The Barix Audio Signage platform helps businesses and visitor attractions deliver audio associated with digital signage to mobile phones over a local Wi-Fi connection. The firmware update will run on a standard Barix Exstreamer Store & Play unit as opposed to an expensive PC-based system that is complicated to manage. The firmware is available for download at www.barix.com/downloads.
The updated Barix Audio Signage solution works for any location where digital signage needs the additional boost of streamed audio to effectively deliver its message. Though previously simple and low-cost to support single-channel streams using the Barix Instreamer and a free Audio Signage mobile app, the second-generation Barix approach now solves the challenge of delivering multichannel streams as simply, quickly, and inexpensively as possible.
"Consider the case of a museum with three digital signage displays running, each with a unique audio track that is transmitted via Wi-Fi to mobile phone users," said Reto Brader, vice president of sales and marketing, Barix. "The museum previously would have to buy and use a Linux PC to enable the delivery of channel information to the mobile app, in order to give access to all 3 audio streams via Wi-Fi, costing a minimum of $1000.
"Now, all they need is an Exstreamer Store & Play loaded with the new, free Barix Audio Signage Info Server firmware. With this new approach, the museum can provide multi-channel support for around $300 per installation, and will no longer require a PC in the system - greatly enhancing robustness and reliability."
Barix Audio Signage is purpose-built to deliver audio streaming to mobile phones with very low latency, ensuring that audio tracks synchronize with digital signage content. This is why the single channel version of Audio Signage has already found wide acceptance in hotels and museums using digital signage. On its own, Audio Signage's low-latency performance has made it a preferred choice for serving simultaneous audio translation streams at multi-lingual conferences and meetings.
Brader notes that the key challenge in deploying Audio Signage lies in the network configuration and Wi-Fi environment on location. He adds that given the straightforward nature of the Audio Signage platform, systems integrators can easily test and evaluate a facility's network to ensure that Audio Signage works on the network's current configuration, or whether its Wi-Fi capability requires strengthening.
"The beauty about the second-generation Barix Audio Signage approach is that the solution relies on Barix hardware that is very robust, easy to setup and exceptionally reliable," said Brader. "All a client has to do is to purchase our hardware devices - in this case, a Barix Instreamer for each channel, and a Barix Exstreamer Store & Play to support multi-channel implementations. The firmware is downloadable to these devices, and the multichannel audio streaming service is ready to go. On the display of the mobile phone receiving the signals, the consumer simply clicks on the title of the stream they want to listen to, and the connection is made."
(Jim Evans)
