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COMMUNICATES
COMMUNICATES
A WINDOW INTO THE FUTURE
energy from the vibration. The energy is then converted into electricity, charging your device.”
TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS FOR 2020 PART 3
There will be a proliferation of new companies coming into the CEDIA channel. Amazon and Google are already here. What biggie is next? And what about all those Kickstarter newbies? Well, for one thing, crowd funding will be the primary source of funding for startups. Next? Crowd funding + 3D printing + social media = Industrial Revolution 4.0.
A 17-member panel that makes up the CEDIA Technology Council has made their predictions for 2020. From energy to networks to robots, here’s part three: Ed Wenck
Analyst at M. Heiss Consulting. We’ll soon see IP Delivery from Multi-Channel Video Platform Distributors (MVPD). If you can’t beat Over-TheTop video delivery services, might as well join ’em, O Cable Company.
Content Marketing Manager, CEDIA
We’ll have integrated real-time voice translation. It’d be pretty cool if your phone could translate your order to your Parisian waiter accurately and with zero latency. 10Gbps networking will become common in the home. Get your orders ready for Cat 6a cables (and up). Meanwhile, increased rollout of DOCSIS 3.1 and fiber to the home will bring 100Gbps to some areas globally. “The opportunity is increased bandwidth across the board,” notes Tech Council member Michael Heiss, Principal and
USB-C will be the dominant carrier between devices regardless of media. It’s twice as fast as USB 3.0, and YOU NEVER HAVE TO CONCERN YOURSELF ABOUT FLIPPING THE THING OVER FOR IT TO FIT PROPERLY. ATSC 3.0 will bring 4K as well as immersive and interactive audio into the home, distributed via Wi-Fi. Getting that signal into your house means over-the-air antennas
will make a strong comeback. To distribute all that data through the average residence, home networks will become completely multiaccess-point unified. Embedded microphones will be in most surfaces. You want something done? Just talk to it: “Turn that on!” But when you couple those embedded mics with small cameras, gesture recognition complements voice control. Alex Capecelatro, Tech Council member and founder of Josh.ai notes, “If I say ‘Open that,’ and I point at a shade or say ‘Turn that on,’ and point at a TV or a light, the camera coupled with the voice is going to make that just really natural.” Additionally, we’ll see ubiquitous sensorization, and sensors will be embedded in fixtures everywhere. Plus, dedicated tablet and touchscreen-as-control devices decrease within the home. They’ll be wrapped into your TV, your fridge, name it. And about those screens? Flexible and rollable displays will enter the market. And while all this is happening, we’ll see the rise of “people-learning” automation – machines learning what you need and like. Wireless charging without the need for a base will be pervasive — but it will require a tower. Check the startup uBeam.com: “A wave of sound … VIBRATES the air so fast, you can’t hear it or feel it. uBeam harnesses
A DIY IoT backlash may set the adoption of IoT back five years. It’s easy to see how Joe Six Pack will get pretty peeved when Thing One and Thing Two can’t talk to each other after he’s plugged everything in. We’ll also see an IoT 2.0 DIY backlash. Once we’ve established at least some standards for IoT 1.0, here comes our aforementioned Joe believing that all his smart home issues have been solved. Oops. Setback. We’ll see widespread adoption of fabric-based connected wearables. Imagine your Nana wearing a sweater full of sensors that can tell her doctor about her heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, name it. Now imagine how that applies to baby, and we’ll see a significant reduction in SIDS
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in developed nations through infant wearables. Luminaires (light bulbs) are becoming intelligent devices. As Michael Maniscalco from ihiji pointed out, the home’s already got a connected network of light sockets, so using the bulb as a smart device is the next logical step, right? Also, PoE lighting will NOT happen in the home anytime soon, (can you say “lobbyists?”) but will be very viable in commercial spaces. We’ll also see the end of the circuit for lighting control — but long live the circuit! As Dave Pedigo notes: “We still have a circuit — there will always be power that goes to the bulb. It’s just that we don’t need a switch to turn it on/off or control the light output. The circuit, just like now, is behind the wall.”
The technology integrator is more valuable than they’ve ever been.
Many homes will eclipse a Class C network requiring VLAN configuration or IPv6 adoption. The Internet of Things means that All Your Stuff trying to communicate will render that Class C network about as stable as train trestle made out of balsa wood. The new wireless spectrum allocation will impact the U.S. market. Also, NBASE-T connectivity will allow significantly greater speeds over copper cabling in the home. Nope, copper ain’t dead. While we’re talking data (and the IoT), Cat 5e is insufficient for new home construction; Cat 6a is the de facto. Your OS will travel with you wherever you go (in your car, your home, your office — even places you’re just visiting). While that’s happening, CEDIA members will curate an individual’s technology interactions 24/7/365 regardless of physical location (as in, beyond the home). Connected wearables communicating with connected cars and houses? As we step beyond Graphical User Interface and Voice User Interface, GUI and VUI, the combination of micro-cameras and mics everywhere will bring us No User Interface, NOUI. That also means virtual tech support becomes the norm in homes. Which brings us to The Big Reveal at the End: The integrator is more valuable than they’ve ever been. Shelly Palmer, one of LinkedIn’s Top 10 Voices of Technology, said in his keynote address at CEDIA 2016 that the integrator, the home technology professional, will be the “architect of man/machine partnerships.”
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