where the two fronts fan out and the screen rises to perfect viewing height. Turn off the TV, and the butterfly movement is reversed, putting the TV in a “lean back” position, making it blend in with your interior and making it less dominant in your home space.
The concept behind Beovision Harmony builds on some of Bang & Olufsen’s most cherished products. The Capri series introduced in 1959, was designed to fully blend-in with your living room. Hence the TV was built in teak wood, which was the preferred material used for furniture at the time. The 1964 Beovision Capri 611 FM SJ TV even integrated a radio built into a cabinet, so you could hide the TV and radio completely when not in use. And this is what the Beovision Harmony does, in a modern reincarnation of a TV, in a world of digital content, streaming services and voice assistants.
Why the name Harmony? Because it is about two elements in a magical symbiosis, providing a harmonious experience. Experience wise, it’s Vision & Sound, in a seamless integration. Partnership wise, it’s Bang & Olufsen and LG in a harmonious product.
Three years ago, in March 2016, Bang & Olufsen announced that it would be entering a strategic partnership with LG Electronics. The partnership was established to solve a key strategic challenge as Bang & Olufsen would achieve technological capabilities and scale needed to improve the long-term profitability of the company. It has been well known that the TV business has been a very hard business to be in, with many manufacturers having been in a loss making side, while giants like Sony considering exiting the TV business totally (via Reuters), at that time.
The agreement entailed that Bang & Olufsen would focus on its unique core competencies of sound, design, craft within TV development, and combine this with LG’s technological leadership within OLED technology. In that model Bang & Olufsen would further optimize its supply chain, development, production and service, while LG was going “all-in” with its research & development of OLED displays, investing as much as 13.5 billion USD in this area (via Reuters).
Back when this was announced people were skeptical. There were many concerns about Bang & Olufsen actually “exiting” the TV business, which provides a large part of the turnover. About 1.5 years later, the Beovision Eclipse, was announced in August 2017, at IFA, Berlin. It was the first manifestation of the collaboration between the two companies and it left no questions about the strong products that could be built on this model. The best LG OLED screens (in 55" & 65") created via a special variant of the LG C-series OLED screen for Bang & Olufsen, paired with amazing sound, design & craftsmanship, built-in 7.1 home cinema capabilities, wireless WiSA speakers, all the streaming audio technologies built-in (such as AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Bluetooth, multiroom, etc) great stand/placement options, in a single seamless offering.
But of course the plan and the roadmap was set for the long term and now 3 years later, we are unveiling the next step in the partnership with the Beovision Harmony. What is different with this step? We are able to reach even larger screen sizes, 77" in this case, utilizing the latest OLED C-series screen from LG. And that means all the latest cutting edge display technologies, such as 4K Cinema HDR (Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG), HDR Dynamic Tone Mapping Pro, etc. But this time, rather than LG creating a special version of their TV for Bang & Olufsen, they are optimizing all their C-series TVs for Bang & Olufsen, with special software that is “activated” once the TV is paired with the Bang & Olufsen sound center. Those enhancements allow us to still deliver a unique, seamless experience offering, with similar features as below, but in an even more “loosely”-coupled way. The advantages are even greater, with further modularity, being able to follow and adopt faster all the advancements in the TV space (e.g. OLED technology advancements, WebOS developments, etc), and better utilization of LG’s global footprint and supply chain.
So, the Beovision Harmony is not only the ultimate Audio / Video experience Bang & Olufsen has ever built. It is also the best example of a partnership that adds the most value to the customers and the business, because this offering would not be possible in any other way of development.
Kudos to our teams that have been working hard for many years to make this a reality and delivering strongly on the strategy with those amazing product manifestations. Feeling very proud being part of this journey and looking forward seeing the Beovision Harmony in our customers’ homes, in autumn 2019, for enjoying the best cinematic experiences with their families…
