The price tag that tops $20,000 isn’t the only dramatic feature of the gorgeous Beovision Harmony, the OLED TV that Bang & Olufsen is showcasing as part of Milan Design Week 2019.
It also sports a pair of speakers that spread open, like butterfly wings. Turning on the TV, which is comprised of a thin screen that sits close to the floor, means the two finely crafted oak and aluminum fronts housing the powerful sound center will then fan out. At which point, the TV screen rises to the optimum viewing height. Turn the screen off, and the sequence reverses itself.
The screen itself is a 77-inch panel from LG, which promises “brighter, self-illuminating pixels and stunning color,” and with it you’re also getting speakers that are powered by a three-channel, fully active DSP-based sound system. The setup integrates with music services like Tunein and Deezer, and you can also stream directly from your smartphone via Apple Airplay 2, Chromecast built-in or Bluetooth. Additionally, the Beovision Harmony features LG’s most recent webOS 4.5 platform, which lets you access content from providers like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube.
“Pristine picture performance combined with truly immersive sound ensures a mesmerizing viewing experience,” said Bang & Olufsen executive vice president of brand and markets John Mollanger. “But the presence of a big screen is rarely a welcoming addition to living spaces. With Beovision Harmony, we wanted to create a meaningful object for interior that reduces the visual presence of the TV and transforms it into something that people will develop an emotional attachment to.”
The Beovision Harmony is being shown off in Milan this week through April 14 as part of the exhibition “93 Years of Magic – a dialogue between past and present.” Bang & Olufsen says it’s worked closely with museums and collectors to curate a product exhibition featuring influences behind the brand’s reputation for “matching innovation with beautiful sound.”
Certainly, there’s a novelty element to a TV that’s this expensive, but Mollanger stresses that the product is in fact a continuation of the company’s “obsessive passion” for design over the last century. “It has been a mission of ours,” he says, “to perfect the techniques used to reproduce sound and vision and to embody it in a design that people are proud to have in their homes.”
If you’re one of those people, and you’ve got cash to burn, the Beovision Harmony goes on sale in Bang & Olufsen stores in October. It will retail for 18,500 euros, with translates to a little over $20,000.
