The Electric Jukebox is a Dongle/HDMI/Remote/£180/£60 Stream of Confusion

Simply plug Electric Jukebox into your television, connect to WiFi and instantly play millions of albums, curated music channels and celebrity mixtapes in CD quality. True, you would then have to pay around £10 a months for a subscription service, but you might choose instead to stream all your music from YouTube for nothing.

The Electric Jukebox is a music streaming service paired with a few simple hardware, including this motion-controlled remote with voice control. A deal with Getty Images means that you can enjoy handsome photography of ancient ruins that ISIS hasn’t got around to dynamiting yet, whilst enjoying the music of Aleesha Dixon.

Does anyone listen to music this way any more? It combines a streaming service and hardware that effectively turns your TV into a music hub. The most popular ways to listen to music at home are still radio (52%) and CDs and Hifi (42%). You use a wireless remote similar to the Nintendo Wii controller to peruse the service. These celebs will be sharing their playlists with Electric Jukebox users. With headphones and iPhones we’ve somehow lost all that.

He and the team at Electric Jukebox, headquartered in London, think that the TV can be a boon to the music industry just as it has for Hollywood with streaming video. “Simple, fun and no fuss”.

The Electric Jukebox Company believes people want to make music listening a shared experience once more. If you don’t opt to subscribe you can still listen to curated playlists, much like the free subscriptions from Apple Music or Spotify.

“We want everyone to be able to listen to music they want and to be able to listen together”. Still, at least it looks easy enough to use. Essentially, the Jukebox is an Android HDMI TV dongle, albeit one that focuses exclusively on music and shuns wider media playback and apps. The Electric Jukebox Company does, and it wants modern audiences to experience the pleasures of listening to music together in the living room, with family and friends, but with all the convenience and choice provided by streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Rather than huddling around a laptop or smartphone to play music, or being forced to rely on old CDs and radio, we’ve created a music device that is simple and easy to use and which works straight out of the box.

The device’s founder, Rob Lewis, said the aim was to challenge the likes of Spotify and Apple Music by making streaming more accessible, calling the current process “ridiculously impossible to do”. “Mass market streaming has finally become a reality”. There used to be 200 million people who would buy at least one CD every month. After ten years of streaming only 40 million have converted to streaming subscription services because of complexity, set-up difficulty and because of the fear of recurring credit card based subscriptions. Punters who pony up before October 21 can get a £30 discount off of the Electric Jukebox. “You’ll have all the music you want”, he said at the launch. “You can set it up in less than two minutes”.

There is also an ad-supported version available after the first year of ownership that loses certain parts of the functionality. Electric Jukebox’s device, though, comes with built-in streaming that’s free for the first year.

Once set up, the Electric Jukebox welcomes users with a homescreen featuring just three icons; My Music, Discover and Search, each represented by a neon themed icon in the shape of a heart, music note and magnifying glass. But just because this product wasn’t designed for us doesn’t mean it won’t appeal to people who care just as deeply about music, but who aren’t as willing to adopt new-fangled technology to get it. If you pre-order in the next seven-days it’ll cost £149 or $199; it’s due to arrive in shops before the end of the year. Electric Jukebox will also be available on the high-street, retailers and in consumers’ hands in time for Christmas. What’s more, the £179 full kit comes with a year of streaming included. Electric Jukebox is also enlisting artists to serve as evangelists for the product when it launches.

The retail price for the unit is £179/$229.