The DECT Forum, the international association of the wireless home and enterprise communication industry, is pleased to announce the availability of CAT-iq White Papers. The White Papers – part 1 “voice” and part 2 “data” – outline the current status and the future profile descriptions of CAT-iq – the technology of choice for voice and data applications.

CAT-iq stands for Cordless Advanced Technology, Internet and Quality, and is the global technology initiative from the DECT Forum, designed for IP-voice services in the next generation networks. CAT-iq focuses on high quality wideband Audio VoIP as well as low bit-rate data applications. The CAT-iq profiles are split between voice and data services, with CAT-iq 1.0 and CAT-iq 2.0 providing features to support key voice enhancements, and CAT-iq 3.0 and CAT-iq 4.0 providing features to support data.

CAT-iq is firmly positioned as a key broadband access technology. CAT-iq has the unique opportunity to continue cordless telephony’s conquest of huge segments of the world’s population, and introduce data services into homes complementing those offered by WLAN and Bluetooth. When reach, standby and talk time, cost and of course voice quality are paramount, CAT-iq is the technology of choice. The Certification process for CAT-iq 2.0 will start in September 2010, enabling market deployment of a new generation of products of various manufacturers before the end of this year.

“The White Papers – part 1 “Voice” and part 2 “data” – provide a comprehensive and detailed portray of the CAT-iq technology and its profiles. With first CAT-iq 2.0 products being available still in 2010, the White Papers will feed the growing interest in CAT-iq as a leading global wireless technology”, says Daniel Hartnett, Chairman of the CAT-iq Working Group within the DECT Forum.

The White Papers are publicly available on the DECT Forum’s CAT-iq website

The Cisco® Home Energy Management Solution features a Home Energy Controller along with Cisco Energy Management Services that, when provided by utilities to their customers, are designed to help consumers securely and reliably gain insight into, and easier control over, their energy use

• Cisco's believes that networking technology can change how the world manages its energy and environmental challenges.  Cisco's vision is to enable an end-to-end, open standards-based, communications platform that supports new models of energy management.  By working with utility customers and an ecosystem of partners, Cisco hopes to help create an energy infrastructure for the 21st century that brings about economic as well as environmental benefits.

• As part of this vision, Cisco is announcing new demand-management tools that are a critical part of Cisco's Connected Grid offerings designed to address energy concerns and to help utilities more reliably and efficiently deliver power from generation to businesses and homes.

Solutions for the Home

• The Cisco Home Energy Management Solution for utilities features the Home Energy Controller (CGH-100), a countertop display that helps the consumer make more informed choices, as well as set policies and schedules for energy use, based on real-time household, historic and individual appliance consumption.

• Through the Home Energy Controller's LCD touch screen, the consumer has  insight into and control over peripheral devices that communicate with the HEC, such as thermostats, intelligent sockets and, ultimately, smart appliances like refrigerators and water heaters.

• The Home Energy Controller coordinates the variety of networks in the home and supports associated networking protocols, such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi and Encoder Receiver Technology (ERT).

• With the Cisco Home Energy Management Solution, utilities will be able to extend the benefits of their Smart Meter deployments by providing home owners with more detailed energy control and management, down to the appliance level.  Customers and utilities can coordinate on new pricing and demand-side management services, enabling home automation for energy management.

• Cisco is also announcing hosted Energy Management Services, which utilities can use to manage data from thousands of homes while integrating with their back-end applications.  These complement Cisco's existing service offerings to help utilities plan, build and run a converged communications infrastructure for automating the Connected Grid.

• The Cisco Home Energy Management Solution will be deployed by innovative utility customers such as Duke Energy, with which Cisco has a strategic collaboration to advance Smart Grid technology.

• Studies show that technology can promote better energy management by consumers.  IDC found that customers reduce overall energy use by 4 to 15 percent when they receive real-time feedback on power consumption. Also, according to a study by Zogby International, 74 percent of Americans are likely to change their energy use if they are given the technology solutions to do so.

• The Home Energy Controller is designed as a global solution but will be first available in North America beginning this summer.  It is part of Cisco's new Connected Grid portfolio, an end-to-end approach to the smart grid, within which substation automation technologies were announced in May to help utilities better manage electricity transmission and distribution. 

