Slashdot Mirror
IKEA Announces Furniture With Integrated TV, Speakers, and Blu-ray
MrSeb writes "If you long for those balmy days when TVs looked like pieces of furniture, good news: This fall, IKEA will release Uppleva, a range of home entertainment systems that integrate a flat-screen full HD TV, 2.1 sound, and a Blu-ray player. Uppleva will come in three different designs, with a range of screen sizes starting at 24 inches. If the built-in Blu-ray player isn't enough, there are two USB and four HDMI ports down the side of the screen, and an empty 'bay' that can hold a games console, TiVo, or another set-top box of your choice. In true IKEA fashion, the whole caboodle will come in a range of colors (white, light wood, dark wood, black, and so on). Prices start at 6,500 Swedish Kroner (around $950) — presumably for the 24-inch version — which is a fairly good deal. Uppleva will only be available in a few European markets to start with, but the UK and North America should see it in early 2013."
I thought we were done with this nonsense. If I want a fridge, I'll buy a fridge. If I want a TV set, I'll buy a TV set.
I don't think I would go for a TV based on the fact that it matches the furniture, I choose the TV I want and then find furniture that I want to match it. I think most nerds would be the same. Chalk it off as do not want for me
There is no -1 disagree
seems like a poor idea for a fixed in place TV / stand
The poor quality chipboard furniture or the Chinese speakers they're putting in them? It's hard to know with this combination
All I got from this story was..... She looks like Princess Leia's slightly older, much prettier sister, with a sexy accent. I can build a custom cabinet for my TV, with much more features. I must admit though, IKEA is a cool store to visit, if I want to earn browny points with the wife. She could spend days in there if they let her.
And it comes with a book of c code to run the device, that must be typed in manually with disposable keyboard (included).
THL phish sticks
When TVs (and radios before them) were huge and heavy, electronics manufacturers did their best to convince consumers that they were just another piece of furniture, not some exotic mess of wires and tubes that they had to tolerate in their living rooms. Accordingly, they would make a half-dozen different versions of the same TV, the only difference being the style and finish of the (wood/fake wood) cabinet.
I guess now that electronics are disposable, it makes sense to build them into cheap furniture.
So now my furniture won't just go out of style. It will literally become obsolete and have interoperability issues.
When Ikea rebranded Westinghouse/Whirlpool dishwashers, no problem - the underlying companies will support them with spare parts for years to come, but now when you go to Ikea, it all their own brand dishwashers and ovens - where do you go for spare parts? Ikea has great reputation for abandoning products and making things that don't last so long. I wouldn't touch their own brand of anything that plugs into a wall outside of simple lights.
It's really hard to make money in electronics - many companies, but retailers and manufacturers, fail to make money - just look at Dixon's (UK), Best Buy (US), On/Off (Sweden), Sony, etc. and these companies already have very advanced supply chains. Ikea doesn't bring anything new to the table here.
Their low-end... is actually pretty good for the price. If you want new furniture, you can't beat their low-end value.
Their mid-level... is pretty average. It's nothing amazing, and not particularly a good value.
Their high-end stuff... some of its good, but not all of it. You are generally better off going to local furniture store.
So, do I have to build the TV too? I wonder if they'll give me everything in a box... including the solder to put the TV together. Exciting puzzle that would be!
it only has to last until the next move. with people moving houses every 10 years or less on average ikea is a pretty good deal for the price they charge. why buy some expensive furniture that will be scratched up by the movers? and with kids everywhere ikea is awesome for the evil minions of hell that jump on furniture
What is Blu-Ray again? Isn't that the technology that a very small minority of people used for a very short period of time to bridge the gap during the transition from DVDs to online delivery?
But seriously, what is it with companies coming to the party late and/or clinging to dead/dying technology. Are their processes so inefficient that by the time they produce something, it's already out of date?
With the durability of Ikea furniture, they'll be able to sell you a new sofa AND a new hi-fi, tv and game system every year!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Prices start at 6,500 Swedish Kroner (around $950) â" presumably for the 24-inch version â" which is a fairly good deal.
But uh, is it? You get some shitty furniture and probably a mediocre TV and certainly a mediocre Blu-Ray player for $950. A 24" TV is somewhere from $150 to $400, let's call it $200 because it will probably not be very good. A Blu-Ray player is maybe $100 itself. Is a crappy piece of IKEA furniture which has space for only one games console worth $750? MY SOURCES SAY NO.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you're going that route why not just shop craigslist etc? There's a staggering amount of furniture out there that people don't want. I don't propose everyone do what we did and buy a $125 leather couch set and refurb it, but there's plenty of genuinely nice stuff out there of better quality than Krapea.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've found everything they have in the sub 40 euro category to have been pretty good value for money.
