The Official Magazine of ISE 2012 - Amazon S3

ISE visitors can make the KNX connection
Last year at ISE, its association had 215 members. Today,
that number stands at nearly 250. Close to 100,000 people
subscribe to the association’s bi-annual journal. Over
7,000 commercial products are now available that feature
the technology. Industry standards may come and go, but
KNX looks to be on a very positive upward path – and will
once again be represented at ISE by the KNX Association.
“One of the many things that makes KNX special is
that, thanks to our certification scheme involving thirdparty
test labs, products that feature the KNX standard
are guaranteed to be interoperable,” says
Joost Demarest, director of the KNX
Association. “That means not just
interoperability between one
manufacturer’s KNX product and another
– but also between KNX products from
different application domains.”
“The impact and benefit of that are
clear,” he continues. “The user has a wide choice of many
products from many vendors that can be combined
together to a flexible and extendable smart-home
installation.”
The Association is always on the lookout for new
members. “Regardless of the type of membership,
becoming a member first and foremost allows a
manufacturer to show that they are part of this worldwide
community of providers of KNX solutions,” says
Demarest. “As a licensee, a manufacturer can moreover
become a contractual partner of the KNX IPR License
Agreement, giving them access to any patents of fellow
member companies that may exist on the KNX technology
as described in the KNX standard. They can then use
these patents free of charge in products, if these are
submitted to the KNX certification scheme for products.”
Historically, KNX has perhaps been most associated
with its applications in energy management – a topic
close to the heart of many potential customers, both
residential and commercial. “KNX can control many
applications in homes and buildings,” points out
Demarest. “It has already been extensively used to
minimise energy costs such as lighting,
sun shading and, last but not least, heating,
ventilation and air-conditioning. It can also
be used for load shedding: on the many
KNX displays that are available, the
customer can easily monitor not only the
evolution of their energy consumption but
can also – thanks to KNX energy actuators
– find the source of a possible increase of consumption.”
But, argues Demarest, KNX is about much more than
just energy management. “Think of it as a highly intelligent
superglue that enables all kinds of applications to be
combined in a smart home,” he says, “including
audiovisual applications. We’re hoping that ISE visitors
will come to our stand (7V197) to find out for themselves
about the wide variety of fields of application to which
KNX can be applied.”
www.knx.org
AVnu Alliance continues to thrive
Any initiative within the audiovisual industry to deliver a
better end user experience is an initiative to be welcomed.
Delivering that better experience is the goal of the AVnu
Alliance, an organisation formed to promote understanding
and adoption of the AVB (Audio Video Bridging) standards
which will, their proponents claim, bring substantially
superior AV streaming to the industry.
A mark of the success of the AVnu Alliance is that, this
year, its ISE stand (7Q220) will be larger than last year –
indicative of an increased industry awareness and interest
that is reflected in the fact that, in the intervening year,
AVnu’s membership has grown from 29 companies to 40.
“And,” points out Lee Minich, chair of the AVnu Alliance
Marketing Work Group, “it’s important to note that those
40 members are parent companies. If you take members,
for example, like Bosch, Harman, LOUD Technologies
and TC Group, that’s four members – but collectively,
they represent more than 20 AV brands.”
AVB has moved rapidly, and all of the IEEE AVB
standards – with the exception of IEEE 1722.1, which is in
its final stage – are now finalised and published. Minich
points out that AVB is seeing growing adoption not just in
the AV market, but in other markets such as automotive.
“Many of the so-called ‘standards’ in the industry are
actually what I'd classify as proprietary protocols,”
Minich says. “If the technology is only available from a
single source, then it is proprietary. AVB is different in
that there are large number solution providers – chip
manufacturers, software vendors and so on - that are
providing a broad range of technology options. “Many of
the so-called ‘standards’ in the industry are actually what
I'd classify as proprietary protocols,” he says. “If the
technology is only available from a single source, then it is
proprietary. AVB is different in that there are large number
solution providers – chip manufacturers, software
vendors and so on – that are providing a broad range of
technology options. What this means for manufacturers,
and ultimately end users, is that the appropriate AVB
implementation can be used for the appropriate
application: for example, microphone implementation vs.
a mega-channel DSP matrix solution.”
“In the early days of AVnu Alliance, we were working
hard to promote general education about AVB technology
itself,” continues Minich. “We are now to the point with a
number of large manufacturers with AVB product
announcements, the fundamental work of AVnu in the AV
industry is to educate as to the value and importance of
AVnu certified AVB products – so we will be featuring
educational programmes at our ISE pavilion throughout
the show, reinforcing the larger role AVnu plays in
assuring interoperable member equipment, in addition
to continuing to provide information about the underlying
AVB technology.”
www.avnu.org
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