Q1 2018
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The Future of AI CEDIA Educates Builders at DCW 2018 Business Xchange: A Preview
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WE CRAFT AUDIO PRODUCTS THAT PERFORM LIKE NO OTHER Meridian has always challenged convention. For more than forty years, we have pushed boundaries, disrupted norms and delivered products that have shaped our industry and redefined how people experience sound. We are the pioneers of high resolution audio.
meridian-audio.com/ISE2018
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ContENTS
8 10 12 16 18 26 30 34
BUSINESS XCHANGE Design Thinking helps Apple, Samsung, Disney — and now you
CEDIA AT DCW We’re opening builders’ eyes at Design and Construction Week
VIDEO TRENDS FOR 2018 Michael Heiss weighs in on what’s next
Artificial Intelligence It’s more than machine learning, says Heather Sidorowicz
BUILDING THE PERFECT TEAM The true cost of recruiting
SURF’S UP A look at a project that won four CEDIA Awards
THE MADNESS OF KING HDMI HDMI 2.1 — here’s what you need to know
CEDIA ON THE ROAD Certification and education, right in your backyard
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Welcome to 2018!
And welcome to the year’s first issue of CEDIA Communicates.
We’re thrilled to begin another year as a global trade association, and moving forward with our new strategic plan. This issue includes a look back at what a few of our members thought were the big stories of 2017 — and the headlines they expect to see in 2018. We’ve got a lot to share about our upcoming CEDIA Business Xchange too — this year’s event will focus on “design thinking,” a process developed at Stanford that brought you devices no less disruptive than the smartphone that’s likely by your side at this moment. We’ll also profile an incredible project that won four CEDIA Awards — a seaside San Diego home that won a CEDIA Global Award in 2017. We'll dive deeply into the latest developments in HDMI, and we’ll meet a Japanese CEDIA integrator who’s doing tremendous work. There’s business advice in here as well: We’ve brought you stories on “Building the Perfect Team” and “Selling Experiences vs. Selling Technologies.” Wherever your interests lie in the home technology industry, we’re certain you’ll find something in this issue of Communicates that informs and entertains. Thanks for reading. All the best,
Tabatha O’Connor CEDIA Global President and CEO
Contact
7150 Winton Drive, Suite 300 Indianapolis, Indiana 46268 USA Email: info@cedia.org Telephone: +1 800.669.5329 www.cedia.net
Follow us on:
Unit 2, Phoenix Park, St Neots Cambridgeshire, PE19 8EP, UK Email: info@cedia.co.uk Telephone: +44 (0)1480 213744 www.cedia.co.uk
Front cover image: Land & Sea Entertainment 4498 Paola Way, San Diego, CA 92117, USA Telephone: +1 858.467.1940 Email: mail@sterryo.com www.sterryo.com All material in Communicates is the copyright of CEDIA and any reproduction of said material would require written permission from the publisher. Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of content published, CEDIA cannot accept responsibility for any factual errors that may occur. CEDIA cannot accept responsibility for the veracity of claims made by contributors.
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NEWS IN BRIEF CEDIA HOSTS COI TRAINING IN MELBOURNE On November 28, attendees from Victoria and Western Australia participated in the CEDIA Outreach Instructor Train the Trainer Course. This was the first time the course had been offered in Australia in several years. We would like to congratulate the nine individuals who passed the course and can now present continuing education courses to industry partners, including Designing Integrated Future-Ready Homes, which was just accredited with the Australian Institute of Architects.
CEDIA BREAKS GROUND ON NEW GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS BY OLIVIA SELLKE On Nov. 8, 2017, CEDIA broke ground on its new global headquarters in Fishers, Indiana. CEDIA staff and leadership were joined by Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness and representatives of architecture firm American Structurepoint and Mayer Najem construction for the ceremony. "We are incredibly excited about this next chapter for CEDIA," said Dennis Erskine, then-CEDIA Chairman. "The new global headquarters will be a wonderful facility for staff and members alike that truly represents the best our industry has to offer." The new CEDIA headquarters, announced in June, is a structure totaling 40,000 square feet on three floors. CEDIA plans to occupy 30,000 square feet, which will include staff office space, as well as a world-class training facility and an experience center. Ten thousand square feet will be made available for tenants. "CEDIA staff and volunteers have been hard at work with the teams at American Structurepoint and Mayer Najem on all the planning aspects for our new building and we are very excited to be starting construction," said Tabatha O’Connor, CEDIA Global President and CEO. The new CEDIA headquarters will be built on a plot of land at 106th Street and Kincaid Avenue in Fishers, a suburb northeast of Indianapolis. Fishers has become a popular area for tech-focused companies to put down roots and has been named as one of the "Best Places to Live" by Money Magazine (2017), Time (2016), and Niche (2017), and was honored as Indiana's 2016 Community of the Year. The current building timeline estimates that the association will be able to occupy the space in November 2018. Since 2003, CEDIA has leased a space on the northwest side of Indianapolis and will remain at this location until the new headquarters is completed.
Chris Ward SAVI Systems Scott Stidston IvoryEgg Aus Rob Sanders Entertaining Environments
Stuart Robertson Dave Williams
Sound Living
Asia Pacific Sales Management
Derrick Davis Smart Tech Homes Simon Lakey Simon Lakey Daniel MacDonald 232 Consult P/L Steve Thomas Integrated Technologies Australia Pty Ltd
To learn more about the COI program visit cedia.net/COI
CEDIA members interested in providing products and technical expertise to fully integrate the new global headquarters should contact newhq@cedia.org.
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NEW MEMBERS CEDIA welcomes 85 new members across the globe this quarter… PODCAST GOES ON THE ROAD The CEDIA Tech Council Podcast began 2018 with a series of shows from CES. CEDIA’s Walt Zerbe hosted a run of daily, 30-minute casts from Las Vegas with a rotating group of guests including Peter Aylett (Archimedia), Rich Green (Rich Green Design), Geoff Meads (Presto), and Mike Mansicalco (Ihiji). The group recapped the major events at the show (including the infamous Blackout of 2018) and tech trends that affect the residential integration industry. The on-site podcasts were then followed by deeper dives into narrower aspects, including a look at video trends with Michael Heiss and a snapshot of security advances with Maniscalco. (You can find more from Heiss on current video trends on page 12, and a recap of a recent podcast on HDMI 2.1 on page 32.) More “remote location” podcasts are in the works for 2018 — you’ll hear from CEDIA’s Walt Zerbe, Ed Wenck, and Dave Pedigo all hosting shows from ISE, Business Xchange, and, of course, CEDIA Expo 2018 in San Diego. Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, Google Play Music, and many other services, or just listen at cedia.net/insights/tech-council-podcast.
