High-tech televisions and related accessories for the home nabbed the spotlight at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, the industry’s biggest trade show that wrapped up Saturday in Las Vegas.
TVs make up a big chunk of consumer electronics sales—which took a massive hit last year as consumers pulled back on spending—and are expected to lead electronics sales again this year.
“The television market has been one of the primary revenue drivers the past several years as consumers made the transition to high-definition, flat-panel sets,” said Gary Shapiro, president of Arlington, Va.-based Consumer Electronics Association, the trade group that puts on the yearly event.
HD TVs are about to get a little cooler as nearly all of the major TV makers revealed 3-D capable sets last week.
Samsung Group, Panasonic Corp., Sony Corp., LG Group and Mitsubishi Electric Corp., which has operations in Irvine, each had 3-D TV models on display in the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The sets require special glasses.
The Consumer Electronics Association projects sales of about 4 million 3-D televisions this year, still a small fraction of the 37 million units expected to sell overall.
Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. showed a chip that allows 3-D video to be played on both Blu-ray DVD players and digital TVs.
TVs also got more “connected” at this year’s CES with scores of manufacturers teaming up with Web sites to deliver online content.
“Connected TVs will soon become a hub for entertainment and information distribution throughout the home,” Broadcom said in a statement.
Vizio Inc., an Irvine flat TV seller, showed off its Via line of televisions that come loaded with Amazon.com Inc.’s video-on-demand service, Flickr, Netflix, Rhapsody, Twitter and other popular online apps.
Broadcom announced three “connected home” chips, which are set to “drive down the cost of deploying high-definition video while also enabling the transfer of multimedia content around the home and to connected consumer electronics,” spokeswoman Devan Gillick said.
Gadgets that enhance home entertainment—with the flat TV as its centerpiece—were much talked about at CES.
Irvine-based IOGear Inc., which makes computer, mobile phone and television accessories, announced a wireless HD kit that allows consumers to beam data from their computers to Blu-ray DVD players, set-top boxes and connected TVs through the walls of a home.
“You can download a movie to your computer and wirelessly stream it to your TV with no delay,” said Doug Turner, IOGear’s director of sales for North America. “Interactive TVs are a really big deal this year.”
The company also has a wireless keyboard that goes for about $100 that allows users to use their flat TVs as extensions of their PCs.
The keyboard, which IOGear launched in October, “has sold out every month,” Turner said.
Fountain Valley-based D-Link Systems Inc., part of Taiwan’s D-Link Corp., unveiled a device that it calls “the perfect companion to a high-definition TV.”
It teamed up with Oklahoma-based Boxee Inc. to make the Boxee Box, a glossy black cube that delivers movies, TV shows, music and photos from a computer, home network and the Internet to a high-definition TV with no PC in between.
Boxee software also has a social component—it allows users to post reviews and share photos via Facebook and Twitter from their TVs.
“The Boxee software platform has a very loyal following,” said Dan Kelly, director of marketing at D-Link. “It’s different from other media boxes because it crawls the Internet for content and allows you to share it.”
D-Link’s Boxee Box won the “best of innovations” award in the home entertainment category, given by the Consumer Electronics Association.
It’s set to go on sale during the second quarter. A price hasn’t yet been set.
“We are hoping to get it under $200, which is sort of the magic number with consumer electronics,” Kelly said.
Of course, CES wouldn’t be CES without the parties and over-the-top events.
An event last week put on by Florida’s Pepcom Inc. at the Mirage Hotel and Casino—itself famous for a pair of white tigers—had an African safari theme, complete with displays featuring lions, rhinos and hippos.
There was a martini bar carved entirely of ice and models roaming the floor painted to look like zebras, leopards and giraffes.
