Converging or Colliding?

We're always hearing about convergence and we all own converged devices, one of the most common being the lowly camera phone. But now there seems to be a new battle for the most converged devices in the home, and who will be in control of them.

Currently my living room is like one of those old stackable home audio systems, featuring a plethora of boxes under the TV; my freeview, DVD, VHS (yes...I still have tapes I wanna watch), a CambridgeSoundworks Wave Radio, my SlingCatcher...and so the list goes on.

None of these are converged, none of them could be at the time of purchase and even if a one-size-fits-all product were to emerge I doubt I'd rush out and buy it because I have a snazzy TV unit bought as a wedding gift from John Lewis that houses all of these things beautifully and tidily. It'd look sparse if I only had one device.

But if the future pictures being painted by the gadget Gods are anything to go by, we'll all have phones implanted in our teeth and a central 'hub' in the home ordering milk for us.

The O2 Joggler is one of the first in what I'm sure will be a long line of devices trying to be this central hub. We've already seen the router manufacturers giving is easy to use network management software, and this is kind of like that, but a physical onscreen interface that lets you manage the network of your family - I don't mean their online set-up, but their calendar.

A nice idea, but standalone it has a cat in hell's change of ever being the defacto device. There are too may device manufacturers and service providers all making a play for that central role, and if they don't start really working well together we'll never get any closer to having a truly converged home, and my John Lewis TV unit will always be needed.

Besides, in those films set in the future where the home has a central hub ("lights on"), something always goes wrong and the home computer takes over, trapping everyone inside until a burly man rescues them. That kind of lifestyle is just unsustainable.