Universal Bows High-End Remotes and Total Control Add-Ons at CEDIA

The company launched three new remotes for the installer market at CEDIA, including a water-resistant model with a silicon membrane. All three one-way handheld remotes operate over both IR and 418 MHz narrowband RF and can be programmed by a PC using proprietary software, the company said. Suggested retail prices are $299 for the MX-780 with an LED display, $599-$699 for the MX-1200 with a 2.4-inch LED touch screen and $449 for the water-resistant model targeted for kitchen and outdoor use. There’s still a market for high-end handheld remotes, Sienkiewicz said, saying some customers aren’t ready to make the transition from a one-way remote to a more expensive, and more sophisticated, two-way type. “People want to enjoy their systems and are willing to pay for full programming in a high-quality remote,” he said.

The company also introduced an in-wall touch screen at CEDIA. While iPad apps have eaten into the touch screen business of many control companies, Sienkiewicz said a market remains for high-end touch screens that use hard buttons for quick access. “The iPad lacks the speed and buttons for one-button quick access,” he said. He said the iPad wouldn’t work for commercial control applications that require fast response to commands, and the company is focusing increasingly on the commercial market to reflect the changing business mix of integrators.

To cover its bases, Universal introduced an iPad/iPhone app for its Total Control home management system, however. The company is “coming close” to its targeted dealer list of 500 for Total Control, which has been shipping since spring in limited form. “We're shipping a full system, but not every component,” Sienkiewicz said. At CEDIA, Universal added a controllable thermostat but availability wasn’t disclosed.

The company could “live without” Total Control and rely on its remote control business, Sienkiewicz said, but Total Control “is the future.” He cited expansion opportunities into areas beyond what the company is already doing with lighting and audio control including security cameras, lawn sprinkler systems and medical monitoring. The system is a “low-cost” control system that dealers have been asking for, he said. Taking a swipe at multi-room audio competitor Sonos, he said, “it’s a more complete solution than what’s out there, and you can’t buy it at Target."

Universal’s OEM business remains healthy, Sienkiewicz said, saying the company supplies 80 percent of Time Warner Cable’s remote controls. Prices for those remotes are low-end compared with the custom residential business, but “volume is high,” he said. -- Rebecca Day

CEDIA Expo Notebook

Control4 is beta-testing an Android app called MyHome that enables homeowners to access and control lighting, temperature, security, music, and videos from Android-enabled smartphones and tablets, the company said at CEDIA. The app, developed by Clever Controls, will be available in Q4 for free to homeowners who have a MyHome site license. Site licenses are $499 for up to 50 devices or $199 for a single device, the company said. Homeowners who have already bought a site license for iOS apps or PCs can add the Android app for free, it said. Control4 also announced a Sub-Zero app that enables Sub-Zero appliance owners to monitor status of refrigerators or ovens on any household display. A company spokeswoman said the app can relay status information including oven temperature, whether a refrigerator door has been opened, or which filters need replacing, she said. The app is available at 4Store.com, which lists more than 130 apps, she said. Control4 also introduced a 7-inch two-way touchpanel controller with intercom capability that operates over a home’s Wi-Fi network. The intercom feature was developed as part of Control4’s Smart+Connected Communities program with Cisco, CEO Will West told us. The intercom allows the homeowner to have a conversation with someone using another intercom device without requiring either person to hold down a button, the company said. Users can ring room-to-room and set privacy features, it said. Whole-home intercom functionality allows users to take an intercom device from one room to another and to parts of the house without an in-wall touch screen, it said. West said its smart grid project with Nevada Energy is the first time a utility has done a large-scale energy management project with its customers. The utility plans to roll out to 20,000 out of 80,000 available customers within 6 months (CED Aug 29 p1), West said. Homeowners in the program, which is “beyond the pilot stage,” will use Control4’s EMS 100 home management system to monitor energy usage, West noted. Control4’s hope is that once the controller is in the home, consumers will want to add features including control of lights, water heaters and more. Nevada Energy is working with Control4 dealers for installation during the pilot work, but future dealer involvement is “still to be determined,” West said. Some dealers will be able to expand their business to handle the volume offered by the program and add services that build on the EMS 100 package, which includes a touch screen controller/gateway, thermostat and software, West said. “Once you start getting automation into homes, it starts to heighten consumer awareness,” he said. Control4 hopes to benefit from efforts by regulating bodies such as the California Public Utilities Commission, which is pushing utilities to “think about retail as a mechanism for fulfillment of smart grid systems,” said Richard Walker, executive vice president of products for Control4. Retailers might offer a selection of devices approved by the local utility, which would refer consumers to Control4 retailers with installation capabilities, he told us. “You would go down and present a coupon and Best Buy would come into your home to install it,” he said. “Public utility commissions are actively encouraging utilities to offer choice to consumers and the mechanism for them to avail themselves of energy management systems,” he said. Control4 products are available through Magnolia stores through a custom solution, but eventually Control4 wants to offer do-it-yourself options, West said. He didn’t provide a timeframe but said offering a do-it-yourself version of Control4 would raise awareness for the system and lead to more expanded installations by dealers. -- RD

