One of our colleagues sent over this Gadget Lab story the other day. It’s a pretty cool academic project from the Media Interaction Lab in Austria called CRISTAL – “Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces” (a stretch of an acronym, but let’s cut them some slack – they speak German and evidently appreciate good champagne.)
Basically the system uses cameras and overhead projection to display an image of the room onto your coffee table. You can then interact with this image using your fingers and control the various devices in the room. This is pretty similar interaction-wise to other overhead projection surfaces we’ve written about. They work well in environments like restaurants and bars. And living rooms. Take a look at the video to see the system in action.
Personally I think this kind of system is more compelling for X10 enthusiasts and home automation applications than to replace your TV remote. I don’t know about you, but when I’m watching television or a movie I like to have my remote handy, to adjust the volume, rewind to catch a line I missed, or pause to get more popcorn. But I tend to do it lying down or at least leaning back on the couch. I don’t really want to have to lean over my coffee table mid-movie. And I probably don’t want a big bright coffee table between me and the screen either. So I probably wouldn’t use something like this replace my TV or DVD player remote even if the current high cost ($10-15k) wasn’t prohibitive. But I might use it in conjunction with a standard remote.
Using it with a media server, as shown in the video, is a great application because you can view lots of metadata about the movie before deciding to watch it. That’s one of the downsides of digital storage of media that will probably require a solution of some sort before media servers become the norm. And using a system like this to control environmental elements that may not even be remotely controlled by default – lights, thermostats, blinds – is also pretty cool. But this is typical home automation stuff and it’s pretty readily available already and still not that many people make use of it. But I could see a system like this having a place in a high end home theater a few years from now.
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2 Responses to "Coffee Table as Universal Remote Control"
Agreed, I don’t think I would fork over the remote for watching movies/tv but the concept is really cool. Being able to control something like this remotely would be an interesting feature to add. No more worries about leaving the oven on before you take a month long trip to Europe. Great post, surprised there aren’t more comments on the blog.
The coolest thing since The Clapper. I think the problem here, besides the price point, is whether consumers will see this interface as a pleasing part of their room decor. I know I wouldn’t. Also, I imagine there will be a steep learning curve on set-up?