New York--With flat-panel TVs growing in popularity, so is the need to hang those pricey items.

While hanging it flush on a wall is aesthetically pleasing, the glare from natural and in-home lighting may not make it functional.

Clo Systems, a former housewares company that’s now in the audio and video business, came up with what they think is a winning solution: motorized wall mounts for flat-panel TVs.

“A major challenge for people who put a 42-inch television up on the wall is moving the angle of the TV manually," said Ken Nguyen, director of sales and marketing at West Covina, Calif.-based Clo Systems. You get up to angle the TV and then sit down to use the remote control, “it defeats the whole purpose,” he said.

Enter X-arm, the first wall-mounting product for the flat-panel TV market out of Clo Systems, which counts 21 in-house engineers and patents all of its technology. The motorized wall mount, which is hidden behind the television, at 4.6 inches from the wall, can come out 12 inches, swivel left and right from 20 degrees to 28 degrees and up 7 degrees and down 20 degrees all by the push of a button on a remote control. All of the cables are concealed in the bellows of the mount.

The motorized mount can also be programmed into a universal remote, limiting the need for multiple devices to view television programming. The device, which sells for $995 on Clo Systems website or through Chief Manufacturing, a unit of CSAV (Chief/Sanus Audio Video), which makes accessories for the flat panel and projectors, remembers two arrangements of your TV similar to how power seats in cars remember the positioning.

“If you know how to use a remote control for your TV you can easily use this remote,” said Nguyen. “It’s no different than using a TV remote.”

While a price tag of $995 may seem like a lot, Nguyen noted that manual wall mounts cost around $700. The X-arm motorized wall mount can hold flat-panel TVs from 40 inches up to 63 inches, or 180 pounds. Nguyen said the motorized wall mount is as easy to install as its manual wall mount brethren.

Recognizing that a price tag of $995 may not appeal to the masses, the company is gearing up to launch another motorized wall mount that will sell from $299 to $330, but won’t have all the bells and whistles.

Called the T2, that motorized wall mount is designed to limit the glare and the loss of clarity when the flat panel is hung on the wall but isn’t titled down.

“Above-fireplace mounting is very popular, but putting it above a fireplace requires it to be titled down,’’ said Nguyen. “Home owners don’t like the TV falling off the wall.”

The T2 motorized mount will automatically tilt the flat panel down when the television is turned on and the auto-mode is selected and will automatically go back flush against the wall when the power is shut off. That mount is expected to be in the market in a few months and is expected to be sold in retailers like Best Buy (BBY) and Costco Wholesale (COST).

“The automatic tilt is based on market studies that the number one selling mount is a manual tilt mount,’’ said Nguyen.  The T2 can hold flat panels from 40 inches to 60 inches, or 150 pounds. Nguyen noted that once its products are adopted by the masses, the price for the mounts should come down. 

Clo Systems, which was founded in 2005, got out of the housewares market and into the audio and video industry because of the growing demand for flat panel TVs. With prices coming down at a precipitous rate, demand for the eye-catching displays has been growing.

According to market-research firm Strategy Analytics, the flat-panel TV market is expected to see a 27% increase in shipments this year, with total shipment sales reaching 109.2 million units. Revenue growth is expected to be $135.7 billion, marking an 11% growth from 2007. Revenue growth only will be 11% this year because of the declining prices of flat-panel TVs. Over the next five years, Strategy Analytics estimates unit sales will grow to 192 million units.