(2012-06-14, 15:40)Malard Wrote: Did you look at our site, perhaps not understand what it does? or something else!
I think you've' hit the nail here - the USB CEC is a difficult product to explain to people. I remember you had a video showing it in use, which was very confusing. The video showed exactly how the adapter was wired to the TV and XBMC machine, but it was not clear to me what the device actually did. I actually have a background with these devices (I own a Rainshadow device), and so I figured it out - but I imagine a lot of people gave up quickly.
What you need to do is advertise what it does for end users, namely: Reduce the amount of remotes necessary - use a single remote for everything! Functionality of a Harmony with your current remote, at 1/3 the cost.
The other difficulty with these devices is that every customer's setup is unique. You already know how difficult it is for Pulse Eight to deal with all the semi-proprietary implementations of CEC from Sony, LG, Samsung, etc. in order to support as many customers as possible. In addition, the customer is in a difficult situation configuring the device to do what they want - there really is no "plug and play" experience with a device like this. This is good for extreme tweakers (or professional Home Media installers) to get perfect setups. It's not so good for people who want a pre-built or out-of-the-box HTPC.
I would suggest creating a reference platform. I mean, a simple HTPC (Revo RL70?) connected to a TV. No other AV equipment. Make this experience work out of the box, or with little configuration, and lots of detailed instructions online. Have it be able to do just the basics, using the TV's pre-packaged remote:
- Turn TV on and off
- select correct input on TV (switch to XBOX for example)
- adjust both TV and XBMC volume
- navigate XBMC
If you can get just that simple feature set rock solid on most HTPC/TV combos, then you've won. That gets rid of one remote for most users. Anything more complicated than that and you need a sophisticated user - who will figure it out anyway. But you need that basic feature set in order to bring in the non-sophisticated users - and it has to be simple to setup and use. I don't know how you do that since every remote is different, every user wants something unique, etc. It's a hard problem.
Next, you need better word of mouth. People read about FLIRC, and the feedback is "this is great" or "this simplified my system enormously" or "this is the greatest device I've ever used". I'm not trying to be negative, but the USB CEC device doesn't have that kind of word of mouth. The feedback I've seen on the forum ranges from "it's functional" to "I got confused and gave up" to "it's junk". The device is great, the idea is great, you somehow have to translate that into a great experience so that your userbase becomes your marketing team.
In addition to all of this, it's not in the XBMC Eden release. In order to use the adapter, you need to download a modified version from Pulse Eight. That doesn't sound like much, but that's a big barrier to entry for most users - myself included. Until a stable build of XBMC is released that includes this support, your market is artificially limited. You do a great job of supporting all platforms - but it's got to make it into the mainline. I know you're working on this, but truthfully until it happens I'm not interested in the device.
I love your device, and I really like what you're doing with Pulse Eight. I'd be glad to purchase your device, but I'm waiting until its built into XBMC.