AUSTRALIA > Audio Visual Distributors
POWERPLANT Home Automation
Krix Loudspeakers Pty Ltd
Raygun Video Limited Rockfon
McCormick Concepts
Simply Advanced Limited
CANADA >
Smart AV Solutions
Alleen’s Mattamy Homes CYPRUS > Rhine Line Ltd INDIA > Autocon Solutions
Smart Home Solutions Soundcraft Hi-Fi The Aerial Man Ltd Visionworks AV Vivid Audio Limited USA >
Awicon Technologies
AlltecPro
Future Automation Solutions
Alpine Home Media Inc. Beyond the Studs
PROFX Tech Pvt Ltd
Cadre Communications Inc
IRELAND > Tecnolec Services Ltd
DaVinci Media
JAPAN >
Davis Distribution Systems
AIM Electronics Co., Ltd.
Digital Sky AV
SINGAPORE >
Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
Eighteen 77 Pte Ltd
Ebode LLC
SOUTH AFRICA >
Harmonic Series Inc.
Vivid Audio SWEDEN > Aloud AB UNITED KINGDOM > Aerials Cable Equipment Distributors Ltd
The Install Spot Intelligent Residences LLC Jotech Electrical Contractors, Inc. KHT Electronics
Art of Smart
L & M Structured Wiring, Inc.
Audio Concept
Montavue LLC
Aurac Sound + Vision
Nova Flex LED
AV Homes UK Ltd
Open Mesh
Avande
Smart Wire, LLC
Capital Installation and Design
Specialized Shading Systems, Inc.
CBV Datanet
Stereo East Home Theater
Clever and Simple
Suttle
Cre8 Electrical Solutions Ltd
Tekie Geek LLC Total Home Technologies
JSL Electrical
Tronic Integration, LLC
Matthew Aerials
Wavenet Inc
MJY Home Automation
Wintech
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I AM CEDIA 60 SECONDS WITH KEISHI MATSUZAKI My name is Keishi Matsuzaki, and I am the CEO of GLANCE. What’s your company and where is it based? GLANCE is the company that I founded in Wakayama, Japan. We specialize in home automation, home cinema, and audio systems. We serve the Tokyo (metropolitan) and Kansai regions and have a showroom in Wakayama.
“
How did you get into the industry? I started helping out in the family
high-end home audio business. A few years after graduating from university, I started designing integration solutions. With a desire to venture out into more than just audio systems, I chose to also look at home cinema and home control systems, and this led me to develop my own business. What’s your favorite project and why? My favorite project was for a client who owns a traditional Japanese house and required us to install a home cinema, home control, and a
“
Who are you?
I TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE EDUCATION PROGRAM THAT CEDIA OFFERS, AS THIS HELPS ME STAND OUT FROM OTHER INTEGRATORS IN JAPAN.
multi-zone music system. With these types of properties it can be very difficult to install equipment in the desired way. Houses in Japan often have a single owner, and remain aesthetically unchanged over long periods, so we had to be both mindful of the home’s current racks and utility spaces while ensuring that technology could be upgraded later in an unobtrusive manner. Which home technology do you consider the most important today and why? I would say that IP-based technologies for the home are undoubtedly the most important technology today. Already, most electronic devices and products need to connect and communicate with IP, and I can only see this increasing further. We ensure that our clients are informed so that they’ll invest in enterprise-grade products both for wired and Wi-Fi solutions. How long have you been a CEDIA member?
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GLANCE has been a CEDIA member since 2009. What do you enjoy most as a CEDIA member? I enjoy being able to experience cutting-edge technology at the CEDIA show and being able to participate in the various training sessions that are offered. Which CEDIA benefits do you take advantage of the most, and why? I take advantage of the education program that CEDIA offers, as this helps me stand out from other integrators in Japan. What’s the biggest issue for home technology businesses today and how can they deal with it? Many devices use IP, but issues can arise when these systems start communicating freely. Manufacturers offer no means to solve this problem, and it is too complicated for customers to solve. I believe that it is my job to troubleshoot the problem, then resolve the issue to provide a comfortable and enjoyable experience for the customer.
If you weren’t in the home technology sector, what would you like to be doing and why? I studied human psychology, so I could have ended up being a psychologist. Ever since high school, I thought that human psychology was very interesting.
What does 2018 hold for your company? I think 2018 will be a positive year. I am constantly expanding the business to provide the most advanced solutions for my customers, and I will continue to do this.
www.glance-designs.jp/en
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BUSINESS
XCHANGE
Michael Shanks Stanford University
CEDIA Business Xchange MAY 16-18, 2018 Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Holly Keller
Director of Marketing, CEDIA
What’s the biggest problem you have in your business? Maybe it’s a recurring project management challenge. Maybe there’s a communication breakdown when a client is handed off from sales to design. Or perhaps it’s that your customer and prospect data is a mess.
Whatever your challenge is, focus on that for a moment. It’s impacting your business’s efficiency, and losing you either time or money or
both. It’s probably not a new problem — and yet, it persists. Why? Well, quite simply, you haven’t found the solution yet. It never seems like the right time to dig in and troubleshoot, devise a fix, and realign all your processes — so you work around it, and you live with it. Solving this problem will take some effort, and as a leader in your business, that work has to be done by you. But at the 2018 CEDIA Business Xchange, you can get a roadmap to building a solution — faster and more effectively.
That roadmap is a process called “Design Thinking.”
SCHEDULE
WEDNESDAY MAY 16 2-5 p.m.
Emerging Technologies Forum
6-8 p.m.
Welcome Reception at The Duce
8:30 p.m.-1 a.m.
Xchange After Dark
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Choose your own adventure
MEET THE PRESENTERS
Don’t let the word “design” throw you — Design Thinking is a process that was created by designers, but it can be applied by anyone to solve nearly any problem you can conceive of.
