Phorus brings Android its first wireless, multi-room speaker System

The Phorus team was kind enough to invite us to a private demo and viewing at CES of their companies entry into our Android world. What they had to offer was nothing short of amazing. Often times we see these amazing looking docks built solely for our friends in the iOS community. That is not only annoying but at time frustrating. When we heard they had an Android specific solution that was build specifically around our platform, we just had to get in on it. To kick it up a notch, not only was it a wireless solution, but it was a multi-room wireless solution.

What is Phorus? Well, they are a start-up company that started out with a dream of providing the Android community a wireless music solution that worked and worked better than the others. They put their plan together and raised $2 million in funding to bring us 2 devices and an Android app to run it all. The technology behind it is called PlayCast and takes what Sonos and Apple AirPlay offer to a whole new level of sound quality and ease of use.

Unlike our counterparts that have docks you literally click your device into to give you the connection and the sound, the PlayCast speakers connect via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth directly to your Android device.

Just looking at the image doesn’t do it much justice. What you can see is the cone design with a variety of on speaker controls. You can turn the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on and off as well as control the volume. Located just above those controls is a place to set your phone or tablet if you desire, but it not a requirement to enjoy your music, although it would a good idea if you are using the Bluetooth connection. The surrounding pad is a very nice rubberized material that is soft and provides some grip for your device to rest on. Being built from the ground up for Android gives this speaker a great advantage. It also doesn’t hurt that part of the team behind the PlayCast speaker came from various aspects of Harmon-Kardon. Anyone that knows who they are knows they make amazing sounding speakers. For the audiophile in the audience, it has an SPL of over 90dB.Oh, and speaker isn’t designed to produce directional sound. It has been precisely engineered to provide you a full 360-degree spherical audio pattern. Giving you a room full of music.

What good is a speaker if you have a bumping sound system already installed in your living room though? Not much good if that is what you prefer to connect up to and listen through. That is what Phorus thought also, so they also created the PlayCast Receiver. Same connectivity as the speaker with same volume controls. The style and design of this product is equal to the speaker. The receiver doesn’t have a speaker, rather it has line outs to connect it directly to your home theater system or any other speaker system that has a line in jack. The port on the rear is the standard 3.5mm jack, Phorus includes a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable and a 3.5mm to Y-adapter (mini to two RCA). The top of the unit has the Phorus logo and again, a padded flat rubberized spot to set your phone or tablet on. They called it the ‘Beer holder’, that made us all laugh.

On to the Android app. Which is going to launch the same time as both the speaker and receiver, which will be in March. The app will be free to download and use with no premium features to purchase or added costs. The app provides you with all the functionality you would need to run the speaker, speakers and/or receiver. Remember, we said this was a multi-room system? We will get to that part in just a minute. You won’t need the app until you have a physical product sitting in front of you. Set up of both is a breeze. Plug the speaker or receiver in, wait for a slow glowing white light on the front of the unit, open the app and it will search for any and all PlayCast devices available. It will ask you for your Wi-Fi password and pass all the information through the app to the speaker. When the white light goes solid you are all set up. Yes, it is really that easy. Once it is connected you can start listening right away. All of this set up should take no more than a couple of minutes. You will have acces to the most popular streaming services via the app, including your music on your phone.

Now onto the coolest aspect of the whole system. Since they run via Wi-Fi, your range is only limited to the strength and distance of your Wi-Fi in your home. This eliminates the dreaded 30 foot Bluetooth range. It also eliminates the dreaded audio loss and popping sounds you often get on other Bluetooth speaker systems. Located in the app you have the ability to label each speaker or receiver how you see fit. In our demo they had one in the kitchen, the bedroom and the living room. Set up each location one at a time so you can connect to that location and label it to your liking. Then you will have full control of all of them directly from the phone. Meaning that you can turn them all on at once, only the kitchen or switch to the bedroom and stop the music in the living room on your way to bed. Any combination is at your finger tips. It truly is a multi-room set up.

If that isn’t enough to interest you, how about multiple devices connected at the same time. If you, like many of us, have more than one music lover in the house, you will be happy to know they support multiple devices. Meaning you can be in the living room rocking out while the wife is connected to the bedroom speaker listening to what she wants to.

Don’t stop reading just yet, they aren’t done. Since the speaker system is wireless, this prevents you from having to get up and go to your phone on the dock to check that email, text or answer your phone. You can keep your device on you at all times, if you go out of range or course the speakers quit streaming. But if you want to keep your device close to the speaker they have included a nice USB port on the rear of both units to plug your device in and charge it while you are streaming.

You can get the sound quality we all want at a fraction of the price of the competitors. The Playcast speaker is set at a moderate $199 and the receiver is scheduled to be available for just $149. To get full tech specs on the speaker, receiver more information or to sign up for email alerts when they are available for sale hit them up at Phorus.com. You guys can expect a full hands-on review of the system from us in the coming month. Expect lots of video and photos at that time. We also know they have a few tricks up their sleeves planned by launch that will make this system and set up even more spectacular. You’ll have to wait to find out what those are though.