Home Geek Home

The home of the not too distant future will include uber-entertainment systems and a refrigerator that tells you when you're out of milk. Think of the marketing possibilities.

In a few years, people won't think twice about clicking the remote control of a bedroom TV to view shows from the satellite receiver or DVD player located in the living room. The PC in a child's room will be able to access a program from the larger hard drive in the home office PC, connect to the Internet through the home office broadband modem, or send a report for output on the remote color laser printer. Meanwhile, the TV in the family room will bring big-screen excitement to videogaming by displaying a game disc running on a computer elsewhere in the home--even as the person using that PC toils away at a spreadsheet. And before too long, the mobile phone will cease to be a device that communicates exclusively over cellular channels, but in the home will double as a cordless extension for the residential line.

The idea of a networked home has been slowly advancing from concept to reality. Some of these systems are already available in rudimentary form--the networks are dedicated and segmented, not multipurpose and ubiquitous--but they point to the full potential likely to be realized in the next year or two. Looking five years out, the home with audio, video, PC and telecom products that communicate among themselves by radio waves or some form of "smart" wire will no longer be at the bleeding edge of the frontier, but well within the mainstream.

As with so many new products and services, home networking's day has come with the advent of digital technology and methods for compressing the digital data. The signal is robust, compression can fit more of it into smaller pipes and discrete coding can enable multiple signals to travel simultaneously without causing mutual interference.

In coming years, home networking will follow two paths. Neither is mutually exclusive and each can coexist, even within the same residence. One route comprises long- and short-range wireless technologies that use radio frequencies to send broad- and narrowband signals. Bluetooth, which consumers will be hearing a lot about in the coming year, transfers data in distances measured in footsteps--up to 83 feet. The short-range communications standard is expected to make its debut soon, following more than two years of development by a global consortium of high-tech companies (www.bluetooth.com).

Hard-wired systems will also emerge, using efficient fiber-optic cable and telephone wiring to supplant coaxial and AC powerline links. Depending on the application, combinations of the two are likely-with wireless systems linking devices in small local hubs that network with other devices over greater distances through a wired grid.

Business plans are vague, at best, on how to take advantage of the marketing opportunities. But as the outlets for content and data proliferate through the home, the marketing opportunities will become more apparent.

A big boost came to wireless home networking last month when the Federal Communications Commission approved the standard which will allow wireless devices to send data-hungry signals such as video throughout the home. These long-range systems broadcast up to 150 feet, good enough to wirelessly send audio and video from, say, the satellite receiver in the living room to the TV in the bedroom. The transceivers are expected next year at a cost below $100 for each networked product.

The developers of Bluetooth want to eliminate the cumbersome wired links between PC and telecom products. One function developers are working on is to automatically synchronize among desktop and portable PCs, PDAs and mobile phones. For example, the devices will be able to update one anothers' files (even if one of them is concealed in a briefcase). Bluetooth is also working on a "three-in-one" concept for cellular phones. In mobile operation, the cell phone performs as usual. If there's a hands-free cell phone installed in a car, a handheld will switch over automatically to the automotive system, even in mid-conversation. It will also act as a cordless extension inside the home.

Products already exist for short-range connectivity, including devices that send music from a stereo system to wireless headphones or loudspeakers, or to exchange files between portable and desktop PCs. For example, Acer NeWeb's WDC-900 essentially operates as a serial cable, enabling PCs to swap data at about the same data transfer rate as a 56kbps modem but wirelessly, over a range up to 450 feet. A laptop equipped with the WDC-900 also could send files to a remote printer.

New York-based Terk Technologies (www.terk.com) markets the Leapfrog HomeNetwork for $179. It plugs into any phone jack, and its effective range is 500 linear feet of wire. Up to four TVs or other receivers in different rooms can be linked to a single, central A/V source such as a DVD/CD player, satellite/cable set top or VCR (additional receiver modules for extra rooms go for $99).

Users can maintain remote control over the central source from wherever they choose: The receiver in the bedroom uses the phone line to relay infrared commands from the zapper there to the infrared "eye" of the source unit. Thus, it's possible to switch channels, fast-forward or reverse, or perform any other function without being in the same room as the program source. Programs relayed within the home by Leapfrog don't interfere with telephone service, including fax machines or PC modems--and vice versa.

