DTS’s Play-Fi Joins Core Brands’ Roster of Multiroom Wireless Music Systems

DTS, which quietly launched the Phorus Play-Fi wireless audio solution last year on the Android platform, made far more news Thursday when it announced iOS compatibility and a licensing deal with Nortek’s custom-focused Core Brands unit. DTS CEO Jon Kirchner, on a teleconference with reporters Thursday, said with network connectivity becoming more pervasive, the industry is getting past the complexities of getting connected products to simply work together and is now able to focus on making the different ecosystems and channels “far more compelling to consumers.” Play-Fi allows consumers to enjoy lossless audio in a multiroom, multispeaker setup in ways that haven’t been done before via an “open platform,” he said.

Citing the Android debut a year ago and subsequent availability on the Windows platform, Kirchner said the iOS addition allows DTS to target the “hundreds of millions of devices” in the iOS universe and their users, some of the “largest of consumers of entertainment content.” In DTS’s vision, Play-Fi’s ability to work over different operating systems on hardware products from various manufacturers will allow consumers to buy their preferred brands and allow hardware makers to differentiate their products while leveraging “a common platform that works across all the different operating systems.” He said today’s “multiplatform” homes are prime targets for the company’s interfaith platform.

DTS sells two products under its Phorus brand: the $199 P1 speaker, an all-in-one wireless speaker that operates over Wi-Fi, and the $149 PR1 Wi-Fi receiver that works with a traditional audio system. Distribution is through the Phorus e-commerce site, Amazon and Nebraska Furniture Mart, where the product is part of a new wireless audio section, said DTS Vice President Sharon Graves. Another major retailer is expected to be announced next week, she said. Additional product announcements will be made at CEDIA Expo next week and at CES in January, executives said. The current Play-Fi products in the market are upgradable to iOS, they said.

Being a lossless transmission system, Play-Fi is “bit-for-bit accurate,” DTS General Manager Dannie Lau told us at a briefing in New York before the webcast. Lau contrasted lossless Play-Fi with compressed Bluetooth that “degrades the sound.” Unlike Bluetooth and Airplay, Play-Fi can transmit to multiple speakers simultaneously with “tight synchronization” of less than 1 millisecond latency, which translates to no echo or lag that can occur in some multiroom music systems, he said. Different users can transmit their own music to different speakers concurrently, he said, although it’s not possible to stream multiple tracks to different speakers at the same time.

Lau said because Play-Fi works over standard Wi-Fi, users aren’t required to use proprietary hardware. Add-on modules will allow Play-Fi to work with existing systems, in contrast to the leading wireless multiroom system, Sonos, which is based on a proprietary meshed networking system that works only with Sonos gear.

Play-Fi is focused on music, Lau said, and the platform offers several features other technologies don’t. With the Play-Fi app, users can select whether music mutes when a phone call comes in depending on a given situation. A user wouldn’t want the whole-house music system to mute during a party when a call comes in, for instance, he said. In addition, multiple users can pair with the system, unlike Bluetooth and Airplay, which pairs with one device at a time, he said. Play-Fi also doesn’t mix in sound from other applications so users won’t hear the chime of an incoming email or audio from a game while listening to music, Lau said.

Lau also said Play-Fi doesn’t require a special dongle for wireless streaming. The recently launched Korus system from Core Brands (CED Aug 27 p1) does, however, and we asked Brett Faulk, executive director, Korus, how the Nortek unit plans to juggle two nascent multiroom audio formats. Korus, based on the SKAA wireless audio standard, is focused on a “larger, broader user experience” beyond Bluetooth that plays to up to four speakers, he said. Play-Fi, he said, extends to the whole home.

Core Brands’ plan is to develop Play-Fi-enabled products for its traditional custom installation business including integration with architectural loudspeakers, he said. Play-Fi’s retrofit capability with add-on modules will enable existing and new speakers to work with a Play-Fi system, Faulk said. Play-Fi products will extend into the CE channel as well, he said. Further details on specific product plans will be announced at CEDIA Expo next week, he said.

