Bluesound Professional Wireless Outdoor Speakers
As the owner of a Crestron custom integration company and a Bluesound Professional dealer, this is more of a product request and not a feature request.
We have Crestron clients looking for outdoor inground/garden wireless speaker systems and since Bluesound already has the wireless technology among it's players this seems like a natural fit. We are integrating Bluesound and Bluesound Professional products into our Crestron designs and systems and they are a perfect fit.
I know there is the Plus Flex 2i but this does not fit the bill for many reasons. Thinking more on the Bluesound Professional side, you can configure a 2 piece system with stakes or mounting brackets and offer an optional in ground sub-woofer. Additional speakers can be purchased separately and grouped together as a single zone or different parts of the outdoor spaces can have multiple zones just like the current Bluesound ecosystem. The outdoors is just an extension of the indoors with slightly different requirements.
Again, more on the Bluesound Professional side, this type of system would be installed where the business/home owners most likely have professionally wired landscape lighting system in place. If the lighting system is LV DC, you can use their DC low voltage transformer, depending on how much power is being used and what the DC power requirements are for the radio, or you can use standard AC. Hopefully this can be powered by DC.
Since we do high end audio/video installs we use commercial networking products, such as Fortinet systems, with some products offering higher total POE power than residential networking gear, Crestron even offers dedicated POE power supplies, so, again depending on the power requirements of of the outdoor speakers, they may be powered over POE if the correct POE power supplies are used.
Maybe fitting the innards of the Plus Flex 2i into the housing of a inground/garden speaker system and instead of battery power using the above ideas for power.
As a CI this is something I would LOVE to see and I am hoping BSP is thinking about.
Remember it's about Living HiFi.
-
Official comment
Appreciate the input. Always looking for new feature/product ideas. At Bluesound Professional we are continuing to expand are PoE portfolio. Look for new announcements coming soon. In my experience in commercial lighting with WiFi and radio power mandated limits by some countries, WiFi has its limitations. In most of our products we have concentrated on Ethernet or PoE solutions and have found that we have fewer issues. We currently suggest the BSP500 and BSP1000 for indoor/outdoor applications but will consider your request for a smaller footprint solution. Subs outdoors will need more power to be effective and that is an issue with PoE limitations and low voltage lighting which is typically not what I require. So far in Pro commercial spaces we are trying to serve "Patio" use case applications, and a further reach to the great out of doors will take some more thought. Stay tuned.
-
Just an end users here but curious how the BSP500 does not fit your needs?
0 -
As per the post above, I am talking about an outdoor inground/garden wireless speaker. The BSP500 is not an inground/garden wireless speaker, but a wall mounted speaker that will not suffice as it's not designed as an inground/garden speaker. Also, the BSP is strictly powered by POE where as the type of product I am thinking about would ideally be powered by LV DC with POE or AC as a design option depending on the power requirements of the speaker. The ideal product design would be LV DC for power and wireless for audio.
This is a pic of a type of speaker I am thinking about. Color can be a type of green or brown so it camouflages into the surrounding area and not highly visible. Heard but not seen.
0 -
Fair enough, it’s it’s designed for outdoor use with its IP rating, from an IT prospective hardwiring back to the router (PoE enabled) would be my choice for provisioning a network device outside of the premises (not forgetting lightening suppression) and the inbuilt bracket could easily be attached to a short post, wall etc.
0 -
Seppi Evans
"hardwiring back to the router (PoE enabled) would be my choice for provisioning a network device" I agree that is my choice on everything inside, but don't forget that our installs, even on the residential side, we use commercial network equipment, specifically Fortinet. The type of WiFi radios used for coverage are very different than what normal residential installers use for WiFi. You can control the pattern/beam, power, etc. The reliability, radio power and data speed are more than enough to not only handle the audio but making sure it's rock solid.
Running a Crestron system with Bluesound audio over WiFi, and a properly configured WiFi network will not cause any issues. No audio dropouts, delays, etc.
0 -
As soon as you have a party with 30 people or actually 30 big moving bags of water blocking RF then you will understand 😂
0 -
Seppi Evans
Now you don't even believe that. If you do, than your comment tells me that you have no experience with large OD AP installs and having a serious conversation with you is a waste of time.
0 -
As a dealer, you clearly have no clue in RF design or propagation then. Typical know it all who actually believes everything they say.
