Bluesound has brought studio-level sound quality to multi-room streaming for over 5 years now. Building on its success, the next Generation “Gen2i” series is announced today. Gen2i is an evolution of Bluesound whilst protecting previous investments customers have made in the range.

Highlights include:

Apple AirPlay 2 Support
Two-way Bluetooth
AptX HD Bluetooth
Dual Band Wi-Fi
Pulse family amplification and driver enhancements
HDMI ARC/eARC for Pluse Soundbar 2i

AIRPLAY 2
Built into Gen 2i Players is Apple’s MFi authentication chip, which enables AirPlay 2 wireless streaming with a software release expected in Fall 2018. When available, users will be prompted to download the latest firmware on Gen 2i Players which will unlock AirPlay 2. Once complete, just about any sound can be streamed from an iPhone or iPad, including music apps and services that are not natively integrated into Bluesound Players. This also allows users to watch video on an Apple device while streaming the audio to a Gen 2i Player and gives users more options for control including Siri voice assistance.

TWO-WAY BLUETOOTH
Bluesound Gen 2i contains our most advanced take on Bluetooth to date – two-way Bluetooth, featuring both Receive and Transmit functionality. Receive capability allows users to wirelessly stream from their device to a Bluesound Player just like they’re used to doing with Gen 2. But Transmit capability means that you can now use your Bluesound Player as a source, sending what you are listening to via Bluetooth to a pair of wireless headphones. Just imagine the peaceful feeling and convenience of listening to the most-loved songs in your music library wirelessly from your Vault 2i to your favorite pair of headphones, all using the BluOS App. Note: Bluesound Pulse Flex 2i supports only the receive functionality.

aptX HD BLUETOOTH
While we’ve improved the Bluetooth connectivity in Gen 2i, we’ve also made sure that audio quality improvements are part of the Gen 2i Bluetooth story. The advanced two-way Qualcomm CSR8675 chip that we use in these new products also supports aptX HD Bluetooth wireless audio. aptX HD is an enhanced codec that supports 2 4-bit music quality over Bluetooth and has been engineered to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, resulting in lower background noise. With the ability to support streams up to 24bit/48kHz, a customer streaming from an aptX HD compatible device to a Gen 2i Player is actually able to listen to better-than-CD quality, wirelessly. Note: Bluesound Pulse Flex 2i supports only aptX Bluetooth.

DUAL-BAND WI-FI
We’ve upgraded the WiFi chip-set technology in our Bluesound Players to the latest and greatest Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) dual-band offering. Our best-in-class products deserve best-in-class connection; with the new Wi-Fi chip on-board, we can take advantage of the less noisy 5GHz band if needed. This results in faster connection times and fewer interruptions from other network traffic.

VOICE CONTROL
Amazon’s Alexa will be one of the first voice assistants to work with BluOS when the skills library is enabled to Amazon in Fall 2018. It will allow you to use your voice to explore music services, select presets, adjust volume levels, switch up playlists in different rooms, or even group your Players together and play your music in perfect sync throughout the house.

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