CEDIA the Nexus of Electronic Systems

The Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) had it’s annual trade show Indianapolis last month. Rather than writing about the same new products as dozens of other attendees, I will share my perspectives on the experiences that the newest electronics and software provide.

One of the things about CEDIA Expo that keeps me coming back year after year is that it is my one chance to see some really great people that have become friends over the years – former co-workers, manufacturer’s reps, colleagues and competitors. Though I trade comments on various industry forum posts or social media sites with many within the CEDIA community on a regular basis, Expo takes these relationships beyond social and makes them personal. So, it is ironic that I also view such a social event with dread as I know that it will be five days of loneliness away from my family.

In years past you may have seen me taking a cell phone call in the quite corner of a cocktail party so I could say goodnight or sing lullabies to my son. This year was different. This year I had a Nexus S phone from Google. I’ve had Skype loaded on previous phones but due to processor limitations or lack of forward facing cameras, I have never been able to use mobile Skype for video calls. This year I was the guy seeing my son make goofy faces at me while I was saying goodnight! Even video calls between two mobile devices had acceptable quality, though I do recommend using the lower quality video setting when connecting via cellular networks to prevent the video from freezing. It’s not HD but it is nice to see the person on the other end of the “line”.

I have never been much of a collector of music. I love listening to music but have always been more of a radio listener than a purchaser of songs or albums. I like a variety of music but don’t necessarily want to collect thousands of titles, and I certainly don’t want to continually sync songs from my desktop to my laptop or mobile phone when I travel. Cloud based streaming was made for people like me and I love life in the cloud!

Streaming services like Pandora, Spotify, and Google Music are fantastic. Now when I am away from home, I can listen to anything I want. Music can be selected for me based on similar artists or genres, I can stream specific songs or artists, I can even create playlists in the cloud. With other services, I can even stream my hometown radio station. It’s easy, it’s mobile, and I don’t have to predict on Monday what I will want to listen to on Wednesday.

One of the features of the Nexus S phone that initially intrigued me was the incorporation of near field communications (NFC). When I got my Nexus a few months ago, there were no NFC nearby for me to test the functionality. However, while at CEDIA I found that Yale locks had a display at the Control4 booth demonstrating this cool technology. Unfortunately the man supervising the demo did not know how to configure the app to allow my phone to operate the lock, but it worked flawlessly with the phone they had previously configured. Even without configuring the app, it was cool to see that the lock and my phone recognized each other with the NFC on but there was no recognition with it off. Of course I also earned some bonus points because (other than the demo) it was the only phone anyone at the booth had seen with NFC capabilities.

Unfortunately this remains my only test of the NFC functions. I am looking forward to Google Wallet but for reasons that I cannot fathom, Google has only made Wallet available to Nexus S 4G versions of the phone. This excludes those of us on AT&T. AT&T doesn’t even recognize the existence of this model phone.

If it weren’t for the truly unlimited data plan I have been grandfathered into, I would switch carriers in a heart beat. With such large data plans available hat makes the unlimited data plan so important when there are such large data plans available? The ability to video call and stream music without searching for Wifi hotspots!

It’s all about the data people, and that cloud? Well it’s raining content…

*Portions of this blog were written using the WordPress for Android app.