Will iPhone / iPod Touch Replace Touch Screens and UMPCs?

[upstatemike]

Based on the rate that new apps are being developed for the iPhone / iPod Touch, I am wondering if they are likely to displace most existing touch screens and tablet PCs as a sort of universal User Interface? I see on the Slim Devices forum that the apple devices are competing with Logitech's own products as the control of choice to use with their Squeezebox products. And of course there is the announcement of the new Smarthome NetLinc product for controlling Insteon lighting and Panasonic web cams. These are just 2 of many new apps i have seen in just the past week or so.

Some other reasons I think this might be the new mainstream control paradigm is:

Market Penetration/Acceptance-
Lots of folks either have or are thinking of getting a new phone or ipod. These people might never consider spending money on a dedicated automation device but would have no trouble expanding something they are already familiar with to additional automation functionality.

Cost-
At $300 for an iPod touch, you can justify having a several around the house a lot easier than you can justify a bunch of $1000+ UMPCs or In-wall touch screens.

Flexibility-
Besides the wide range of applications mentioned above, the apple devices are wireless docked units so there is zero installation for most folks who already have a wireless etwork. This paradigm is also easier to justify than in-wall since the iPhone / iPod Touch can be relocated easily and goes with you if you move.

I know most people think of these products primarily as portable devices to carry around with you but I could very easily picture a house full of docked iPhone / iPod Touch units as the primary interface for everything from TV control to lighting to whole-house music. You could even create a virtual pbx system with several iphones on a family plan. Use push-to-talk as an intercom between phones and a service like Ring Central to have them all ring at once on incoming calls.

 

[tmbrown97]

I personally would love to see this shift. I have an iPod touch that I don't use for music really at all - I use it as a PDA more than anything, but love the idea of using is as my home controller. To be able to pick it up off the coffee table and use it like a remote to adjust my lights and change the temerpature would be awesome. Even better if it had a tcp/ip to IR type of interface so I could ultimately use it to control my AV equipment. I'm sure it would be easy to map the house out and have all the multi-room control I would need - and I could even take it out back, or anywhere else my WiFi reaches to control what's playing on the stereo with visual access to my MP3 library...

Oh, the possibilities are endless... Maybe it would help too if we could build a list of the different hardware and software companies with interfaces for the iPod?

 

[DavidL]

I added a new area under "Software" tab in the HA comparison spreadsheet. I called it "User Interface Hardware Supported" (or something like that - feel free to edit)

so far I added iPhone / iTouch and then UMPCs.

 

[IVB]

My entirely personal view is that there is zero chance of it fully replacing touchscreens. After using one for my own house for several days/weeks, i realized the screen size is just too small to be effective. Buttons must be designed to be very small in order to get anything done. Can't fit enough regular widgets in. There's the "where the hell is the remote" conundrum.

That said, there's not much need for more than 1 touchscreen per floor of a house, in rare cases two. Put one in the kitchen (or living room) to handle music control, get a 8-10" screen with a thin bezel, and you'll have both WAF & functionality.

 

[123]

David Schantz created a web-based interface for iPhone and Premise last January (original Yahoo post). He didn't build a native iPhone app but a Premise web-application using current web technologies (AJAX). Unfortunately, the author never posted the code ... not even a tantalizing screenshot.

 

[CalypsoCowboy]

I'm not sure if it will, but the one thing it points out is the need for a fair sized touchscreen device that we can run our HA interfaces on, so far there are none reasonably priced. Honestly I love the look and size of a number of Crestron units, they are wired, wireless, docking, etc, they seem to have it all, but they are the only one (outside of AMX and Control4)

I'm interested in the new panel HAI has, I've heard it may have the ability to run other apps, if so that would be cool.

 

[az1324]

My entirely personal view is that there is zero chance of it fully replacing touchscreens. After using one for my own house for several days/weeks, i realized the screen size is just too small to be effective. Buttons must be designed to be very small in order to get anything done. Can't fit enough regular widgets in. There's the "where the hell is the remote" conundrum.

That said, there's not much need for more than 1 touchscreen per floor of a house, in rare cases two. Put one in the kitchen (or living room) to handle music control, get a 8-10" screen with a thin bezel, and you'll have both WAF & functionality.

If you combine the multi-touch with a good interface design the screen size is not as much of an issue. Left/Right swipe for pages, up down rubber band scrolling, and pinches. IMO more pleasurable for interaction than the tap tap of normal touchscreen layouts.

If everyone starts having one of these devices in their pockets who will walk over to the touchscreen on the wall?

But really if you can build an ipod touch for 299 which is such a versatile device and a lot of the cost is for the 8gb memory chip then the cost of in wall touchscreens really should be approaching that pricepoint. Because who is going to pay 3x the price for something that is stuck in the wall and has a fraction of the functionality? Yes I know volume. But chumby is $180 and it isn't selling millions of units. The problem is that HA devices are still luxury goods and need to evolve beyond that paradigm.

 

[Waynedb]

As my eyes get older the size screen I need gets larger, the days a PDA sized touchscreen would have been good enough for me is long gone.

