The History of The IEEE Consumer Technology Society

by

Stuart Lipoff, CTSoc Historian


The parent of today’s CTSoc started life as a professional group within IEEE- not a society. Consumer electronics of the time was radio and phonographs. The first commercial TV broadcasts in the USA in New York City were in 1939. The TV was a newly emerging technology that was a complex and challenging mix of technologies: display, audio, RF, high voltage, signal processing, and power thermal management, that suggested it would a productive target of an IEEE focus. This early focus from 1952-1974 was on the consumer electronics of the time– broadcast receivers.


With the introduction of the first microprocessor in 1971 and the increasing use of semiconductors replacing vaccum tubes, the field of interest of the group expanded in 1974 beyond receivers to include other Consumer Electronics products. We named the IEEE Group on Consumer Electronics, still not an IEEE Society.


A few years latter, it became apparent that one could not design TV receivers without also taking into consideration the standards and technology of broadcasting the signals that TV receivers needed to digest. Accordingly, in 1975 The Broadcast, Cable, and Consumer Electronics Society was formed. While we were not yet an independent society, included within BCCE was The Consumer Electronics Group with it's own elected leadership group in the form of an admistrative committee (ADCOM).


In 1983 CESoc became a stand alone society separate from BCCE and separated from the Broadcast Technology Society (BTS) while became it’s own separate IEEE Society.


In the years until today, consumer technology started to grow beyond hardware as online services, streaming entertainment, games, software and cloud services became mainstream technologies and applications in the consumer space. We operated as CESoc until 2021 when in recognition that our scope went beyond hardware we changed the name to CTSoc.


The FOI of today’s CTSoc recognized the expanded scope of our interests: The field of interest of the Consumer Technology Society is the interdisciplinary technologies, applications, manufacturing, and standards for products, services, systems, and architectures for consumers.


In parallel with evolution of our society from TV receiver focus to today’s broad view of Consumer Technology, our publications and conferences also evolved.


Publications


(1952 - 1954) Transactions of the IRE Professional Group on Broadcast and Television Receivers (1955 - 1962) IRE Transactions on Broadcast and Television Receivers

(1963 - 1974) IEEE Transactions on Broadcast and Television Receivers (1975 - 2023) IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics


Conferences



Why were the early conferences in the Chicago area?


Because until the 1990’s Chicago and nearby was the center of gravity for the Consumer Electronics industry with Zenith, Warwick, RCA, Sylvania, Wells Gardner and others all nearby in the mid-west. Not surprisingly the members of our society in the early years were engineers working for these firms and living in the Chicago area.