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Cisco Announces Umi Today - History in the Making?

Submitted by Rich Green on Thu, 10/07/2010 - 11:14am

Home Telepresence has been on CEDIA's radar for years now.  We all knew it was coming and that it would change the lives of many families.  Well, it's here, or will be in about 30 days.

Cisco has been working on Home Telepresence for a long time.  John Chambers, Cisco's CEO, demonstrated an early prototype at CES this year. They are committed to video conferencing technology in the enterprise and last year Cisco acquired Tandberg, a leader in videoconferencing technology, including telepresence systems, for over $2 Billion.  That's a pretty serious commitment.  Why are they doing this?  The simple answer is that video consumes Internet bandwidth like nothing else, so promoting the use of video communications increases bandwidth requirements on the Internet and that means more Internet hardware, which is very good for Cisco.

But there is great good that comes from video communications.  Today, Cisco announced their Home Telepresence system with a new name: Umi (as in You and Me).  It works well as a verb too.  Let's Umi Grandma tonight.  I consider this to be an inflection point in the history of the family.  It's a big deal.

Umi is a four-piece system consisting of a camera/microphone assembly that sits atop your TV, black box, remote control and the Cloud.  The magic happens in the Cloud thanks to Cisco's very advanced telepresence technologies and hosting services. 

What makes Umi unique is its dedication to the home TV.  It is definitely not an office video conferencing system.  Rather, it lives and breathes in the TV Room with a 1080p camera of extremely high quality and very powerful software to connect friends and family with ease and simplicity.\

Skype is in this space too, with Skype video on Panasonic, LG and other TVs--for free. And there's Apple's FaceTime.  The difference here is quality, and Cisco is betting that a good number of families will appreciate the heightened presence that only high definition can bring.  Umi will sell for $599 plus a $24.95 monthly subscription.  It's certainly not free.

What does this mean for CEDIA members?  You tell me.  First, it puts a whole new emphasis on how we use our Family Rooms.  In terms of room design, there are issues of room acoustics, lighting (for faces), viewing angles, and nasty hazards like back lighting from big windows.  Home theater design will never be the same.  The only option for video connection from the box to your TV is HDMI.  Yep, good ol' HDMI. 

I'm not worried.  We can handle this with aplomb--Umi is simple.  Be prepared, though, for an entirely new kind of source component in your designs.  And stand back in awe of what happens when friends and families connect like they never have before.  

Check out the new Cisco Umi web site and let me know your thoughts.  

http://home.cisco.com/en-us/telepresence/umi\

I think we're in for an interesting journey to new services in the home we could not have dreamed of only a few years ago.  As I've been saying for a very long time now, *presence* is the future of technology.

=Rich=

 

 

Comments

  Great column Rich.   I

by Gordon van Zuiden - 10/10/2010 - 10:25am

 

Great column Rich.   I strongly agree with you that home telepresence represents a great new application in the home that can greatly ehance the CEDIA member's residential custom integration offering.

However, charging the consumer $25/month against what they can now do for free seems way to high.   Even with greater resolution and software capabilities, I don't think even wealthy homeowners are willing to add this much to their already subscription heavy budgets.

 

 

 

"Gordon, I agree that $25 per

by Rich Green - 10/11/2010 - 8:44am

"Gordon, I agree that $25 per month is a steep price for casual telepresence in the home. The free alternatives might be good enough. There are, however, two looming questions in my mind: when is "good enough" not "good enough" and what clever applications will emerge to make $25 seem like a really good value, even cheap?
 
Lets think about new applications for HTP (Home Telepresence) and how the quality of that presence enables new modes of interaction. Umi'ing Grandma on Sunday morning is the classic example of HTP. Everyone loves that notion and it instantly sells the concept of HTP. Frankly, though, Grandma will absolutely enjoy Skype with her grandchildren in spite of blocky images and poor sound quality. Grandmas are like that. Good enough is fabulous for them. 
 
Let's explore other applications of this wonderful technology. How about psychotherapy. Instead of getting on a bus or driving down the highway to get to your therapist's office, why not do it from home, perhaps at a reduced fee from the therapist because it makes each session easier for her too. Umi level quality would be extremely important to discern nuance in the communication. Being able to feel subtle facial gestures and tone of voice would make the session viable. Seems pretty good for only $25 per month. 
 
