The “E-Table” features eight-inch touchscreen monitors, Internet and cable access and a DVD Player. Photo courtesy of Reginald Steele

Getting the family to gather around the dining room table while the Cowboys are playing on Thanksgiving may not be a problem anymore. Alexander Tyler, owner of Modern Touch Industries located in Tulsa, OK, has created the E-Table, which features TV monitors, cable and Internet access and a DVD player.

Tyler says he developed the concept after a conversation with his wife about how nice it would be to have a TV inside the kitchen table. While some women may have had misgivings about the idea, Tyler says his wife encouraged him to play around with the concept.

“She said ‘why don’t you go ahead and try doing one,’” Tyler notes. After successfully developing a prototype with the TV installed, Tyler then created a second table, which not only included TV monitors but an Internet connection and a DVD player.

The second multimedia table Tyler created was a dining room table for his uncle, Rev. Senator James Meeks, an Illinois state senator. Tyler says that he had already built other projects for him, including a theater room.

The E-Table seats eight and at each seating area is an eight-inch, touchscreen monitor, which is operated by control buttons underneath the table.

The monitors will automatically raise to a certain position when the button is pressed and lower when the button is pressed again. The TV lift consists of geared motors on each monitor. A bar is attached at the back and the monitor slides up and down the bar.

An easily accessible DVD player is located beneath the curve on the base of the table.

The E-Table is set up for individuals, says Tyler. If someone presses the button at his seating area the TV screen comes up just for him, he adds. “So, one person can be on the Internet, one person can be watching a DVD and the other person can be watching TV.”

According to Tyler, cable management is not an issue. It is a wireless network so there are no wires running to the computer inside the table, he notes. However, there is one electrical wire running to an outlet, and “it has a repeater on it that you can take from your Satellite or your cable box and send a signal to [the repeater] inside the table. It’s wireless Internet plus wireless TV.”

A box underneath the table houses the TV monitors, the modems, the computer and the wireless network.

Two sheets of 3/4-inch, solid birch were used for the top of the table. For the base, Tyler let the birch sweat overnight for the bend and cut it using a scroll saw. The entire piece was hand sanded and finished with mahogany and ebony stains and approximately 10 coats of polyurethane.

Tyler says that he has many creative ideas and that his inspiration for these projects “comes from God.” Visit www.moderntouchindustries.com for more information on the E-Table.