At last, a solution for the ‘buttons from Hell’
By Steven B. Zaboji
Founder and President,
Balaton Marketing,Inc.
Sterling, Virginia
Most of my professional life has been defined by my vocation, consumer electronics, and by my avocation, aviation. While these are quite independent of each other, for me they hold common perspectives – for one, the miracle of digital technology. All those zillions of “zeros” and “ones” make everything work with uncanny accuracy, whether in a cockpit or in an electronics-packed living room.
Wearing my vocational hat, I'm an independent sales rep for a number of top consumer electronics manufacturers. One of these companies recently came up with a product that's making quite a stir in the industry's trade magazines – one writer was prompted to describe it to his readers as, “My people! I have visited the future...”
I thought Baby Boomers might like to know about it, too, because you're the single largest consumer of consumer electronics. (I promise, unlike the trade reports, this one will be in plain English.)
The new product is a novel alternative to the array of remote controls now cluttering your coffee table – and in particular their rows and rows of buttons glittering like the red eyes of tiny demons in the darkened room. No wonder they're known as “buttons from Hell.”
Before I tell you more about this new wonder of technology, let me give you a little background on what prompted Yamaha, the manufacturer, to develop it now.
In the wake of last year's government-mandated switch to all-digital broadcasting – and as prices for TV sets continue to tumble – customers are lining up at stores or hitting “buy” on websites to grab the latest models like there's no tomorrow. Of course with your new TV set you've got to have the latest models of the other goodies, too, like audio-video receivers and Blu-ray disc players.
All this is a great feast for your eyes and ears, but they come with, you guessed it, more elaborate remote controls with lots more “eyes” on your coffee table.
Yamaha's solution, rather than simply coming up with a super remote control to control the functions of all the other remote controls, was to boil everything down to just a few buttons on a hand-held device, and to move all the others to your TV screen.
The new system is called the neoHD Media Controller. Its nerve center is a little unit about the size of a box of candy with virtually no knobs, switches or other gizmos. Simply, here's how it works:
First, you hook up a cable from your neoHD to your TV set, and then wires from the neoHD to your speakers. Then, you connect your Blu-ray player, cable or satellite receiver, gaming devices, IPOD dock, streaming radio music and just about everything else in your electronic toy box to the neoHD box.
From here on, the action shifts to your TV screen. For example, when the neoHD is turned on, the TV screen will show a choice of three prompts, “Watch,” “Listen” or “Play.” If you select “Watch,” the next prompt will ask you, “Watch what?” and then give you a choice of your TV, DVD, satellite system or whatever you'd like to put through its paces.
The on-screen prompt-and-select routine repeats for just about every conceivable function, from picking a movie you'd like to see to setting up a “soundstage” right in the room. All from just one remote device with only 11 buttons on it.
What does the neoHD cost? It comes in different models, with or without speakers, with or without WI-FI connectivity and in silver or black, with price tags ranging from $600 to $800. Keep in mind, though, that in addition to replacing all those remote control units, the neoHD is also your main audio-video receiver. That unit alone could easily cost the same price, and often much more.
Looking back, I put on my consumer electronics hat for the first time in my early twenties, when I began a career in the audio-video industry after developing a love for Hi Fi in my early teens.
I've been wearing my second hat a lot longer than that. It all started at 20,000 feet, when my family was flying across the Atlantic on a DC-4 to New York’s Idlewild Airport (now JFK). That was in 1951, and we were fleeing the awful things that were happening in our native Hungary in the aftermath of World War II. I was 10 at the time, but not too young to fall in love with flying on the trip.
Finally, here's a shameless plug for a book I'm writing – wearing both hats -- called “Business on a Wing.”
For more info on the neoHD: click www.yamaha.com/yec/neoHD/products.asp or contact Zaboji at www.balatonmarketing.com or at his e-publishing company, www.virtual-representative.com.