Systems are starting to link directly to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Home control manufacturers are not just present on social networks; they’ll incorporate aspects of how you use such sites into your systems.

You’ve just downloaded a great song from Rhapsody onto your music server. You’d like to recommend it to your circle of friends, so you jump on Facebook and post your opinion. Your kids just got home from school, and just as you’ve instructed them, they tweet you to let you know they’re okay. Social networking has forever changed the way we communicate, and manufacturers of home control systems are starting to bring bits and pieces of the technology into their products.

Control4, for example, plans to make available to consumers downloadable applications for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr.
“They’ll be able to access these sites directly from their home control touchscreens and other interfaces,” says Jeff Dugan, vice president for product management. “On an even higher level, the control system will be able to communicate certain things about your home automatically, like sending you a tweet when a security sensor notices that the kids have arrived home from school. Or there might be an app that would allow certain security cameras to take snapshots (like of a party at your pool) and post them on Facebook.”

Control4 expects a number of social networking apps to be available through its 4Store online app store this year, so keep your eyes peeled. Home control manufacturer Crestron reports that a number of custom electronics professionals have started to incorporate social networking features into its high-end home control system.

“We’ve seen them use it so that when, for example, you’ve just downloaded The Hurt Locker the system will automatically send out a tweet.”
One manufacturer that’s been offering social networking as part of its technology package for awhile is Sonos. The company’s S5 wireless whole-house music system integrates Twitter, which enables users to send the name and artist of the track they’re currently playing to friends on their network directly from the system’s handheld remote.

Source : www.electronichouse.com

With home networking adoption passing 50% of households in North America and 13% worldwide, the consumer network storage market is seeing continued growth. Web-enabled consumer devices, such as TVs and Blu-ray players, are further diversifying the demand and applications for consumer network storage devices, reports In-Stat.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• The consumer network storage market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 40% between 2009 and 2014.
• 27% of North American consumers that own a network-capable video game console use the devices to watch video that is stored elsewhere on the home network. 
• North America was the largest CNS market in 2009. Starting in 2011, Europe will become the leading CNS market. 
• Consumer network storage capacities up to 1.5 terabytes will peak in 2011, giving way to even higher capacities.

This Kit offers a relatively easy and cost-effective way for homeowners and renters to get the security benefits of Internet-connected home monitoring, including mobile alerts. Designed for quick and easy installation by the user (D-Link claims that the system can be installed from scratch in about 30 minutes, using pre-set default settings) the system connects using the broadband router in the home. Once installation is complete, in-home activities and security options can be remotely monitored and controlled through a personalized Web portal account at mydlink.com. Alerts from wireless sensors around the home are instantly relayed by text, e-mail and voice-call to system owner. It’s also possible to set up alerts for designated contacts, or for activities at certain times of day.

Once the Starter Kit is installed, the system can be expanded with a number of high-end features that are available as optional accessories, including infrared motion detection, door/window contacts, keypad, personalized key fobs, fire, carbon monoxide, and water leak detectors. The system can be used for low security applications too, such as letting working parents when their kids get home safely from school, or even monitoring pets during the day. A home video option is available with D-Link IP cameras which can capture and record events with remote access to the images available through the Web site or via mobile phones.

A green companion to the Home Monitor is the D-Link Home Energy Monitoring Starter Kit. According to D-Link this Kit lets consumers measure the energy consumption of all electrical appliances in the home, turning the Home Monitor into the ultimate smart energy 'Green Machine'. Once the Energy Monitor is installed and linked to the Home Monitoring Starter kit, consumers can use the MyDLink portal to program devices to power-down when the home is empty, helping reduce carbon emissions and reduce utility bills by saving electricity.

The energy monitoring kit is equipped with two power-usage sensor adapters (additional sensors may be purchased separately) that plug into the home's wall sockets near where the electrical appliances are located. By plugging the appliances directly into the kit's sensor adapters, users can automatically download energy consumption data to their personal mydlink.com Web page where they have access to real-time power usage levels; daily, weekly and monthly breakdowns; cost conversions and graphical analysis.

These two kits make a smart package for homeowners interested in upgrading their security and energy consumption options with one integrated and expandable solution.

The Florida-based company L5 Technology has announced the upcoming availability of a hardware add-on that turns any iPhone or iPod Touch into a universal remote for your home entertainment devices.

