The digital home dream may be just be around the corner but vendors are hoodwinking consumers with dreams of what might be instead of offering what they want right now. According to a long-winded piece, The Economist tells us that people just want devices that work and interoperate and that the digital home is a long-way off. It claims that vendors have forgotten about the real needs of customers, like that’s shocking news to us, the consumer. Vendors pump out the ‘digital vision’ hype because they need to drum up new revenue sources by offering lifestyle concepts. It’s ‘Marketing 101’. It’s all about perception. After all, a large part of iPod’s success is based on people buying into a lifestyle as opposed to just basing their decision on price/performance. Anyone that ever bought a PC knows that there is gap between what’s been promised and what’s on your desk. The same can be said in the living room with early adopters of flat panel TVs finding out that they were not capable of displaying forthcoming high-definition TV (HDTV) content. We might not have talking toasters and clever, Net-enabled fridges that go shopping online before gossiping  with your remote-controlled lawn mower but most of us know that's futuristic nonsense anyway. In the home entertainment sector, where it counts, things are changing fast. Many devices are now converged devices, boasting the best of PC and consumer electronics. We have HDTVs with integrated digital and analogue tuners, USB ports and HDMI sockets; DVD recorders with tuners, integrated hard disk drives, HDMI sockets, USB ports and memory card readers; AV receivers with USB ports, MP3 docks and wireless in-built. Thankfully, it’s hard to find decent home entertainment kit not sporting some form of Wi-Fi streaming or digital audio/video support. So, while any one company’s digital home vision can contain porkies, hype and the possibility of failure, the digital home is already well under way, using standards-based technology to get there. Now all we need is for it to be cheaper, easier to use and more reliable.

Computers and Internet ipod gadgets home entertainment HDTV