Case Study
Wetumpka, Ala., Oct. 30, 2019 – Movies in the woods? Why not…and leave it to a local Boy Scouts of America troop to devise yet another use for SKAA® wireless-enabled speaker systems.
Chris McNew, Scoutmaster of Troop 8 in Montgomery, Alabama is always looking for new ways to both educate and entertain his troop members when roughing it out amongst Mother Nature. He’d been using his projector and Ryobi-enabled SKAA wireless speakers in and around his home with great success, so he figured why not bring them with him when he takes the scouts out into the wild?
“Recently, ten scouts and three leaders from two local Scouts BSA Troops from Montgomery, Alabama embarked on an overnight canoeing adventure,” explained McNew. “We were canoeing part of the Coosa River, which is a local whitewater river in Wetumpka, Ala., and camping on an island. The rule in our troops on normal campouts is that if it’s not warm enough to play manhunt in the evening or at night near our campsite, then I’ll show a movie instead. For that reason, I now I bring my portable projector and my new Ryobi wireless speakers with me when with the troop. The Ryobi batteries’ long life coupled with SKAA’s reliability and ultra low latency made it the ideal audio system for our troop’s campsite movie nights.”
On this particular occasion, McNew explained that since the clearing on the island was so small and they were all packed in so close to the fire pit, there was no way to safely have a campfire, nor room to have a campfire program.
“So, instead, an old bed sheet was tied between two trees and two Ryobi/SKAA speakers were tied to the trees on either side of the screen so we could watch a movie,” McNew said. “The SKAA speakers work so much better than other options in a remote situation like this as there is no discernible lag in audio and they provide true stereo sound. It’s handy that they can run for hours on a Ryobi battery. Even the projector has been adapted to run off of a Ryobi battery so the power sources are uniform and easy to keep up with. Everyone enjoyed watching the movie before heading off to bed. Simple set up and simple tear down.”
SKAA is the new wireless HiFi audio standard developed by Edmonton, Canada-based Eleven Engineering, Inc. (www.elevenengineering.com), a market leader in semiconductor products for wireless audio for outdoor, portable, home theatre, multi-room, pro, 12 Volt (car, truck, motorcycle, power sports, marine) and gaming applications. SKAA transmitters work with iOS & Android mobile devices, Mac & Windows computers, televisions, and just about any product with a line output or a headphone jack. SKAA is also available as a built-in technology not requiring an external transmitter in purpose-designed partner products. In environments laden with heavy Wi-Fi and Bluetooth traffic, SKAA navigates through these hostile environments with best-in-class reliability. SKAA also allows for uninterrupted audio signals which are delivered with the highest sound quality to all speakers without the latency that is inherent in other wireless solutions.
“SKAA is highly flexible as it is also compatible with any brand, any product, anytime, anywhere, with rock solid reliability, great range, and CD-quality sound,” said Rex Whitehead, Eleven Engineering executive vice president, sales & marketing. “As proven by the Scouts in a very cool fashion, SKAA is ridiculously easy to use…all compatible products are ready to play right out of the box with no pairing required.”
McNew added that during another recent shakedown hike leading up to his troop’s Philmont trek this summer, he decided to add about three pounds to each Scout’s pack to account for some of the crew gear that they would have to carry this summer. “Each time we hiked about nine miles on the Pine Mountain Trail in Georgia with each Scout carrying one of the following: one of five speakers with a battery, the projector, the tripod, or the screen with a battery to power the projector,” McNew explained. “The Scouts were more than happy to carry the extra weight knowing that they’d be watching a movie that night. So we were in a backcountry campsite at least a mile from the nearest other campers with the speakers at full volume surrounding the Scouts watching the movie.”
McNew added that he uses a SKAA Ursula transmitter with a USB-A to USB-C adapter, and that besides at home and out with the Scouts, he also uses the SKAA-enabled Ryobi speakers during his congregation’s Sunday chapel services.
“I sing SKAA’s praises to anyone who will listen,” McNew concluded.
For tutorials, how to set up and use SKAA and its partners’ products, current contests, to learn about the Seven Deadly Sins of WiFi Audio, and all others things SKAA, please subscribe to the SKAA YouTube channel.
For more on SKAA, please visit SKAA.com, or contact Rex Whitehead at 480-650-3979, email [email protected], and visit www.elevenengineering.com, and Facebook/.
About Eleven Engineering, Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada-based Eleven Engineering, Inc. is a market leader in microprocessors SiPs (System in Package) and modules designed for wireless audio for Home Theater, Multi-Room, Portable, and Pro Audio products. Eleven’s XInC2 multithreaded processor was designed specifically for digital wireless audio applications but is also well suited for other realtime intensive microprocessor applications.
Eleven’s high-performance wireless audio semiconductors, equipped with XInC2 wireless processor cores, are complete solutions for high-quality digital wireless audio transport. WFD™, Eleven’s proprietary wireless audio transport protocol, has a narrow footprint in the radio spectrum, delivering both best-in-class coexistence with WiFi / Bluetooth and unparalleled Quality of Service.
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