Last night I was sent on a mission to check out the home entertainment ZAGGbox at ShowStoppers. Which confused me. Because ZAGG is the company that makes the Invisible Shield mobile screen protectors. To expand into this new market, they partnered with a company in Minnesota (who shall remain nameless) that has invested millions designing a multifunction media box.
Unfortunately the more technical reps weren’t available when I swung by, so I feel like I’m missing part of the story. At its core, it seems the ZAGGbox is an advanced analog HD switching and recording device. (Think ‘analog hole.’) Hook up three devices – Xbox, DVR, satellite box, Blu-ray, whatever. Flip amongst the inputs, controlled via ZAGG remote and IR blaster. Selectively record any/all of it to the 1TB drive as video passes through. Content stored on the ZAGGbox can be streamed within the home via UPnP or beyond the home (think Slingbox) via a browser, and mobile clients are also in the works. There’s also appears to be some home automation functionality (Z-Wave) that we really didn’t get in to.
The ZAGGbox will be available for pre-order on Monday. Yet they could only reveal to me that the price would fall between between $500 – $1000. Hm.
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