Ultimate home entertainment

"Lights, camera, action!" will be replaced with "Lights, popcorn, video!" when the Lutron Electronics Company opens its new 2,200-sq.-ft. (198 sq. m) Ultimate Home Theatre Experience exhibit at the technology and entertainment plaza of Epcot Innoventions at Walt Disney World in Florida. Opening this month, the Ultimate Home Theatre Experience will feature interactive kiosks where visitors can view and experience the numerous home theatre products on the market.

Lutron's participation, according to company president John Longenderfer, "will demonstrate the difference lighting controls can make in a home theatre."

"The ability to dim or brighten lights is crucial to creating a particular mood or feeling in any room," says Longenderfer. "Our message will be that your home theatre isn't complete without Lutron lighting controls."

Lutron, along with many other manufacturers such as GE, AT&T, IBM, GM, Honeywell, Motorola, Apple, and Sega, are setting up shop at Innoventions, which has hosted 20 million visitors since it opened at Epcot three years ago. Intended as Disney's high-tech showcase, Innoventions allows visitors to experience technology directly and visualize using the systems and products that are considered "cutting-edge" today, but will be more ordinary in a few years. Lutron sees this environment as the perfect opportunity to reach the $8.3 billion US market for home entertainment and home theatre products.

"The Ultimate Home Theatre Experience at Epcot Innoventions represents a tremendous opportunity to reach a new segment of millions of consumers who have never experienced 'home theatre,'" says Rick Schuett, Lutron vice president of new business development. "We believe that our exhibit will truly revolutionize consumers' awareness of what is possible in creating their own personal home theatre."

For its exhibit, Lutron plans to demonstrate control products which are suitable and affordable for home entertainment uses. Products on display include everything from simple wall controls for lighting within a room to complexsystems for controlling all of the interior and exterior lighting of a house. Also on display will be controls with numerous preset moods for each room or combination of rooms depending on event type. Through the use of larger systems, there are also unlimited possibilities for controlling various devices and creating numerous lighting looks for home entertainment.