Next Wave of Second-Screen Content to Emerge from ‘Explosion’ of Growth in Mobile Devices

Tablet sales are eclipsing sales of connected Blu-ray players, streaming devices and connected TVs, said Ben Arnold, NPD director-industry analysis. While household penetration of mobile devices is on the upswing, consumer awareness of how mobile devices can integrate with TV viewing is limited mostly to media sharing and social media, panelists said. Content integration with second-screen device apps is still “nascent,” Arnold said. The next step in the second-screen era is content integration with devices such as Microsoft’s Xbox SmartGlass and dedicated apps that tie into the programming viewers are watching, he said.

Consumers want to be able to interact with their TVs, said Jeannette Howe, executive director of Specialty Electronics Nationwide. “We need to be able to supply them ways to do that.” Nationwide is pushing its dealers to have customers download apps in stores, because “if we can get them to download a specific app in the store, we've kind of got them,” she said. Electronics dealers have evolved from being consulting salespeople to “assistants to the buyer.” Shoppers are armed with a lot of information when they come in, and often know what they want when they enter the store, Howe said. Dealers need to “assist” customers in the purchase process and “make them comfortable with the technologies,” she said. “We know they're using the second screen at home,” she said. “We want to enhance that experience on the retail level so that they're comfortable making a purchase.”

One challenge manufacturers face is getting consumers to interact with multiple screens in a unified experience in the second-screen world, said Brian Siegel, Sony vice president-direct operations. With its own retail stores, Sony shows consumers ways for screens to work together. He cited waterproof second-screen devices that allow consumers to do things they couldn’t do before, such as swipe a screen on a display to flip a recipe to the next page while watching a cooking show on TV. “You don’t have to dry off your hands to see what the next ingredient is,” he said. Use cases are driven by application, not hardware, he said. Also at Sony stores, users can tap Vaio laptops as control devices for the company’s 4K TVs, Siegel said.

Sony also gets feedback from the second-screen devices to determine consumer interest level, Siegel said. Stores track the button presses consumers make to learn the content that’s interesting to them, which translates to an improved retail experience, he said.

Sony doesn’t try to sell multiple devices at once, Siegel said. “People typically don’t go in and spend a lot of money on a television and then a lot of money on a tablet” or a phone all at the same time, he said. Tablets are built into the merchandising in a Sony store, he said, because “not everybody wants to shop the same way,” he said. Customers can tap near field communication tags inside merchandise in Sony stores to get more information about a product, he said. Making it simple for customers to use a tablet in store can lead them to be more comfortable using a tablet to control a TV at home, Siegel said.

Samsung has combined its Galaxy tablets with top-shelf TVs in bundle promotions at retail, said Shane Higby, director-TV marketing. That has given retailers a chance to demonstrate connectivity benefits of both devices, including Samsung’s AllShare and SmartView features which allow users to share content between devices, he said. At Samsung Experience stores within Best Buy outlets, there’s a display showing TVs and mobile devices using AllShare, for instance. Samsung is in its third year explaining second-screen activity at retail, but this is the first where there’s an actual display for the 2,700 retail locations selling Samsung connected products, Higby said. When consumers tap a photo on a tablet the image is then displayed on the connected TV screen, providing a lifelike usage model consumers can relate to, he said.

