Lightspeed announcement 11/12

eman1200 said:
...since it makes you laugh that hard, why don't you laugh about the fact that you just publicly and permanently lost a customer. and the customer you just lost will also make sure he does his best to talk anyone out of purchasing anything from you ever again. how's that for a laugh?
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:yeahthat:
 
It'll be interesting to see if he's right. Never buy version 1.0 of anything...
 
Turningfinal said:
Care to back up that claim with anything other than a biased opinion?
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Maybe I'm misreading what I typed. Where is the claim or opinion in my statement?

"Right, Bluetooth/IoT/NFC/RF all exist already. They have for more than a decade. The "tech" isn't ready yet. It's not fat enough. Just like any audio compression, the pipe is still too small."

There's just facts in there, no opinion and no claims.
 
timwinters said:
You know, when you use the strategy of sh*tting all over threads about your competitors, you make many of us far less likely to buy from you. Not more likely. I especially loved your first post and how you whined that Lighspeed wouldn't sell you parts. Really? You find it surprising that a company doesn't want to set up a competitor as a preferred customer? Interesting....
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Is it interesting? Well you can try and slice it however you like, but it's protecting you, the opposite.

Haha, I never said lightspeed won't sell me parts. They CAN'T sell me parts, because they don't OWN them... But good talk. I need their service licensing, since you want to jam your nose in the details for bluster.

Second, they're not my competitor. I've been fixing and customizing their product line since we opened. So where exactly is "competitor". They are a pier and nothing more.

Third, I never said they made an inferior product, or that they had a poor product. Again I must be missing the ****ting on the competitor part you drug out of that. I stated a fact, and will laugh my ass all the way home about it. They jumped the gun, the technology is not ready, and now you have the information you need to make an educated decision. Last time I checked, that was the whole point of a forum... It may be in the definition...

If you want to just jump on the bandwagon, all willy nilly, then get after it. Nothing holding you back but space and opportunity. They'd love your money.

So, maybe peruse through the posts again and see where you can improve on your retorts. Otherwise, I'll keep calling people out on their bull**** in whatever way I please.


I have the best customers on the planet, period. Do you know why? Because I don't sell blue sky pal, and I'll never steal your hard earned money to benefit my bottom line. I make hand-made, personalized, kickass headsets all day long and people love them. If anything ever needs fixing, or goes wrong they know, without a doubt that I will fix it. They know they can call and always get me on the phone to help no matter what headset they have. If it's a headset, I can help.
If you don't want to be on that list, that's your loss, not mine. Bye Felicia.
 
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You might check this out sometime, Shane...

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flyingron said:
The inflight need for this somehow escapes me. It's not like I'm going to get up and take a walk from the left seat of the Navion. Might be handy if I push my headset into double duty in my office or something.
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I was interested when I first saw it, but I started thinking the same thing. Once I get situated, the cables aren't really a bother. For me, it's the plugging and unplugging but that's a minor complaint.
 
rbridges said:
I was interested when I first saw it, but I started thinking the same thing. Once I get situated, the cables aren't really a bother. For me, it's the plugging and unplugging but that's a minor complaint.
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fair 'nuff. for me, I've never been a fan of the headset cable, it annoys me. always has. so, for a free 30 day trial, I'll be testing these out. if having no cable sux so bad, or if the sound quality isn't what I expect it to be, back to lightspeed they go with no loss on my part.
 
farmerbrake said:
I could see these as being useful for rear seat passengers in some planes. The Jacks in the back of the arrow are both on one side, making it slightly awkward to run the headset cable.
And as mentioned for the co-pilot seat in a low wing single door.

What would be really cool is if you could get the control pack to be panel powered (kind of like what bose offers) and they could just stay in the plane while you charge the headset at home.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
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There's a LEMO powered version that will power the pack. Looks like what your asking about.
 
eman1200 said:
fair 'nuff. for me, I've never been a fan of the headset cable, it annoys me. always has. so, for a free 30 day trial, I'll be testing these out. if having no cable sux so bad, or if the sound quality isn't what I expect it to be, back to lightspeed they go with no loss on my part.
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Me neither.

I've accidentally caught my foot on my headset cord getting out of C172s more times than I can count.

In the Remos the plugs are behind you, so the cord has to dangle over one of my shoulders and it's quite annoying.

May pick these up and relegate the Zulu2s for the fiancée.
 
Archammer said:
Maybe I'm misreading what I typed. Where is the claim or opinion in my statement?

"Right, Bluetooth/IoT/NFC/RF all exist already. They have for more than a decade. The "tech" isn't ready yet. It's not fat enough. Just like any audio compression, the pipe is still too small."

There's just facts in there, no opinion and no claims.
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They specifically stated they're not using Bluetooth or WiFi. They were obviously using the headset to capture the audio in the video segments on the promo, and it sounded pretty good.

The more I look at these the more intrigued I get. I'll be anxious to hear others experience with them.
 
Lightspeed announces new wireless headset "Uniform", the first wireless headset that requires your credit card to be swiped before each use.

