DUAL
DUAL: the perfect solution to tackle the growing need for interactive devices allowing for text input...
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Whereas in the past web access and interaction was restricted to PC devices, nowadays there is a clear trend that Broadcast Service providers, Consumer Electronics manufacturers as well as PC manufacturers are looking into offering two-way enabled connected devices for the living room. New features already available today include media-guides, web browsing as well as widgets accessing tightly integrated social and information-based contents & applications. |
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Traditional on-screen user interface and remote controls are not designed or adequate to handle these features. The new product is a remote and a keyboard in one, with the top side featuring a remote control, and the bottom side featuring a keyboard. By simply turning the remote, a keyboard is available allowing text input as needed in media search, instant messaging and web browsing purposes. The appliance is equipped with alternate input methods like pointing, touchpad, or optical sensor, allowing user interfaces to implement free cursor, gesturing and moving highlight mechanisms thereby making browsing a better experience than the traditional 4 directional keys. |
Rotary wheel
Philips is continuously striving to develop and bring new technologies to the market.
Designed to enable quick and intuitive navigation of user interfaces & scrolling through content, the rotary wheel technology features a speed-variable wheel that allows users to surf through menus and immediately access digital content at a faster or slower pace than allowed by traditional remote control technology.
This technology has been developed to allow easy management and selection to large amounts of digital content with the speed variable rotary wheel requiring fewer keys on the remote control. Compatible with set-top-boxes, DVDR and IPTV, the rotary wheel technology is designed to work seamlessly with an on-screen user interface.
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The rotary wheel technology for remote controls has been developed by Philips Home Control following consumer feedback that traditional remote control devices, based on single function activation, or up/down or left/right navigation, did not offer the flexibility desired by users. By implementing a rotary wheel as the primary control, this technology facilitates quick and intuitive navigation. Extensive consumer testing during product development revealed that users favor the rotary wheel when browsing for contents in the Time Shift Buffer and lists of files in the hard disk.
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Interactive display
Next generation connected audio devices require a sleek, navigation peripheral to complement the device and allow convenient access to the connected or broadband application. The Philips interactive display is the best in class bi-directional interactive colour LCD remote in term of cost effectiveness and ease of integration into the host.
Simple control, Simple Design
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With its sleek design which fits the palm nicely, it is a remote control you want others to see in your living room. The remote makes it easy to browse your music lists, without having to turn on the TV. Just look at the thumbnails or cover art on the LCD screen of the remote and choose your next song. Operate your device from anywhere in the room, because it operates on RF you don't need line of sight to control the device. The rotary wheel adds to the enhanced navigatione xperience, as you can easily & quickly scroll through long lists. The software even supports multiple languages incl. CJK & Russian.
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Relative & Absolute (uWand) Pointing
Pointing solutions are proven to be great for large screens, especially with the modern multimedia user interfaces. The market has also been educated by the vast acceptance of Wii games.
When conducting consumer tests, Philips Home Control found out that, for products with interactive services, 77% of the consumers prefers a pointing remote control over a traditional remote control.
Philips Home Control offers a complete portfolio of pointing solutions for different application needs:
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Relative Pointing (with or without tilt compensation) A great commercialized example of relative pointing is already available on the market and proven to be a big success. The Lenovo All-in-One Desktop PC features our pointing remote control. Read more about it on the Lenovo website. |
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Absolute Pointing with fixed location beacons (uWand) uWand is a remote control shaped handheld direct pointer, that also delivers 3D capabilities, all with the same intuitiveness as a multi-touch screen. A special camera embedded in the handheld gives uWand an intuitive direct pointing capability. With uWand you can directly interact (point and click) with several devices such as your TV, DVD player, set-top box, a hard disk recorder, digital photo frame or even a game console. A true lean-back experience where you are able to control your content from the comfort of your sofa. For more information visit the uWand website. |
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Simple Setup
Setting up a universal remote control can be hard!
A ‘Universal IR Database’ is made by engineers…. for engineers. Your remote control should be more then 'just a database'. 
Based upon extensive user testing, Philips Home Control redesigned the complete set-up experience and tested it thoroughly with independent user studies. We wanted to find out exactly when, how often and why users get stuck when programming a universal remote control.
These studies show amazing results: Whereas the success rate for setting up a remote with the traditional method was only 55%, the success rate with the redesigned Simple Setup method of Philips amounted to 95%.
The new Phillips method offers a drastically minimized user manual with clearer instructions. The steps were made much easier and simpler than before. Simultaneous key presses are eliminated, and users are required to key in only one number instead of different ones. Better feedback is provided after each step and text and icons arere optimized. Also the ‘user interface’ and the software algorithm behind the search for the right codes are improved.
Technology does not stand still and improvement continues. A future step in the Simple Setup project is to guide the set-up of the universal remote on the TV screen itself. For this, the set-top-box will offer an on-screen manual, giving even more guidance to the user by breaking the set-up into smaller steps.
For MSO's this new technology is very interesting as it results in:
- Cost savings (less support calls)
- Less churn
- Less risk & time saving ('turnkey' solution based upon in-depth user tests and consumer insights)