Smart Home Blog

Lately we can observe a boom of networked media tanks – devices which allow to playback movies, music or show pictures from the different types of storage. It isn’t surprised. More and more media content is available on the hard drives or online. So, Xtreamer joins to the big family of such devices. It understand all imaginable media formats and containers, contains the latest codecs, allows playback media files from the internal 2.5″ HDD, NAS or network shares, supports YouTube, Picasa, Yahoo Video, CNN, NBC Today, CBS Face the Nation. That list will be expanded soon. To get it the consumer will have to upgrade the device’s firmware.

The player can be connected to the LAN via Ehternet port or external USB 802.11. It’s already available at the price €99! The worldwide shipping is €20. The same amount should be paid to get USB WiFi adaptor.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

The latest Logitech product Squeezebox Boom has been reviewed recently. Briefly it’s good and it pays for itself. It didn’t spark a revolution in the internet-capable device area but definitely Squeezebox Boom set a new benchmark in the market.

I liked Sqeezebox (but not its remote control) when I got it for testing a couple years ago. And like very much Squeezebox Boom and maybe will buy it some day.

TiVoRemote is a small GUI application which allows to control TiVo boxes using your stylish iPhone or iPod Touch. It sends remote control commands to the TiVo box TCP port via WiFi.

The latest version of TiVoRemote has the ability to automatically detect TiVo box in your network. So, you won’t spend your time to add it manually. Manual setup still should be done for Series 3 TiVo and TiVoHD only. But it’ll be fixed next versions I guess.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

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]

Buffalo has announced two HD media streamers LT-H90LAN (Lan Only) and LT-H90WN (Lan and Wifi A/B/G/N) as a part of its LinkTheater family. Both allows to stream Music (AAC, MPEG Audio, WMA, WM DRM 10 and MP3), Pictures (JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF), as well as Video (Mpeg-2, H.264 and WMV9), in Full HD resolution: 1920×1080, but they miss of support DivX files. The main feature of Buffalo HD media streamers is DLNA DTCP-IP (Digital Transmission Content Protection over Internet Protocol) “a specification for copyrighted content transferred over IP between two compliant DTCP-IP products, and does not allow contents to be transmitted over the internet or shared outside of the home network”. So, the Hollywood studios shouldn’t worry about their copyrights.