Internet radio hardware products maker Livio Radio has launched a website for software/app developers and hardware manufacturers.
The site is LivioConnect.com. Livio launched the Connect protocol last year. It’s a liaison between various apps and devices.
With Livio Connect, users can control apps with fingers on the hardware buttons or use voice control — for car radios, televisions and home audio systems.
The Livio Connect protocol is installed on hardware devices to send and receive information about app controls. The protocol is also added to third-party apps, allowing them to communicate with enabled devices. The apps receive an unlock key through Livio’s authentication server.
Livio Radio founder and CEO Jake Sigal told Radio World at the recent RAIN Conference in Las Vegas the protocol “allows app developers to get into the dash but keep their brands.”
Several broadcast radio brands that stream, as well as personalized Internet audio services are jockeying for an early position in the dash as automakers start to move away from hardware and focus instead on large screen in-dash infotainment systems that feature software apps that can be easily swapped in and out as consumers’ tastes change.
Radio brands that make it into those infotainment systems early will have an edge, according to speakers at several sessions both at RAIN and at last week’s NAB Show.
“While everybody’s jockeying for position,” Livio is focusing on the actual connection to the car, Sigal told Radio World.
