NuVo Brings Kitchen Tech to Control Pad Music Controller

According to research firm DisplaySearch, 55.8 million OLED products shipped in 2005, up 72 percent from the previous year. Revenues for OLED displays were $486 million, with the bulk coming from mobile telephones and MP3 players.

One of these days, in-wall home controls could be added to the list, and we may have NuVo to thank. The manufacturer of affordable whole-house audio systems appears to be the first to implement OLED in an in-wall controller. The NuVo Control Pad will be demonstrated for the first time at the CEDIA Expo in September.

NuVo turned to OLED technology for its durability and high-contrast features. "The display is extremely bright, making it readable in a variety of settings, even in the sunlight," says NuVo president David Rodarte. "Plus, you can read the display from very wide angles, up to 180 degrees."

The Control Pad features up to eight character lines, with adjustable height to accommodate menu modes and needs of homeowners. Seniors, for example, might prefer text that is three-lines high.

For control, NuVo opted for capacitive touch technology, which responds electrically to the touch, but entails no mechanical parts -- a keypad without the messy buttons, a touchscreen without the high price.

The technology is found in many modern kitchens, which is where NuVo chief engineer Rick Kukulies found his inspiration. "There I was sipping my morning coffee, staring at my range and refrigerator, and it hit me," he says. "If the technology is good enough for kitchen appliances, it would be perfect for a controller." Capacitive touch technology, he figured, had the proven durability and responsiveness under the most extreme conditions.

Sticking with the durability theme, the NuVo Control Pad features a polycarbonate surface, the same material used in the optical industry for eyeglass lenses. "Unlike standard plastics, it is precision manufactured to be perfectly flat, which not only ensures proper touch functionality, but also greatly improves the pristine look and feel of the panel," says Kukulies, who adds that the durable, scratch-resistant material makes the Control Pad water-resistant.

The Control Pads, which fit in standard dual-gang wall boxes, ship with four magnetic bezel trim plates. The circuitry has a thin profile that is half the depth of a typical keypad, NuVo claims.

The product communicates via the NuVoNet protocol using a single Cat 5 cable. It is compatible with NuVo's existing multiroom audio systems, as well as new products that will be introduced at the CEDIA Expo.

What is OLED?

From Webopedia.com: Short for organic light-emitting diode, a display device that sandwiches carbon-based films between two charged electrodes, one a metallic cathode and one a transparent anode, usually being glass. The organic films consist of a hole-injection layer, a hole-transport layer, an emissive layer and an electron-transport layer. When voltage is applied to the OLED cell, the injected positive and negative charges recombine in the emissive layer and create electro luminescent light. Unlike LCDs, which require backlighting, OLED displays are emissive devices -- they emit light rather than modulate transmitted or reflected light.