Tech companies taking time to think about products

It sounds like just another home-of-the-future scheme.

A consortium of companies is planning a home security system that includes a smart doorbell. If it rings, you don't even have to be at home to see who's at the door. You'll be notified on a wireless device, and you can check a Webcam to look.

The home's lights and air conditioning will be turned on before you get home, triggered by a command you send over the Web. A strange noise in the house when you're not home? You receive an alert and check the Web. And using OnStar's voice recognition capabilities, users could simply tell the system what they want done.

It's all part of a four-month pilot project being tested in Detroit by the Internet Home Alliance (www.internethomealliance.com), a consortium of companies that includes General Motors, Cisco, Hewlett Packard and Sears.

But that's not what's really revolutionary about it. The nonprofit group is asking an interesting question as it prepares to start the test: Do consumers want it?

Usually, the high-tech industry rolls out these ideas with a breathless, gee-whiz, ain't-this-great pitch. And many times, the public yawns (or chuckles) and returns to the online basics.

But when the alliance's test ends, the companies won't immediately start selling the security service. Instead, they'll go back to consumers, listen to their comments, ask if they like the service and how much they're willing to pay, then decide what to do.

"In the aftermath of Sept. 11, we think there might be some interest," said Tony Barra, president of the alliance. "But we don't pretend to know for certain that this will be well-received."

For those who scoff at the idea of such a service, think about how the Internet has changed the way you do things. I first went online in 1991, using it mostly as an information resource.

Over the years, e-mail became a fact of daily life, keeping me in touch with family and friends more than traditional mail or phone calls ever had. That's evolving into occasional videoconferences (when glitches don't interfere). I even use instant messages to stay in touch with my daughter in college.

I started shopping online, cautiously at first but now as a commonplace occurrence. I download a lot of my software instead of buying packaged products. I keep my financial records on the PC and bank online, paying a majority of my bills electronically. (And that's after wondering in the early '90s why anyone would want to balance a checkbook on a computer.) I plan and book vacations online and buy movie tickets.

None of this happened in "Internet speed," the phrase used to describe the fast-moving world of the Web. And I still avoid some technology because I just don't find it useful. The wireless Web will have to get a lot better for me to pay for it, for example. It's still too slow, too unreliable and too limited. One day, though, it will be better.

I suspect that at some point the security service will be available commercially. But while I listened to alliance officials talk about the security service as only a test, I considered the approach a small win for consumers.

At least some companies recognize that a go-slow approach may work better with consumers. Last year, digital camera companies revamped their marketing and product lines because of consumer frustration with the steps required to get pictures from a camera to a PC. Even Intel's chief executive wondered whether some ideas, such as clothes washers connected to the Internet, were worthwhile.

This slowdown gives the industry a better opportunity to explain why a particular technology will improve consumers lives instead of just presenting it as a done deal and a good thing.

One example of where this is sorely needed: I think most people have yet to figure out how the Internet will improve their TV viewing, or why they would want to combine the two, as so many tech designers predict.

A clear explanation of this and other high-tech issues would indeed be a welcome change in our developing "Internet lifestyles."

- Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4228.

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