Superna: The Sleeper IP-Based HA System

Apr 15, 2007 Super Who? This quiet little Israeli company keeps chugging along, happily showing its growing portfolio of products to curious IT and CE folks at the industry expos. You won't find a lot of dealers that know about Superna, but when you find them, they rave about the products.

The products, after all, come from good stock. Superna co-founder Arik Vardi was also the founder of ICQ, the world's first Instant Messaging service.

In a nutshell, Superna offers home-control software for virtually any type of hardware platform -- traditional PCs, Media Center PCs, PDAs, cell phones, or Superna's own Linux-based boxes.

Superna is all about standards, most notably Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). UPnP hasn't quite caught on in the home-systems space (lighting controls, security systems, etc.) but there are plenty of UPnP-enabled music servers and services that make integrating with Superna's UPnP-enabled products that much simpler.

Co-founder and COO Oded Vardi points out that UPnP is still alive and well on the A/V front. The Philips Streamium TVs are UPnP-compatible. HP's new displays have a UPnP media player. Sony's XL1B2 200-disc DVD changer/ripper is also UPnP-compatible.

In any case, Superna has done the software development to essentially UPnP-enable thousands of A/V receivers, lighting control systems, security systems, TVs, distributed audio products and the like, letting these devices seamlessly join Superna's UPnP-based control network. Simply pick any of these products from the drop-down programming menus, and they appear on the network, ready to be configured and controlled.

Because Superna generates UPnP stacks for all devices to be controlled, "Getting from one infrastructure to another is very easy," says Vardi. "We take the driver spec, implement it in a text file and send it in an XML file over the network."

Superna works with RS-232, IR, IP, Z-Wave and myriad other transports.

Access Available Using Existing Devices
In the home-control business, we've seen very little success among developers who just sell home automation software. Superna "just sells software" for those who want it. But the company also offers a host of other products and platforms for creating a whole-house control system that allows consumers to exploit the products they already have in their house, and build from there.

"People have plenty of interfaces in their homes already -- TVs, PCs, cell phones," Vardi says. Any of these can be an integral part of a Superna system.

Superna fills the gaps with its Linux-based hardware, including touchscreens and control hubs. The Superna products and the customer's own devices can interact seamlessly with each other. If you're not a big fan of running home automation software on a PC, you can buy one of Superna's Linux-based controllers -- either the $1,200 ControlBox or the lower-cost MiniBox -- and run the automation software from there.

The applications can be accessed from any PDA, tablet PC, Superna touchscreen, or even via the TV through Media Center Edition. Superna's MCE plug-in offers unique features, like the ability for dealers to create transparent overlays. Users, for example, could pull up the control menus without disrupting a TV show.

In an industry (home automation) where manufacturers are used to buying -- and dealers are used to selling -- a bunch of boxes, Vardi notes that "selling software is a new paradigm."

Superna sells its ControlWare software "per device" used in the network -- $99 for licenses for PCs, PDAs, phones and other lower-cost devices; $199 for MCE computers. The company's Linux-based hardware starts at $199 for the ControlPort, which turns a PC with ControlWare into a home automation controller.

Superna sells direct to dealers in the U.S. and through distribution worldwide.