Infosys : One tablet to rule your home!

Infosys has a grand plan. It predicts that all future homes will be digital homes with all pervasive gadgets. Why not make them smart? Infosys has a Digital smart home gateway to do just that. Infosys has developed a gateway which can be used to control all home devices through a single device. The gateway developed by Infosys is a software, hardware combination, which runs on Intel’s Atom E600 series processor and MeeGo operating system.

Think of it as a single set-top box for the entire home.

Hardware Specifications

This new gizmo from Infosys is powered by 1.3Ghz Intel Atom 600 processor and 1GB DDR-2 DRAM. It has a 7-inch resistive touch screen interface with a display resolution of 1024×600. There is support for internal and external SD cards. SATA 3.0 compliant hard disks from 80 GB to 120 GB can fit it. It has Ethernet support, WiFi, four USB ports, Zigbee and Bluetooth. It can play videos in MPEG4 and MPEG2 format and a 2 megapixel camera will facilitate your web conferencing needs. The battery back up is one hour and Meego 1.0 is the operating system.

After looking at the specs, this looks more like a tablet and less like a set-top box.

A tablet to rule all your home devices, of which there will be many.

How does it work?

You might be wondering how could this be used. It would be the single gateway for any service provider to enter your house. You might have several different service providers already. The list might go something like this : telephone, broadband, DTH or cable, electricity, security systems and surveillance systems. All these services might have come up with their own proprietary hardware. Infosys Digital Smart Home Solution would replace all of that. IPTV providers now bundle three services – TV, Internet and Telephone through a single interface of a modem. Infosys Digital Smart Home Solution is extending that to a whole new level. It’s a  IPTV concept on steroids. And you can control the interface through a smartphone or remotely through Internet.

Home energy management system, Automation and energy saver, Home RF monitoring dashboard, Home multimedia, Gaming and Entertainment center, Home knowledge center, Home security and surveillance center, Home communication center, Healthcare center and Home Irrigation (Infosys)

This would be a white label product from Infosys. Enthusiastic service providers can bundle up their services and sell to the consumers. That would pull Infosys off the distribution hook. A novel concept and a must-have gadget for future homes. It almost feels like the future is here. Yet few questions linger. How long will it take to arrive? How long will it take to adapt? Jury is out on both the questions.