As the nights draw in and the smell of mulled wine permeates the air and our minds we thought it would be a good time to take a moment and reflect on the trends that have dominated the world of tech this year and make some predictions for the year ahead.
In the year that the iPod Classic silently bowed out of the Apple Store, the iPod generation has finally begun to reconcile itself with the world of proper HiFi. It’s no longer acceptable to simply stream and download music, now it’s all about the quality of the audio files we are listening to. We’ve seen the emergence of high-resolution download and streaming sites, high-resolution media players from the likes of Astell & Kern and digital-to-analogue converters such as the Geek Out DAC trying to recapture studio quality sound. The audiophile in us believes this is a trend that will see us continue to move away from lossy formats throughout 2015, especially as more HiFi streaming sites, such as Tidal, start to emerge and engage with this market place, fulfilling this increasing consumer demand.
Whilst the new HiFi trend has started to take off this has been juxtaposed with the resurgence of all things vinyl this year. However, it is yet to be seen whether this is just a fad or a trend that is here to stay. At LRR HQ we are hoping that the sound of needle on wax is heard right through 2015 and beyond.
2014 also saw the start of the Internet of things begin to be realized. In particular connected home products have begun to creep into our homes and we are firmly on course to see the automated home move away from being solely the domain of the oligarch. With the emergence of Nest and products such as the iKettle from smarter you can now control everything from your thermostat to your kettle via your smart device without breaking the bank. This is a sector that is only going to grow throughout 2015 and we won’t be surprised to see these connected devices and appliances – in one form or another – featuring in the majority of households in 12 months time.
Sticking with the connected home, the multi-room sound system market really exploded during the second half of 2014. New systems, such as the impressive Denon HEOS, are now providing some serious competition to SONOS which has in turn resulted in fantastic growth in this market. We predict this sector will remain one to watch as this increased competition can only lead to continued innovation throughout 2015.
Last but not least, arguably the biggest trend of 2014 has been the rise of wearable tech. Still in its infancy we can all agree that there is huge potential for this to be the future of technology. Where we can see room for disagreement is over the form it will take in its adolescence. At the moment the tech heavyweights such as Apple and Android are throwing their weight behind connected watches whilst Google’s beta testing of the Glass project suggests that there are a whole host of avenues that this new field could take. While the wareables market displays infinite possibilities, here at LRR HQ we think the main focus for this market will continue to be the connected watch throughout 2015.
Guess we’ll just have to check back this time next year to see whether our predictions were correct. Watch this space!