Michael Shanks
It’s a human-centered approach that’s used by the biggest companies out there — Samsung, Disney, and Apple, just to name a few. And it’s the main topic of this year’s CEDIA Business Xchange. Every day, your company applies creative problemsolving to deliver great experiences for your clients. But not every business is applying creativity to their internal operations. To make that mind-shift, this year’s Xchange will welcome Michael Shanks, a senior faculty member at Stanford University in Technology Science, Urban Studies, and the Center for Design Research, the research arm of Stanford’s d.school, where Design Thinking was developed. Shanks will be joined by esteemed CEDIA members Rich Green and Peter Aylett. Through a blend of short instructional talks and facilitated, hands-on teamwork with fellow home tech pros, attendees will learn how to apply the Design Thinking approach to their business. Green is fond of the observation that while an engineer is a problem-solver, a designer is a problem-seeker. By thinking like a designer, you’ll empathize with the end user — whether that is a client or your technicians or project manager — and learn to search out and crystallize your business process problems to ensure you’re driving at the right solution.
Sharpen your focus for better results The best strategies come from sharing ideas, developing plans, and interacting with people who know exactly what you’re up against. That’s the idea at the heart of Business Xchange. It’s not your standard management seminar; it’s two focused days of discussion tailored exclusively to residential installation company owners and executives. And it’s different from big industry shows, where you’re often pulled in many directions, diluting targeted discussions about company management. Business Xchange is 100% focused on issues specific to running a systems installation business. It’s your opportunity to dive into the most pressing topics surrounded by a trusted network of leaders facing the same challenges.
Professor of Archaeology, Stanford University One of the most original and influential of contemporary archaeologists, Michael is a specialist in long-term humanistic views of design, creativity, and innovation. He is a senior faculty member in Stanford’s Programs in Science, Technology, and Society, Urban Studies, and the Center for Design Research, the research arm of Stanford’s d.school. He has directed the Stanford Humanities Lab, pioneering innovative pedagogy in the arts and humanities, and helped found the Revs Program at Stanford, connecting automotive heritage with contemporary car design. He is a faculty director of Stanford Foresight and Innovation and works with mediaX, the affiliates’ program that connects Stanford with industry through technology and innovation.
Peter Aylett Technical Director, Archimedia Peter has spent much of his career working for some of the UK’s most respected technology integrators. Formerly the Director of Professional Development for CEDIA EMEA, he is now Technical Director for Archimedia, a high-end residential integration company with more than 150 employees and operations in five countries across the Middle East. Peter is in demand as a speaker and lecturer in residential technology and has led courses in Europe, China, Australia, New Zealand, North America, and the Middle East. Peter chairs the Applied Information Action Team within the CEDIA Technology Council and is a columnist for HiddenWires.co.uk.
Rich Green President, Rich Green Design Rich Green has been active in the AV design and installation industry since 1978. His systemintegration company, Rich Green Design, serves the ambitious homeowners and businesses of Silicon Valley. His clients have included Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Tony Fadell, Jim Clark, Gordon Getty, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Luciano Pavarotti. Rich currently sits on the Advisory Board of CEDIA, served as a threeterm board member, and founded the CEDIA Technology Council. Rich travels the world as an instructor, consultant, and public speaker in the fields of Future Technologies and Design. Rich is a CEDIA Fellow.
cedia.net/business-xchange
THURSDAY MAY 17
FRIDAY MAY 18
9 a.m.-5 p.m
Design Thinking: Learn the Design Thinking approach through facilitated workshops targeted to ensure direct relevance to your business.
5:30-7 p.m.
Guitar in the Making Team-Building Activity
7-9 p.m.
Dinner
9 p.m.-1 a.m.
Xchange After Dark
9-11:30 a.m.
Idea Xchange: Attendees will collaborate in groups to apply Design Thinking to solve real-life business issues.
11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
Closing Lunch
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Back at DCW CEDIA talks to the building trades at Design and Construction Week Ed Wenck
Content Marketing Manager, CEDIA
Here’s an anecdote from a focus group of one: Recently, a relative of Yours Truly told me she was building a new home. I asked her if that project included smart home technology — distributed audio, perhaps? Maybe a custom security system, automated lighting and blinds, or a dedicated media room? After said relative ran me through her list of must-haves, I asked her who was handling that stuff. “My builder’s got a guy,” she replied brightly. (Note: This answer could have only made me happier if she’d said: “My builder’s got a CEDIA guy [or woman].”) As you’ve likely heard, this little tale is representative of a much bigger trend — and it’s why CEDIA’s returned to DCW in 2018. CEDIA’s first appearance at Design
and Construction Week as “collaborative exhibitor” came last year at the annual event in Florida. After attending prior DCW events — and mingling with reps from the relevant trades — CEDIA helped the joint venture of the NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) International Builders’ Show and KBIS (the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, owned by the National Kitchen and Bath Association, or NKBA) by working with them to implement the concept of a smart home pavilion.
That concept returned in 2018 with the CEDIA Technology Solutions Pavilion. Like last year, this 10,000-squarefoot space “offered our members the opportunity to develop relationships with design and build professionals,” says CEDIA’s Senior Director of Industry Relations Dave Chic. This has been a relationship that’s growing as fast as the Internet of Things (IoT): “Through our ongoing collaborations with DCW, more and more opportunities are presenting themselves,” says Chic. A big part of this initiative — bringing technology integrators to the building trades — will focus on education. More and more builders are making what CEDIA members can provide part of their business model.”
