Top 5 Technologies to Watch 2009

Every year, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) issues a report predicting the top five technologies to watch over the next 12 months.

For most integrators, the annual response is "BFD" since, several times, the technologies have been geared toward divergent markets, like car audio, portable electronics or iPod accessories.

So, for the past three years, CE Pro has taken the opportunity to offer up its own "Top 5 Technologies to Watch for the Custom Industry," mirroring the efforts of CEA, but with a more direct application for dealers.

For example, we identified video monitoring, HDMI, IPTV, Retrofits and Gaming as the technologies poised for breakout years in 2008.

This year, however, the CEA's Top 5 Technologies are all extremely applicable to integrators; thus, CE Pro is offering a glimpse into the custom applications of CEA's selections.

Command & Control Technologies

Integration companies have led the way in making touchpanels a more common application for homeowners.

While it's likely that every integrator has installed a touchpanel in his or her career, it's still a fact that most homeowners do not have a single touchpanel in their homes.

According to CEA, that is about to change, as consumers become more accustomed to iPod-like interfaces (fingertip control) as well as to motion sensing/gesture recognition technology (like in Wii).

The category will also be led by the proliferation of gaming consoles in the home that will make touchpanels more commonplace.

Finally, tactile feedback (identified by CEA with the term Haptics) that employs force feedback to the user will move out of the video gaming realm into remote controls, lighting controls and whole-house controls.

According to Sean Wargo of consultancy The Market Sage, homeowners' interest in touchapanels and motion-sensing controls will increase in correspondence with the increasing size of the household's TV display.

What It Means to You: For dealers, this trend means you should never be wary of offering a touchpanel solution to a customer due to costs.

They will soon be expecting it. By the way, men like touchpanels more than women, according to research.

Connectivity in the Kitchen

The kitchen is the busiest room in a house. So, why is it void of technology?

According to CEA research, consumers place the same level of importance on purchasing an energy efficient appliance for the kitchen as they do on recycling in general.

CEA foresees much more connectivity coming to the kitchen in the form of a computer. "The kitchen is poised to become the front line for coordination of activities, home automation and control, and information," CEA says.

Studies show that consumers under the age of 60 report being likely to put a computer in the kitchen. According to CEA data:

• 56 percent of young adults say they are likely to watch a movie in the kitchen
• 44 percent of all adults want to watch cooking shows on demand via a kitchen computer
• 48 percent of young adults report wanting to see coupons on a computer in the kitchen.

What It Means to You: For integrators, running multiple structured wiring drops to the kitchen should be a no-brainer by now (along with wireless signal availability).

So, work with your kitchen designers to create TV and computer niches.

Display Technology Advancement

Within the display category, CEA sees several trends, all of which affect dealers.

The first is energy efficiency. The average plasma TV draws 40 watts of continuous power when it's off and 120 watts when it is on.