Articles and whitepapers

Guest Commentary: Making More Advanced Control Simpler (4/1/2010)

By Dick Mol, Philips Pronto

As Senior Product Manager for Philips Pronto, my key responsibility is to define and develop the Pronto range of products. Researching, collating and evaluating feedback from the market - custom installers, manufacturers and partners - is a major driver in my role. Indeed, listening to feedback from the industry is a critical part of the Pronto business.

As a result, factors, such as simple installation, easy and efficient configuration and reliability remain key objectives for us - as they are for our customers, and as they should be for all home control equipment manufacturers. After all, it is extremely frustrating, time-consuming and expensive for an installer to have to return to a customer's site, which may be hours away, to fix a problem. Also, we are well aware of the environment in which the installer is working: home cinema rooms under construction, no Internet connection currently available, etc. That's why 'Designed by installers, made by Philips' is the philosophy that underpins Pronto. It is, we believe, the fundamental reason for Pronto's success as an advanced control solution.

Improving the AV experience

Ten years ago IR control by a single button press was considered added value. Today, that's not enough for installers and their customers. Especially since two-way control where feedback is provided about the status of the home, is within easy reach. Installers can and should be encouraged to do more and go further in their home control projects. For example, with Pronto we are also focusing on plug and play solutions where the installer can bring even more added value through customisation of the interface, the actions performed etc.

We also believe the consumer electronics industry can improve to give consumers a much better AV control experience at home than today. Even with standards such as Z-Wave, Zigbee and UPnP, the consumer is still confronted with different user interfaces and inconsistent operation of equipment. As a result of the increasing complexity of all of these interconnected systems, it's a massive challenge for installers to provide an easy-to-use solution. The answer is a unified, consistent user interface for all the equipment in the home contained in one, easy to use control panel.

Trends

To achieve a successful outcome here, installer know-how about equipment interaction, integration expertise and interface design are more in demand than ever. We believe that understanding TCP/IP technology will also become more and more important in the future. Using TCP/IP will allow installers to deliver more scalable, integrated, reliable and flexible systems. As more and more video is streamed into our homes from the Internet, installers who invest here will be well positioned to give consumers access to media content around a property.

The demand to provide increasingly affordable solutions, and affordable control systems is also increasing. This represents huge potential for installers to grow their business into mid-market homes. Other opportunities will centre on applications convergence, such as AV, lighting, security and climate control, where progress is definitely taking place. Energy saving and monitoring are other new applications where we see a rising demand.

Open systems

The more CE manufacturers who adopt open systems and work together in collaboration, the quicker and easier this applications convergence will happen. We would like to see faster progress in this area and companies cooperating positively with each other in the same way that we do with our partners.

Increased cooperation will enable installers to deliver ultimate simplicity to their end users. It will result in less time spent figuring out and gluing together technically-incompatible systems, and more time on tailoring the systems' behaviour to meet the users' needs. This is the only way for an installer to be successful. And, ultimately, this installer expertise is highly valued by consumers.

Conclusion

Custom installation will always exist, but technology will change over time. It's important to keep listening to your customers and recognising their needs on the one hand, and to invest in the technology which will drive the industry forward on the other.

Choosing the right control solution is a major decision, since this is the most intensively used part of the whole system. It is also the window into the system and a unique selling tool in its own right - a well-designed touchscreen can help installers demonstrate the value of the overall system which they have designed, installed and integrated but which otherwise would remain a largely hidden set of electronic components.

Dick Mol is Senior Product Manager for Philips Pronto. Based in Leuven, Belgium, Philips Pronto is part of the Philips Consumer Lifestyle division.

www.pronto.philips.com