Still think this a solution looking for a problem, sure some folks trip on the cables exiting the cockpit but 5 seconds of thought before you exit would resolve that.
 
eman1200 said:
fair 'nuff. for me, I've never been a fan of the headset cable, it annoys me. always has. so, for a free 30 day trial, I'll be testing these out. if having no cable sux so bad, or if the sound quality isn't what I expect it to be, back to lightspeed they go with no loss on my part.
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As part of your report back to us, I'd be interested in battery life if you're able to track how much usage you go on the initial full charge.

I wonder if you're streaming music from your MP3 device via BT, are both the base unit and the headset consuming electrons? Or just the headset..?
 
timwinters said:
You might check this out sometime, Shane...
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Just to be clear. You're ****ing and moaning about the way I **** and moan. Ya, I can't help you with that.

edit: which is just fine by me of course. Because every time you say in some post that you're not going to be a customer, I get a bunch of PoA sales!
 
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flyingron said:
The inflight need for this somehow escapes me. It's not like I'm going to get up and take a walk from the left seat of the Navion. Might be handy if I push my headset into double duty in my office or something.
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The cables can be annoying when sitting right seat because Lightspeed headsets aren't reversible. Or, as I found, when flying left seat in a Diamond because the plug ins are at the back of the center console.

But, most importantly, it will eliminate the possibility of unwittingly damaging a cord because it was hanging out of the door and was smashed in the door when exiting the plane...and left there for a few days or a week. Something I've done not once but twice...being the idiot that I am.

Oh, and Lightspeed fixed both of them at no cost even though both were well out of warranty when I smashed the cords...not that it's even a warranty item in the first place.
 
Archammer said:
There's just facts in there, no opinion and no claims.
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You're going to have to back up your assertion that the "tech isn't ready yet" considering Lightspeed just released the Tango and it's not the first in the game. The military also uses the AWIS system.

There's plenty of devices, both aviation and non-aviation, that use bit rates multiple times more demanding than that necessary for a headset transmitting VHF and Bluetooth audio, and we have no problems using wireless technology for that.

What breakthrough are you waiting for?!?
 
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Turningfinal said:
You're going to have to back up your assertion that the "tech isn't ready yet" considering Lightspeed just released the Tango and it's not the first in the game. The military also uses the AWIS system.

There's plenty of devices, both aviation and non-aviation, that use bit rates multiple times more demanding than that necessary for a headset transmitting VHF and Bluetooth audio, and we have no problems using wireless technology for that.

What breakthrough are you waiting for?!?
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The pipe is not fat enough yet, period. There is no bit rate that is fast enough to allow the side tone (mic B+) without delay through the transceiver. It has absolutely nothing to do with speaker audio.
 
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pigpenracing said:
Do you have a shop at the airport Shane? I need to drop by and check you out one day.
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It's just my little shop on the back of my property. My little one room world headquarters. :) I looked at an old Nursery on the field at HYI, but the licensing and regulation for my requirement were beyond my means. I'll be moving closer to the field probably in Summer 2016. I'm waiting on a little industrial complex to be built off 21 down there.

Just give me a call, I'm putting around somewhere here or on the field all the time.
 
Archammer said:
Maybe I'm misreading what I typed. Where is the claim or opinion in my statement?

"Right, Bluetooth/IoT/NFC/RF all exist already. They have for more than a decade. The "tech" isn't ready yet. It's not fat enough. Just like any audio compression, the pipe is still too small."

There's just facts in there, no opinion and no claims.
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Not being a technical person, I don't understand what your are saying. I get the idea of bandwidth, and pipeline through-put, etc. But are you saying that these won't work, or that the audio quality will just not be that great? And if the latter, how bad will it be? Will it not be adequate enough to serve its purpose as a trade off to permit a cordless option?
 
PPC1052 said:
Not being a technical person, I don't understand what your are saying. I get the idea of bandwidth, and pipeline through-put, etc. But are you saying that these won't work, or that the audio quality will just not be that great? And if the latter, how bad will it be? Will it not be adequate enough to serve its purpose as a trade off to permit a cordless option?
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I actually made a pretty good post on Facebook that, I think, made sense to most everyone. Here's that post:

Without completely geeking out on you guys, as far as I can tell, they're using something like an IoT NFC system, which for lack of a better term, is a "short-throw bluetooth". It stands for Near Field Communication.

Think of things this way. RF/FM is a big ass highway tunnel, but there's no lanes and traffic is all over the place and wrecks happen all day.

Bluetooth is a tiny little half of one lane tunnel with 8 lanes of traffic trying to jam it's ass through all at the same time.

NFC is a backstreet tunnel with one way in and one way out, but there's at least 1 full lane and you have to have a toll-tag.

So the problem is still "lanes open" in the tunnel. Audio compression is the bane of the world right now for audiophiles. There is no viable way to transfer uncompressed sound waves wirelessly without smashing the **** out of the file first. Unfortunately you just can't compress microphone audio like that. If you do, half the time it will sound great, and the other half will sound like the teacher on Charlie Brown.

