One of the hottest areas of home theater – consumer electronics in general, actually – is accessories. Accessories have high margins for everyone in the chain, don’t require frequent discounting, and (compared to TVs, anyway) don’t take up much shelf/inventory space. Now, when you think of accessories, you probably think of cables, remotes, and perhaps furniture. There are other interesting opportunities, such as label makers. Yes, label makers, one of the most critical tools in any home theater owner or installer’s toolkit. All those wires look the same when they’re plugged in, so if you don’t label them, you’re asking for trouble. But paper labels rip, and, let’s face it, you can’t read your own handwriting anyway.
Dymo sent over their model LabelPoint 200 over a year ago, and I’ve used it to label both ends of every audio, video, and power cable since then. I still haven’t run out of the original label cartridge, so this appears to be an exception to the razor/blade business model. The handheld shape and soft touch plastic coating make it easy to hold, though the unusual arrangement of the qwerty keys makes typing a hunt-hunt-hunt-and-peck affair.
Recently, Brother sent over a P-Touch 1400, which they promised would perform better than the Dymo. And it does, because it manages a few tricks especially useful for tagging wires: it prints vertically across for short text tags, and it will automatically print horizontal text on either end of a label strip – wrap it around the wire, and you can see the text on either side of the tag. The alphabetical keyboard arrangement is no easier to use than Dymo’s and the unit is physically larger. Either unit is a must, and the Brother is highly recommended.
-avi
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