Home Music Streaming for Self-Righteous Adults

One look at the marketing material for Magic Home Entertainment's moodSeer networked music system, and it's clear who the company's target consumer is: adults who are fed up their kids' music. Here's what those meddling kids are up to, according the company's product overview:

"Upstairs, your son is streaming an Internet radio station featuring a live performance by some band you've never heard of, and hopefully, never will."

"Your daughter's taste in music seems to change weekly. She can stream her latest favorites while never leaving her lounge chair."

The adults in this scenario, of course, have more important things to do:

"The man of the house [weilding a circular saw in the garage] can control his playlist right from his workshop, keeping the sawdust out of the house whenever he wants to skip a song."

"The lady of the house [wearing an apron in the kitchen]
prefers to pick a mood for her music, hit play, and never touch the remote the rest of the evening."

Enough making fun... what does the moodSeer actually do?

The setup consists of a main "moodCenter" unit with a hard drive for storing music (up to 1.5 terabytes) that has to be connected to the included wireless adapter. The moodCenter connects to your home stereo digitally, and can stream any of the music stored on it (or your networked computers) to up to 6 "moodSpot" home players wirelessly, or 36 of them via ethernet. To control the moodCenter and moodSpot units, you use one or more Nokia 770 internet tablets, which the company calls moonBeamers.

Once you've loaded your CDs onto the unit and/or imported it from your networked computers, the moodCenter parses your music collection into twelve mood-based playlists: "relaxed, togetherness/family time, inspired, romance, party, energize, and more!" You can also access songs, artists, and albums from the Nokia/MoodBeamer tablet.

These moods do not come cheap. The moodCenter costs $4100, each MoodSpot runs you another $1500, and then, of course, you'll need to pick up one or more Nokia 770s for at least $280 each. Why not just use one of Logitech's Slim Devices and make the mood playlists yourself? (The first one could be called "thrifty.")

(via technabob)