There are companies like Apple, Sony, Sennheiser and Beats who are doing everything they can to find a solution and I assure you that Lightspeed didn't get the jump on them.
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Archammer said:
I actually made a pretty good post on Facebook that, I think, made sense to most everyone. Here's that post:
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Thanks for your thoughts.

I love the entrepreneurial spirit. Love a product, build the best you can. Grow your business. Good luck with that.

I really like your pin-up girl designs. Wish there were more. (I thought you used to have more choices on that front.)
 
From watching/listening to the webcast, I'm not hearing any notable issues with the audio quality. Could they have monkeyed with the broadcast? Sure...highly unlikely.

Business Rule #1. Don't talk smack about other companies in your business.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Business Rule #1. Don't talk smack about other companies in your business.
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From an infrequent poster with no dog in this fight, I'll second that. I am interested in Squawk Shoppe sets, but Shane is not winning any customers in this thread.

The Lightspeed sounds interesting. We'll have to see how it plays out. The ideal situation (a few years down the road) is to have all the electronics built into the panel so there are no wires at all.
 
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This is exciting. I love the idea of a wireless headset. The price is even reasonable. (When did start thinking $800 was reasonable?)

The audio quality is good. They're not using Bluetooth for the audio connection. It's a custom protocol using "existing technology". They don't have a custom radio license, so it's going to be on one of the open frequencies, almost certainly in the microwave range. My best guess: 300 - 500 kbps available in the 5 GHz range, probably using a DSS system with likely an AAC encoding or similar. AAC encoding in chips is widely available and cheap. 5 GHz chipsets are cheap and highly available. DSPs are cheap. DSS would account for why the headsets work smoothly together. Not the only way to do it, but it's probably the easiest.

I hope this works out nicely. I like that they aren't charging a premium for the wireless. It should mean that when other manufacturers jump in, the premium for wireless will also be small.
 
Seems like it boils down to trading the hassle of headset cords snagging on your leg when you get out for the new hassle of having to either take the thing home with you periodically or stringing more wires to keep it charged.
 
Paul Hamilton said:
Seems like it boils down to trading the hassle of headset cords snagging on your leg when you get out for the new hassle of having to either take the thing home with you periodically or stringing more wires to keep it charged.
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I'm curious to know how long the lithium-ion battery on the headset itself holds a charge. If we are talking 10 hours, well, that's about as good as my PFX's are now. Taking them out to charge them, as opposed to swapping batteries, isn't a big difference.

Less than that might be problematic. I currently get 24 hours out of my tablet, and 18 out of my phone, but we'll have to see how Lightspeed does with this.
 
Jay Honeck said:
I'm curious to know how long the lithium-ion battery on the headset itself holds a charge. If we are talking 10 hours, well, that's about as good as my PFX's are now. Taking them out to charge them, as opposed to swapping batteries, isn't a big difference.

Less than that might be problematic. I currently get 24 hours out of my tablet, and 18 out of my phone, but we'll have to see how Lightspeed does with this.
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LS claims 12 hours. Even if we cut that in half, it's still more flying than I'll do in one sitting. Most likely.
 
I'm old. I remember when pilots didn't buy headsets like millenials buy new cell phones.:lol:
Kidding aside it is a weird consumer shift, another thing that used to be buy one once. That has turned into buy the next one right away never mind how many good ones you have.:dunno: Yeah I know, bold new graphics and the new headsets are .01 faster in the quarter mile.:D
 
Phoenix said:
I'm old. I remember when pilots didn't buy headsets like millenials buy new cell phones.:lol:
Kidding aside it is a weird consumer shift, another thing that used to be buy one once. That has turned into buy the next one right away never mind how many good ones you have.:dunno: Yeah I know, bold new graphics and the new headsets are .01 faster in the quarter mile.:D
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Heh. That's because headsets have gone from Ma Bell to smartphone technology.

My first headset cost $7.00. It was a "franken-headset", made from parts of broken headphones by my original CFI, who was also an avionics tech. They were better than shouting at each other, but that was about it.

Since then, I have ridden the wave of ANR, and loved every minute of it. I've probably dumped $7000 into headsets, over these last 20 years, but nothing -- NOTHING -- has improved flying more.

Pre-ANR, I would need a nap after a cross country flight, and usually had a headache. Post-ANR, I arrive fresh as a daisy. And with each improvement in technology, they've gotten better and better.
 
I gotcha, I can believe it. I'm sure my luck will run out soon lol.
 
Phoenix said:
I'm old. I remember when pilots didn't buy headsets like millenials buy new cell phones.:lol:
Kidding aside it is a weird consumer shift, another thing that used to be buy one once. That has turned into buy the next one right away never mind how many good ones you have.:dunno: Yeah I know, bold new graphics and the new headsets are .01 faster in the quarter mile.:D
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And all those old pilots are suffering from hearing loss.

I'm happy to make a small investment in my hearing now ($1000) versus having to buy hearing aids down the road, that aren't covered by insurance.
 
timwinters said:
T
But, most importantly, it will eliminate the possibility of unwittingly damaging a cord because it was hanging out of the door and was smashed in the door when exiting the plane....
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Ah, that explains it. I don't have that problem. Real airplanes have canopies.
 
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