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TO: HTINews
FROM: Phil Kingery
SUBJ: CES
DATE: January 15, 1997


While in Las Vegas to teach a 2-day X-10 class, I also attended the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. CES is so large that I ran through most of it and even then, only saw about two thirds of the displays. It has grown over the years so that it now covers the entire convention center (which is pretty big) plus the Hilton Hotel Convention Center (walking distance to the Las Vegas Convention Center) plus another location (which I did not attend). There were even displays out in the parking areas. One was a ride in a flying saucer. The display was so good that I forgot what they were trying to sell me.

For years I have seen news reports of the many marvelous new products that were introduced at CES. Unfortunately, the news reports only showed the "interesting" parts of the show. There were some great new products like the new:

- HDTV (High Definition Television) in wide screen format,
- the "DVD" (Digital Versatile Disk, the size of a standard CD but able to hold an entire full length movie in HDTV format),
- PDA's (Personal Digital Assistants) which exchange information like electronic business cards every time two business men shake hands,
- (just for my friend Karry, who loves anything "Disney") a new Mickey Mouse phone that doesn't ring. Instead it says "there's a phone call for you, there's a phone call for you!" in Mickey’s voice. It also moves around.

However, much of the show was the same stuff re-packaged and re-hyped. There were rows upon rows of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japanese manufacturers who were showing the same stuff that we have seen for years. Instead of showing anything new, they were just trying to find new U.S. distributors and buyers for their old stuff.

My interest was, understandably, in any new Home Automation equipment. All of the HA stuff was supposed to be at the Hilton, but the little I did find was spread around the main Las Vegas Convention Center. Both IBM and RCA were touting their "re-packaged" X-10 stuff. Neither one would admit that it was the same ol' X-10 that we all know and love. Not only was there no mention of "X-10" in their literature, the sales people didn't even know it (at least the ones that I talked to didn't). The IBM system comes with the new Activa PC and is made X-10-capable by the "Home Director" transceiver module.

The RCA system is enabled through the TV's hand-held IR remote control. It was unclear if it needed an additional "module" or the X-10 transmitter was built into the TV itself. RCA did not have any literature and the sales people were clueless. Both RCA and IBM had huge displays each larger than my house.

I expected to find the X-10 booth at the Hilton since the pre-show literature said that is where all the "Home Automation" displays were supposed to be. Instead I found it over in one corner of the main convention center building. I had a nice visit with the people there. They asked about my old "Uncle Phil" letters that I used to write but have not done so in many months. I told them that I rarely had time to write those memos anymore. I am, however, doing some writing for the online Internet magazine, HTINews. We discussed with moderate amusement the fact that neither the IBM nor RCA people know what they are doing as far as X-10 is concerned.

When I finally went to the Hilton Hotel to check out the "Home Automation" manufacturers, I was very disappointed. The only company that I would consider "HA" was PHAST (Practical Home Automation Systems Technology). I picked up some of there literature and it looks very good and very expensive. I did not see anything from Echelon (LonWorks, LonTalk, etc.), nothing from CEBus (Intellon, etc.), nothing from Leviton and nothing from anyone new in the market. I was amazed by the overwhelming number of audio systems being demonstrated. For the life of me, I simply can not see why the world needs that many speaker manufacturers. They can't be that different!

Even though I became a petri dish for some unknown virus at the end of the week, I still consider it a pretty good trip. If anyone would like more details on the CES show or would like to discuss the Las Vegas class or an upcoming classes, please send me an email.

Phillip Kingery is the X-10 support representative for Advanced Control Technologies, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana and is an instructor of X-10 technical classes routinely held around the country. His email address is: actpccpek@aol.com

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