Link Your House

"iPad is the hottest new thing right now, and Crestron is out in front with the most flexible and feature-rich control app available," said Vincent Bruno, Crestron Director of Marketing. "Crestron fully embraces the iPad and Apple® integration, and we have lots of cool new features coming next, including landscape view and gestures navigation."

The Crestron Mobile Pro™ G iPad app comes pre-loaded with a standard graphic template, and supports user-defined interfaces as well. If a Crestron dealer has its own, branded interface being deployed on touchpanels throughout the house, the same look and functionality can be used on the iPad. Just like the other Crestron apps, Mobile Pro G provides direct communication to the control system without any third-party software or external servers. Updates and changes to the control program are automatically sent to the iPad when the Crestron app is launched. Using the home Wi-Fi network locally or the powerful 3G and EDGE networks remotely, total control is always at your fingertips.

New Crestron features for iPad and iPhone® apps are coming soon.

Link Your House a National Finalist
 
Atlanta, Georgia – March 1, 2010

Each year the Consumer Electronics Association recognizes the nation’s best Custom Installers through its Mark of Excellence Awards Program, and Link Your House has been named a finalist in the Luxury Home of the Year category for 2010.

“It’s certainly flattering to be recognized by the CEA,” says Frank DeFilippis of Link Your House, “but the ultimate award for us will always be a delighted client.”

2010 marks the fourth year in a row that Link Your House has been named a National Finalist. Link Your House was named the National Winner in 2007 for Excellence in Production Home integration and again in 2009 for Excellence in Universal Systems Design.  Link Your House was named a National runner up in 2008 for Excellence in Retrofit Installations.

Link Your House relies on technology from premier equipment manufacturers including Crestron Electronics, Home Logic, Elan Home Systems, Russound, Denon, HAI and RTI to create award-winning custom installations.

Winners of the 2010 Mark of Excellence will be named at the Annual CEA Awards Banquet, held on March 26, 2010 in Orlando, Florida. A complete listing of all 2010 CEA Mark of Excellence Finalists can be found at: http://www.ce.org/Events/Awards/2010_MoE_Finals.asp?type=2.

ABOUT LINK YOUR HOUSE
Link Your House, Inc. is a premier systems integrator serving residential builders, architects, designers and home owners interested in true integration of advanced security, pro A/V, home energy management, networking, automation and digital living. With over 15 years of industry experience, Link Your House is a proud member of the CE Pro VIP dealer network and the ConnectHome select national dealer program.

Link Your House has been named a 5-Star Dealer by Home Automation Inc. (HAI) every year since 2001 based on professionalism, quality service and the number of installs of their award winning Omni security and automation system.

Link Your House is an active member of the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA), the Home Automation & Networking Association (HANA), Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Professional Audio and Video Retailers Association (PARA) and sits on the Advisory Board for ConnectHome.

Contact:

Nick McCulloch
Link Your House, Inc.
www.linkyourhouse.com
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
770-209-0086

About CEA:

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $172 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,200 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion and the fostering of business and strategic relationships.  CEA also sponsors and manages the International CES – Where Entertainment, Technology and Business Converge. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA’s industry services.  Find CEA online at www.CE.org.

HDMI Licensing, LLC, the licensing entity behind the High-Definition Multimedia Interface networking technology that is commonly used to provide a secure digital connection between digital TV sets, set-top boxes and Blu-ray players, is working to ensure that television programmers will be able to deliver upcoming 3D broadcasts to new 3D-capable HDTV sets.

The organization, which licenses its technology to over 900 consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers, announced late Wednesday that it is making the 3D portion of its latest HDMI specification, version 1.4, available for free public download on its Website so that television networks and transmission vendors can get the necessary information to deliver compatible 3D pictures to new 3D sets.

Such companies haven't traditionally been licensees of HDMI technology, and thus didn't have access to the confidential specification that identified 3D formats. But they need to know how the 3D parts of HDMI work to ensure that early 3D broadcasts are viewable, says HDMI Licensing president Steve Venuti, which is why the organization is making the information freely available.

"I see it as a necessity because HDMI is leading the market in supporting 3D at home," says Venuti. "These companies don't want to pay to get the spec, but they need it to understand how 3D will work in the marketplace."

The HDMI Consortium also plans to include multiple broadcast 3D formats in an upcoming specification, version 1.4a, to ensure that HD sets and set-tops can display networks' nascent 3D programming.

HDMI Licensing, founded by a consortium of Hitachi, Panasonic Corporation, Philips, Sony, Thomson (RCA), Toshiba, and Silicon Image, had already addressed the growing momentum behind stereoscopic 3D technology by including 3D gaming and movie (Blu-ray) formats in HDMI version 1.4, which came out last June. But that specification didn't include broadcast 3D formats, explains Venuti, mainly because the organization didn't expect television networks like ESPN and pay-TV operators like DirecTV to move to launch 3D by mid-2010.

"We've really seen a rush of 3D devices, but when we when launched 1.4 in June, it was very unclear what formats would drive content to the home," says Venuti. "So we mandated a game format and movie format, and said if you build a system with HDMI, you have to have them. But we left out a broadcast format, because we didn't know where the market was going with that. Since then, broadcasters have stepped up the game quite a bit, and there's been a lot of movement in the HDMI Consortium to match the 3D release of broadcasters."

