BB Gadgets posted this Honeywell ad for email, which seems to be from 1977 or thereabouts. Seeing the type of damage email was doing back then, I can understand why it took another 25 years to attract a mainstream following. Enlisting the services of that friendly, nonthreatening AOL man was a much better marketing strategy. [Boing Boing Gadgets]

The system I have here consists of those two parts: a touchscreen, full color thermostat that takes the place of your current thermostat called the Prestige, and a black and white wireless thermostat remote called the Portable Comfort Control.

The Portable Comfort Control is what's the most revolutionary about this package. It's about the size of two Wiimotes, it's touchscreen and can basically take the place of the thermostat from anywhere in the house. You can set both heating and cooling temp for as many zones as your house has, as well as read the current temperature from the thermostat, the remote itself or an outside sensor.

It works perfectly. Its backlit touchscreen lights up when pressed, and is responsive enough that you can actually control it without letting a bunch of expletives fly at how lousy the screen is. It reaches every corner of my three-story house, even with multiple floors and walls and doors in the way. Basically, it lets me turn on the heat from the ground floor without having to run up two flights of stairs. Every house needs one.

The Prestige, which is the color touchscreen thermostat, works just as well. The touchscreen is bright and responsive as well as intuitive—something even simpler thermostats are not. It too can sync up with an outside sensor to display the current outside temperature, and does everything that a thermostat is supposed to do (schedule, hold, etc).

Installation was pretty easy. Ours was done by a professional Honeywell installer, but with enough knowledge Gizmodo readers should be able to do it themselves. The entire process, from hooking up the thermostat to syncing the remote to drilling in the outside sensor, took only about an hour.

Point is, the Prestige and the Portable Comfort Control are, if you consider yourself a gadget fan at all, a fantastic addition to the rest of your home tech solutions. Honeywell usually recommends that you get these installed via a contractor, but if you're at least a little bit handy, you should be able to do it yourself. Those people who are buying a house (like our Sean Fallon) should really think about getting one of these.

[Prestige and Portable Comfort Control]

Here's a kit with the three pieces (thermostat, remote, outdoor sensor) for $400ish. I'd shop around more for a better deal. [iaqsource]

Honeywell—better known for top secret government contracts—is really just licensing its all-American name to the Taiwan-based Soyo, who will be producing the 300-pound monster of a TV set. Features include 120Hz motion-blur reduction, a 178-degree viewing angle, 3 HDMI inputs (only 3?), and a stated dynamic contrast ratio of 120,000:1. Its model number is the painfully long MT-HWGWT8218AM.

Sharp and Samsung, competing LCD producers, have shown off the 82" size, but according to Gary at HD Guru, neither promised to product true HDTVs for public consumption just yet. Price is TBD, but while any 82" TV is definitely going to cost you something, it might not be as expensive, coming from a tier 2 (or tier 3) company like Soyo/Honeywell. Get the details, including its sick 5-year warranty, at HD Guru. [HD Guru and Honeywell CE]

Contrary to our previous report, the Micro Air Vehicle is still pending FAA testing but "is expected to make its debut soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades."

Honeywell's MAVs, which are now being used in Iraq and Afghanistan, are not the only ones waiting for FAA permission. There are dozen of companies making all kinds of spy drones now, among them Cyber Defense Systems, which has a kite-sized surveillance drone that has been already flown once by the police in Palm Bay, also in Florida. [Reuters]

Says David Coleman of Honeywell's CE Cable Products division:

"We've made this cable intelligent by integrating a chip into the connector that performs two major functions. First, the chip's line driver 'cures' corrupted HDCP and EDID data that can lead to serious audio and video artifacts. Second, we added 'light' in the form of LEDs embedded into the connector that let installers monitor the most critical elements of the HDMI interface for problems."

Not only that, but the lengths of cable only go to 50 feet. That's a respectable distance, for sure, but in our testing, the possibility of problems lie in the longer distances, so perhaps Honeywell should forget about the shorter cables (there's even a 1.6 footer) and focus on 50 feet or longer.

That said, the LED concept is pretty cool: four LEDs indicate whether you have a live connection, whether there is actual video coming through and other situations that can occur. Neat, you know? But perhaps not worth the expense.

Honeywell Introduces First Self-Diagnostic & Self-Healing HDMI Cable — Revolutionary New Honeywell CURxE Light Technology Automatically Corrects A/V Signals for Corrupted HDCP and EDID Data —

PLEASANT PRAIRIE, WI, August 29, 2007— Honeywell (NYSE: HON) today announced the world's first HDMI digital cable with CURxE Light technology that automatically corrects corrupted HDCP and EDID data that would otherwise degrade high-definition picture and multi-channel audio performance.

Honeywell developed exclusive CURxE Light technology along with Spectrum Electronics' Jeff Bocaccio, one of the CE industry's most respected authorities on HDMI.

"We've made this cable intelligent by integrating a chip into the connector that performs two major functions," said David Coleman, Program Manager, CE Cable Products, Honeywell. "First, the chip's line driver 'cures' corrupted HDCP and EDID data that can lead to serious audio and video artifacts. Second, we added 'light' in the form of LEDs embedded into the connector that let installers monitor the most critical elements of the HDMI interface for problems."

"We are encouraged to see companies like Honeywell develop innovative HDMI products for the marketplace," said Les Chard, President, HDMI Licensing, LLC. "As HDMI proliferates and becomes the de facto standard for connecting home theater and PC devices, companies like Honeywell are leading the way with new applications of the technology to meet specific market needs."

AUTOMATIC SIGNAL CORRECTION
HDCP and EDID data becomes corrupted as a result of inconsistencies of hardware manufacturers' implementation of HDMI, or excess transmission distances. Working in the background, CURxE Light Technology automatically cleans the bad data to its intended dynamic range for the best picture quality. Left uncorrected this corrupt data causes dropout of the picture or audio signal, incorrect resolution, intermittent "snow" in the picture, or a pink or blue hued screen.

BUILT-IN DIAGNOSTICS
Four LEDs integrated into the cable's HDMI connector serve as self-diagnostic monitoring indicators. The four LEDs verify: Hot Plug detection, +5 Volts status, HDCP and EDID, pointing to either downstream, upstream or device problems depending on which LED fails to light. The fix may be as simple as switching inputs on the TV or can require a firmware upgrade of the DVD player, set-top box, AV receiver or other source. This first of its kind diagnostics should help installers save hours of time troubleshooting.

SUPERIOR CONSTRUCTION
To help ensure pure, crystal-clear digital audio and video signals, the new cables feature full-balanced line transition-minimized differential signaling (TMDS); 100% foil shield with 25% overlapping, combined with a 90% tinned copper braid shield; plus bandwidth-maximizing silver-plated copper conductors. The male-to-male cables are designed for HDTV 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p. Lengths range from .5 meters (1.6 feet) up to 15-meters (49.2 feet)

For more information, call (800) 222-0060, or visit www.honeywellcable.com

The Honeywell HDMI restorer goes between long lengths of HDMI cable and makes sure the signal stays strong and the quality is as good as possible, even at distances of over 100 feet. It's a much cheaper choice than Monster Cables, and if you're running cables in your walls it's a no brainer. At least we assume so, as pricing and availability is unknown. But hey, if it's less than like $2,000 it's cheaper than 100 feet of Monster Cable. [Honeywell]