Buying a TV was easy when it was all in one piece– when all you had to worry about was whether you should put it on a TV stand or hang it on the wall. But now innovation is being taken to the next level as key TV and audio technologies are being integrated with furniture, resulting in some interesting hybrid solutions.
As we move towards the Networked Society, technology-savvy products are being combined with products from other industries to form cross-industry solutions to everyday problems. This has been demonstrated with IKEA’snewUppleva (“experience”) solution, recently launched in Europe and scheduled for a US launch next year. With Uppleva, multimedia technology and furniture are combined in a way that ensures the product looks good both when it’s on and when it’s off . Cross-industry collaborations like this one are becoming increasingly important.
Today, creating a multimedia experience in your own home is often quite complex. Basically, you either need to be a genius or you have to get support from one to put it all together, even if you’ve bought all the components from the same store. The installation and service activation is the easiest part, the lifecycle management of the solution the more cumbersome part.. After a long day at work, who wants to take on this 24/7 role to keep their family connected? Pre-integrated solutions based on well-conceived platforms can simplify our lives a lot.
You can no longer wow your neighbor simply by buying an HD-quality flat TV. We now take it for granted that TVs come in almost any size we want, and at an affordable price. BluRay players and 7+1and 5+1 audio systems are amplifying the experience of today’s TV viewers. So are wireless access to subwoofers and loudspeakers, and today’s advanced storage and streaming solutions– not to mention the growing number of HD-capable recording devices. All of these additions serve the individual in the Networked Society as we become both producers and consumers of a new kind of home entertainment.
In the future, I expect to see the following trends:
- Cross-industry innovation across historical industry borderlines will be the norm in the Networked Society
- Large digital screens will continue to play a key role in delivering our multimedia experience, although we have reached the point where simply expanding the size of the TV is no longer enough
- Manufacturers of full custom solutions and best-of-brand approaches are encountering competition from the makers of flexible holistic-solution offerings, in which the technology features are complemented with design, ease of use and life cycle management as key buying criteria. criteria
Networked Society Insights 