Innovation Competition.
At the largest consumer electronics exhibition — Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held in January 2007 in Las Vegas (Nevada, USA), there was a collective winner in the nomination «Best Innovations».
Echelon Corporation, a developer of hardware and software solutions in the field of «smart» energy control, together with 4Home-Media, a company that provides comprehensive solutions in the field of providing broadband home networks, were awarded the victory and officially announced that only their joint cooperation brought them to the podium.
The product that combined the efforts of the two companies was a sample of the development previously owned by 4HomeMedia.
The ControlPoint ™ 1000 network hub, developed by the companies for their partners (mainly OEMs), was named the best in the «Integrated Home Systems» category.
The ControlPoint 1000 network hub is offered to network providers and OEMs on a royalty-free basis.
This is designed to help partner companies develop optimal solutions for creating remote control devices for residential buildings as quickly as possible, and should also speed up their market penetration.
The design solution for the concentrator also includes Echelon's own development — the use of existing electrical wiring for communication with other automated network concentrators.
This eliminates the need to install new or restore old unused communication lines.
The essence of another technology — ISI, from Echelon — is that as soon as voltage appears in the network, the devices recognize each other and self-configure, forming a fully functional control system.
And ControlPoint hub software opens up the possibilities of next-generation broadband networks, which are implemented on intelligent cross-platform algorithms and have a contextual graphical user interface.
This combination of an intelligent user interface with a fully functional platform capable of operating on a wide range of broadband networks, a relatively low-cost but reliable telecommunications system based on existing power lines, and a self-configuring system of devices eliminates the main problems that hinder the creation of a mass market for control systems in residential buildings.
Such advances will lead to the creation of technologies for automating the processes of installing home equipment, its individual configuration and operation, making it accessible to any user.
«When choosing a home control system, we chose ISI technology because of its reliability, ease of use, and scalability,» said Brad Kayton, 4HomeMedia's vice president of marketing. «High reliability means lower complaint rates, lower support costs, and increased customer satisfaction, which is something that was lacking in previous home automation systems.»By combining the ANSI/CEA 709.1 protocol with the traditional TCP/IP Internet protocol using ControlPoint concentrator software, we achieve that the existing electrical wiring inside the house can be used as a network base, capable of linking together several dozen devices of different types and from different manufacturers with a single unified control interface. The ANSI/CEA 709.1 protocol is one of the American standards for remote monitoring and control of residential buildings.
This standard «sets the standards» for control in the field of creating intelligent energy control networks, applies to all commercial buildings and is valid throughout the world.
The network hub СontrolPoint 1000 was developed as a home control network center. Unlike previous similar projects, this product hardware supports the new generation of plug-and-play standards, is capable of establishing contact with the hardware environment, choosing the «language» in which it will talk to a new network element (regardless of its manufacturer) and thus creating a home control and management system.
The 4HomeMedia user interface on the ControlPoint platform supports any device with a display, as long as it has a built-in browser. For example, this could be network TV, personal computer, information panels, mobile phones or game consoles.
«Echelon and 4HomeMedia have teamed up to make something as complex as home control simple, affordable and potentially scalable, — said Anders Axelsson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Echelon. — As a member of the Digital Home® Alliance, 4HomeMedia is in a leadership position, exclusively serving consumers in a new and highly specialized service area.— The company’s comprehensive solution will offer consumers simple, plug-and-play, highly reliable communications and a powerful user interface – all essential components for creating a real mass market for home control and management systems.»
«We believe that the day is not far off when the home control market will begin to embrace high-reliability ecosystems — a product that is user-friendly and easy to install and operate,' says Bill Ablondi, director of Home Systems research at Parks Associates. 'The collaboration between 4HomeMedia and Echelon has been a great example of a partnership that is being built to learn how to meet market demands.'