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Savant Systems, supplier of a high-end Apple-based home automation system, launched at CEDIA a DECT phone system that supports 72 devices. The phones are designed to mesh with the company’s home automation software, enabling control functions of lighting, music, thermostats and appliances from a phone with a 4.5-inch display, said Jim Carroll, founder and general manager of residential business. A prototype phone in Savant’s booth sported a built-in iPod Touch. Eighty percent of Savant’s dealer base sells phone systems, Carroll told us, but most sub out the business to other installers. Savant’s Blueprint software tool allows integration with electronics in the home without extensive programming using drag-and-drop operation, he said. The VoIP system can re-direct cell calls to landline phones, show Caller ID information on TV and automatically mute the TV when a call comes in, Carroll said. Telephony has always been on the 4-year-old company’s roadmap, he said, since founding members’ background was in telecom. The phones will be available in 2 weeks, along with an energy monitoring and management system, Carroll said. The energy management system shows homeowners real-time information on electricity use and cost via sensors attached to appliances in the home. The system can also tie in with solar panels to show net consumption, he said. In the future, the software will be predictive, enabling homeowners to see the cost savings of dimming lights or lowering the thermostat, he said. Savant also showed its Select remote control, which has a built-in iPod touch that builds the functionality of a touch screen controller into a handheld remote. Users like the form factor of a remote, along with hard buttons for certain functions such as volume, mute and channel up and down, Carroll said. The remote began shipping last month and the company’s allocation for the quarter sold out in 2 days, he said. Dealers generally sell the remote for $1,200, he said. Carroll said some of the company’s 650-700 dealers have signed up “just for that remote.” He said the company is “resistant” to more dealers even though reps have told him they could sign 2,000 more dealers in 90 days. Having fewer dealers translates to “more jobs, a larger geographic area and higher profit” for those dealers, he said. -- RD

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CEDIA released preliminary data from a new market research report, Size and Scope of the Residential Electronic Systems Market in the US, that’s part of a larger initiative to provide “top-level data” on the custom electronics market on an annual basis. The report will include characteristics of companies working within the residential electronics systems industry in the U.S, total economic impact of the installation industry, the number of installation companies, the size of the workforce, along with trends, forecasts, and manufacturer product sales broken down by product category and distribution, said Erika Shonkwiler, CEDIA market research director. CEDIA is working with Parks Associates on data collection, she said. For shipment data, CEDIA identified product categories first and then sent out invitations to manufacturers asking them to participate in the report “knowing we wouldn’t get all of them,” she said. A lot of manufacturers were supportive of the project and cited a need for this type of data, she said, but some of the larger companies asked for “strenuous confidentiality stipulations” in terms of shipment information and even their participation in the project. “They were concerned that market research analysts would be able to mine their information and extract theirs specifically,” Shonkwiler said. CEDIA confirmed to manufacturers that it would provide data on a specific product category only “if we have a large enough sample of manufacturers in that category that it is representative enough, and you wouldn’t be able to extract,” she said. As CEDIA establishes itself as a more credible research entity “and manufacturers see that they can trust us with their information,” CEDIA hopes it will be able to “loosen up” information on manufacturer participation, she said. Preliminary findings from the report indicate that the total custom residential electronics market comprises 17,500-18,500 installation companies including 10,500-11,500 custom retailers and AV integrators. Of the remaining companies that do electronics as part of another business, 2,500-3,500 are security companies, 2,000-3,000 are IT/networking companies and 1,250-2,250 electrical contractor firms, she said. The average gross revenue in 2010 of all respondents to the installer survey for the report was $1.6 million, she said. -- RD

