I strongly feel Onkyo should update all devices of the last 5 to 6 years that have networking technologies the ability to receive digital streams through the network. right now it seems barely a handful of Onkyo products have been selected to have its Chromecast abilities improved or added, yet Onkyo customers have thousands of dollars in multiple systems and it is unfair to ask them to upgrade especially when Chromecast has been out for many years, technology wise.
I personally have an interest in the TXNR 609 TXNR 717 but I believe even more of the Onkyo's receivers should be updated including those products where streaming has broken down because of protocol changing from vendors such as Spotify. It's extremely unfair that products more than two or three years old are left in the digital dust, especially after investing so much money into the Onkyo ecosystem. As I said in another post Onkyo would benefit by structuring firmware's so that they can be easily upgraded with the latest protocols across the board and even into pass products much the way that Netgear does it.
For wireless products using WPA2 Onkyo and other vendors have a responsibility to upgrade products going into many years past as this protocol has been breached. vendors such as Netgear and D-Link etc. and software vendors such as Microsoft and other operating systems are all updating the software and firmware in order to protect users from this threat. Since firmware is need to be updated that have wireless capabilities e.g. Wi-Fi, Onkyo Would be smart to update firmware's so that their products can integrate with the latest technologies that are dominating the market such as smart phones and smart home systems. It is shortsighted that the Chromecast implementation that are in the product so far focus only on one zone. That defeats the entire concept of zones. For example you should be able to integrate the concept of zones into smart home systems. The remote control is becoming a thing of the past and voice control is becoming the future, with other vendors of similar products fully embracing this.
I would like to know Onkyo's commitment to its past products and what its commitment to future products for how many years for product. I'd also like to know its commitment to update its past and present product lines to be able to integrate with technologies that have been mainstream for years such as smart home systems and smart phones. Again it would behoove Onkyo if they would release APIs into the public allowing the Onkyo engineers to learn from the natural creative talent that would surface from developers who would take the APIs to their limits, as well as figure out most of the bugs doing a lot of free work for Onkyo engineers. As I'm deciding whether to sell my Onkyo equipment or to keep investing in it, I'd like to know its commitment past basic operation of the equipment, but continued support of features that were sold for each product, future proofing its technology, and its commitment to smart home and smart phones. if vagueness or noncommitment is present then I'll have to choose a vendor that's fully embracing these concepts in the future as well as integrating such into its past product lines; thus not only increasing customer loyalty, but creating a much higher inherent value in their ecosystems. Investing in product lines is costly, and it's no longer just basic equipment that you're investing in but a set of services that need to be maintained for years. If you want customer loyalty and customers to continue to invest in Onkyo's ecosystem not only do current and future products need to embrace these concepts but unless you want many customers to switch to other vendors pass products was also be brought up to speed with what has been mainstream for years with smart phones and smart home systems. This includes everything from Apple to Google to Z wave, and more. Obviously not everything can be added to every product but the very least add the extreme mainstream to your products past present and future, fix the security issues, change your firmware development so that fixes and enhancements to the code will be able to automatically proliferate to many devices, and lastly make your users feel like they've invested it in something valuable that will continue to be such for years, rather than abandoning products ( beyond basic hardware fixes ) not long after the warranty expires. Add features even to past products, and make upgrades significant beyond simple sets of services, which should be common (and maintained) across many years of your product lines.
M
USA Website