In fact, in December the HDMI Consortium announced that it would ease some of its licensing restrictions to allow existing late-model set-tops to deliver 3D broadcasts to new 3D HDTV sets, without having to support the mandatory movie or gaming formats in HDMI version 1.4. Specifically, it decreed that set-tops with HDMI version 1.3 could receive a firmware upgrade that would enable them to connect to a new 3D set with HDMI version 1.4 to display a number of 3D HD broadcast formats. That is how satellite operators DirecTV and BSkyB plan to deliver 3D to their existing high-end set-tops. Venuti said that Sony PS3 game consoles can support 3D in the same way.

"That's going to enable the existing infrastructure of source devices to pump 3D content, and you're going to need a 3d-enabled TV to view it," says Venuti.

The HDMI movie format that will be used by new 3D Blu-ray players specifies the delivery of two full 1080-line-progressive/24 hertz (1080p/24) pictures, one for each eye, which requires a significantly higher bit rate than normal 1080p/24 video. But the "frame-compatible" broadcast formats that HDMI Licensing is currently addressing are designed to work within the existing bandwidth for HD transmission by using spatial compression to reduce the horizontal or vertical resolution of the picture. That is a compromise that networks and pay-TV operators can currently live with, as adopting "full 3D" would require doubling the bandwidth used to deliver HD to the home.

The 3D compression techniques described by HDMI Licensing as "informative formats" include Frame Packing; Field Alternative; Line Alternative; Side-by-Side (Half); Side-by-Side (Full); Left + Depth; and Left + Depth + Graphics + Graphics-depth. The organization also announced in December that it will add the "Top/Bottom" frame-compatible technique, which ESPN plans to use for its 720p 3D HD pictures, to the updated 1.4 specification.

Venuti says the HDMI version 1.4a specification, which will make the support of such broadcast formats mandatory in new 3D-enabled CE devices, should come out soon. He notes that a pay-TV operator's set-top could support as little as a single broadcast format, such as 720p top/bottom, but that 3D sets will have to support all broadcast formats to ensure interoperability.

"We hope that will provide leadership and guidance to the broadcast world," says Venuti. "We don't expect it to be the way to deliver 3D content forever. But at the least, it's a minimum way to support interoperability."

 By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable

Intel has designs on the nascent home energy management business, following Google, Microsoft, Apple, Panasonic, and dozens of smaller tech companies.

Intel last week launched a Web site dedicated to its Home Dashboard Concept, a touch-screen display designed to help families control and reduce energy use. The Atom-based device will let people record video messages to other family members and, through third-party applications, let people look up information on online yellow pages or track packages over the Internet.

Intel's Intelligent Home Energy Management Proof of Concept is an 11-inch touch screen that works like a remote control for home energy. The switch at the top lets people turn a home to 'away' mode, automatically adjusting security, thermostats, and cutting off stand-by power.

(Credit: Intel)

For Intel, the energy dashboard is another attempt to crack into the consumer electronics market. "Computing in the home is going to be a lot more than just the PC," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said during a brief demo of the energy dashboard at CES.

Seeing a potential new revenue source, other tech companies are jockeying into home energy management with different technology approaches, a situation that's creating a crowded market of suppliers and myriad choices for consumers. Pike Research forecasts that there will be more than 28 million energy displays installed by 2015, with 11 million people accessing home energy data from Web-based dashboards and 2.6 million from mobile phones.

A patent application from Apple, unearthed last week, described a system to optimize power for a network of electronics, such as laptops, solar chargers, and iPods.

Apple characteristically is taking a somewhat unique approach, relying on a power line standard that would allow a dedicated Apple device to efficiently send power to plugged-in devices. Consumers could track electricity use and get ideas on how to reduce consumption through a small LCD screen, according to the patent.

Microsoft and Google have developed Web applications for tracking home energy use, although they differ significantly in features.

Microsoft is seeking to partner with utilities installing smart meters to offer its Hohm application to customers, who can get online access to utility bills and real-time snapshots of electricity use. For every consumer, though, Hohm provides recommendations on how to cut electricity and gas consumption, based on a lengthy questionnaire.

Google's PowerMeter, by contrast, is geared mainly at surfacing usage information to help consumers find ways to cut back on bills. It has signed on with a few utilities and smart meter makers to offer the energy-tracking dashboard through smart meters. It also offers that data through a home-monitoring device called The Energy Detective (TED) from Energy Inc., a company that 3M's venture arm invested in last week.

Whole-home monitoring
Intel's home energy dashboard is a more sophisticated version of existing whole-home monitoring products, such as TED. But Intel's approach suggests one route for getting the energy data promised by the smart grid without having to wait for smart meters to be installed and fully activated.

The Home Dashboard Concept is an energy-efficient OLED touch screen hung on a wall that acts as a hub to manage and monitor a network of devices. Intel recommends that people purchase smart plugs which, through a wireless network, will allow the central console to monitor and control devices. Once plugged in, people can see how much power TVs and other major appliances use, and set goals for reducing use.

Intel's home energy dashboard concept would use smart plugs to connect appliances to a central console for energy monitoring and control.

(Credit: Intel)

Because the dashboard device is a Wi-Fi hub, it can get recommendations on how to reduce energy use from the Internet, according to the Intel demo. People click a switch to turn the house to "away" mode, turning all stand-by power off and adjusting the thermostat.

Using the home energy dashboard, a household could save 30 percent on electricity bills, according to Chris O'Malley, a marketing manager at Intel's embedded and communications group.

Although Intel's dashboard is still a concept, a number of other start-up companies, such as Control4 and OpenPeak, are already planning similar products, released either through utilities or appliance companies such as GE and Whirlpool.

For all the activity, though, there remain questions about how much consumers are willing to pay to better manage home energy and whether Intel or any other tech provider can make money helping consumers save money.

Blog By: Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog.