Where are the "Internet" Appliances with Ethernet Cards?

StoryMan asks: "Here's one that stumps me. Maybe someone can explain the logic. Yesterday, I bought a TiVO -- the personal video recorder. An amazing gadget. Absolutely first-rate. (I bought it based on the recent Slashdot story and the NY Times aricle.) But there's a problem. It's a got a modem. I've got a DSL connection, got a LinkSys DSL router, and have 4 computers on my home LAN. So as I'm setting up the TiVo, and waiting for it do dial in, I start to think: man, why doesn't thing just have an ethernet card?" I'm still waiting for an "internet" appliance that gets it right and at least offer an add-on for a network card. Is it really that hard to do?

"I read a press release about the new IPaq information appliance. I think: well, I may get one of these for my kitchen. It'd be neat to have a good-looking appliance sitting somewhere on the counter so I could check e-mail, check CNN.com, have my daily moreover.com newsfeed, etc. But again: no ethernet -- just a crappy 56K modem. (And a $599 price tag! WTF is up with that? But again, I digress...)

Then, I start to think about the I-Opener. A modem. No ethernet.

So I start to wonder: why aren't there cheap internet appliances that simply have an ethernet card? Let me worry about the connection -- you sell me the hardware. The sort of appliance I might put in mykitchen for e-mail and casual surfing. I mean, I've got the home network up and running, got the firewall all configured, so everything is all set.

What's up with all these appliances and their built-in modems? I suspect it's because they're selling the service -- i.e. the 9.95 a month TIVO subscription or the 19.95 MSN service -- and so have no desire to support someone who already has the service.

So I gotta wonder: is the "true" internet appliance is still a long ways off? That what all these so-called 'internet appliances' -- TIVO included -- are simply companies risking losses on hardware in order to sell monthly services? Are there business models in place for internet appliance that *don't* rely on a modem and the monthly service? (I mean, I don't even mind the monthly service! I'd still pay 9.95 a month for TiVO -- but just ditch the modem and let me use my DSL!!)"

Comments

Lack of Ethernet in TViO....

[oblisk]

This is just a wild guess but the i think the reasoning for no ethernet capibilities with the TViO is to limit the use of the saved video.

If there is ever an Lan connection on a Tvio it'd take probably less than a week for some smart arsed hack, to reverse engeneer access to those files and a means to play back and store on a PC. TViO proably doesnt want to deal with the legal implications of this, as they hinted before in there comments on the Hardware hack, they dont mind as long as no one starts poking at the propietry video file format they have.

Oblisk

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I-Paq extention cards

[Pooh22]

the I-paq does have some kind of expansion capability (see at compaq) unfortunately the expansions page is missing.

The demo I saw at Mobicom 2000 was pretty convincing and they had a sleeve for compact-flash and one for PC-cards. All that's needed is drivers for the ethernet and wireless lan cards.

For that matter, why just Ethernet support, I want wireless ethernet support, I hate wires! Simon

Business opportunity?

[martyb]

Supply and demand. Catch-22. There is a huge potential market where phone lines exist. By comparison, the number of cable modem or DSL customers is but a tiny fraction of that, now.

So, from a business perspective, where do you put your money when designing and manufacturing a product? Where the biggest market exists. Sure, they COULD add the hardware for an ethernet connection, but that costs money, and the expense would have to be paid by the consumer. A modem-only device would be less expensive to manufacture than a dual-mode model. (An ethernet-only model would have too small a market, now, to even consider.)

Herein lies an opportunity. From the start, I'll grant you that the customer would lose out on the high-speed of a cable modem/DSL connection, but it would at least free up their phone line. (As these devices become increasingly popular, I could readily imagine a dozen or so devices each trying to grab a phone-line connection.)

How about a box that interfaces with the analog modem signal on the internet appliance side (e.g. RJ11), and interfaces with the ethernet LAN (RJ-45) on the other side?

• You could at least be assured of getting a solid 56K connection.
• It would free up your phone line, assuming you HAD a land line.
• As the number of internet appliances grows and the number of high-speed internet connections grows, the number of potential sales would grow DRAMATICALLY.
• Heck, I'd bet a single DSP could easily handle the task!

What would YOU be willing to pay for such a device?

Caveat: It might require some salesmanship to persuade the appliance vendors that there are cost-effective alternatives to purchasing and maintaining racks of modems for their clients to dial into; that these could be bypassed with a high-speed link to the ethernet direct to their routers.

Also, it is a market that would eventually disappear as high-speed access becomes pervasive and the vendors create products with the ethernet port built-in, but in the interim, I suspect a small fortune could be made.