I wouldn't recommend shelling 400 euros+ for them for any item though. though I think one can furnish their home with just the sub 40 euro stuff from ikea and bauhaus pretty nicely. I'm not much into antiques or heavy wood stuff that I'd need to care for.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Interestingly, I find IKEA's furniture reasonnably durable. They are definitely not the best quality, but they are reasonnably cheap, they will still last years and they are often in a simple but modern style.
It was a stupid idea then, it is a stupid idea now.
Sony used to have a TV stand that had a built-in entertainment system (speakers, subwoofer, receiever, DVD player - this was before BluRay) back when I sold electronics in the mid 2000s. No one bought the thing because it was overpriced and what happens when something breaks? You have to take the whole damn thing in to get something fixed.
But, this is IKEA, so it probably comes in 1500 pieces and uses cartoon drawings of people putting it together that you'll want to slash in the throat before you get done putting it together.
/vertisement
Love the meatballs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
because ikea will deliver
i have a honda CR-V and dont want to scratch it up buying used furniture
I have a computer desk that I bought from them about 7 years ago. It cost about $40. I don't know what it is made of, some sort of honeycomb construction I imagine, because it is very light. Anyway, after 7 years of holding up a 17 inch CRT it has not sagged at all. I have no complaints at all about their furniture.
I remember when I was a kid, many households had a TV room which consisted of an enourmous piece of furniture that housed the television, record-player, radio-tuner, amplifier and speakers.
Then the pendulum swung the other way and people were buying furniture units to house their modular electronic components.
Nothing ever goes away, does it?
Also, get off my lawn
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
It's actually cheaper to rent a pickup and buy something quality used than it is to buy some complete shit from IKEA that didn't even need to be made in the first place because there's so much used furniture lying around.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yet another ad? This time we're even given prices and the colors it comes in. Is this the home shopping channel for nerds? There is nothing innovative or interesting about gimmick furniture with run-of-the-mill consumer electronics embedded in it. This isn't Google Glasses or a 3-D printer.
The editors may again protest that they didn't intend it as an ad. Either that's disingenuous or they are blind to what any reader can see. I wish they would put as much effort into finding great content as into spamming their own homepage.
If you want cheap furniture there's no better place to go. They actually put thought into how the furniture is constructed and try to make the best of the materials they use. This is a far cry from other bargain furniture, like the junk you might find at Walmart.
This doesn't mean, however, that it makes sense to buy everything from Ikea. I would never buy certain items from Ikea I expect to use extensively. Sofas come to mind and office desks. But it really depends on the item, because Ikea does offer certain higher quality products that stand up to years of use.
When Ikea is offering a cabinet for $100 that starts at $400 anywhere else, you can't expect durability.
Boring! TVs built into tables has been done. I want a TV built into my recliner! And wheels.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
1) To lure people who don't really like furniture shopping into a furniture store (because you can go look at tech stuff like LCD TVs, BluRay players and the like now, while your wife shops for lawnchairs, table cloths and garden pottery) 2) To give people who are easily confused by detailed electronics specs (e.g. choosing from 40 different LCD TVs in a big electronics store) a simple option of buying one, pre-selected TV/BluRay/Cabinet combo. You pay-once, transport-once with this deal, instead of getting your stuff from 2 - 3 different stores that may be miles apart. In all likelihood, IKEA will select electronics for this that are cheap, good and durable, so there won't be a product quality problem when you buy your tech from IKEA 3) If the initial strategy of selling TV/BR electronics at IKEA works out profitably, you can follow this strategy up by doing the same with PCs (PC+ColourPrinter+Desk), or Game Consoles, or indeed starting to sell DVDs/BluRays/Games/Software at IKEA. ----------------- Probably most important in all this is goal 1) - bringing new people to IKEA stores, who don't normally like IKEA at all, because it is a pretty boring place unless you are into looking at chairs, tables, couches, lamps, shelves for 2 hours.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
The IKEA I know would simply sell a VESA (or maybe own IKEA standard) TV fixing that can be mounted perfectly to 90% of other IKEA furniture, some adhesive cable holders and offer a range of TVs. And OF COURSE you have to assemble it yourself!
And a mix'n'match online configurater tool that prints your shopping list.
BTW. there is a site out there for IKEA hacking. Shows what you can do with their anything - matches -anything else concept.
bickerdyke
So, I guess this means I have to put together the TV and sound system with only a left allen wrench as well? Or maybe the right handed one?
is a sardontic furthering of a disposable society at the expense of its citizens. 36% of americans are obese (almost too fat to move) and another 35% are overweight. Ikea is integrating into furnature the very accoutrements of our lifestyles that are killing us. televisions do nothing more than sell commercial advertisement space and incense the general populous to cast their votes lock-step in the party lines. and for all this we pay almost a thousand dollars, and reap nothing but preventative disease at the hands of a sedentary lifestyle.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Does this mean the end of the fake plastic TVs and laptops that they use in their in-store displays? :(
But for your grandma who still has the 1980's console CRT authentic wood television/coffee table... this is for her. Or my parents, who watch TV once a week who are still using the TV my sister left behind when she left for grad school. This is for them.
