Smart Home Blog

Sigma Designs replaced old-school IR technology by modern Z-Wave in their Best Buy Insignia brand’s new cTV line of broadband-connected televisions. It isn’t just improve a range of bidirectional remote control and its functionality. But embedding of Z-Wave chip will allow easy integration of AV equipment into smarthome systems. Will see if other main producers of AV devices will do the same or choose someting else – ZigBee or standard RF which is used in wireless mouses and keyboards.

ZOTAC recently launched its new product – ZBOX AD10. Its compact and stylish nettop based on AMD E-350 APU and a Radeon HD 6310. Additionally box sports 320GB HDD, 2GB DDR3 RAM, integrated 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. Good news for audiophiles. The AD10 supports Dolby® TrueHDâ„¢ & DTS-HDâ„¢ (Master Audio bitstream ready) over HDMI. So, it can be used as High-End HTPC.

New ZOTAC AD10 is available at very attractive price – just $276! Together with XBMC it might bring your home theater experience to the new level!

Looks like Boxee becomes more and more popular. Yesterday ViewSonic demonstrated its new 46″ HD TV powered by Boxee on CES 2011. Like Boxee Box and Iomega TV it also has Intel Atom CE4100 inside. So, the process of new firmware development won’t be more difficult.

I like Boxee progress. From glamour version of XBMC it became self-sufficient product. DLink Boxee Box was a test of its strength. Iomega TV and ViewSonic HDTVs are big success. Wish Boxee to have more devices and more fans.

Iomega is going to release its new HD media player in the ScreenPlay multimedia drives line – ScreenPlay DX HD. The player looks similar to ASUS O!Play Air HDP-R3. But unlike it the ScreenPlay DX HD has internal hard drive with maximum capacity 2TB. The rest features are more or less the same as in many networked HD players on the market. Except special remote control with QWERTY keyboard and touchpad. It looks very impressive and will make navigation though online services easier and handier.

No any information about price and ability yet.

A new line of HDTVs from Toshiba – Power TV will be equiped with external battery. So, its owners will be able to watch favourite TV shows about two hours after power cut. Not bad, especially during Champions League play-off. Additionally, Power TVs will have two cool features – “Auto Signal Booster” to improve video from weak signal and “Auto View” to optimize picture settings according to the ambient lighting condition. Also HDTVs of new Toshiba’s line will have low power consumption. So, consumers will be able to decrease their electricity bills and save environment.