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SO WHAT WAS BIG FOR 2018? “I hear a lot of buzz about the IoT, of course — people are looking for advanced yet reliable ways to be entertained, to feel safe, to create an energy-efficient home,” says Chic. More specifically, he’s hearing more about the emerging technology surrounding the concept of “Aging in Place,” and even “multi-generational technology in one home — that sandwich generation has needs, as do their kids, as do their elder live-in relatives.” As Laura Mitchell, a “smart care consultant,” told us during her talk at the last CEDIA show, two-thirds of all the people 65 and over who have ever lived on Earth are alive right now. Roughly 111 million people in the U.S. are over 50. 90% of the folks activating their AARP cards say they want to live at home. Here’s a value proposition for you: America’s sandwich generation, tasked with caring for both parents and children, will soon learn that the cost of care, having jumped overall 63% since 1997, is really pricey when Mom or Dad or Grandma needs constant monitoring. Simply put, it’s vastly cheaper to put the tech in the condo than to hire someone to perform the same functions (if you can find someone, that is — there’s a caregiver shortage in full swing). THE PAVILION’S A HIT Nicholas Rosado, the Control4 Sales Manager for Eastern Florida and the Caribbean, was astonished by the traffic he saw as an exhibitor in the CEDIA space: “It got to the point where the builders didn't want to leave.” Rosado saw attendees that were finally realizing the impact of the tech revolution at this particular iteration of DCW. “You had a lot of that ‘oh, wow’ look from builders that finally realized that, you know what, we need to step up to today's technology because a lot of the younger builders are taking over. “Builders have begun to understand that they have to have this in order to remain competitive in the market. If you have ten houses on the same block and only one has automation, that one is going to sell quicker than the other ones. That was a common theme throughout my conversations with many, many of the builders that got in front of us.” And with that realization comes CEDIA brand awareness, notes Dave Chic. “It used to be I’d go to trade shows and they’d stare at the CEDIA logo and ask, ‘What do you guys do?’ Now it’s changing.”
MYTHBUSTING Another big part of CEDIA’s get-the-word-out mission involves a bit of myth-busting when it comes to the CEDIA channel. Three of the biggest myths were addressed at the show:
MYTH NO. 1
THE HIGH-TECH HOME IS ONLY FOR THE “ONE PERCENT” “I saw a lot of interest from the production builders,” says Chic. “They want packages: good, better, best. They constantly ask me about the more modest installations – ‘Hey, we’re not building $2 million homes,’ they tell me.” “We can absolutely meet whatever demands are out there,” says Bret Jacob, Director of Builder Sales with Core Brands. “We scale up to the biggest mansions, of course – but we’ve got packages that start at $1,200.”
MYTH NO. 2
INSTANT OBSOLESCENCE Dave Chic delights in counter-arguments. “I had a long talk with an architect. His beef: ‘Isn’t this stuff all out of date the minute you put it in?’ “So I asked about the car he drives. “Turns out, it’s a 2006 Accord. Maybe a tad outdated, but certainly not broken.”
MYTH NO. 3
THE BOTTOM LINE BUMMER Although it’s begun to fade, there’s still a lingering concern among the DCW faithful about the cash destined for granite countertops suddenly being rerouted into hidden speakers. Dave Chic’s found the strategies around that objection: “Talk about resale. Heck, leave the tech out of the building budget if it’s an issue. Just include a pre-wire package and let the homeowner and the integrator tackle whatever’s going into this wall or that rack.” And that takes away another worry: “A builder is always concerned that if something breaks or stops working, it’s the guys who hung the sheetrock who gets the call.” “No,” says Chic. “That’s OUR job.”
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Michael Heiss Principal Consultant at M Heiss Consulting
Video Display
TRENDS for 2018
T
he past year has seen major changes in the video world, and as seen at ISE, there are more on the way. To help you navigate the display waters, here
are the key trends that will likely dominate displays for the year ahead.
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4K/UHD: Particularly on the consumer/ residential side, 4K displays are becoming almost mandatory for any screen size above 40” diagonal. Price is no longer an objection, and the increased resolution is a boon for presentations, spreadsheets, and still images, as much as it is a consumer “pull feature” for moving images. HDR/WCG: If 4K resolution is the feature that drives better displays into residential and commercial installations, high dynamic range (HDR) and wide color gamut (WCG) are what really provide the demonstrable benefit. The ability to have the equivalent of up to 14 photographic stops as opposed to eight for standard dynamic range (SDR) is best explained by showing how there is more depth in the blacks or shadow area of a picture without having the bright areas wash out. WCG makes it possible to see more colors so that images come considerably closer to what the human visual system sees. Demonstrate this by comparing a picture drawn from a crayon box with only eight or 16 choices to the “deluxe” box with 36 or 64 crayons/color choices. What to look for: The baseline is an open standard called HDR-10, while the proprietary Dolby Vision system — mostly available for consumer products — allows color mapping on a sceneby-scene basis, rather than permitting only one setting for the entire program. HDR-10+, a similar “dynamic metadata” system from Samsung, has been announced. Also worth checking out is “HLG,” a system jointly developed by the BBC and Japan’s NHK. Expect to see this in broad use in the year ahead for live broadcasts in HDR, while the other systems will be used more for recorded programming and movies. Sony’s CLEDIS display, shown here at last year’s ISE, may well be the vanguard of more microLED displays from Samsung and others.
LCD and QLED vs OLED: The consumer electronics industry never seems to be without a format battle, and this is the latest one. Just as conventional LCD panels with fluorescent CCFL backlighting have given way to LED illumination, the latest advancement is the use of “quantum dots” or “nano cells” which use micro particles to enable
Short throw projectors, such as this Hisense model shown at CEDIA are something to look for as 2018 progresses.
colors to be much more precisely finetuned. Be on the lookout for sets called “QLED” as one indication of quantum dots, but other branding schemes are in use by the various manufacturers. Competing with LCD/QLED is OLED. As an emissive, rather than transmissive technology, OLED is said to have better blacks, and thus, contrast ratio, because when a pixel is “off,” there is no light showing at all. Both flat panel technologies have their backers and detractors, and ISE was a perfect place to witness both flavors in action and see which technology works for your specific projects and applications. Projection: The use of lasers as the initial light source for projection products has taken the industry by storm. By eliminating bulb changes and keeping output consistent over time, they are now the go-to light source. However, there are still a variety of image engines, including DLP, LCD, LCoS, and its variants such as SXRD that give you an array of options to consider. For higher-end installations, particularly in cinemas, where high light output is needed, direct laser systems are worth examining. Expensive, to be sure, but in some applications, nothing else will do. Another growth area in projection is “short throw.” Here, two form factors will be on display. “Overhead/White board” units have become popular for classroom and instructional use. The projector is mounted to or directly above a white
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board. This not only allows for drawing over the video image on the “screen,” it simplifies installation by eliminating ceiling mounts. On the consumer side, short throw projectors allow a cabinet with the projector to sit on the floor virtually right up against the screen. For situations where a ceiling mount is not possible, this arrangement gives the viewer the benefits of a large, 4K screen without worrying about the projector. Direct LED and μLED Displays: Long associated with “view them at a distance” applications such as stadiums and transportation venues, Direct LED displays have advanced to the point where their dot pitch is fine enough to permit 4K resolution at close distances. When given the chance, try to experience the difference in viewing distance vs. resolution to see which of these large, modular-based systems work for a particular job you have or may be bidding on. Even in outdoor systems for large residential installations, this is a technology to watch. The future of large LED-Direct technology is μLED, also known as “Micro LED.” Here, the LEDs are
Will 8K have a presence beyond this year’s ISE? Here it was on sale in China late last year, and there was more of it last month at CES.
smaller than anything previously used, delivering large screen systems with high light output and high resolution. This was shown last year by Sony with its Crystal LED — previously abbreviated to “CLEDIS.” Samsung has already fitted two cinemas with the Samsung Cinema Screen system where this technology is used for high resolution, HDR-enabled, large screen presentation rather than a conventional digital projector and screen.
