Bang & Olufsen BeoSound Essence

Bang & Olufsen announced BeoSound Essence, an innovative wireless music control dial, designed to be wall-mounted or lay on a table-top, that starts playing tunes with one touch. B&O calls it a radically simple approach to accessing the ever-expanding panoply of digital music possibilities, whether they’re in the cloud, on your computer, NAS, mobile phone or tablet. The company aims to make listening to music as easy as turning on the lights.

The BeoSound Essence sound system consists of two components: an aluminium BeoSound Essence Remote with true Bang & Olufsen touch and movement, and a hide-away box that contains everything you don’t need to worry about to make the magic happen. The box is the centre for AirPlay streaming, DLNA streaming, Spotify Connect, QPlay and thousands of global internet radio stations. The remote offers play, pause, skip tracks, and mute on the inner circle, surrounded by a volume control ring that rotates as you would expect.

“BeoSound Essence is all about giving people easy access to their favourite music in Bang & Olufsen quality,” explains Bang & Olufsen CEO Tue Mantoni. “By applying our behavioural and ethnographic studies of how people live and live with music we have developed the simplest user interface available in the market for people who do not accept a compromise in terms of quality and performance. BeoSound Essence builds on Bang & Olufsen’s heritage of understanding user behaviour and technology and breaking new ground to make things simple”.

The BeoSound Essence wireless music control system is designed to work exclusively with Bang & Olufsen’s own speakers.

Price and Availability
The BeoSound Essence System will be available spring 2014 at Bang & Olufsen stores worldwide for $995 (USD). Additional BeoSound Essence Remotes will cost $200 each.