Whole home 802.11-based IR coverage

Whole home 802.11-based IR coverage
Other devices, namely Web tablets and standalone touchscreens, are sporting
IR interfaces and can become remotes for your whole home, too. (Whole
home means that you can use it anywhere that your wireless net reaches for
a broad range of devices anywhere in your home; check out Chapter 1 for
more details about whole home.)
One of the really cool wireless-enabled options is iPronto
(www.pronto.philips.com; $1,699), which is a Web tablet-like device that
enables you to do all sorts of chores. Phillips describes this wireless, mobile
device as a “dashboard for the digital home” that combines home entertainment,
security, and other systems control as well as 802.11b wireless LAN
and broadband Internet access. That’s a lot to pack in one device.
With iPronto (model TSi6400), you can control your A/V system components,
check out program guides, and surf the Web — all while connected wirelessly
to your home 802.11b network. Users can easily control devices via the highresolution,
touchscreen LCD, combined with a customizable user interface
and exterior hard buttons. The system features a built-in microphone and
stereo speakers, allowing users to listen to MP3s from the Internet and to
future-proof themselves for applications such as voice recognition and telephony.
Way cool.
One really neat capability of iPronto is its ability to link with your home’s
802.11b network to communicate with IR-enabled, network-extender devices
in other rooms. Suppose that you’re in your master bedroom and you’re listening
to a Turtle Beach AudioTron (www.turtlebeach.com; $299) AT100
Digital Music Player through your remote wireless speakers, and you want to
change stations. Just grab your iPronto and tap-tap-tap, you can change the
song that’s playing. Because the AT100 isn’t wireless (although the higherend
AT200 model is), you’d have to go all the way downstairs to point the
remote at the AT100 to change stations. That’s the whole home advantage!
In an iPronto model, you could have a network extender in the room that has
IR-emitter capability. The iPronto can communicate via 802.11b to the network
extender, giving it the proper codes to send to the AudioTron via IR,
and voilà! (or walla! as a former employee once wrote in a presentation), you
can change stations without leaving your bed. You could have whole home
infrared-capability linked via 802.11. That’s really neat.
The latest technology to hit the streets is the SST Component Framework.
From Intrigue Technologies (makers of the popular Harmony Remote that we
mention earlier in this chapter), this technology basically enables you to use
its software and database on any devices that you want, such as personal
computers, Web pads, Pocket PCs, Palm Pilots, or even cellular phones. This
allows you to choose the particular components that are best for your house.
It works like this: You create an account on the Harmony Remote Web site
and specify the devices in your house, along with the activities (such as
Watch a DVD) that use those devices. Using the Harmony SST database, the
Web site then creates a file that contains your house’s personality. This personality
file can then be sent to your control device either through a USB or
wireless connection.