Obviously the medicine is not working and you won’t be getting better anytime soon.
here we go, found your website https://www.pizzagogo.co.uk/menu/desserts
-1 -
Seppi Evans
I am far from a know it all. I do know what works from experience. If I was a know it all, I would tell BSP exactly how to design the product I was requesting. They know how to design the product. I know how to implement it. There is a difference.
If what you say is true, "As soon as you have a party with 30 people or actually 30 big moving bags of water blocking RF then you will understand", then how does RF work in stadiums and outdoor arenas? We have done a few. Again talking from experience.
How many stadiums and outdoor arena's have you designed RF in? Actually, I will take it to a smaller level. How many planned communities/commercial properties have you done? To give you a small idea, take a look at the Irvine Company, https://www.irvinecompany.com/ . We do quite a bit of work for them. From designing, implementing & managing, Crestron distributed Audio/Video systems to indoor/outdoor RF, including WiFi, infiNet, audio, video, etc. That includes guest networks with hundred's of guest users a day (pre COVID).
So, no I am not a know it all. I do know what I am talking about through experience. Maybe you are talking through experience also. Maybe when you have a party with 30 people your system doesn't work. Through my experience that has not been the issue.
I can go on and on but that's not the point of this thread.
The point of this thread is about creating a new product line, an outdoor inground/garden wireless speaker system. Since Bluesound has already proven this can work with with Plus Flex 2i integrating it into a different form factor should not be a problem. As an CI we can integrate it.
0 -
A WiFi speaker on / in the ground is a totally different ball game than beaming overhead to stadiums.
If you are in the UK I will happily demonstrate what happens to RF as it passes through a person using a calibrated reference source and a spectrum analyser.
edit
as for easy IT projects, several thousand users with 500 seat call centres would be a normal project over a large campus. In TV ... worked as an RF engineer, covering golf courses, F1, tennis, boxing and Olympic sites with various RF and microwave satellite uplinks. Golf courses were the worst, great big frigging stands made out of steel and full of people in all directions blocking RF.
0 -
Seppi Evans
Ok, we will go with what you say, "As soon as you have a party with 30 people or actually 30 big moving bags of water blocking RF then you will understand 😂" & "on / in the ground is a totally different ball game". If what you say is true, then how is Bluesound getting the Pulse Flex 2i to work over WiFi? Below is a pic of the Flex 2i from BS and it's less than 36" from the ground, maybe it's 24" and they insinuate that it works. Since we do not actually hear sound from it we have to take their word. It would be the same for the outdoor inground/garden wireless speaker.
Again, going with what you say, are you saying that if someone puts the Flex 2i on the ground it won't work?
I am sure Bluesound will tell you that the Flex 2i will work on the ground and since the system I am talking about will have a stake or mounting bracket which raises it above the ground it will work also.
If the Flex 2i will work on the ground so will the system I am in visioning, as it's basically the same innards. In stead of a white housing it has a weather resistant housing as in the example pictured above, instead of button's there are none, instead of a battery pack it's powered by LV DC and (EDIT) instead of it siting on a table it's on a stake.
0 -
The Flex in the pic looks like it’s missing the battery pack, but in the shot it’s a perfect example of how it would be used. Much closer to the ear in distance / height. It’s also not waterproof or able to be PoE. I have no qualms over the photo and how it’s being used.
Back to your original post, if I were a paying customer (luckily for the both of us I will never be) and perhaps the UK requirements differ a lot. I would want outdoor speakers at ear height or above, why well I would want to be able to listen to the music. Just a few people in a group would block a lot of the sound coming out the flowerbed no matter how angled the speaker is, ground level is ground level. Occasionally in the UK they put music amongst the shrubbery in garden centres ands it’s awful.
Outside is a blooming big room to fill with audio and you won’t get audio successfully to my group of 30 if the speakers are tucked into the hydrangeas. There is a reason why concerts / venues use head height or above for speakers and AC/DC plonking their stack on the ground just would not work 😂
Again as a customer I would want robust 100% audio streaming, knowing that cannot be delivered by WiFi in a large outdoor space reliably I would want any equipment connected by Ethernet. Surfing / email / social media is a different bandwidth use hence that’s easy to flood a stadium with lots of WAPs.
PoE... ok powered by any means other than a battery happy for that just that a PoE switch even in the UK is affordable and relatively reliable,
I’m unfollowing this thread now as it’s not really the place to rip shreds out of each other.
best
0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
12 comments