Smart Home Blog

British Columbia-based embedded board and development services vendor Techsol announced a customizable touch-panel equipped single-board computer based on Linux. The wall-mounted, 4.6 x 3.7 x 1-inch TPC-43 comes with a 4.3-inch touchscreen with resolution 480×272. It’s powered by an undisclosed ARM-920T-based system-on-chip (SoC) clocked at 200MHz or 266MHz and has 64MB of “mobile SDRAM” and 64MB NAND Flash. The TPC-43 is based on Linux and supports both Qt and GTK+ for producing GUI.

Additionally the TPC-43 comes with zPoint Experimenter’s Kit to setup and control a ZigBee mesh network. As you may know ZigBee is a modern wireless technology for home automation. It’s a competitor of Z-Wave which looks more perspective for me.

In any case the price in $400 seems reasonable to such device. To have possibility play with ZigBee devices you should be 100 bucks additionally. So, the whole set will be $500.

Share This

A new model of luxury remote with touchscreen NevoS70 was announced on the CES 2008. Its features include:

• Non-line of sight control using Z-Wave(TM) bidirectional wireless communications to ensure reliable command execution and to show the power status of entertainment equipment in the home
• Extended battery life and broad home coverage
• Connection to the home network for multimedia control with industry standard wireless technology (802.11g)
• Ability to view and control any device that has a compatible embedded web server, such as many web-based cameras and media servers
• Control for many home automation devices
• Access to web-based services to deliver real-time information such as news, sports and stock quotes

Together with a NevoConnect NC-50 base station, NevoS70 provides non-line of site IR control, serial device control and power sensing for efficient macro programming and control. NevoS70 communication is based on industry standards—WiFi, UPnP and Z-Wave—to ensure compatibility with a wide range of devices in home entertainment, control, and networking.

Sounds amazing! Looks also. To get NevoS7 in your hand you should just wait a bit and pay $1,199. This is a tiny cost for such perfect device.

[via CePro]

Share This

Westell MediaStation can be named as a new concept PC for home. It’s a small device featured with 6.5″ (400×240) LCD touchscreen display, integrated camera and speakers. It uses WinCE.NET 5.0 and offers a bunch of possibilities to use it:

• delivering media content from Intenet: video, audio, pictures;
• phone calls: land-line, VoIP and video;
• up to four phone handsets can be added and personalized for each family member;
• extending hardware functionality via USB ports;
• extending software by using SDK coming with device.

Westell MediaStation offers most needed functionality for home users together with portability and stylish design. If its price is reasonable, it may hit the market.

[via eHomeAutomated]

P. S. The same things (except connection separate handsets) and more can be done with Nokia N800 and coming N810. IMHO Linuxbased Internet Tablet is better option.

Share This

English-based company U-Touch Limited offers the simplest way to turn your large display or plasma to the interactive screen with its new product - U-Touch screen overlay. Just attach it over the front of your plasma or LCD flat panel monitor and you can use it to control your home or HTPC without remote control or keyboard.

The U-Touch screen overlay is connected to the PC via USB and uses Windows or Mac based software to implement touchscreen. It can be placed even to window and will allow to interact with a monitor behind it. It possible to attache the U-Touch to the LCD or plasma with diagonal from 30 to 100 inch. So, it’s cover all range of existing “big screens”. The speed response is also acceptable. For example, 13 msec through 4 mm glass.

It sounds very attractive except fact that Linux doesn’t support. Also the price is unavailable. But I suspect that the big plasma with touchscreen (if it exists) will cost much more than the simple one with the U-Touch screen overlay.

Share This

Marantz, well-known producer of Hi-End audio receivers, announced its remote control RC9001. Generally, it looks like Philips Pronto. It sports color touchscreen display and will offer integration with Escient Fireball media servers and Lutron RadioRa lighting controls for full multi-room control. Optionally, the RC9001 can be extebded by RX9001 WiFi extender or RX8001 serial extender.

The Marantz RC9001 is expected in mid-September for right around $1000. The funny thing is that there are no any words on official Marantz site!

[via Multiroom]

Share This