The Smart Show
10/04/2008
A Few weeks ago we visited the Smart Show at the NEC in Birmingham. This trade-only show focuses on the electrical retail trade and covers all electrical appliances from fridges to plasma screens.
Items that appeared to be getting the most interest were DAB (digital radio), numerous small LCD TV sets and DVB decoders for ‘free to air’ digital TV reception. Of all the LCD TV sets we saw, the Panasonic models that we’ve been selling for the past year or so, still lead the way in terms of performance and we’ve got one of these to give away in our competition.
The four things that caught our eye:.
A Pace DVB set top box that has a built-in hard disc recorder (nothing new there), but the latest box does have two outputs allowing you to simultaneously watch two different channels at the same time – We’d normally suggest that you watch them in different rooms though!
Karcher – Who many people will know for their power jet car washers, were showing a nifty robotic cleaner that wanders around your house cleaning as it goes. When it is full, it simply returns to its docking station, empties its rubbish, recharges itself and then goes back to cleaning. It is not too clever at coping with the stairs so you’ll need one for each floor. A snip at around £1200 – or £6000 if you have a five storey town house.
The Icebox by Beyond – touch screen PC / Entertainment system with waterproof keyboard. This new product is designed to fit under a kitchen wall unit and includes a television, DVD player, touch screen computer with web browser and most importantly a remote control keyboard that is fully waterproof. We hope to have a prototype on demonstration soon and this will be linked into our Crestron control systems to provide complete control of a central entertainment and house control.
Finally, cleverly located right at the entrance to the show was a stand offering freshly made cheese and tomato “toasties” – how could we refuse a tasting (sorry testing). The gadget on sale looked like a black sandwich bag – but a bag with a difference. Once your cheese and tomato sandwich is inserted into the bag, you simply pop in into your regular toaster, push it down, and then 2-3 minutes later, hey presto – out comes your melted and toasted sandwich. The bag can be re-used over and over again. Not something we’ll expect to be stocking at Grahams but we did buy a set for our staff kitchen.
