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Most Important Innovations of Past 20 Years?
Lutron dimmer: most important technology innovation?
Now, we’d like to solicit the top technological innovations of the past two decades.
Lutron’s dimmer? D-Tools’ project management software? Z-Wave? ZigBee? HDMI?
Which products and technologies changed the game and set the trends for the custom electronics industry?
Nominate the important innovations in the comments section below, and we’ll put them up for a vote.
The winners will be part of our special 20-year anniversary coverage in the February 2013 issue of CE Pro.
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9 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
The learning remote and IR repeating
The Zigbee / Zwave battle in itself was innovation. Creating a low cost / low power wireless communication protocol that has become common enough and affordable enough to be seen at home depot but still strong enough for custom solutions is amazing.
Lutron: Seriously they have the patents to prove why their innovations have changed the world. Both in the ideas of dimming tech and wireless control.
Universal Remote Control. Maybe not the brand…although that actually works considering that they Have been OEM’d at one time or another by a large segment of Home Automation and Control Companies.
HDMI…. Good or Bad
HD: nuff said
Digital Media Content…. You can say it started with the Laser Disc and has gone to the Cloud next who knows? Many storage and delivery methods in many formats…. But it still Digital Media Content.
IPTV. I know your probably like whatever. But in my mind GoogleTv, Hulu, and the rest of the services in this catagory have helped a lot of people cut the cord and save some bucks. If you are watching whats going on out there you see this innovation is the future that we will probably be lucky enough to see come to fruition in our life time.
Digital Amplification…... Less weight / heat. Bob Carver may just hunt me down for saying that “Love you new tube amp by the way!”
These are a couple for me. I would add LED technology for consumer use but since it started back in the 60’s I don’t think it fits
Bosser ... who gets the credit for that?
oh yeah, what Andrew said. But rephrase as iAnything
Xantech for IR repeating. The first learning remote I can remember programming was a Pioneer CUAV200. There was probably someone before them, but it was the first real legit effort I can recall.
Here are more from my perspective:
DVRs:
- Philips TiVo
- ReplayTV
DSS mini-dish satellite systems:
- DirecTV / USSB
- PrimeStar
- Dish Network
Easy to program touchscreen remotes:
- Philips Pronto & ProntoEdit software
- Lexicon 500t / 700t & LexiDraw software
Single lens ‘point and shoot’ projectors:
- LCD
- DLP
- LCOS (D-ILA and SXRD)
Flat-panel displays:
- Plasma
- LCD
- OLED
Most important innovations for consumer electronics in the past 20 years has got to be:
- Multi-core processing
- Audio and video compression (e.g. MP3, H.264)
- LCD/DLP advancements
- Capacitative touch screens
A few more, this time some shifts in the business paradigms of our industry:
- The trade specific magazines for custom a/v.
- The web forums that specialized in custom a/v, like Remote Central and IntegrationPros.org
- The progressive reps who opened distribution warehouses back in the day.
- Buying groups that included custom a/v companies and brands.
iPhone.