It's easy. Why does Slashdot never understand easy?
Also, you can rent big vans from Home Depot for about $25 for an hour or 2. Lots of space in there. They generally like if you buy something from them first, but I've known people who bought something big just to rent the van, go pick up what they actually needed, and then return the van and the large item at the same time. Also, truck rental places will give you a deal in the middle of the month when they aren't renting out many trucks. Just tell them you only need it for a couple hours. The trucks just sit there most of the time anyway, they only are really fully booked at the end/beginning of the month when most people move.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Don't people take their iPad into the kitchen?
Is that the real TV on the wall right above the integrated (and redundant) furniture TV?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I don't think it solve much more than a better organized way for cabling.
Interesting....the first TVs and Radios were pieces of furniture. Only later did it become fashionable to separate the tv from the furniture. Now we're doing it again.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Typical consumer preference is really driven by their environment, i.e., how big are their homes. Americans hate multifunction devices. The only really successful one is the clock radio. If we want more stuff we just build homes with more rooms to house it, even if it does not make our life better. Europe has smaller homes so they are more receptive. After all, its called the Swiss army knife, not the Bowie knife. Asia has the smallest homes so you see the greatest acceptance of multifunction devices. There are of course broad variation to this generalization and computers being the universal device are blurring this generality further.
are you going to make me assemble the flat screen tv too? if i let my friend do it, the screen will be upside down facing the (sony) guts.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
The thing is a massive piece of furniture holding - what? Some tiny amount of electronics?
Even DVD and Blu-Ray players are bloated boxes. After all, they're basically PC drives with an additional interface board. Packaging a player in a box about 6x6x2" is quite possible. But most players have about 4x as much interior volume as they need.
gadgets maybe they could for once concentrate on building furniture that doesn't break? Because it does, always.
What goes obsolete faster than electronic devices? Nothing. I expect furniture (even the stuff from IKEA) to last a good deal longer.
--- Bill
One word - Bedbugs. I had to pay over $1500 for pest control, just because I brought in a cheap set of furniture, that looked extremely clean, but had bed bugs in it. Out here, 90% of furniture on craigslist is bedbugs infested. I dont mind used stuff (I got my 42" TV used), but I would never buy furniture on craigslist.
I have two of their office chairs - they were about 50 Euro each 6 years ago, I forget the model - and they're the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in, including ones that cost ten times as much.
The one I use most is showing some surface wear but it's mechanically fine. I'll get my mother to run me up a new cover (& a spare) the next time I'm over. They'll probably out last me.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Those bastards can wait up to a year before feedings. And they crawl between floors and walls in an apartment complex. It's so bad, that DDT might very well be resistant to them even if the Feds allow for its use again. If you leave just two behind, they will breed after moulting a few stages. Dozens of eggs get dropped in hard to reach areas and then you're left playing the game of bedbug Whac-A-Mole. It's not impossible to get rid of the fuckers, but it will take several scheduled preventive sprayings to ensure success short of a scorched Earth nuclear policy. And even that's not guaranteed.
http://bedbugregistry.com/
Ikea announces furniture with built in commodes.
Why the hell walk your hulking frame to the loo,
when you can have it right under your gravitationally
looming ass!
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
"which is a fairly good deal."
Blue ray player, about $80
Flat Screen 24" about $230
2.1 Sound system about $300
Good deal at $950?
I'd be okay if you said "more expensive, but integrated", but good deal? Nah.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
At least around here, if it's winter you can just shut off the water, turn off the heat, and open some windows for a few days. Most pests can't survive freezing temperatures. You can also quarantine any suspect used furniture outside for a few days too before bringing it in.
and she definitely would be down with the white
I've been dreaming of something like this for ages. Snooty geeks can look down their nose all they want, but I doo tech geek stuff for a living all day. I don't want to have to do it at home. I don't care of my TV has the absolute highest number of pixels or whatever. I just want to get home, turns stuff on, and wathc things that look good. I don't want to screw with multiple remotes. I hate ugly cables. I just want to pop in a disc or select from a menu and start watching. And they way it looks like you can integrate this with opther modular Ikea furniture looks very versatile and handy. Add in the extra inputs and you can still do all kinds ofcray thinsg if you want. An excellent combination of technology and usability without sacrificing flexibility.
My only problem with it is I have to wait a year.