Connections – The digital Home Conference & Showcase

Peder Burgaard was at the recent Connections – The digital Home Conference & Showcase and he agreed to share his notes with us:

I have just returned from a conference and showcase about home digitalization and surprisingly home automation as it turned out that lots of the panel discussion were about the three competing technologies for home automation Zigbee, Z-Wave and the latest newcomer INSTEON.

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They are all sensor and wireless technologies for light switches, smoke detectors and shades to name a few, so the entire house potentially goes beyond the current limited sensor penetration of only the garage door.

The most interesting aspects of the conference itself was the transformation and bumping of business models in the information super highway landscape that is extending to mobile phones, media centers and IPTV.

The cable companies, wireless carriers and landline internet service providers are all fighting for the same information providing channel as more and more traffic is moving the IP network and bypassing established infrastructures, moving to IPTV for the digital TV of the future and mobile phones among others.

Among the cool items at the Connections showcase, I found this intriguing one designed for the control of the digital home as sensor technology can provide more intuitive use of the remote controls that hitherto.

CES_day_1-440s_003-11365086.jpgHillcrestLabs introduces spontaneous navigation for the home users via a loop-like handheld device that uses sensor technology to orient its position in a three dimensional free-space and is used as a remote pointing device to navigate your media center connected TV.

The device was fun to use and felt like waving a magic wand at the TV obeying my every command – scrolling in and out of menu’s and through multiple layers of user interfaces.

The interaction was very natural like and with all control available through your thumb with a mouse like user interface of left and right buttons plus a scroll wheel in the middle.

How the long term user experience will be is still up for review I my opinion but it sure does provide more exercise than the regular remote control. (Photo: CNET.com)