 

[electron]

IVB, remember the interface I did for PDAs? It gives you tons of control, without having to change screens, while still looking really sharp and support large graphics. The solution is a good interface design, not a bigger screen IMO.

 

[WayneW]

http://www.cepro.com/article/7_iphone_appl...ion_and_control

 

[upstatemike]

My entirely personal view is that there is zero chance of it fully replacing touchscreens. After using one for my own house for several days/weeks, i realized the screen size is just too small to be effective. Buttons must be designed to be very small in order to get anything done. Can't fit enough regular widgets in. There's the "where the hell is the remote" conundrum.

That said, there's not much need for more than 1 touchscreen per floor of a house, in rare cases two. Put one in the kitchen (or living room) to handle music control, get a 8-10" screen with a thin bezel, and you'll have both WAF & functionality.

I agree that the the screen size is the biggest issue but since I now need glasses even when I use a PC sized screen, the smaller screen is not an added problem as as long as the icons are not too small. Most screens I have seen designed for iPod Touch applications have made a point of haveing large, easy to use buttons.

I do not agree with the idea of a central touch screen per floor. I generally want to control my music from where I am listening from, not a central location. (That is why I have 14 squeezebox music players rather than 1 player and a multi-zone amp.) If I was going to wall mount screens it would be just inside each door. I would have them default to showing the camera view for that door with a button to switch directly to the alarm keypad screen. (Most current implementations require several keypad presses to get from camera screen to keypad screen which makes them too confusing for Grandma to use).

The "where is the remote" concern is valid and that is why I say you need the iPod Touch units in all the places where you commonly use them. You can't depend on carrying them from place to place or they will never be handy when you need them and nobody will like the system. This is why the $300 price point is important.

 

[IVB]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I hear some folks on how you can create a screen to make it work for you, but my experience with my non-techie inlaws is that they're not down with the multi-function buttons, slide out menus, etc. They want to see more of it on the screen. A 4" screen isn't really going to cut it, especially when you take the vision issues that Wayne mentions into account.

Prices for touchscreens, as with everything else, will drop. I'm sure that in 3-5 years (which is how long it'll take for HA to really be mainstream), we'll have plenty of options to choose from. There's not enough of a market now to warrant the investment.

I disagree with the multiple iPod touch units; you've just destroyed the cost advantage by requiring multiple ones. Plus, it doesn't have to be an either or; use your cellphone while in the house if you want since landlines are going the way of the dinosaur. But, who is really going to check a 5day weather forecast on a 4" screen - use the touchscreen or touchpanel television (really futuristic now) for that.

 

[upstatemike]

I disagree with the multiple iPod touch units; you've just destroyed the cost advantage by requiring multiple ones.

Not really, since I disagree that having a larger screen lets you have less. I am saying you need multiple screens no matter what type you use. The screens need to be where you are listening, watching, controlling, etc... you should not have to go to a different room to control something. You need several screens in any case so cheaper is better.

Prices for touchscreens, as with everything else, will drop. I'm sure that in 3-5 years (which is how long it'll take for HA to really be mainstream)...

Yes I remember hearing that 3-5 year number for HA to go mainstream when I first got into it... in 1974. (But I'm sure it is accurate this time)

 

[IVB]

The screens need to be where you are listening, watching, controlling, etc... you should not have to go to a different room to control something. You need several screens in any case so cheaper is better.

I didn't realize a law requiring local screens had been passed. In my house, the layout is such that the wallmounted touchscreen is centrally located. I used to have a $180 Fujitsu 3400 in a doc in the far end of the L/R ~22 feet away, but that never gets turned on as we find it simpler to select what we want and then sit down. If we want to change, it's not that big a deal to do that.

In the worst case that we're feeling really lazy, we've got media extenders in the TV rooms. As soon as Beelzerob gets the Sage->CQC bridge working, those will be able to control the full HA suite, so no iPhone/PDA needed there. If the TV isn't on but we're still not close to the kitche, the odds are that one of our laptops is on, so no PDA needed there.

Keep in mind that CQC has had a native DotNetViewer for years now, and i've been able to use a PDA to do custom control for that whole time period. After all the time spent working on my PDA screens, I ended up giving away my old Ipaq as it was just easier to use the laptop, touchscreen, and now, media extender to control the HA.

I'm sure this all sounds nifty peachy snazzy especially to those folks with their new shiny new iPhones, but after you use it for a year get back to me and tell me whether you'd rather use that or something bigger. Hell, I didn't even last a year, I don't think I made it 6 months.

 

[123]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aBmlO14go

An example of a web-based user-interface, running on an iPhone, developed for HouseBot. Some of the UI widgets make good use of the iPhone's "slip 'n slide" interface.

I subscribe to the idea of the zero-UI ... the HA system should react to, or preferably anticipate, your actions (OK, you'll still need something handheld to mindlessly channel surf). Sounds like sci-fi but there's enough computing power and software sophistication nowadays to "make it so".

We just need to divert people from pimping their touchscreens and redirect that energy to tackle the problem of Home Intelligence.

Anyway, yeah, the iPhone has the potential for being a nice platform for an HA remote ... until the next tech-toy comes 'round the bend.