Holiday sales results proved the value of HDR vs SDR. How far down into the consumer and professional product lines will it go?
www.michaelheiss.com
@captnvid
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A Brief History and Where We Are Today Six cameras outfit my Toyota Rav4. The cameras tell me when someone is driving in my blind spot, can show me 360 degrees around my car when I back up, and even push my car back if I cross the line on the side of the road without my turn signal. When I turn on my cruise control, I can set the camera to watch the car in front of me and adjust the speed accordingly without touching the pedals. With just a push of a button, it will stay one to three car lengths away from the car in front of me. My car is smart, but it is not self-driving. Action/reaction is where we are with artificial intelligence. Successful pieces of the AI puzzle exist today, but they have yet to come together in one cohesive unit to create a thinking device. From “Ex Machina” to “2001: A Space Odyssey”; from “The Matrix” to “Terminator” to HBO’s “West World,” the idea of AI has moved us, thrilled us, and scared us.
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Heather L. Sidorowicz President and Owner of Southtown Audio Video
TERMS: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is defined by the MerriamWebster Dictionary as “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.” In other words, it’s the ability for a computer to act human. Machine Learning (ML) is a term often used in conjunction with AI and is described as the ability for a computer to learn and then improve without being programmed to do so. HISTORY: John McCarthy, a math professor at Dartmouth College, coined the phrase “Artificial Intelligence” in 1955, but the idea of smart computers goes back to 1950 when Alan Turing developed the Turing test. The purpose of the test was to figure out if, when communicating via text, a computer could be indistinguishable from a human. If the person evaluating the text could not distinguish the machine from a human, the machine would pass the test. By the 1960s, AI research in the United States was mostly funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. Then, by the mid-1970s, the U.S. and British governments cut off exploratory analysis in AI as they moved funding into what they believed to be more productive projects. During the late 1990s and into the early 21st century, AI was once again in the limelight with advancements in computing being used for data mining and in the medical field. In 1997, a computer named Deep Blue beat a worldrenowned chess champion, Garry Kasparov. By 2011, IBM's supercomputer Watson defeated the most celebrated Jeopardy champions. No doubt, computer intelligence was progressing. And, by 2015, Google was using AI in more than 2,700 software projects. HOW IS AI USED TODAY? Voice Recognition (speaking): While voice recognition is not yet perfect, it has improved dramatically. Millions are using this technology today — consider “Hey Siri,” “Alexa,” and “Okay, Google.” We are all talking to our “robots.” A study by Stanford computer scientist James Landay (and his colleagues) found that speech recognition is now about three times as fast, on average, as typing on a mobile phone, and the error rate has dropped to a mere 4.9%. Image Recognition (seeing): In the Apple-verse, the application “Photo” will look through your photos to find faces — and it’s darn good at it. The new iPhone X uses facial recognition to unlock your phone — no more fingerprints. When you upload a picture to Facebook, it tags people before you can. Image recognition is getting better by the day. Problem-solving/Cognition (thinking): Machines have surpassed us in the games of chess and Go. They’re able to compose music (JukeDeck), and they are even writing news articles you have likely read (passing the Turing test!). Google’s DeepMind team has now used machine learning to cool data centers more effectively, detect malware, and prevent money laundering. In May, at an Internet Association gala, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos described the AI era as the “golden age” of technology, capable of a level of problemsolving that previously existed only in the realm of science fiction. (This from the guy figuring out drone delivery while operating over 45,000 robots in 20 distribution centers.)
WHAT IS AI’S FUTURE? Although my car can react to its environment as its computer processes millions of data points a second, a self-driving car cannot decide between two objects to avoid. So far, it cannot choose the lesser of two evils; that’s a skill that remains innately human. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are currently doing specific tasks extraordinarily well, but no one is telling me that bread is already on my shopping list when I start to add bread to my shopping list for a second time. And in our industry, we are just starting to adopt voice control into the smart home. But that is just what it is: “smart” — not intelligent, not able to see, speak, or think as one unified unit. The printing press, the steam engine, and the atomic bomb show that until the breakthrough comes, we cannot comprehend what is beyond. Surely Al will accelerate us forward in a way we cannot imagine. For now, I am just excited to have Alexa remind my children to bring their instruments to school. No, that task isn’t necessarily intelligent, but it’s very convenient.
www.southtownav.com @tech_chi
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Building the Perfect Team THE TRUE COST OF RECRUITING SOMEONE According to the U.K.’s Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), nine out of 10 HR professionals have worked in a business that hired the wrong person for a job. In fact, bad hires are not isolated incidents, they’re frequent occurrences.
Graham Brown Managing Director of Forces Recruitment Services Ltd
Since joining CEDIA two years ago, many of the members who we’ve talked to are mainly technical experts, often with limited experience in employee recruitment. Some recruit people they know, some make hires because they like the “cut of someone’s jib,” and some because they just need a butt in a seat.
But what is the actual cost of recruiting someone? According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM’s) Human Capital Benchmarking Report from August 2016, the average cost-per-hire is $4,129. That’s before you’ve paid your new hire a nickel. Median income in 2016 was just over $59,000 in the U.S. — for those with a high school diploma, that number’s $36,835. MIT’s Joe Hadzima, in a column for the Boston Business Journal, noted that the average benefits package for an employee added anywhere from one-quarter to 40% of a new hire’s annual income. (That’s another $9,200 for your high-school grad.) Add employment taxes from Social Security to unemployment, mix in workers' comp, provide that employee with a computer and a desk, and calculate training time and vacation hours, and that new hire — using the most conservative estimate — has set you back between $54,000 and $60,000.
