Many home automation and control products demonstrating inexpensive and self-installed ways to control home lighting, heating and air-conditioning, security and more were showcased at CES 2008. These controls focus on home safety, convenience and energy saving. The Intermatic Home Settings (www.homesettings.com) products are now available from Home Depot as starter kits and add-on components. Other components such as thermostats, garage door openers and flood and fire alarms from other manufacturers are supported as long as they adhere to the popular Z-Wave wireless control signal standard.

A lighting control starter kit from Intermatic HomeSettings ($99) includes two lamp modules and a master remote controller. Plug in the lamp module, identify it to the remote controller and you can then remotely turn the lamp on/off/dim with feedback noted on the remote. Add garage door opener, garage light and outdoor light modules, and you can set "scenes" such as opening the garage door from your car, turning on garage light and lighting a pathway into your home using one button click. Plug the USB Stick (optional) into your computer and control everything from your computer at home or via the Internet. You can set automatic timer programs from the remote or computer to turn lights or appliances on or off while away and create random sequences to give the home a lived-in look.

WildCharge (www.wildcharge.com, $69) is a charging pad compatible with most portable devices such as cell phones, iPods, PDAs and others. Just attach the adapter skin onto the portable device and place the device on the charging pad; the pad senses the charging needs and goes to work. Special circuitry prevents damage from shorts on the charging stripes from paper clips, keys or other metal objects while maintaining charging capabilities on the other stripes. Several devices can be charged at the same time on the same pad. No more messing with wires and connectors or multiple charging cradles.

Data security is important, and USB-connected SentrySafe FIRE-SAFE/Waterproof Hard Drive (www.sentrysafe.com, 160GB, $339.99) takes data safety one step further by encasing a Maxtor hard drive in a sealed compact fire-resist and waterproof case that will resist fire for 1/2 hour at 1550 degrees Fahrenheit and endure complete water submersion for 24 hours. The unit includes complete system and file level backup software. If you suffer a fire or water disaster and cannot recover the data from the unit, SentrySafe will, at no charge, disassemble the unit, recover the data, if possible, and load it into a new unit for you.

NTI Shadow Dragon Disc v3 (www.ntius.com, $39.95) is the newest version of a backup program that does automatic or manual file-level backups from your computer to almost any storage device, including BlueRay disc drives. In addition, every time a file changes, it is backed up. File restoration is drag and drop simple.

To add a touch of decor to your thumb drives, Kingston introduced the Kingston DataTraveler Style (www.kingston.com, $9 1GB to $85 8GB). This series of thumb drives has interchangeable skins and a retractable USB connector. You can choose from a few supplied skins or customize one at Kingston’s Web site and then print it at home/office.

Many products that premiered at CES 2008 are not available right now but will be here within the next few months. Let’s look:

One of the many stylish products introduced was the Edifier E3350 Multimedia Speaker (www.edifier.ca), which consists of a satellite stereo speaker pair, subwoofer, and a remote volume control that incorporates a headphone jack and audio input jack. The units are beautifully designed, roughly pyramidal in shape, available in seven colors and sport accent lighting. The subwoofer measures about 9x8x11 inches, and the elegant satellites are about 3x11x3 inches each (WxHxD).

Logitech diNovo Mini (www.logitech.com, $149) is a wireless palm-sized keyboard intended for those who have their PC connected to their TV. The keyboard’s minimalist design easily fits into the living/family room decor and can control multimedia functions via Windows Media Center or be used to browse the Internet. An integral click pad serves as a cursor control and selection device, and color backlighting aides keyboard use in low level light. The unit’s Bluetooth wireless range is about 30 feet, and battery life is several months.

Sony has rolled out (pun intended) the Rolly (www.sony.com), a five-inch long egg-shaped robotic MP3 player. Rolly plays music, rolls around by itself, spins, flashes its lights and flaps its speaker ears more or less in time to the music. Holds one or two GB of music files.

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