The Smart Home Arrives at CES 2012: Toshiba’s Life Design Box

Strolling through the CES 2012 show floor yesterday, we noticed that virtually every major CE brand – and lots of small ones – were touting their products as part of a smart home ecosystem. While many stopped short of integrating with lighting and other home automation devices, the product roadmaps are clear: They’re going there, starting with thermostats for most of them.

CE Pro captured this practice run at the Toshiba booth (video below), where actors demonstrated the seamless transition from the smart home to the smart car.

“Toshiba is helping to bring about a sustainable society with a series and products and services built around the Life Design Box,” one actor says, holding his “girlfriend’s” hand ever-so-lovingly.

The new Life Design box is Toshiba’s new home-control gateway, focused mostly on entertainment and “responsible” energy usage.


VIDEO: Toshiba demonstrates Smart Home and Life Design Box at CES 2012

In the demo, the actors show how a smart tablet can be “projected” onto the big screen simply by holding the tablet towards the Toshiba displays. Gestures enable one of the actors to swish a globe on its axis.

Not shown in this video is another part of the demo that introduces social features and a high level of interaction between tablets and the big screen.

The brief bit about the Life Design Box from Toshiba's PR goes like this:

About the The homes of tomorrow will be networked and integrated into smart grids and the smart community, and support lifestyles that are much more comfortable, more energy efficient and environmentally sensitive. Toshiba will showcase this future with its home energy management system (HEMS). Built around the home gateway server - the life design box - HEMS integrates and manages a smart meter, electric vehicles, a solar power generation systems and digital consumer products.

Let the smart home begin!




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