Well, yesterday I was out all day running errands and one of them took me to the Immigration office in Tokyo. I don't like going there because it's like the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) in the US. It's basically a time sink, where once you enter, you have to plan on spending at least two hours of your time waiting. However one good thing came out of it.

One of the local chip distributors in Tokyo is located along the way to the immigration office so I got a chance to meet up with them. One reason I like to hang out with distis is that they always have interesting news since they have to visit so many companies all the time. They're the ones that are usually plugged in on trends and know what's popular among the electronics industry. So after meeting the local disti, I got some interesting news (gossip) about Zigbee usage at some Japanese companies.

One of the first pieces of information was that Sony is releasing a system using Zigbee as a remote control technology. I always thought this would be a good consumer application for Zigbee since you could theoretically control your home's lights, AC, and electronics from the same remote control unit. You would probably need a Zigbee to IR bridge though.

Anyways, with information in hand, I went home and checked the internet to see if I could find out any more news about the Sony Zigbee deal. Well, it's a bit anti-climactic, but here it is . The home entertainment and automation system is a partnership between Control4 and Sony and the unit's estimated total price including installation is between $40,000 - $85,000. Whew! I guess it's not ready for the mainstream yet. One hopeful tidbit of news is that the distributor mentioned that Sony is considering unifying all of their remote control protocols to Zigbee. I'm hoping that includes their electronics products (ie: TVs), because there's no way I'm paying $85,000 for a home automation system.

Since we're on the subject of Zigbee gossip, I also heard that Hitachi is introducing an air conditioning system using Zigbee. Looks like the disti was slightly off on this one.I did some research on this as well and came up with this short video of Hitachi's AirSense system . This is not exactly an air conditioning system for consumers. Basically, it's an environmental control system for HVAC and it's for industrial use.

Well, like all gossip, you can't take everything at face value. But at least it forced me to expend some energy and do some research. And I came out slightly more knowledgeable for it as well.  

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