What else can we do? How about babysitting. Yep, babysitting. Let's say Grandma lives in the Guest House or Cassita out back, or just down the block. It would be liberating for the loved ones to just open a virtual window to the Guest House all day long. Grandma could keep an eye on the kids without having to get up and use her walker and the kids could keep an eye on Grandma. "Be there even when you're not" Remember that slogan? Or just keep an eye on the Rumpus Room down in the basement. 
 
Let's keep going. Language training, group meditation, personal tutoring, nursing, prayer, sex. Yes, sex. (Figure it out yourself, there are young eyes on this blog.) What about small business applications? Tech support. I can imagine a chain of auto mechanics in central Wisconsin who would have Umi in each garage. The knowledge base could be shared with great fidelity and immediacy. "Hey Sven, show me how to change this damn computer chip thing." So how does $25 per month feel now? What if it saves you hundreds of dollars each month in travel, medical expenses or technical down-time? It really starts to make sense. And it's the fidelity of the communication that matters. If quality is less important, just Skype it. 
 
How long will it take for consumers to figure this out? Will there be an HTP App Store? Whole new cottage businesses could spring to life. Health care and education could be transformed. I think we have a lot of business opportunities to look forward to, and the price will be right.
 
 =Rich=

Dave,  You are wise to point

by Rich Green - 10/08/2010 - 1:31pm

Dave, 

You are wise to point out that there will be many competitors to Umi.  Wow, Wednesday was a wild day for product announcements!  Logitech Revue as our first glimpse into the world of Google TV is exciting enough, but to surprise us with Logitech TV for HD video calls coupled with free Logitech Vid HD video conferencing services is serious icing on the Revue Google TV cake.  The Logitech solution appears to be very portable and open.  And the Logitech Vid HD service appears to be free with the camera being priced at a very reasonable $149.99.  

I suspect Skype will play into this mix even more aggressively, and we dare not forget about Apple FaceTime.  Have you seen Tango?  It enables FaceTime using 3G and Apple seems to be endorsing the App.  (Up until last week, FaceTime was exclusively a WiFi transmission.)

Price, as we have learned over the years, is not always the deciding factor in consumer electronics adoption.  Emotional connection is.  How will these services "feel" when used by real people in real life situations?  A high def video conference with friends and family will quickly collapse into disappointment and technophobic shoulder shrugging when faces become blocky abstractions due to bandwidth scarcity.  Bad audio can be a party pooper too.  And what about that Google TV keyboard?  It will turn casual TV viewers into carnival accordion players.  The keyboard is a bit inelegant for casual TV, but is it the right user interface for Google TV viewing?  Is that not casual?  

These are behavioral questions, not technical ones.  Swinging a complex wireless keyboard around the room just to watch the damn news might not fly with a lot of people.  And sometimes the brain just doesn't want to be THAT engaged when watching TV.

We're seeing the early stages of video communications mash ups in products like Skype, FaceTime, Umi and Logitech.  It's too early to tell who will win.  My suspicion is that the winner(s) will be have open and integrated approaches with extremely simplified functionality.  Cisco has the Flip camera as a fine example to learn from.  It's possible they will use the wisdom of that simplicity in new, very innovative consumer products.  Perhaps Umi is just the first.  

As our pal Mike Heiss likes to say, "Watch this space!".  I think 2010 will migrate from the year of 3D to the year of Video Communications and that will be the buzz of the holiday season.  

=Rich=

 

 Nicely written, informative.

by Anonymous - 10/08/2010 - 11:44am

 Nicely written, informative.  Thank you Rich.

 

Larry Pexton

Rich, Excellent blog. My

by dpedigo - 10/08/2010 - 10:30am

Rich,

Excellent blog. My question would be how will it compete with other, more reasonably priced options? As an example SkypeTV, or GoogleTV with their new (supposedly excellent quality) HD video conferencing. Both Skype and Google have products that have significantly lower hardware costs and there is no subscription fee.

Will there be more of a true telepresence experience with UMI (ie. reduced latency)?

Thanks for the update.

Dave