The startup has developed technology that delivers high-quality audio in real time to headphone-wearing attendees at concerts and other live events. It’s the brainchild of Mixhalo co-founder Michael Einem, who is also the guitarist for multi-platinum band INCUBUS.
For music lovers, nothing beats a live concert from your favorite artist. From the excitement of the performers rocking the crowd to the heart-pounding beats, it’s an experience like no other. And now 5G takes that experience to a whole new level. And this is not a theoretical “5G someday he will enable XYZ…”. i am talking Our network is ready the technology is there. We recently learned that a graduate of the 5G Open Innovation Lab, he proved it with Mixhalo.
Highlights
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Mixhalo typically relies on Wi-Fi, but wanted to see how 5G could improve the experience. And overloaded it. At a concert for T-Mobile employees in Bellevue, Washington, Mixhalo had the band play classical music while the audience listened to music from Mixhalo’s soundboard (the same audio musicians they hear during the performance) in real time through earphones.
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During the tour, he noticed that performers on stage were wearing earphones, thus providing an excellent audio experience for the audience. He only knew that giving his fans the same experience could be a game changer, and indeed, Mixhalo can immerse you in music more than you can imagine.
If the network is too slow, the listener will hear an annoying echo. T-Mobile’s 5G network was fast enough to deliver sound waves to the audience…and the Mixhalo app actually had to delay the audio before it reached people’s ears, so it blew out the speakers.
This sounds very simple, but here’s where it gets interesting. The challenge with sending audio to an audience is that the audience is sitting in front of a large speaker emitting sound waves at over 1,000 feet per second. So if he’s 50 feet away from the speaker, the phone should pick up the sound within 50 milliseconds of him.
I was in sync with the music. Unbeknownst to the audience, this was a great way to demonstrate your edge computing skills over 5G. Because I installed his Mixhalo server on the edge to further speed up the response time.
The Mixhalo team also turned off the speakers and only broadcast audio through the Mixhalo app and played it back into the microphone. The listener experience was great, people nearby who weren’t at the concert couldn’t hear anything – I guess you could call it a “silent 5G concert”.
Achieving this for crowds of hundreds, even thousands, requires networks with ultra-high capacity (speed and connectivity) and ultra-low latency (real-time responsiveness). That’s what T-Mobile offers, not just in big cities or specific venues.