>> FOR FAR too long, home entertainment has been
plagued by a persistent problem – too many remotes.
Somewhere along the way, coffee tables became home to an
embarrassment of clickers. This remote controls the TV. That
one is for the DVD player. This one controls the cable box.
That one is for the stereo. This really dusty one — well, we're
not really sure what it does anymore.
But according to home-automation experts, new technologies
coupled with the rise of streaming services are letting us take
back control of our cluttered coffee tables.
"Ten years ago, you'd buy a surround-sound receiver,
you'd buy a Blu-ray player, you'd have a cable box, some
people had a compact disc changer. You'd have at least
five or six components," says David Estabrook, co-owner
of Inspire Audio Visual.
"It just became so complicated to set stuff up, whereas now
it's one or two devices with HDMI and you have a soundbar,
which just plugs into your TV."
Estabrook says multi-component sound systems are starting
to go the way of the Betamax.
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Getting everything under one remote control
Streaming
SERVICES
By Jared Story
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
COUPLED WITH THE
RISE OF STREAMING
SERVICES ARE LETTING
US TAKE BACK CONTROL
OF OUR CLUTTERED
COFFEE TABLES.
122 Parade of Homes Spring 2020
