The CEDIA Expo starts tomorrow, so we expect this to be a big week for home automation and remote control news. To get things started, Global Caché has announced its new iTach line. Similar to their existing GC-100 products in basic functionality (connecting an infrared or serial device to your LAN), the iTach has added Wi-Fi and infrared learning to the mix, which makes the iTach more suitable as a bridge between hand-held Wi-Fi devices (such as the iPhone) and your home theater equipment.

From a hardware perspective, this makes the iTach awfully similar to our RedEye remote control. Both have IR learning, and both work over Wi-Fi. The iTach has 3 built-in IR emitter jacks, whereas the RedEye is an IR blaster (a $45 add-on to the iTach). Overall, we think the iTach hardware is heading in the right direction.

We have to part ways on software, however. Currently there are a few companies that have written iPhone applications to work with Global Caché devices: Cremote’s Bobby, tin:b’s iRedTouch, and CommandFusion’s CF iViewer. While it is great to have some diversity of choice here, if there is a lesson we can learn from Apple, it is that products which integrate both hardware and software into one package are easier to use and can provide a more innovative approach than systems that must be purchased from (and supported by) multiple vendors.

I recently wrote an article about why cell phones can make great remote controls — as long as we don’t try to exactly mimic the way traditional remote wands work. I firmly believe that simply turning the iPhone into a touchscreen version of your TV remote is a losing proposition — it introduces new problems without taking advantage of new opportunities. I also believe that in order to take full advantage of new opportunities, it is important for the entire system — hardware and software — to be designed as a cohesive whole. There is a reason we included a charging dock on the top of the RedEye, and there is a reason that it is an IR blaster rather than just having emitter jacks, and there is a reason we chose to use Bonjour networking protocols to discover the RedEye device on the network rather than manual entry of IP addresses.

The iTach goes a long way to fixing some of the issues with the GC-100 — supporting multiple clients simultaneously, adding Wi-Fi, and including IR learning — but until it is fully integrated with the software applications that drive it, there will always be something lacking.