3:44am EST, Tue Feb 9

4HomeMedia To Make Complicated, Disjointed User Experiences Disappear

By: The Online Reporter
Publish Date: January 06, 2007

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By Charles Hall How in Hades are consumers, who aren't any more technology-capable than they were a year ago, and, if anything, have less time, going to get all the widgets expected to launch this year set up, connected to the Internet and talking to each other? The 2007 gadget dam will burst at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas with a slew of new broadband consumer electronics gear - from home media servers to Internet-connectable appliances to home monitoring systems. Single Interface for Controlling Home Network Gear A Silicon Valley start-up called 4HomeMedia says it has the answer. Not only that, but 4HomeMedia claims its software, called ControlPoint, will make things easy by offering a standard user interface for all those devices. And, ControlPoint will run not just on any PC but also on any TV, mobile phone or other device that has a broadband connection and a current browser. The product is so good, according to 4HomeMedia marketing VP Brad Kayton, that it beat out over 100 other applications to win a Consumer Electronics Association's "Best of Innovations" award in the Integrated Home Systems category - even though ControlPoint will be shown publicly for the first time at CES. Will Run on PCs, TVs and Smart Phones ControlPoint uses a patent-pending "contextual" user interface for managing all connected hardware and services - from PCs to smart phones to media servers to appliances to home security systems. It's like an automobile. When someone turns the ignition key, he looks at the dashboard's control panel (the instrument cluster to get technical) for everything he needs to know. He doesn't have to worry about the engine, the transmission, the gearbox, the alternator, the battery, the carburetor and the many hundreds of parts and sub-systems that have to work together for the car to move. 4HomeMedia Interface on a Laptop 4HomeMedia wants to supply the control panel (the interface) for all the home's digital media gear, appliances and security systems. It also provides the tools (the platform) that equipment makers and service providers need to integrate their products into the control panel so that users see the same interface. The control panel is accessible to users from any PC, TV, smart phone or any other device with a screen, a broadband connection and a current browser - and all with the same interface. 4Homemedia is offering "a solution to the complicated and disjointed user-experiences" that come with today's broadband and entertainment products," according to Nate Williams, the company's strategic marketing director. It does that through its network-level, cross- platform user-interface system whose goal is to "hide the complexity of dealing with the various underlying network protocols, devices and individual control interfaces, and present the end-user with a seamless experience across a range of home systems and applications." The ControlPoint Platform Kayton says ControlPoint is a Linux-based platform that CE makers and broadband service providers (the phone and cable TV companies) can use to develop and deploy a new generation of entertainment and control applications for the digital home - and do so rapidly. Broadband service providers and CE makers will be able to use ControlPoint services to differentiate their otherwise too similar products. ControlPoint software and services run both locally - on a box in the home, say in a broadband set-top box, and on the company's remote servers. The server software renders the user interface on the many different screens, without the need for a special client application, on any compatible smartphone, PC, Mac, TV or gaming system. By compatible, 4HomeMedia means they have a broadband connection and can run a current browser. All it takes it one copy of the software, deployed anywhere on the home network, to deliver an optimized user-interface experience to any user of any browser-based display, anywhere in the world, any time, the company says. Those rushing to get Internet-compatible include Samsung, JVC and Mitsubishi, all of whom have or will soon have TV sets with broadband access and a browser. On such sets, the user would turn on the TV, select the broadband connection as the input (in the same way users select their DVD player as the input) and go to the 4HomeMedia Portal that's running remotely on 4HomeMedia's servers. It would work the same for PCs, smart phones and any of the myriad broadband-enabled portable devices that'll be coming to market. ControlPoint looks the same to the user, regardless of screen size or resolution. It uses a "light-weight," distributed architecture that has been implemented with standard Web technologies for easy portability to a wide range of networked consumer products. The software stops short of telephony and broadcast TV - the pay-TV services. Alphanumeric Soup: DLNA, IEEE 1394-based HANA, LonWorks, Z-Wave 4HomeMedia believes it has the only available user interface that unifies device control and features from Ethernet-based Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standards and from IEEE 1394-based High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance (HANA) guidelines into a seamless user experience. ControlPoint also comes with full support for two of the new plug- and-play home control protocols, the LonWorks ISI protocol for whole-home coverage using power line communication, and the Z-Wave wireless mesh protocol. The company claims ControlPoint is the first networked user- interface platform designed to provide the ability to rapidly develop and deploy a range of simple-to-install, no-new-wires, services-based applications. Hardware Starter Kit: ControlPoint 1000 To help its partners get to market quickly, 4HomeMedia has developed a hardware reference design called the ControlPoint 1000TM, which enables the quick development and deployment of a wide range of end- user solutions. ControlPoint software can be embedded into systems based on this ControlPoint 1000 reference design. It can, more optimally for consumers, be embedded into consumer products that come with network connectors such as HDTVs, residential gateways, set-top boxes, CE entertainment devices, gaming systems and other such devices. 4HomeMedia.Net All active copies of ControlPoint are connected with the 4HomeMedia.Net Web portal, which provides a secure connection for remote or mobile access as well as a means to activate, register, backup and download customizations to each individual home. This portal-based architecture also provides a powerful means to deliver advanced home services to the consumer. The 4HomeMedia end-to-end system enables new business models for service providers and hardware vendors, as well as home integrators and retailers. Solving Two Problems "There are basically two problems our team had the mission to solve," said 4HomeMedia president and CEO Paul Gifford. First, he said, the company wanted to solve the problems caused by "the complicated and disjointed user-experiences" that today's broadband and entertainment products bring by developing "a network-level, cross-platform user-interface system." Second, it wanted to provide broadband service providers and their equipment suppliers plus CE makers with a new source of revenue. ControlPoint "hides the complexity of dealing with the various underlying network protocols, devices and individual control interfaces, and presents the end-user with a seamless experience across a range of home systems and applications," Gifford said. "A point which often comes up in our discussions with CE companies is the need for a user interface solution for media and device control which is sorely lacking in the current state of the digital home eco-system," said Ben Bajarin, consumer technology and digital media strategist at Creative Strategies. "There is a clear market need there that isn't being addressed." 4HomeMedia says it's already working with customers to deploy solutions based on ControlPoint in Q2. The product will, of course, be on display at CES where the company intends to announce some details of its first customers, including North America's AlphaTelecom, Asia's Nico Technology and Europe's InAccess Networks and Secyourit. The Home Control Market The home control market is big, in case anyone hasn't noticed. A report from Parks Associates this week said the market will grow from $3 billion in 2005 to $3.5 billion in 2007. The report, "Home Systems: Home Controls Update," says that by 2010, more than 30 million US households will have a network that bridges numerous products and extends the entertainment experience to multiple rooms in the home. Home controls will benefit greatly from this increasing connectivity, and the market will grow steadily over the next six years, exceeding $4 billion in 2010 and reaching $6 billion by 2012. "The market for home controls lacks consumer awareness, not technical capability, and the entry of high-profile companies, together with the increasing adoption of broadband and connected- entertainment services, will help overcome this hurdle," said Bill Ablondi, director of home systems research for Parks Associates. "Historically, home control systems have been associated with the new-home market," he said. "We will see this trend change dramatically over the next few years as powerline and wireless technologies will eliminate the need to re-wire existing homes in order to provide control and audio/video distribution capabilities. With the population of pre-existing homes open to home controls, this market will have immense potential."