Byton is stepping up its digital life by unleashing more of the potential its M-Byte has to offer at CES 2020. The company made a strong point to deliver more on its future user experience with a wave of content partners that spells the beginning of more to come.
The Byton CES 2020 unveil centered on 5 points, its first content partners:
- Byton occupants will be able to see on its 48-inch screen ViacomCBS and Access programming. Both companies will offer an in-vehicle (EV) theater-like experience.
- AccuWeather for real-time weather updates.
- Aiqudo for voice control of apps.
- Cloud Car, providing a cloud-based infrastructure.
- Road. Travel for online trip booking and XPERI for digital HD Radio.
This is the beginning. More partners will presumably be announced as the M-Byte readies its launch.
Byton also announced a Developers Program that will allow the development of applications for the Byton. It also announced something many will rejoice, a stationary energy storage system for residential and commercial applications based on the M-Byte battery technology. And all of this will work with its two new financial partners from a Series C funding round. These new partners come from Korea and Japan — Myoung Shin Co. and Marubeni, respectively. They will further cooperate on opportunities in mobility services, energy solutions, and overseas production and distribution.
A visibly excited Daniel Kirchert, Byton CEO, said: “When BYTON committed to creating the first smart device on wheels, this is exactly the kind of engagement we had in mind. The BYTON M-Byte with its unique user experience will offer developers the opportunity to present in-car interactions in a way that is more engaging than ever before.”
This was followed by Andreas Schaaf, Byton Chief Customer Officer, saying: “Like any great smart device, it is not just what it can do but what you do with it. With the new partnerships announced and the limitless potential offered by the BYTON Developer Program, we envision a revolutionary interaction that will be a game-changer for the BYTON M-Byte and its users.”
The Byton partnership with ViacomCBS and ACCESS will deliver an in-EV video experience for its users and unlock what Byton has been promising for the past 3 years, a truly digital experience on a smart mobility platform. Byton users will have access to the entertainment company’s TV brands via ACCESS Twine™. It will be called the BYTON Stage, a rich video experience in the M-Byte. Visitors are able to see the presentation at Byton’s CES 2020 booth.
The AccuWeather weather and route info app will give Byton’s users local forecasting from AccuWeather, part of the Byton connected car strategy. The app will also inform users of upcoming changes in weather at their destination.
The other M-Byte app will be from Aiqudo to enable voice command of mobile apps on your smartphone, via the company’s Voice to Action® platform. It will allow voice commands in the vehicle to seamlessly engage with mobile apps via Bluetooth with simple and natural language commands. This is something that has been dear to Byton, as I witnessed last year in its Co-Creation event in Los Angeles.
Warning: The video below is long and fairly unedited. It was shot without a tripod.
https://youtu.be/zQvMncXBDH0
We’re told that the Aiqudo’s Q Action® system figures out which app should be called up. It supports multiple languages and interaction with thousands of apps.
Another announcement was the Byton and CloudCar collaboration and consumer result, which is a voice-first, natural-language interface suited for drivers. It provides global access to unified infotainment services through a network of content partners.
Jeff Chung, Vice President of Digital Engineering at BYTON, told the press: “Access to cloud-based information and services will be integral to the BYTON user experience. CloudCar, with their voice interface, will make that easier and more comfortable.”
You can add to this the Byton Road.Travel, a solution for online trip booking to worldwide destinations with curated recommendations for every leg of the journey, and it is customizable. Road.Travel will offer notifications about nearby places to eat or visit, help with reservations, everything according to your preferences.
There will also be XPERI, which brings a Digital HD Radio and DTS Connected Radio to the BYTON M-Byte. The Xperi HD Radio will offer stations with a clear digital audio, multiple programmable channels, and rich text and image metadata onto the BYTON Stage.
The Byton M-Byte will support DTS Connected Radio, which allows for automatic switching to a station’s IP audio stream when driving out of the terrestrial broadcast coverage area so that you don’t lose what you were listening to.
The big news is really the Byton Developer Program. It opens up the door to create and integrate content and services displayed around the M-Byte’s 48-inch BYTON Stage. The company released UX Design documentation and app development guidelines for partners and developers. Byton is already developing apps and services for entertainment, health, productivity, eCommerce, and other experiences that seamlessly merge the mobile and automotive worlds.
This CES event wasn’t thin on unveils or details, and the company went even further. Byton intrigued us by saying it will develop stationary energy storage systems for residential and commercial applications. Based on the M-Byte battery technology, the energy storage systems will be manufactured in the Nanjing battery assembly line into cost-competitive packs.
This is just a quick run-through that Byton unveiled yesterday in what was its biggest CES unveil to date. A crowd of international journalists virtually fought for good seats. Stay tuned as I will interview David Twohig, Byton CTO, as well as many more.
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