New At Marketnews: Custom Corner: Wireless To The Rescue

Marketnews: Custom Corner: Wireless To The Rescue

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New At Marketnews: Wiring Without Wires

My feature story Wiring Without Wires from the June 2010 print edition of Marketnews is now availble online at the Marketnews website.

FEATURE: Custom Corner - Wiring Without Wires

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This Week in CE Pro: Bringing Wireless HD Home

CE Pro: Preparing for Wireless HD Distribution

I recognize that in this article I am basically cheerleading for a bunch of products that haven't even been released yet, but dammit, I'm excited!

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Brief Product Review: Slim Devices Squeezebox

I'd been meaning to do this for a while, but one thing leads to another around here, and sometimes things that I think are a great idea don't always make the cut at the Global Headquarters of Lee Distad's Professional Opinion.

A couple of months ago, I bought a couple of Squeezebox digital music streamers from Slim Devices. They communicate via 802.11g WiFi with the PC that has all of our music loaded on it, and streams the audio out to any stereo device.

Despite having done a serious home renovation last month, it was still impractical/uneconomical to run lines through the house for audio distribution. Enter WiFi audio. I've written about this a couple of times for both CE Pro and Marketnews, and how wireless is a godsend for A/V contractors, allowing us to boldly go* where we could not go before.



I've got one plugged into the main A/V system downstairs, and another one connected to a somewhat more modest micro HiFi serving the open plan main floor.



Setting up the interface is a snap, even if networks aren't your strong suit. The remote control interface works brilliantly, even with the commands cloned to a learning remote, like a Harmony.


Most importantly, playback is great. No lag, no hiccups or issues with the device losing its IP-address, no perceivable negative impact on the quality of the files (I tend to rip to 320 kbps, or use lossless WMA, but I'm funny that way).



Overall, I have no gripes. It's rare that a product this inexpensive is such a home run.


Overall grade: A+


*yes, I know that's a split infinitive, but it's also a reference to a television classic. Get over it.

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802.11n bringing wireless to home entertainment

As Paris Hilton would say, this is hot.

The RetailBRIDGE: Wireless 802.11n Quickly Coming To Home Entertainment

Get ready for more wireless-ready consumer electronics products.
According to a report published last week by ABI Research, the popularity of high-speed 802.11n wireless routers and devices will soon spill over to CE products like home theater systems and set-top boxes, outpacing other networking technologies.
"Many consumer electronics vendors see WiFi as the primary way to get network-delivered content to their devices," said ABI research director Michael Wolf. "As consumers increasingly source video content on the internet and look towards multi-room distribution, older WiFi technologies don't have the bandwidth to deliver this content, particularly over longer ranges. 802.11n, in particular 5 GHz solutions using 40 MHz-wide channels, will help alleviate these constraints."
As more PC manufacturers shift to 802.11n there will be a "natural pull-through effect" to entertainment focused CE products. ABI expects to see 216 million 802.11n chipsets in consumer electronic products by 2011.

Woo Hah!

You'd be amazed how many people want High-Definition distributed throughout an existing home to 3 or more video displays where fishing cables through the walls is an uneconomical option. A good example is concrete high rise condos. Being able to do all that wirelessly is like a gift from the gods. Now I'm all a-twitter.

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