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One thing is for sure, people are willing to spend serious money on home theaters. Most of these are the same folks who can’t set the time on their VCR and unfortunately often end up with a theater or viewing room no-one can operate easily! Inexpensive and easy to use human interfaces are routine in automated homes but many times are missing in the theater. Even when a theater is well automated, the human interface can cost well over $5,000.
This discussion is taken from an actual experiences I had. The steps the owner of the system went through are real and in the order I mention………
Imagine, if you will, your friend is over to see your newly
installed home theater. You reach for your multi-function LCD Touchscreen.
- You Tap the control labeled - DRAPES.
- On the next screen you tap - CLOSE.
- The rooms window drapes close.
- You back up a level and enter the A-V menu.
- You select the DVD player and touch the play button,
- The program starts to load and play.
- Ooops, you haven't turned on the surround processor yet.
- You navigated back to that screen and turn it on and select Video 1.
- You also forgot to turn on the projector, heck, which menu has the controls for the projector on it?
- You get nervous as your friend looks over at you. In desperation you grab for the remote, and turn on the projector, which aspect am I supposed to set it to, the heck with it, too late to change now!
- You look up to see the DSS playing on the front curtain. Back to the surround processor and select video 3, it has a blue screen with a message on it that says NO SIGNAL. Video 2, yeah, there it is, but it's showing on the curtain. You remember right where the drape control section is and go there in a flash, and open the front curtain. A few key presses later and the front curtain is open and the window drapes are successfully closed. YOU CAN RELAX, YOU HAVE STARTED YOUR MOVIE EXPERIENCE.
- Well almost, it seems the lighting has been forgotten and you ask your friend to turn off the lights (instead of trying to find the lighting control section on your menu).
At this stage of the Theater experience your friend is questioning your sanity since he knows you spent some big bucks on the A/V gear.
Does this sound farfetched ? I have witnessed this exact scene, I was the friend asked to come enjoy my buddies new system! The real bad news is that my buddy is a wealthy individual who owns a high end A/V store. He does not take an active part in running the store but after hearing his wife’s comments on operating their new system I am sure life at the store (and maybe a few designers) will soon change!
He had a custom rack full of the state of the art components his company sells and a fancy universal remote with a LCD display. The quality of the components was not the problem. After way too many minutes of "remote" controlling we finally had excellent picture and sound quality! The missing factor in the experience was ease of use, and the result was certainly not result a LIFESTYLES ENHANCING experience!
Remember, this is almost never a question of how smart the operator is, but of their background. We need to always be mindful that the systems we install will not be operated by people who spend 40 hours a week installing automation systems or stereo systems. They will be operated by someone who has worked hard all day and wants to watch the latest film with his family as easily as turning on the TV.
Asking the average person to go several layers deep in a LCD menu is dangerous! If they felt comfortable doing that then they could set the time on their VCR! We as Automation and A/V installers must listen to listen to our customers current lifestyle habits and design our products around that! We must ask them to learn very few new things! We should certainly never ask them to learn anything requiring many steps or choices. Asking the operator to change the way they live is not lifestyles enhancement and will not result in repeat sales as a result!
ONE BUTTON design and operation can be done. Look at this years HAA Mark of Excellence Award winner for best product of the year - The Touchscreen from SmartLinc. It sells to the customer for under $500 and when linked to their X-10 to I/R controller and/or Houselinc system can offer a totally programmed series of all the events needed to automate the theater experience for under $1,000.
If several variations of operating the theater is desired, simply create another one button option macro. Another strong reason to consider systems like the TouchLinc is the fact that it can double as an interface for security, lighting and energy management.
In summary I wish to point out that automation is still seen by many customers as scary! The house from hell syndrome is still a factor that cuts into our market base. The same people who accept the fact that the clock in their car will be off by one hour during daylight savings time will not buy automated products if they fear the operation will confuse them.
Learning to enhance lifestyles and design systems around the customers current living habits is still a problem in our industry. Instead we are asking the customer to change their lifestyle around our products. I don’t know about you but asking me to start entering my home from the backdoor instead of the garage door, is not my idea of a direction I want to go!
