Caavo unifies home entertainment
February 15, 2017
By Colin Mann
Breaking cover at the Code Media event in California, new media company Caavo aims to unify home entertainment. By connecting pay-TV, streaming, and gaming, Caavo brings together all a user’s devices, services and control. They work together seamlessly, making it easy to find and play all a user’s favourite TV, says the company.
Writing in the Caavo blog, Andrew Einaudi, Caavo co-founder, says that entertainment has never been better and the future of TV never brighter. “Last year we saw more shows produced within the year than ever in history. Now, half of households in the US are streaming TV, which will only continue to grow. All of the rules of TV are being rewritten,” he adds.
According to Einaudi, technology has had an integral role in expanding the mediums and channels by which content is created and delivered.” Yet easy access to that content remains the everlasting problem. As a result, people are missing out on the full breadth of services that they pay for, especially on the big screen TV,” he suggests.
“Accessing all of TV means that we must own more devices than ever in order to play the various services and exclusive content across them. The complexity of multiple inputs, remotes and apps causes frustration and reduces access to all content equally,” he notes.
“It’s this plight of the modern living room that inspired us to find a new approach. We dreamed of making TV work for everyone – kids, grandparents, house guests, and the babysitter. We hoped to make it easy for them to watch everything they want, however they want to watch it,” he advises. “We wanted to bring joy back to TV.”
“Caavo is a simple box,” he says. “You plug all your entertainment devices into it, and control them with an even simpler remote. But that’s just the beginning. It’s the combination of this hardware with a software layer and user interface on your TV that makes the experience remarkable. Caavo unifies your entertainment world and gives you organised and searchable access to everything you have or want, both locally and in the cloud. For the first time, home entertainment is unified into one system and one screen, all controlled by an easy-to-use remote,” he declares.
“We know getting it right is all in the details, so we’ve considered them all. Every interaction with Caavo, from set-up to the on-screen interface to the physical box and remote, is designed to be easy, intuitive, and elegant,” he confirms.
- Auto Detect. Plug in whatever device – AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, cable and satellite and gaming – into any port and Caavo configures it.
- Unified Control. Use our simple remote to control it all – pay TV, streaming and gaming (plus, game controllers and old remotes will still work too).
- On-Command TV. Speak into the Caavo remote, and the TV turns on, finds what the user wants to watch and plays from wherever they left off.
- Universal Search. Search once for a show or movie and find it across all a user’s content, including pay-TV.
- Universal Watchlists. See everything recently watched, organised onto one screen sorted by service.
- Total access. Find all favorite apps and services together in one place. Everything from iTunes to Netflix to Amazon Prime is there, side-by-side.
“The Caavo system is unlike anything in the living room,” claims Einaudi. “Gadi Amit and team at NewDealDesign were tapped to design the elegant console and simple remote. The high-end entertainment system supports up to eight devices, enough for even the most connected living rooms to manage it all with Caavo. The warm, customisable woods that top Caavo make it feel like a tasteful piece of furniture for the living room. The lean-back design delivers the most relaxing TV experience with an intuitive remote. It’s the way TV was meant to be,” he suggests.
“We’ve been hard at work developing Caavo for the past 18 months, but now the real journey begins. We think Caavo is unlike anything in the living room today, and we hope you love it and stay tuned for what’s to come,” he concludes.