With new home construction still in the doldrums and well off its peak of 1.8 million housing starts in 2006, according to the National Association of Home Builders, the smart grid is offering home automation company Control4 new life and a foot in the door to a segment of customers the company hasn’t typically reached, Control4 President Glen Mella told us. “We believe utilities represent one channel for deploying a technology footprint into a large number of homes,” he said, saying 80 percent of the company’s business goes through custom installation and retail channels.
The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream by CEA President Gary Shapiro reached No. 5 on the Wall Street Journal nonfiction bestseller list Thursday. The 224-page book, released Jan. 6 to coincide with the Consumer Electronics Show, has a $24.95 list price at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, but by last week, perhaps fittingly for a book coming out of the consumer electronics industry, had been discounted to $14.81 online at BN and Amazon. Barnes & Noble said last month (CED Dec 8 p5) that no version would be available for the Nook e-reader, but we bought a NOOKbook of The Comeback last week for $9.99. A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman told us that the publisher decides whether a book will be made available in e-book format. The Kindle e-book edition also was $9.99.
Coby will decide this quarter whether to spin off V-Zon as a separate brand. The company has been testing the brand at P.C. Richard & Son stores to decide whether marketing a separate second brand “is a viable strategy,” Michael Troetti, president of Coby Electronics, told Consumer Electronics Daily. Coby V-Zon is the company’s sub-brand for portable DVD players and the company’s MPEG-4 video player, he noted.
The installed base of Web-enabled stationary CE devices is expected to jump by a factor of six by 2014 to more than 230 million units, according to In-Stat. Analyst Keith Nissen said consumer adoption of online applications through Web-enabled CE devices -- including digital TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, videogame consoles, DVRs and network storage devices --is driving the growth, especially in the U.S. and Europe, where online video is readily available. He said consumer adoption of apps on Web-enabled TVs will be regional and sometimes country-specific. China, he noted, has “very little licensed video entertainment content available for delivery over the Internet."
The 4th Bin, a New York City-based e-waste pick-up service, is gearing up to take advantage of New York’s Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act. It goes into effect April 1, requiring manufacturers of covered electronic equipment (CEE) to take back a wide range of electronic waste. CEO Michael Deutsch said the company is “working on deals with some consumer electronics manufacturers” who are required to offer standard methods of collection to consumers, including drop-off points and collection events for discarded electronics, but who don’t have to offer “premium” pickup services for equipment.
Lower than expected demand for higher-priced Blu-ray titles and 28-day-delay agreements for movie titles in its Redbox movie rental service were among factors Coinstar cited when it dramatically cut Q4 and full-year 2010 earnings estimates. Analysts, however, faulted the company’s overly aggressive forecasts and competition from streaming rental models and retail competitors.
Worldwide Q4 PC shipments totaled 93.5 million units in Q4, 3.1 percent more than a year earlier, according to preliminary figures from Gartner Group, but below its forecast of 4.8 percent growth. Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa cited competition from tablets, including the iPad, along with game consoles and other CE devices.
LAS VEGAS -- The home automation industry is still looking for the compelling benefit that will drive mass-market adoption, but the proliferation of connected devices is a step in that direction, Will West, founder of Control4, said on a connected home panel at CES sponsored by his company. In its fifth year, Control4 “is just getting out of the gate,” West said.
In its first foray into 3D TV, Coby Electronics is testing the waters of both active-shutter and passive 3D TV technology, President Michael Troetti told us at CES last week. The company demonstrated a bevy of backlit LED LCD TVs, including 22-, 24-, 32-, 40-, 46- and 55-inch models, offering 120 Hz refresh rates and two HDMI 1.4 inputs, he said. A 22-inch passive 3D model didn’t survive the trip to CES, Troetti said. “It was too banged up,” he said. But plans call for the passive 3D TV to launch in April. Troetti said the TV targets the gamer market, in which users typically play in a small space such as a bedroom or dorm room and don’t have the budget for pricy active-shutter 3D glasses. The LED-based 3D HDTVs range from $399 (22-inch) to $1,699 (55-inch). Coby also showed its first connected TVs. The company had planned a Google TV model powered by the Android OS, Troetti told us, “but Google’s on hold, so we're on hold.” The Internet TV models will roll out between January and June, he said, in 23-, 32-, 40-, 46- and 55-inch screen sizes ranging from $349 to $1,599. Coby also showed new Kyros tablets, all running Android 2.1 and priced under $300, including 7-inch ($179), 8-inch ($249) and 10-inch ($299) models.
LAS VEGAS -- Summit Semiconductor is targeting the top 40 percent of the home theater market this year with its Summit Wireless SoC technology, positioned as an audio/video receiver replacement. Summit Wireless, which debuted in the fall at CEDIA in speakers from Aperion Audio, is under development in 21 projects, according to the company, and will appear at the $1,000 hi-fi level before going mainstream in 2012 in flat-panel TVs and $500-level home-theater-in-a-box systems.