Pronto

The home control market has lost one of its key players; after 30 years Philips said it will no longer manufacture its Philips Pronto remote control because the product line no longer fits with the Philips’ strategy. This comes as a shock to me because I thought they were going well especially with recent releases, like the TSW9500 in-wall Pronto touchscreen and DUAL.  Apparently the company has been looking for a partner to take the Pronto business off its hands since last year but none was found.

Synaptics has announced that they are working with Philips Home Control, the developers of Pronto Pronto Digital Home Solutions to implement an optimize hardware-level specification for touchpad technology.  The collaboration is also to simplify the growing complexity in system browsing as more and more devices are interconnected in the home.

Home Control is now a must have among home automation enthusiast, but there are home control and home control. The Philips Pronto home control set itself apart from many others. The gap was widen with the release of two wand style control panel (TSU9300 and TSU9400) and the tablet style panels (TSU9600 and TSU9800).