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What is the cost of getting it wrong? If the candidate doesn’t work out, you could easily have spent in excess of $27,000 over six months (if you had the foresight to let them go that early). So my question is, why apply your outstanding technical knowledge in designing and installing equipment into homes, yachts, and venues across the world — and not to your recruitment activity?
The cost of returning to a job site for a minor change or because the job wasn’t completed correctly the first time around can run into hundreds of dollars per visit. Wouldn't some of that money be better invested in a team member who simply did it right the first time? In a typically sized installation company, every person on the team is a company representative with the ability to make or break the company’s reputation.
So, what is the solution? 1
Ask yourself if it’s the right time to make an appointment.
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Hire someone who will uphold the same values as you do.
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Understand which psychometric profiling system to use and how to read it — a good system will give you insight into behavioral analysis and even interview questions, if you are not an experienced interviewer.
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If something is free and sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
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If you use a recruitment agency, tie them down on a free replacement rather than a rebate or you will end up paying half as much again to recruit someone. This way they are held accountable.
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It may seem an odd thing to consider, but think about why that potential employee could possibly be fired. If you come up with nothing, it’s a good sign.
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Science CAN be applied to hiring. Investigate platforms that can minimize your risk.
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Get a second opinion if you are not sure.
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Remember this: Companies hire on skill and fire on behavior.
If you’ve gone through this list and you think you’ve found someone outstanding, make a good offer quickly. The recruitment industry is in a candidate-led market at the moment, so expect good people to have options. You need to make sure your business is their number-one choice.
www.forcesrecruitment.co.uk
@ForcesRecruits
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Selling An Experience vs. Selling Technology In an age of instant gratification, it’s not enough to simply sell hardware. The hard truth of the matter is this: If we’re really going to see smart homes take off, we need to change the way we imagine, talk about, sell, install, and deliver real smart homes to customers. The consumer mindset has undergone a seismic shift in recent years, and it is still changing. As consumers, we hold the buying experience to a high standard: We want to be convinced that the product or service we’re buying into will bring us value and enhance our lives. So what does this mean for technology integrators? It means that it is time to stop selling hardware and start selling experiences. As Steve Jobs once said: “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back to the technology — not the other way around.”
Philipp Schuster Managing Director of Loxone UK
trigger laughter, help us recall memories, and evoke in us a range of feelings that numbers on their own simply cannot. When it comes to smart homes, it’s time to tell a different story. Not the story of hardware whereby the customer is handed a list of nondescript parts with a grand total at the bottom. Let’s face it — there’s nothing exciting about a parts list. It has no story, and the only emotion it’s likely to trigger from a potential customer is surprise and dismay: “How much?!” In the 1st century B.C., Publilius Syrus wrote, “Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.” It’s a principle that rings true to this day. You have to create value in the mind of your customers, and one of the best ways to do that is to focus on the experience of smart living and the lifestyle benefits it offers. Same product, different experience
Selling the smart home experience Humans are storytellers — it’s how we learn and make sense of the world. Stories are ingrained in our cultures, traditions, religions, and even our laws. Stories are powerfully emotive, they can
A key part of selling the smart home experience is to take your parts list and ask yourself: “What can this product do? What features can I offer with this product?” Then use these answers to build your feature specification.
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Let’s take a motion sensor as an example. Now, motion sensors by themselves are not extraordinary. They can be used to turn a light on and off, which is helpful, and, of course, saves energy, albeit only a small amount. This isn’t novel and motion sensors have been used to control lighting in commercial properties for years. But what else could a motion sensor do? How could it help make life easier at home? In a smart home, a motion sensor plays a central role — not only in automating everyday tasks such as turning a light on or off, but also in creating a more comfortable lifestyle. To help paint these pictures for your customers, think about some of the everyday annoyances you have to put up with in your own home. If you get up during the night to use the bathroom or check on the kids, you probably don’t appreciate the glare of the bathroom light and the noisy fan when you’re trying not to wake anyone else. A motion sensor, when configured as part of a holistic smart home system, could bring up accent lighting at 25% brightness when you get up in the night, allowing you to see your way to the bathroom without being dazzled. Furthermore, the bathroom fan could be either disabled during the night or placed on a delay of five minutes. Then, once you’re back in bed, everything switches off automatically. When you get up the next morning, wouldn’t it be great to have your
By steering focus towards features rather than technology, your specification becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
favorite music play automatically when you enter the bathroom? Monday mornings might not be so bleak. It is these everyday situations that you can use to illustrate the value of a smart home to your customer. A motion sensor is no longer just a lifeless smart home component. It’s a more restful night’s sleep, it’s a safer and more intelligent alarm system, it’s never arriving home to a dark house again. By steering focus towards features rather than technology, your specification becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Not only that, but by creating a feature specification for your customer rather than just a hardware specification, you can ensure that expectations on both sides are clearly outlined before work even begins. If you agree on the features that are to be delivered, your
project has a clear path to completion. If you only agree to install a “smart home” from a list of components, it leaves you susceptible to a customer arguing that their installation is not complete, causing frustration on both sides.
Conclusion The smart home market is more crowded than ever, so it’s imperative to be able to separate the gimmicky solutions from those that genuinely make life easier. Succeeding in selling professionally installed smart home solutions to your customers comes down to being able to identify and convey the tangible day-to-day benefits that a smart home can bring, and presenting them to your customers in a way that manages their expectations and sets out clear features to be installed, rather than just technology for its own sake.
www.loxone.com
@LoxoneUK
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Education
6,300 Trained In-Person
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Training Held in
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2017 by the Membership 3,705 Member Companies in 78 Countries 789 New Members Tradeshow Registrants 20,000+ CEDIA 2017 73,000+ ISE 2017 2
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17 Cross-Industry Events Results shown are through 11.10.17.
