How Bang & Olufsen moved from proprietary tech to open ecosystems without losing its soul
Today I am very happy and excited to have “pressed the button” for releasing the AirPlay 2 feature, with multiroom functionality, to 10 of our existing and 4 of our newest products. Let me explain why.
The First Years of Networked Products
Since the 1980s Bang & Olufsen’s BeoLink concept has made it possible for our products to be used in multiple rooms concurrently, moving around the home “experiences” rather than moving the physical products. Already back then Bang & Olufsen enabled the use cases which the mass market now 30+ years later calls ‘multiroom’ or “whole home audio”.
BeoLink is not a technology. It is a promise and mindset to make the concept of home entertainment systems with multiple devices work simply and beautifully. There have been two big parts, one is networking technology and the other is simple and intuitive UI concepts (like one touch for multiroom join, one-touch presets and one remote control for everything).
Since we launched the BeoLink concept the technologies to deliver the experience have changed many times. Our longtime fans will remember how we started with proprietary cables, connectors, protocols, and the many versions of these over the years to keep up with advances possible with new technologies and the requirements due to increasing features and abilities of entertainment products. Fun fact, Bang & Olufsen had the first ‘computer processor-based home networking’ products on the market before Apple even introduced similar technology into their Apple II computers.
Bang & Olufsen Opens Up
For the first many years we were a closed proprietary system. To make seamless multiroom system we needed to make all the technologies. Five years ago, we could see that the ecosystems from Apple and Google were maturing in a way that would allow us to deliver seamless experiences of the BeoLink concept without having to use our own proprietary technologies. Although the quality was not there at the time, we could see it was inevitable that these global companies would get there powered by the ‘Moore’s Law’ effect. Therefore, our engineers then worked hard on an ambitious open BeoLink strategy to prepare for that time in the future. This included launching the range of AirPlay products, being one of the first brands to launch Google Cast (nowadays Chromecast built-in) and most importantly architecture our new product platform so it could be seamlessly updated for the future.
Today, the hard work of the open BeoLink strategy has borne fruit. We are very happy to be able to update more of our older product portfolio than any other brand to the cutting-edge systems of AirPlay 2 and Chromecast. At the same time our Bang & Olufsen proprietary systems link, via a home automation gateway, with other technology products in the home and offers full control with all of the existing home integrators such as Crestron, Control4 and Savant and provide new possibilities in the connected world such as Danfoss Link, DoorBird, Ecobee, OpenWeather and many more. The future for B&O is open.
Democratization
Apple AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast are “democratizing” multiroom experiences and bringing them to an even wider group of people, with a wider interoperability than a single brand. Sure, their initial versions might not be as “advanced” as our BeoLink Multiroom evolved to be over 23 years, but they have some very strong elements:
- They are interoperable among different brands. You can “mix & match” products that “Work with AirPlay” or have “Chromecast built-in” and have them play seamlessly. In the digital music world, we had not seen such interoperability since the times of the CD player (yes, back then you could put a Compact Disk in any CD player, no matter the brand, and it would work…) Since then, the different music services, proprietary streaming technologies, etc. made it a big hassle for the customer, until today. And yes, at Bang & Olufsen we love openness and giving choice to the customers to mix & match products. After all, you would always find space in your home for that beautiful B&O one… If not more :)
- They both leave the musical experiences and music apps “untouched”. Detaching the multiroom functionality and control from the content apps is a key element. The Spotify app provides the best Spotify experience. Same goes for Deezer, TuneIn, Tidal, etc. In the long run, nobody should mess with or replicate those experiences in another app, because it would just end up being something sub-optimal. AirPlay 2 and Chromecast respect that, giving the customer the best music app experience, as intended by the content apps, and on top of that adding their layer of multiroom control. Giving the choice to the customer to select his/her favorite music app and not being restricted by technologies.
- Being part of wider ecosystems. It is not just about the mobile-centric multiroom experience, but about how it also links to the wider ecosystems. The Chromecast offering is linked to the Google Assistant, so you can control everything via your voice. Start the music via voice, play to different multiroom groups via voice, etc. And of course, the Chromecast TV dongle brings the TV in the picture. Similar with AirPlay 2, Siri for voice control, AppleTV and HomeKit for smart home integration. In those wider ecosystems the pieces of the puzzle “click” easier together, in setups without IT experts or custom installers. And of course, if you want to go really high end and custom, there is a space for that (we offer those even higher-end experiences at B&O with any kind of integration you can imagine). But AirPlay & Chromecast take the basic use cases to the mass market, “out of the box”.
I could probably go on and bring many more examples. But I would just propose that you give a spin to those experiences and enjoy them.
Care for the New and Existing Customers
Finally, let me say how proud we are to bring those experiences both to existing and new customers. Bang & Olufsen is the company with the most existing products to be retroactively fitted with the AirPlay 2 feature, via a simple software update. Namely the following:
And on top of that, the newly launched:
It is not easy to bring new features to older products, especially if many technology choices were made many years earlier (platforms, processors, memory footprint, audio pipeline architecture, etc. All could be a road-blocks for so big new features). However, we do our best, because we believe in the long-lastingness of products, sustainability and of course giving the most value to our customers. This is not only hard work from our side, but also our partner companies, thus I would like to thank both Apple & Google for enabling this for our valued customers.
Discover here more on Apple AirPlay, Google Chromecast and BeoLink SmartHome.
