An Internet of Things music thingy? What, you’ve already got one? Omnifone and Silicon.com founder Rob Lewis is back with another music venture – this time bundling funky sounds with hardware. The Electric Jukebox service combines a streaming service with two bits of hardware: a Chromecast-style HDMI dongle for your telly, and a motion controller. The initial setup cost is £179 for a year’s …
So it's spotify for those who can't work Spotify, branded as an IoT for music - a term beyond those whose technical knowledge doesn't even extend to being able to work Spotify
Now i get it. Still, if people find it workable, enjoy it and are willing to pay for it, good for them :)
I'm off to a dark corner of a server room to calm down now.
I'd be the first to evangelise Google's offering - a fraction of the price of this and with very little effort I have my entire back catalogue of music on hand, with a slick interface for browsing and selecting stuff to play. Twice in the last week, I've been visited by the sort of people who this is aimed at (those not confident with technology), and both presented me with a CD (remember them?) and asked me if I could play it. Yes I could and if I cared to I could add it to my library to play again at will. It doesn't look like this Jukebox will play well with such external sources.
The price for this is awful, the business model is awful and the 'reward' to musicians is nice in theory but somewhat abstract in practise. If this were an Apple Keyboard, I'd give it 4 out of 5.
Chromecast: Over priced spyware. Just plug phone's HMDI into TV. You need a phone or laptop to control it anyway.
TVs:
Similar sound quality to a 1965 pocket transistor, unless you plug in external speakers. This is useless unless it has analogue out for a HiFi.
£60 a year? Too expensive to pay for music you don't get to keep. I'll stick to Broadcast (free) and CDs ripped to my phone's SD card and my media server. What if the Internet conection goes down?
At that price it ought to have a screen and work without a telly. I paid less than than for my Archos and for my smart phone. £119 HW (+ £60 p.a.) for an HDMI dongle is a joke!
I have a 30ft HDMI cable, made by cutting a poundshop 0.5m cable and splicing 2 x Cat5e cables. The high speed part is just really Cat5e spec twisted pairs. Admittedly I use it for a remote Media Centre.
You can buy a wireless HDMI extender (works on anything) or longer HDMI cables than 10ft ready made. You must have a huge screen / larger than average lounge. Most people are less than 8ft.
A wireless HDMI extender* far better value than this £119 gizmo or Chromecast (which needs a phone/tablet/laptop to control it and tells Google what you are doing, did they ever fix the 25 / 50 bug on it yet?)
[* Not to be confused with MS or other Wireless HDMI Display adaptors, which need a driver and are actually a display device, a true wireless HDMI extender works on any pair of HDMI ports instead of a cable.]
"£60 a year? Too expensive to pay for music you don't get to keep."
Damn right!
Every greedy bastard seems to be trying to change the market from buying to rental with the pretense that it's "more convenient for busy people on the move", Bollocks! They just want a never ending income.
While the people who like to think they are too busy to stop and have a coffee with their breakfast and instead get on the bus or the train with their StarCosta branded cardboard cup of brownish milk think it;s a good idea,. the rest of think it's a rip-off.
Supposedly a UK startup? This jars: "Choose your favorite [sic] artists..." and in the Ts and Cs: "to understand your listening behavior". Ugly.
But the most bizarre thing about this project is the list of the massive list of "advisers" who are mostly not from music backgrounds: what are they thinking? What is actually going on? After all, the world is awash with all manner of music propositions and radio stations.
But this is a money no object project - I thought they had died out long ago. The Ts & Cs make a wonderful modern template for any online operation and must have cost a fortune. Even so, there is an obvious typo.
Curious.
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