CES: Cisco Unveils Home Hub, Wireless Audio Device

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) wants to help make consumers’ lives easier by integrating and creating ease-of-use around their consumption of media. As part of that strategy, Cisco today unleashed a variety of new products and initatives at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. But ironically its message was lost on dozens of journalists who were turned away from its jam-packed press conference and sent to watch the announcements remotely from the press room, where the audio didn’t work.

In any case, the Cisco news out of CES today included the introduction of a home media server, a wireless home audio system, new software and partnerships.

The company wants its Linksys by Cisco Media Hub to be the centerpiece of home networks. The box can grab, store and protect content from a variety of home-based devices to enable users to view or listen to their videos, photos and music wherever in their house they are or even from authorized remote devices. It automatically searches the network for new media devices on the network or new content on those devices. And to make it easy for users to find content, Cisco said, the browser presented by the Media Hub groups media by type.

“The Media Hub is the central location you go to for access to your media, without concern for whether the file is stored on your Mac, your child's PC, or on your DLNA devices," said Greg Memo, vice president and general manager, products, Cisco Consumer Business Group.

The Media Hub is available in the United States today from authorized Linksys by Cisco retailers, resellers and VAR partners. The NMH300 series, which sells for $300, is designed to be used primarily with a PC or Mac to interface with the device. On the NMH400 Series, for which products sell in the $350 to $430 range, an LCD screen that displays information such as available space, drive usage by type of media, and network status teams with a 6-in-1 card reader to enable the simple transfer of new media and entertainment onto the Media Hub without the need for a computer.

As for the wireless home audio system Cisco came out with today, the idea here is also to enable users to access their music from whatever device and from whatever location they are in their homes. It integrates Internet music services such as Rhapsody, audiolounge and RadioTime. And an optional iPod docking station allows users to bring their current and future iTunes audio purchases into the mix as well.

“Instead of being hostage to whatever device the music is on,” you can listen to it in whatever room you’re in, said Ned Hooper, senior vice president, Corporate Development and Consumer Group at Cisco.

The system’s three playback device options include the Conductor (pricing TBD), which has speakers; the $450 Director, which has an amplifier; and the $300 Player, which is intended to be added to existing sound systems.

Also announced today was the Cisco Device Connections Program, a licensing program through which manufacturers can use the Home Network Administration Protocol (HNAP). This protocol allows various network-connected devices to be configured easily to allow them to interact with other gear attached to a home network.

Cisco today also has launched a new channel initiative in the United States and Canada to help resellers that cater to customers in the home and small office/home office market space with the tools to sell the Linksys by Cisco product line of Connected Home Products.

And, finally, the company introduced a hosted, white-label software platform, called Cisco Eos, designed to enable media companies to create, manage and grow online communities around their content. Warner Music Group will be the first user.

Said Dan Scheinman, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Media Solutions Group: "Cisco Eos leverages the power of the human network and enables Media & Entertainment companies to complement other online channels with an interactive, community-driven experience in their own branding. Media companies have the opportunity to deepen the relationship online audiences have with the entertainment content they love."

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