LIVING ROOM

HAVi (Home Audio Video Interoperability) is the standards group for the digital wired system for home networks. Its work in progress is being conducted by eight leading consumer electronics and personal computer makers. HAVi makes its path around the home with the thin, fiber-optic cable that Apple Computer calls FireWire, Sony calls "iLink" and the rest of the industry simply refers to as IEEE-1394. What makes HAVi special is the software language its proponents are developing to enable different products from different brands to communicate among one another and function as though they all sprang from the same cyber-genome.

Simply put, that lingua franca will enable each product to identify itself and its function to all others on the system. So, a Panasonic brand VCR will tell a Sony TV what commands it needs to know to make a recording.

Meanwhile, an RCA satellite receiver in the loop will teach the TV and VCR its commands for turning on to receive and record a show that the consumer has pre-programmed for time-shift reasons. Up to 127 different devices can conduct two-way conversations and operations simultaneously, and they don't need to be connected to the loop in any specific order to communicate.

Another example: If a person in a bedroom hears a song on the digital radio and wants to record it, he clicks "record" on the nearest remote control to put a recording device in a remote location into action. That person won't have to select or tell the system what device should do the recording--the devices will have worked that out among themselves.

Web Via 2-Way Paging: Motorola is tapping into teens' insatiable desire to be connected. Its Talkabout T900 line of tutti-frutti colored pager enables users to swap e-mail and text-chat via the Internet (as well as to possibly grab a news update, sports score or stock update).

Sony is readying its forthcoming PlayStation 2 videogame console (which debuts later this month) to wirelessly tap into Japan's iMode network to download games, upload scores and enable gainers to compete wirelessly, through the Web. The game needn't end when the gamer leaves the home console: The battle can resume on the subway or the bus through iMode phones with color LCD screens.

Electronic books are close to market and beg for in-home networking, especially in homes with school-age kids.

Digital Radio: This will come in two flavors--by satellite, and over the same terrestrial frequencies as today's AM and FM. In either case, marketing opportunities will abound, owing to digital overhead for supplemental material above and beyond the bandwidth needed to deliver CD-quality sound. The way the radios are configured, marketers will have the opportunity to sell goods and services, or, even simply supply coupons for them. For example, without interrupting the music, a "Tell Me More" button on the radio could yield more information about a advertisement, or concert information or opportunities to buy the content being aired.

Developers envision that receivers will incorporate a time-buffer and storage memory, making it easy to record a song even if the listener already is halfway into the segment. They also see building in a printer to output coupons related to ads.

In the case of satellite digital radio, automakers see all sorts of "telematic" services being offered to the mobile subscriber--signals that communicate directly with the vehicle. Locked out? Ford Motor Co. says a simple phone call could instruct the satellite to send an "unlock door" code that only the specific vehicle would understand.

KITCHEN/BATH

Refrigerators that post milk, butter and beer levels on a door-mounted LCD and transmit these to a PDA's shopping list--or even e-mail a shopping list to the local supermarket for instant replenishment--will make us wonder how we ever did without.

Aside from the utility of the cyber-icebox, the average household might save a few bucks on groceries from coupons or other ad-sponsored premiums zapped to the icebox-cum-TV. More useful, perhaps, will be the "networked" appliance. Such a device might alert the family that the washing machine will give out after three more loads, simultaneously paging its S.O.S. to the service bureau. The best brains in appliances, cellular telephony and PCs (Whirlpool, Nokia and IBM, respectively) are working on just such "sponsored" life-rings. Charmed Technology (www.infocharms.com), an offshoot of the vaunted Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has produced the Charmed Communicator, a waistbelt PC whose output can be accessed via accessories such as a wireless sunglass-style monitor and a wristpad-mounted mouse and mini-keypad.

The baby-boom population is aging rapidly, healthcare systems are stressed and unlike consumer electronics products, the price of medical care never goes down Consumer electronics vendors such as Panasonic and RCA are now using their expertise to prepare what probably will be their biggest homerun since the first radio: Laptop PC-size home healthcare monitors, which are now being tested. These devices harness the Internet to keep healthcare consumers in constant touch with their healthcare providers. Two-way interactive communication is a given: "Webcams" on either side keep the patient and visiting "nurse" in direct audio/video touch. The modem connection enables either party to contact the other instantly. This technology also affords marketing opportunities-some that might subsidize the cost of services.

COPYRIGHT 2000 BPI Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group