UPPLEVA. TV, Sound and Furniture by IKEA
Then I saw this IKEA ad for the first time I honestly thought it was a joke. A well made spoof of all things IKEA. I laughed, but then I stopped. The idea seemed mad at first, but after a while it made perfect sense. If you want something neat and clean and in one place, UPPLEVA is exactly what you need. TV, Blue-Ray Player, Speakers, Game Consoles and all the rest tucked nicely inside the furniture and out of the view. A good fit for those in need for fast and affordable home entertainment fix. The choice here is simple, you choose the furniture and the size of the screen, and everything else comes as a standard selected by IKEA. If that suits you, of course.
Some may argue that the screens IKEA chose are cheap and of lesser quality than many others in the market. The same might be said about the Blue-Ray player and the speakers. Even more, you can only get what is available, and that is limited to only few (if any) options. In this case, UPPLEVA is definitely not the solution for someone who knows his gadgets.
On the other hand, while all the big wigs keep talking about the revolution of home entertainment systems and the way they will change how we watch TV, IKEA came up with this. They created a simple, affordable and beautiful solution for all of those, who don’t give a damn about all the technology.
The idea of integrating TV’s and radios into the furniture is definitely not new. It is something we have seen before. IKEA draws their inspiration from the days when all the technologies were big and chunky and the size of a closet. From the days then it made much more sense to make them look like the rest of the furniture and a part of the home. And it looks like this trend is on a way back to our living rooms.
UPPLEVA is just the first step in consumer electronics market for IKEA, but I bet they will introduce much more options like this in the future to come. As for competition, they might also start offering furniture integration possibilities or even create products that can be integrated into IKEA furniture, in a way that Apple accessory manufacturers have been doing since the iPod.
One thing is clear, the strongest point of UPPLEVA is the way it hides all the wires and boxes connected to your TV, and If you are one of the TV attachment hoarders this is a great solution for you. IKEA makes all the wires and clutter disappear behind the drawers and doors not to be seen again and by doing so gives you much more space for other things.
From the 50’s and 60’s inspired TV’s lets go back to the future for a while. Today consumer electronics market is full of possibilities and choices, and some technologies in development are going to introduce even more possibilities (touch, movement, voice control). Wires are disappearing in their own accord and everything is more wireless than ever. But just wait until wireless charging systems will reach mass production. It might also be the end of electric socket, as we know it, the end of wires connecting your devices to the power grid. That means even fewer wires to worry about (Soon after having wires will be the new “vintage” and “old-school”). To think of it we are almost past the need to hide the wires, because we hardly need them. In this case, UPPLEVA is a good showcase of where our technologies are going, what consumers want and how manufacturers can take their products up a notch. And more importantly it makes us think, what do we actually need in our entertainment systems?
First of are the Blue-Ray Players. When all the media is more and more downloadable, streamable and online, who actually needs them? No one. In this case all you need is a hard drive to store your media, but with all the cloud storage solutions and innovations such hardware also seems unnecessary. In a nutshell and to keep things short, all you need today is a Wi-Fi enabled screen, some speakers and a dozen of subscriptions to your favorite Internet media services such as Spotify, Netflix or any other (if you are lucky enough to have them in your area) and you are done (add video game consoles at your own risk or find an online solution). No wires, no clutter.
If you are in the market for your new home entertainment system, there are many roads to travel, but UPPLEVA is a strong option to consider. Moreover, if you go the IKEA way, with one purchase you will have half of your room settled.
Smooth Yeti
