Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I'm assuming you're trying to promote it to electronic manufacturers (the overview at https://www.rfdesignline.com/howto/209400657 was very helpful reading).

The problem they'll have is the transition window. If they switch today, then consumers will have both IR-based and RF4CE-based devices and remotes in their home, making the problem initially worse. Ideally, manufacturers could support both IR and RF4CE at the same time.

It sounds that the consortium of companies that defined RF4CE are the big players. So, if they lead the switchover, others will follow.

On the consumer side, you need to create a reason for the early adopters to be interested. For example, imagine if a RF4CE chip is in an iPhone, iPod, laptop or other familiar device.

Try to carve out a small, defined market where your product has a perfect fit and where your intended buyers are willing to switch over. I say this, because the majority of the market is IR based. And it might be virtually impossible to take on the market leaders head on. I happen to own an RF remote for my Bose system, but I would not know what the benefits of it are compared to IR.

You might want to read up on guerilla marketing on the web.

Could you please clarify your last point? Did you mean to say that RF is directional, or that it is omnidirectional? I think that you meant to say that RF needs to be in proximity to the receiver, rather than line of sight. Does this mean the product will work through walls?

I agree that you need a niche consumer market. I would suggest that one area you could research would be to help folks with disabilities. I was injured in an accident at the beach two years ago, and I would love to have a device which I could hook up to my computer which could control things like the lights and the TV and so forth.

My new room in my home apparently has several of these devices installed. For example, we have a ceiling fan which has a remote control. The remote control does not need to be line of sight with a ceiling fan in order to operate, and it does not even need to be in the same room. I am pretty sure that the reason that this model of ceiling fan was selected was that there would be no need to run control wires from the fan to the switch.

By the way, if you wanted to set up a device which could control many current devices, it might make sense to develop a device which could talk to an infrared transmitter, to give you downward compatibility and a robust solution to managing household devices.