CES preview: The wireless revolution is finally here
dan tynan on Jan 07 2009 at 11:22 am | Filed under: Computerworld, Culture Crash, Music
And so the madness begins.
I’m not going to CES (I may have mentioned that before), but I’ve gotten several pre-show briefings on interesting stuff. And though I’m sworn to secrecy on many of these products until they’re announced, two themes are clearly emerging: gadgets are going wireless in a big way, and everything is finally getting connected.
The biggest news IMHO is that Cisco is finally making its long anticipated push into the living room. Later today its Linksys home networking division will introduce a wireless music system they swear will be a Sonos killer. (New York Times blogger Saul Hansell spilled the beans prematurely on that one last week.)
(The product, called the Linksys by Cisco Wireless Home Audio system, has now been officially unveiled. that’s a picture of the whole system, above.)
The system combines a bit of the Sonos music system, the EOS, and the 9,427 portable media docking stations currently on the market. It ties into a 802.11n WiFi router and some home network attached storage products Cisco is also announcing. The features are impressive and the price is just a hair cheaper than the Sonos; the real questions are how easy it is to set up and how good it sounds.
I am a huge Sonos fan, so it will need to be pretty damned good to impress me. But Cisco has the kind of market clout few companies can match, so a push into networked home entertainment devices will be interesting to watch.
For more on what to look for at CES, see my Culture Crash blog on Computerworld.com
