Music Streamers

Olive One Home Music Player

Updated

December 12, 2012

Olive Media today introduced the Olive ONE, an all-in-one high definition (HD) music player that helps people better store, organize, access and enjoy their music at home. The $399 digital music player includes an internal amplifier, wi-fi connectivity, touchscreen interface, audiophile-grade 32-bit/384kHz DAC by Burr-Brown, optional hard drive, and optional stackable speaker. In addition, the device can stream music to remote locations for access to your music away from home. Users can find and play music via its touchscreen, with app for Android / iOS smartphones / tablets, as well as with a TV remote from Wi-Fi enabled televisions.

Designed by European Americans and hand-built in the USA, the Olive ONE is expected to be simple to set up and use. It connects directly to any speaker and the Wi-Fi setup is supposed to work seamlessly with the touch of a button. Once connected to your home network, the player should automatically find all of your music.

Olive One

Just nine inches around and slightly over 1.5 inches tall, the ONE sits comfortably almost anywhere. In terms of optional add-ons, to date, Olive will offer a 480GB SSD or 1TB, 2TB 2.5″ hard disk drives that stores music for instant access, while also turning the player into a subscription-free home cloud.

Because paying monthly music-related cloud storage subscription fees, forever, is not ideal, the optional hard disk drive can be a money saver. It stores up to 6,000 albums in CD quality or 20,000 HD tracks. Social network integration, and an open architecture, for the invention of cool new apps, are also part of the mix.

At the moment, the Olive ONE is still a prototype with expected availability Summer 2013. Therefore much of its features and final specifications are not confirmed. However, Olive is looking to the public for feedback to influence the final design. Through crowdfunding site IndieGoGo anyone can contribute to the product financially and help shape the end-result by suggesting features, voting on them, developing apps for its open platform, and inputting on the long-term product roadmap.

“Crowdfunding is not the typical modus operandi for an established company,” said Dr. Oliver Bergmann, co-founder and CEO. “However, the idea behind Olive ONE is big, and we believe that the platform will redefine how we enjoy music at home. We need the direct involvement of users, artists and app developers to get there.”

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Olive’s crowdfunding campaign is live today, with an expected completion date of February 1, 2013. The product has been in development for over one year, and a working pre-production prototype is completed. Raised funds will be used to buy specialized tooling equipment and enhance Olive’s build-to-order manufacturing capabilities in San Francisco. The open hardware and software design also means that the player will not be outdated or made obsolete too soon, like so many consumer electronics today. Olive ONE upgrades will be easily downloaded from the Internet.

Price and Availability
Olive ONE is slated to ship in summer 2013, with a price of US$399 at http://www.myoliveone.com without a hard drive. Versions with the hard drive will sell at US$499 for 1TB, and US$599 for 2TB. The SSD drive option could add $600-$700 to the cost, so it may not make it into the final design. Olive says they’ll be shipping to 220 countries worldwide.

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Additional photos:

Olive One