Product category: Design Services
News Release from: Cambridge Design Partnership | Subject: Industrial and mechanical design
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 20 March 2006
Novel design puts set-top
box on new footing
An intelligent 'foot' designed for IPTV set-top box supplier for Amino has allowed a dramatic reduction in the cabling needs of customers with several TVs and PCs in their house
Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has provided the industrial and mechanical design element into an intelligent 'foot' for Amino, leading IPTV set-top box supplier, allowing a dramatic reduction in the cabling needs of customers with several TVs and PCs in their house. The need for the SmartFoot originated from the USA, where TV and PC demand is high and distributing the digital signal from one modem to an internal network of set top boxes has often proved difficult.
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 20 March 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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'Technically the best solution was to flood wire the property with Cat5 cabling, but that's a pretty unappealing prospect and we wanted a neater, smaller solution'.
'The boxes originally sat on a 'dumb' foot, and we wanted an 'intelligent' foot that would have sufficient electronics to be able to connect to any existing wiring system'.
'It needed to be robust, compatible with the existing boxes, and retain the aesthetic sensibilities of the original product', says Paul Fellows, Chief Technology Officer at AmiNo Amino turned to Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) for a solution to the industrial and mechanical design issues and the SmartFoot was born.
'It was clear that CDP were on our wavelength from the start', says Paul Fellows.
'The design they produced fulfilled all our requirements'.
CDP's brief was to take the existing 'dumb' foot supporting the Amino set-top box and configure the internal space in such a way that it would accommodate the requirement for power supply and Ethernet connections while remaining robust enough to be removed and reconnected.
It was also important that the SmartFoot retained its recognisable ellipsoidal shape.
SmartFoot means a user can now view a movie in the living room while another family member watches a different channel in their bedroom and a third person plays an on-demand TV game in another room, such as the kitchen, all via existing cabling.
Every TV and PC in the house can be set to a different channel without the need for a cat's cradle of Cat5 wiring.
The SmartFoot has had a positive impact on Amino's sales in the USA, where its neat solution to a tricky problem is helping to accelerate the number of set-top boxes deployed.
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