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Mitsubishi Electric Visual Solutions America will field a new laser-based rear projection TV in 2012, but features and pricing haven’t been finalized, Senior Product Manager John Hwang said. Mitsubishi fielded a 75-inch LaserVue set this year that shipped in July at $5,999 and those dealers selling it said consumers aren’t aware of it yet. Mitsubishi also has “heavy backorders” for its 92-inch DLP-based rear projection TV ($5,999), forcing the company to “rethink our manufacturing strategy” in terms of allocating parts for its TVs, Hwang said. “We should be able to catch up on our back orders pretty quickly,” Hwang said. LaserVue TV sales have been slow so far due to a lack of consumer awareness, said Starpower Chairman Daniel Pidgeon, whose chain sells the set. “I think when word gets around to what it really is, the acceptance will be really great,” he said. “It’s a great product and it sells on its own merits, but you have to talk to the customer about it.” Meanwhile, Mitsubishi has for now abandoned plans for selling its rear projection TVs in the commercial market (CED June 20 p2), Hwang said. “The initial response was tough and there were a lot of development resources we would have to put in” in making consumer TVs ready for the commercial market, “and we had to see if we could grab more business in other areas,” Hwang said. “It doesn’t seem worthwhile right now, but we are still investigating it.” In front projectors, Mitsubishi unveiled its first DLP-based 3D front projector ($3,495) that uses a 0.65-inch chip to deliver 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, 1,600 lumens, and 30,000:1 contrast ratio. The brightness declines 20 percent in 3D, but that compares to a 50 percent drop off in the Diamond model that Mitsubishi fielded last year based on Sony’s 0.61-inch SXRD LCoS chip, Product Manager Wayne Kozuki said. The HC7800D also is packaged with a new transmitter containing 14 LEDs, up from nine LEDs a year ago that provides great coverage in a room, Kozuki said. The new model will come with 3D glasses featuring a new proprietary active shutter technology that reduces the switching speeds between the left and right eye to 0.3 millisecond from two milliseconds a year ago, Kozuki said. Mitsubishi also is making a running change starting this month on the SXRD-based Diamond front projector, adding a frame rate convertor, and is cutting the price $1,000 to $5,995, he said. The new FRC enables Mitsubishi to increase speeds to 92 frames per second from 24 frames per second for 3D, eliminating judder found in the non-FRC model, Kozuki said. -- MS

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Starpower Home Entertainment Systems expects to close on the purchase of Kellum Video & Appliance on Sept. 20, slightly ahead of an earlier plans for Sept. 26 (CED Sept 7 p5), Starpower Chairman Daniel Pidgeon said. The integration of the companies’ respective IT systems will be complete within 60 days, Pidgeon said. Starpower won’t change the Kellum brand or store but will take over CE buying for the retailer, he said. Kellum was a little deeper in carrying Sharp and Sony products than Starpower was, Pidgeon said. Starpower also will consider adding to its stores the high-end appliances that are part of Kellum’s product mix, Pidgeon said. -- MS

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Digital Projection started production of dVision Scope, capable of handling 2.35:1 content natively, at its Manchester, U.K., factory Sept. 1, with initial monthly capacity for 50 units, George Walter, vice president of home cinema, told us. Monthly production will eventually scale to 100 units as Digital Projection moves to lower the product’s price to $40,000 from the current range of $45,000 to $50,000, he said. The projector uses three 0.95-inch DLP chips that deliver 2560x1080 resolution, 2,000 lumens from a 300-watt UHP lamp and 7,500:1 contrast ratio. Texas Instruments initially was paid non-recurring engineering fees by Christie Digital and Projectiondesign to develop the chip but dropped plans last year, Walter said. The project resumed when Digital Projection proposed a change in the integrated rod, reshaping it so the light would hit only the center of the DLP chip at 1080p and using software to detect 2.35:1 format, Walter said. Previously the light would cover the entire chip, Walter said. The Digital Projection-designed software switches the projector to 2.35:1 if it detects a second black bar. The chip has a Sigma Designs VXP processor, Walters said. Meanwhile, Digital Projection expects to pick up some business after Projectiondesign decided to stop selling projectors in the U.S. residential market to focus on the simulation and control room segment, industry officials said. Projectiondesign officials weren’t available for comment. Projectiondesign demonstrated an Avielo front projector at the 2010 CEDIA capable of 2.35:1 using the same 0.95-inch DLP chip, but hasn’t shipped it in the U.S. Projectiondesign’s Avielo brand for the home theater market is stronger in Europe and Japan, industry officials said. Projectiondesign earlier this year bought out its U.S. distributor Gary Plavin and his brother Jim and hired a former Tandberg president as its new Americas president (CED June 16 p4).