CE Week Notebook

Stream Networks landed an agreement with a “tier one” Japanese CE manufacturer to introduce a 4K glasses-free 3D set based on its “Ultra D 2160p” technology globally in early 2014, Leo Riley, vice president of sales, told us. Riley declined to identify the potential partner that would join a list that in the past has included BOE, Hisense and Konka, none of whom have introduced Ultra D-based TVs by Christmas as originally planned (CED Sept 4 p1). Hisense, which was scheduled to introduce a model by late last year, will ship a 50-inch LCD TV in November in Asia and Europe packaged with a set-top box containing Stream Networks’ platform, Riley said. The Ultra D technology contained in the set-top is designed to boost 1080p content to 2160p on a 4K screen. Hisense U.S. executives have said there are no immediate plans for Ultra-D-based product in the U.S. The 4K TV and set-top will likely retail for more than $5,000, said Riley. At CES, Stream said Ultra-D glasses-free 3D modules were available for 42- and 50-inch LCD TVs as well as Ultra-D 2160p modules for 60-inch 4K TVs (CED Jan 8 p5). As it readies Ultra D-integrated models, Stream is also nearing pacts with two “major” chip suppliers that would replace Intel, which had its 1.2 GHz i5 IC used in the company’s set-top. The new processor will be a “mobile-oriented” chipset so that “we can move quickly to tablets and smartphones and cut the lag time as we enter new product categories,” Riley said. Stream demonstrated a pre-production 50-inch LCD TV containing an Innolux panel that was tethered to a separate Intel-based set-top and being fed content from a Sony Blu-ray player. OEM supplier Pegatron “remains heavily involved” with Stream in potentially supplying integrated sets for Konka and BOE to sell in China and other markets, Riley said. The TVs will continue with a remote control containing a button that enables an image’s depth to be increased, he said. Stream also plans to continue providing demo models for local demonstrations of the technology, including the Blondie Sports bar in New York and Xfinity Center in Philadelphia, which will be outfitted with the new 50-inch set and a set-top, Riley said. -- MS

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Pioneer started phasing out its AppRadio 2 in-dash receiver, model SPH-DA100, about two months ago to make way for the new AppRadio 3 models that are now shipping, Ted Cardenas, marketing vice president-car electronics, told Consumer Electronics Daily. The older model had cost $500, but a rebate offer started by Pioneer ahead of the AppRadio 3 introductions effectively lowered the SPH-DA100’s price to about $280, said Cardenas. The AppRadio 2 has since sold out at Pioneer, but some retailers still have stock left, he said. The $500 SPH-DA210 with built-in CD/DVD drive and $400 SPH-DA110 without the optical drive (CED June 27 p7) will start appearing on retail shelves including Best Buy’s next month, but Crutchfield is already selling the new models, he said. The AppRadio 2 receiver didn’t have an optical drive and Pioneer decided to include it in one of the new models after hearing feedback that consumers wanted the ability to instantly play music without having to wait for a connection with a mobile device, he said. The SPH-DA210 has a 7-inch capacitive multi-touch screen that can be angled up to face the driver, whereas the other AppRadio receivers have fixed screens that can’t be angled, he said. Features integrated into each AppRadio 3 model that weren’t offered in the AppRadio 2 receiver include Bluetooth audio streaming and voice control for Siri Eyes Free and Google Voice Recognition, he said. Although the SPH-DA210 is being fielded at the same price as the AppRadio 2 receiver did initially, consumers must buy smartphone connectivity cables separately for the new models, ranging in price from $30-60. -- JB

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Westinghouse Digital is shipping its MHL connector-equipped 50- ($599), 46- ($499) and 39-inch ($399) 1080p LCD TVs in the fall, but won’t package a Roku Streaming Stick with them, said Rey Roque, senior vice president-marketing. Westinghouse originally promoted the sets as “Roku-ready” (CED Jan 29 p3), but won’t include the stick needed to connect to the Roku service, he said. Whether the TVs’ packaging will promote Roku also hasn’t been decided, Roque said. “We haven’t come to any kind of a co-marketing agreement” yet, Roque said. Roku officials weren’t available for comment. Roku Streaming Sticks are sold separately, with the Sam’s Club web site pricing it Thursday at $58. There were 14 CE companies as of March making products that use the Streaming Stick. Westinghouse is also selling its Pixi LED ceiling lights through 266 Home Depot stores, including those in the New York area, and will expand to 386 locations by summer’s end, Roque said. The five SKUs range from a two-by-two-foot white LED flat light ceiling mount ($189) to a one-by-one-foot model ($79).

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Seiki Digital also is introducing a 22-inch 1080p “Retro” LCD TV ($229-249) that has plastic casing and some buttons and knobs for adjusting features like volume. The LED edgelit set, which will likely be available in red, blue and green, will be sold through Fred Meyer’s more than 200 locations, Executive Vice President Frank Kenzora said. It has two, six-watt drivers and a 15-watt bottom-firing subwoofer.