Activate New Premium In-Vehicle Audio Features at Any Time With Ready on Demand From HARMAN

New scalable software platform offers the latest in-vehicle audio experiences as they become available, providing consumers the personalized experiences they want, when they want them

HARMAN, an automotive technology company and subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. focused on designing consumer experiences at automotive grade, unveiled HARMAN Ready on Demand, a software platform for delivering branded audio value, feature enhancement, upgrades, and monetization opportunities in an easy to-use app. An industry first product, Ready on Demand is the foundation for providing expanded experiences and future upgrades that can be unlocked by the consumer at any time via in-app purchases throughout the life of the vehicle.

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“Today, when you purchase a vehicle, it’s not always possible to get every feature you may want right at the start — cost may be a factor, as are availability and packaging constraints”

As of 2019, consumers now trigger well over 200 billion smartphone app downloads per year creating an expectation that the devices in their lives should stay current in addition to adapting to their needs. The majority of today’s car audio systems can’t keep pace with this expectation, as car audio systems typically cannot be extended after production. With Ready on Demand, consumers can improve in-vehicle experiences and personalize their vehicle with premium audio features at any time.

“Today, when you purchase a vehicle, it’s not always possible to get every feature you may want right at the start — cost may be a factor, as are availability and packaging constraints,” said Armin Prommersberger, Senior Vice President of Product Management, HARMAN International. “Ready on Demand transforms the traditional complex retrofit upgrade process for audio into something quick and easy for consumers, who can now create and customize their in-vehicle listening experience with just a few clicks, even after the initial vehicle purchase, all built on HARMAN’s audio, system integration and user interface development expertise.”

Ready on Demand provides a deeper connection to the consumer through the smooth integration of branded audio DNA in the user interface, and includes a marketplace with an opportunity for a unique partnership synergy with the automaker. Experience packages and feature extensions are available on-demand and can be purchased at any point in the vehicle lifecycle. This presents an opportunity for OEMs to create recurring revenue streams after the vehicle sale, for not only the initial purchaser of the vehicle but second and later owners as well.

Ready on Demand is part of HARMAN’s line-up of new products introduced during EXPLORE at CES that are road-ready — and have demonstrated they deliver compelling in-cabin experiences. Each product is designed to work independently to deliver specific vehicle safety, well-being, and connectivity benefits — but also integrates seamlessly with other Ready products for an even more enhanced experience. For example, Ready on Demand is pre-integrated with not only the HARMAN Ready Upgrade application framework, including HARMAN AudioworX audio processing libraries, but also with the HARMAN Ignite cloud back-end for ecommerce and content download. This will significantly reduce required development and increase speed of implementation for HARMAN Ready Upgrade partners.

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As a key element of Ready on Demand, HARMAN has developed an initial set of on-demand experiences including packaged bundles of engaging, carefully selected audio and sound features. Exclusive brand-specific features can also be tailored within the packages. Examples of currently defined packages include:

• Personalization: features aimed at providing users with simple, seamless and customized audio experiences that can travel with the user from vehicle to vehicle in the same way that apps and in-app features can be accessed across multiple devices, especially useful for consumers who use more than one vehicle
• Communication: providing users improved ways to better communicate and interact with people both in and out of the vehicle
• Sound Enhancements: activates innovative and proprietary acoustic techniques in the vein of augmented and mixed reality to transport the listener to new virtual environments, adding a layer of ambiance, serenity, or excitement to their favorite music

For decades, HARMAN has been uniquely positioned at the intersection of automotive and consumer technology innovation, resulting in meaningful, industry-leading solutions and products. This allows HARMAN to create unique products like Ready on Demand that enable premium audio, is deeply integrated with the vehicle’s in-cabin experience and allows for a software platform that will be continuously extended in collaboration with our customers and in response to consumer feedback and desires.