On the positioning of Play-Fi within Core Brands -- whose audio lines include SpeakerCraft, Élan, Niles and Sunfire -- the DTS technology will “seamlessly integrate with all of our existing architectural speaker brands and CI-channel (custom) products,” Faulk said. That includes wired and wireless speakers for a “mixed environment,” he said. He cited audio controller boxes and other accessories required to “satisfy the entire ecosystem” for Play-Fi. Core Brands will demonstrate at CEDIA Expo “preview” Play-Fi products due on the market early next year that will be compatible with “any existing speakers we have,” Faulk said.

Korus, on the other hand, “is our next-generation wireless audio brand and it will stretch, ultimately, pretty far and wide,” Faulk said. Near term, Core Brands is targeting Korus to the CE channel, but it will extend beyond over time, he said. Current Korus product, based on the SKAA wireless audio standard, represents “next-generation portable mobile wireless,” which serves “a large part of the market but not the entire market,” Faulk said. Play-Fi allows Core Brands to extend its architectural speaker lines to the custom and to the CE channel as well, he said. “You'll see us deploy next-generation wireless audio technologies differently depending on the market and the product category we're going after,” he said. For DTS’s part, Core Brands’ licensing of Play-Fi across several of its brands “delivers a very strong endorsement of the robustness, stability and performance of what Play-Fi offers,” Kirchner said.

At launch, DTS’s Play-Fi iOS app offers Pandora and Internet radio service, is compatible with DLNA-supported devices and allows music streaming from a Windows or Apple PC, Lau said. Additional services will be available to users in an update. Users can access music they have downloaded to their iTunes libraries, including playlists, but they can’t access iCloud content, Lau said. “Apple doesn’t have an open API to get into iCloud,” he said. The company plans to support Amazon Cloud Player in the future, he said.

DTS is targeting Play-Fi toward “any place you see Bluetooth or Airplay,” Lau said. While the company positions its wireless technology against Bluetooth and Airplay, it’s also capable of working with both -- but without the multiroom capability, he said. Lau envisions Play-Fi being licensed and integrated into soundbars, AV receivers, powered speakers and home-theater-in-a-box systems. Manufacturers don’t need experience with Wi-Fi to make the technology work, Lau said. Modules can be implemented into audio products in the same manner as Bluetooth and Airplay modules, and in a pointed comment on DTS’s strategy to take share from Bluetooth and Airplay products, Kirchner said Play-Fi modules “would plug right in” to where modules for the other technologies would live. Play-Fi modules are in mass production and currently shipping to customers, Lau said.

Multiple audio ODMs are developing Play-Fi systems, including pre-qualified reference designs that audio companies can customize and take to market, Kirchner said. DTS is also targeting mobile device makers with the technology and has a licensing program in place for Play-Fi-embedded software that will provide “direct compatibility” with every music service and application running on a device when streaming through Play-Fi-enabled speakers and receivers. The software will recognize Play-Fi-enabled speakers “the moment they are turned on,” creating a simple user experience, Kirchner said.

Initially, DTS focused on the Android market, which has 70 percent of the smartphone business, Lau said. “We wanted to make sure we nailed that right before introducing other ecosystems,” he said. Now the company is focusing on “a great cross-platform experience,” he said. Graves told us “it will be a challenge” for DTS to promote the unknown Play-Fi in a market where Bluetooth and Airplay are ubiquitous in their respective worlds, but said the company is looking to make Play-Fi “a serious ecosystem” and has marketing initiatives in the works to help the Play-Fi brand proliferate. “It will take a little time,” she said, saying DTS has the reach to make that happen.

Citing DTS’s experience in the market with building brand awareness, Kirchner cited the importance of bringing partners into the ecosystem. Awareness will come through a balance of direct messaging to consumers, working with partners through their product offerings and training on the sales floor. “We realize it’s a steady process and you need all the ingredients,” he said, which it hasn’t had prior to the iOS compatibility. “We're moving into a world of QoE (quality of experience),” he said. Play-Fi allows audio companies to get into the wireless business in a way other technologies don’t, he said. “There are lots of tactics that will play out underneath this over time,” he said. “We're totally committed to seeing this become an industry standard.” Kirchner wouldn’t say how many products would be announced at CES this year, but said there would be “many more” than the one -- Wren Sound Systems -- announced last year.