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TRAINING & EVENTS CALENDAR March 7-8
12-14
Tech Forum
Basic Residential Boot Camp
Sydney, Australia
CEDIA HQ, Indy
13-14
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Book training at cedia.net/cedia-training
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The Amazon Home Technology Pro Engagement Program In the last quarter of 2017, CEDIA announced a new initiative with Amazon: A Home Technology Pro Engagement Program available to CEDIA member companies with employees who have completed their ESC-T, ESC-D, or ESC-N. The announcement was a bit buzzy, to say the least — some CEDIA members have referred to Amazon as something of a “frenemy,” and there’s been a great debate about whether or not the companies repped in the acronym FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) present either DIY distress or the dawn of a new awareness for the home technology integrator. As Mitchell Klein of the Z-Wave Alliance noted in his CEDIA Talk, Amazon has arrived as a player whether the industry recognizes it or not: The Amazon Echo’s now a “fresh pick” at Whole Foods. For a number of integrators, Amazon’s been a means to an end: Joe Whitaker, guerrilla marketer and Big Kahuna at the integration firm The Thoughtful Home, used a basket of Amazon Dots as a calling card. As he told the crowd
assembled for his CEDIA Talk in San Diego, he scoured neighborhoods where he’d already done some work and took note of homes with aging surveillance cameras, dated exterior lighting, or decidedly un-smart doorbells. He attached his business card to the Dots, leaving them on the front porch of the homes he thought might yield new business — at no charge — and waited for his phone to ring. Whitaker’s initial “Dot Drop” yielded no less than a 50-to-one ROI and landed him in a number of industry pubs. What’s the old chestnut? “The Chinese character for crisis includes the characters that mean both danger and opportunity.” It may have been debunked, but it’s handy here. As newly elected CEDIA board member Heather Sidorowicz of Southtown AV says: “I think the news regarding the Amazon-CEDIA relationship is a big one. And I want to see it move further. I think that this is an excellent way to promote CEDIA membership, and I think it's the first step in what CEDIA can do to be moving forward and staying relevant.”
GETTING STARTED 1 OBTAIN YOUR ADVANCED CEDIA CERTIFICATION There are testing centers across the U.S. Need more information? Contact certification@cedia.org.
2 REGISTER YOUR ACCOUNT Once certified, CEDIA will automatically supply the activation code to register your Amazon account.
3 COMPLETE BACKGROUND CHECKS Amazon will run business and technician background checks.
4 SET UP YOUR AMAZON ACCOUNT Select your coverage locations and the services you want to offer.
5 START GETTING JOBS
Here’s How the Amazon Home Technology Pro Engagement Program Works The program does several things: It grows your business by connecting with Amazon customers for custom jobs, helps maximize your billable hours by picking up small prepackaged jobs for your team, and brings your brand to a broader audience. As part of the Home Technology Pro Engagement Program, qualified CEDIA members will be the only providers able to quote custom solutions. For pre-packaged services, the services you choose to provide will appear on pages with related products while potential clients are shopping. (A note: Pre-packaged services are totally optional and not a requirement of the custom program. You can choose to take on solely custom work.) You receive actual jobs when customers choose you for the custom work or when a customer orders prepackaged services and you “win the claim,” then Amazon pays you after the job wraps. To answer the obvious question: Amazon’s cut is a revenue share. For custom jobs, that share is 15% up to $1,000 and then 10% for the portion larger than that first grand. For prepackaged services, it’s 20% up to $1,000 and then 15% for anything more.* There are no lead fees, no subscription fees, no ad fees, and no startup fees. You only pay for the jobs you complete. Obviously, your participation in the program once you’re in is voluntary: You don’t have to take a job just because there’s a request. Plus, Amazon wants to highlight amazing examples of great experiences with Alexa. Amazon will feature best-inclass examples in their Integrator Showcase launching this fall.
*The fees above apply to ALL professions, ALL service types, in ALL locations. Amazon deducts the fees as a percentage of the service price, excluding any taxes collected through Amazon tax collection services. *The Amazon Home Technology Pro Engagement Program is currently only offered in the United States.
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GLOBAL AWARD WINNER
SURF’S UP Integrator: Land & Sea Entertainment Land & Sea Entertainment 4498 Paola Way San Diego, CA 92117 USA 858.467.1940 CEDIA Member Since 2002
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Equipment List • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Acoustiblok absorption Artison speakers and subwoofers Chief hardware Crestron control systems Denon Atmos AVR and receivers Launchport gear LiftMaster Controls Mackie House Mixer Marantz amplifier Mean Well gear Middle Atlantic racks Mitsubishi controls Mobotix security vision systems Oppo Blu-ray players Origin Acoustics speakers Roku 4K Pentair Pool/Spa automation Samsung TVs Sharp TVs Shure wireless mic SONOS Sonnex gear Sunfire subwoofers Vision X lighting systems WattBox power protection
The night of September 6, 2017, was a big one for the team at Land & Sea Entertainment. The crew took the stage at the CEDIA Awards event on the deck of the USS Midway not once, but three times, picking up trophies for Best Integrated Home, Level IV; Best Documentation; and Best Dressed Rack. Beyond the fact that Land & Sea won the awards on its home turf — the firm’s based in San Diego — this brilliant project would go on to become a CEDIA Global Award Winner. The trophies Land & Sea picked up reflected two-and-a-half years of painstaking work on a seaside retreat on the California coast. The lighting from the front of the home illuminates the beach for surfing after dark. Inside, the sound system needs to keep the music inside — so as not to wake the neighbors — while keeping the roar of the ocean outside. Beyond the audio, the home’s interior is packed with complex lighting, video, and other systems that required careful power management, precise cable running, and a set of documents that were more extensive and useful than CEDIA’s panel of judges had ever seen. As the judges pointed out, the inclusion of photos of the home’s systems with overlays describing the various elements of the project means that anyone can work on any aspect of the home at any time. No prior knowledge of the system is required — it’s that detailed. CEDIA’s judges remarked that the documentation itself was a saleable asset, as valuable as any gleaming appliance or custom millwork. Another judge noted, “It’s a shame we don’t give an award for power management.” Another judge marveled at the physical work that went into running all that cable: “It’s a completely unique and elegant rack system, just beautifully done.” The man responsible for that rack, Ken Penner, was overjoyed when the team picked up their trophy at the CEDIA Awards — but wasted no time in stressing that the project was a true team effort. “It’s fantastic,” he said, then gestured at his assembled colleagues. “And I got to work with these guys on this one for two-and-a-half years.”
www.sterryo.com
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MOBILE SERVICES Luke Newland, Owner of UK integration company, New Land Solutions, talks exclusively to CEDIA Communicates about his new mobile showroom.