The system, dubbed the L5 Remote is made up of a tiny 1.5 by .85-inch infrared transceiver that hooks up to the dock connector of the iPhone and an app that provides the necessary user interface to communicate with your favorite appliances.

According to L5, the remote will allow users to design their own visual interfaces using a drag-and-drop approach. However, you'll have to manually assign the functions to the remote by pointing it at the remote of the device you want to control and pressing the button of the desired function.

The L5 Remote serves the same purpose as the universal remotes that Macworld featured in its review roundup last October, except that you will presumably be able to position each key exactly where you want it to be, instead of having to rely on a pre-determined layout.

Interestingly, because the hardware portion of the remote needs to be plugged into the dock connector, the interface of the app is actually flipped upside down so that you can point the IR transceiver at your appliances while pressing a button.

The company claims that the remote will work with iPhone and iPod models of all generations—including the original iPhone—and that it will be able to store and reproduce up to 100,000 button codes in up to 1,000 configurations.

Both the software and the hardware accessory, which does not require any external power source and works by simply plugging it into a compatible device, are slated for release in February. The transceiver is expected to retail for $50, while the companion app will be a free download from the App Store.

The two-line BeoCom 5 supports both landline and IP telephony and can expand out up to eight handsets.

The jet-black glossy phone features a 2-inch LCD display with 176 by 220-pixel resolution, nine display colors and eight ringtones. Menu browsing is done via an aluminum navigation wheel with four push points at the edge and a selection button in the middle which activates the most frequently used functions.

The phone boasts some unique visual effects. In standby mode, the phone's surface appears uniformly black and glass-like, but when the BeoCom 5 is placed in the charger, a dimmed digital clock illuminates. The clock adds an alternate visual mode in which the minute and the hour hands are replaced by circles that move like planets orbiting each other, the company said. And when the handset is picked up, the backlight in the display and keypad activate revealing a customizable color theme for each individual handset.

The dedicated two-line BeoLine 2 base includes a speakerphone, a magnetic cradleless charger with table or wall placement options. The base can be detached from the power supply and taken from room to room, which B&O suggested was ideal for conference calling in small or home offices. Up to 400 contacts can be stored in the phonebook when the BeoCom 5 is used with the BeoLine 2.

With the EasyTouch Panel10™, Marmitek has convincingly demonstrated that operational ease and a stylish design go hand in hand. The 10”/25cm touch screen, which can easily be attached to or fitted into the wall, is used to wirelessly operate all X-10 controlled lights and equipment within the house. Because of the fact that users can add their own favourite backgrounds, buttons and functions, they can amaze their friends, family and neighbours with a touch panel that is as chic as it is high-tech. And all for less than € 200.

Marmitek EasyTouch Panel10™
Marmitek's new EasyTouch Panel10™ is an affordable, wireless touch screen which can be programmed and used by everyone, without the need for a computer. Even grandma and grandpa can switch off all the lights in the house with one single touch on the panel.

Customised design
This touch screen is unique insofar as the content of the screen can easily be set up according to your own wishes and taste. Two different configurations each offer the option of adding a maximum of 30 buttons. The touch buttons are each given their own function and can be placed wherever you like on the screen. In combination with the possibility of placing a personal background photo under the glass touch panel, users can design a unique control panel. So it is possible to make a collage of photos of all of the X-10 devices in the house and then place the buttons above the relevant device on the screen. Users can even use photos of family members so that one touch on the photo immediately leads them to the favourite settings of the person concerned. Of course, you can always use your favourite holiday snap or any image that fits in with the style of your interior. You own creativity forms the only limitation in this regard.

To allow you to get straight to work and offer some inspiration, three 'style samples' are supplied with the screen, providing you with three different background styles. The operation of Home Automation has never been this attractive. Start today with Marmitek X-10 Home Automation or fit this panel into your existing X-10 domotics system.

Specifications
The screen is equipped with a built-in Marmitek X-10/RF transmitter and an integrated antenna. This wirelessly transmits the Marmitek X-10 commands to your X-10 transceiver. The screen, made of brushed aluminium, can easily be attached to the wall or fitted into the wall using an optional mounting frame. The screen uses 2 AAA batteries and all settings are automatically stored during any power failures.