David Ring believes that currently methods of listening to music are too complicated. Let me elaborate: they are not complicated in an objective sense, but relatively, they could be much simpler. Ring wants to help make that happen, and the first step in doing so is Aivvy.
Pronounced “ivy,” Aivvy is a standalone headphone technology that lets you control everything from the headphones themselves. At first, that doesn’t seem terribly exciting. However, when you consider that you can stream music offline via Aivvy from a selection of music that is 20 million songs deeper than Spotify, thanks to a deal with digital music provider Omnifone, and curate playlists to your liking without any external software, now that’s pretty damn cool.
“[Streaming today] is kind of a lot of work,” says Ring, co-founder of the music technology startup Aivvy. “You have to have Internet connection to really enjoy it. You’re managing a lot of stuff, with online and offline playlists. You have data charges that run up on you. Your cell phone battery dies. It’s a lot of different mini-problems, all creating what I would say is a less than ideal music consumption experience.”
Each Aivvy headset comes preloaded with eight channels, with anything from country to EDM. Each channel is preloaded with about 40 to 50 songs.
As a song plays, you can double tap the right ear cuff to like it, or swipe to skip it. The Aivvy platform remembers your picks. Then, when you plug it in to recharge (one charge lasts 30 to 40 hours), the headphones connect to your WiFi and send the data to Aivvy’s cloud, where an all-mighty algorithm customizes your tastes and prepares your next batch of songs from its catalog
“It kind of came from place of, yeah, music services are great,” says Ring, “but could we make it simpler, easier, and more fun?”
Aivvy is all about innovation and ease, so Ring realized that going the full standalone route would actually hinder the product. The headphones come with an available “companion” phone app so that you can control the music that way; it also comes with a functional headphone jack to allow you to use them as regular headphones, should you choose to use another streaming platform like Pandora, Spotify, Google Play.
The headphones are a bit pricey at $299, but considering they match the price of a pair of Beats headphones, you’re getting a lot more bang for your buck. “The headphones will be available this summer and include 12 months of access to Aivvy’s music platform, after which customers will pay for a monthly subscription service–Ring anticipates $3 or $4 per month.”
So to recap: completely offline listening for $3-4 a month, wireless technology that lasts 30-40 hours per charge, same price point as a comparatively less functional pair of headphones, multifunctional and adaptable technology, a larger music library than Spotify (by a margin of twenty million), and customizable stations comparable to Pandora… what are you waiting for?
Find more information on http://www.aivvy.com/.
Source
This article was first published on Your EDM.
Source: New Headphone Technology Takes The Fuss Out Of Music Streaming
