Re: NEC SmartHome Show

["Mark Harrison (Groups)" <mph@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark McCall wrote:

>Well, the show starts today!
>
>I will be there from around 10am tomorrow (as long as flights are on
time).
>
>
>
It did indeed. I was there this morning. Sadly, my schedule put me in
Birmingham for other reaons today rather than over the weekend, so I
won't get to meet up, but I've been on the road quite a bit over the
last couple of weeks and SWMBO wasn't up for me spending another weekend
away.

In terms of mass-market appeal, it was jolly good, especially for a
first show.  The seminars were sold out, with people looking through the
doors, even though they seemed very basic.

- Good effort on the part of the Plasma TV crowd showing just how
stunning the newest models are.

- A reasonable amount of WinMediaCentre05 stuff from people like
Evesham. A bit of probing into their "Home Automation PC" showed
that it
won't actually be available with the home automation pack for a few
months, and the "proprietary" hardware turned out to be Z-wave
for that
launch.

- Nice-looking consumer products in the form of digital picture frames
that just accept SD cards (among others) and show a range of pictures /
videos. Well packaged, not stupidly expensive, but standalone so only
useful as a picture frame.

- Some stalwarts of UKHA are there - Comfort, Simply Automate, and
Intamac (though Scott himself has the weekend off).

- Personally, I figure an hour, or two tops would see the stands,
however you could spend a lot longer also looking at the HomeBuilding
and Renovating show.

Regards,

Mark