Hmmm, anyone got $100 million to invest? (Paraphrasing an old saw: Question: How do you make a small fortune on the internet? Answer: Start with a large fortune? <grin>)

Interconnecting appliances, internet and otherwise

[ambclams]

I think it would definately be powerful and useful if it were possible to connect all of these various devices together and allow them to communicate with each other. Not necessarily via TCP/IP and Ethernet, though that would certainly have advantages for connecting to computers and LANs. It could instead be some sort of new standard that would be easier for the average user to use, seeing as most people probably don't have their home wired for Ethernet already. Something that worked over existing wiring in the home, such as the phone lines, might be ideal in terms of ease of use if it were possible.

If these devices could be interconnected easily, there would be lots of interesting possibilities for home automation and the like. Already one can use systems like X-10 to control devices, but this could be taken to the next level. For example, it would be useful to have a stereo that could pull MP3s from a centralized server, took audio and video from various sources (including, perhaps, a TiVo-like device, or streaming video from the internet) and distributed them to various locations around the house, and had an easy interface for controlling these features. These sort of things are indeed possible now, but they require complex enough setup and wiring that these are out of reach of the average consumer.

I'm envisioning a unified interface for connecting these various devices. It'd need both a physical means of communication - Ethernet is a possibility, and the bandwidth available with the faster variants is appealing; perhaps a wireless system would be more effective for the majority of people who don't have their homes wired for Ethernet. There would also be a need for a standardized, extensible, secure set of protocols for these devices to interact. This is a lot to hope for; perhaps I'm dreaming a bit too unrealistically - it's getting later and I'm running out of caffeine. :)

Bad business AND bad engineering

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

"Is it really that hard to do?"

This is the perennial question from business and engineering newbies. Difficulty has nothing to do with it. Net payoff is the only factor.

Modems are:
-cheaper
-simpler
-more standard

Furthermore, even if Ethernet were tied on all the above it would still not have the wide adoption rate required to make a profit.

But if you are determined to not tie up a phone line you might have an option (depending on the device). Connect the device to your home server via a phone line. Just let it dial into your server and get to the Internet that way. (Clearly this doesn't work with devices that have proprietary protocols--which is another reason in favor of modems).
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Control of the Service...

[Anonymous Freak]

is exactly the reason. Remember, the i-Opener fiasco? The reason those things are so cheap, is the hardware is sold at a loss, and they make it up on the service. Same with TiVo. The TiVo company actually pays Sony, Panasonic, et al, to sell their hardware at a loss, so TiVo can make it back in subscription fees (and kickback some of it to the hardware companies.) The reason most don't have Ethernet is because they can control the service better if you dial directly in to them, instead of going through such an odd medium as the internet.

I recently ran into that dilemma. I signed up for a wireless internet access (long-range derivative of 802.11b) and cancelled my home phone service, leaving only my cell phone as my telephone. Now, on a sunny day (solar panels on my house,) I am drawing absolutely nothing from the local grid. No power, no water (well,) no phone (cell,) no TV (old-fasioned antenna,) and no internet... But, I decided that while I may get a great reception of the broadcast networks, I wanted some better TV (I miss the Discovery Channel.) So, I went off to my local A/V store, and looked around.

We've got DirecTV, Dish, Primestar, and a few others. They all sounded good (Dish has my local channels, DirecTV gets them at the end of this month, so my search focused on those two,) except that they require a POTS line to dial in to their server. Not only once on initial configuration, but also if I ever want to watch pay-per-view. Darn.

Then, there's TiVo. GREAT idea. I went out to pick up the Sony model as soon as it came out. But... That darned modem again. I could still use the hardware as an overpriced VCR, but I'd lose all scheduling capabilities, plus the (in my opinion) best feature, taste matching. Come on, how hard would it have been to ALSO include a $10 NIC chip on there, add on a $0.25 RJ-45 port, and let those of us with broadband connections use them!

But, that brings us back to control... Do you know that TiVo collects the info on every show you watch? I'm sure you've thought about it, but read your contract. It says that they have the right to use any information they collect for aggregate statistical analysis, and targeted promotions. This means that sooner or later, you'll start getting ads that are being sent not by the network, or the cable provider, but by TiVo. TiVo will have such good tracking of your taste (after all, you've been telling them exactly what you do and don't like...) that every ad will be tailor-made for you. So, of course they want to keep control of the transfer medium. They don't want that pesky internet getting in the way of their data mining...

Or, I could be wrong, and they're just too cheap to put $15 of extra hardware on there....