During a casual conversation with a lighting designer and architect whom we work with, we discussed how our clients find it increasingly difficult to find the time to travel to our demo facility — despite it being easily accessible and local to most of our London clients. This conversation gave me food for thought. I had a light-bulb moment, working out that a mobile demo unit would do the trick — not only would it be fantastic for New Land Solutions, but our partners would also love it, and benefit from it. I knew it needed to be unique — something that would set New Land Solutions apart from the crowd. It needed to be different from the normal flight case demo boxes that are available to everyone. It also needed to show what can be achieved in smaller spaces. I will admit it — I am massively obsessed with classic car designs, so as I continued thinking of a solution, it dawned on me that an Airstream would be the perfect answer.
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After several emails back and forth, lots of time spent on the internet, and a few calls here and there, I finally found the one — a 1959 27-foot Airstream in Miami. It hadn’t been used for a few years, but the shell was in perfect condition. I confess, I first drank a few rum and cokes, and then went for it, and not long after, it was shipped to Southampton. This is when the fun began, but not the type of fun I was hoping for. Instead, I was faced with a huge import tax bill. Not the best start, but I didn’t let it get me down, as I had the most exciting project ahead of me. Over the next year, we removed the old cupboards, flooring, toilet, and showers. Once we completed this task, we had an empty shell to begin playing with. Or so we thought. It was at this point that we realized the whole floor was rotten, and the Airstream wasn’t legal on UK roads. So, we had to lift the whole shell off the chassis to replace the axle wheels, brakes, and towing hitch to meet UK standards. With the whole trailer in bits, we packed the inner shell with acoustic board and the floor was remade in marine plywood — later to be professionally installed with hardwood flooring.
1969 DS for towing. In early 2017, after designing the space, we met with Ineva Design who custom built three electric cinema seats in the rear and a leather seating area at the front, keeping it as light as possible. In house, we wired a full KNX lighting solution with John Cullen fittings and Basalte light switches. We installed a Meridian Audio DSP speaker solution with Media Core offline music. This was a very easy choice as it doesn’t require racks of amps and lots of space. Alongside this system, we installed a Sony 4K display and Kaleidescape player. For the user interface and control, we have both Crestron and Control4, showcasing the two side-by-side. While it has been a long, and sometimes painful, process, we are delighted with the end result, and it is providing us with the exact solution that we were looking for. We have started taking our Airstream out on the road, and have received great feedback from it. Our customers enjoy having a demo area to look around in, especially when they don’t even have to travel to see it.
The internal skin was remade in aluminum to match the outer shell, and all the window glass was replaced, including the rubber seals.
Paul Ricci, Director at Ineva Design
Finally, it was a usable empty space and road legal — until I got stopped by the police for it being too shiny and blinding people on the motorway!
We met with Luke in the beginning of 2017 and when I saw the Airstream, I was very curious about it, especially when Luke mentioned that the idea was to turn this into a mobile showroom in the future.
By 2016, I had spent a small fortune and looked to raise funds for the final stage. For this, I started a pop-up champagne bar in the Airstream with a close friend and parked on Southsea beach, playing music and selling champagne, using my
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There was a standard old Chesterfield sofa in the back. Luke suggested converting this space into a home cinema, with a seating solution that would allow him to hide the AV rack and any other equipment that was needed. Having agreed to this plan, Luke gave us the freedom to develop possible designs. We drew sketches with a few ideas on it and sent this to Luke to see what his thoughts were. He said that the designs fitted perfectly with his plan for the Airstream. Luke provided us with the equipment that needed to be built in and then it all started for us. It took more time than we anticipated building the interior. This was because nothing was straight — everything was curved. We can say that this is the most unique project that we ever had done. We really loved the courage that Luke had to build such a unique demo solution. www.ineva-cinema.com www.newland.solutions/custom-installations
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THE MADNESS OF KING HDMI Once a week — Friday mornings in the U.S., to be precise — the CEDIA Tech Council releases a podcast. An episode from November 2017 featured a pretty stalwart trio of guests: Eric Bodley, President and CEO of Future Ready Solutions and Bodley and Associates (and 2017 CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award winner), joined CEDIA's Vice President of Emerging Technologies Dave Pedigo and CEDIA’s Director of Technical Curriculum David Meyer. As always, the show was hosted by CEDIA Senior Director of Technology and Standards Walt Zerbe and CEDIA Content Marketing Manager Ed Wenck.
Ed Wenck
Content Marketing Manager, CEDIA
The topics: HDMI and cables. Those two seemingly simplistic terms open up an hour-long discussion that could have run for literally days.
First, some background, right from the source. As a refresher the HDMI.org website gives the following definition: HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) technology is the industry-leading interface and de facto standard connecting high-definition (HD) and ultra high-definition (UHD) equipment, from HDTVs and personal computers to cameras, camcorders, tablets, Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, smartphones, and just about any other device capable of sending or receiving an HD signal.
By delivering crystal-clear, all-digital audio and video via a single cable, HDMI technology dramatically simplifies cabling and helps provide consumers with the highest-quality HD experience. It transmits all ATSC HDTV standards and supports 8-channel, 192kHz, uncompressed digital audio, and all currently available compressed formats, with bandwidth to spare to accommodate future enhancements and requirements. If the technology involved in getting all that digital data, imagery, and multi-channel audio into a single cable seemed a miraculous feat, it was preceded by an even bigger shocker, according to Bodley: “Actually, when it was developed, Steve Venuti of HDMI Licensing and I had dinner. He said, ‘It was a miracle that all of the founders actually agreed on a standard!’” “And I don't think they've probably agreed on anything ever since,” Bodley chuckles.
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Size Matters As Bodley points out right away, the founders never envisioned an HDMI cable being longer than six feet. “Heck, the TV's going to be mounted on the wall, and the cable box or your DVD player's going to be right underneath it. Why would you need anything longer than six feet?” Of course, as soon as the idea of distributed video and audio sent to multiple screens from a single headend source gained traction, it became clear that signal degradation was going to create all manner of issues. “Of course, we're always pushing the envelope. No question about it,” notes Bodley.
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It’s going to look like a fire hose, it can only go three inches, and it’s going to be a million dollars.
And technology designed to help push that data along greater and greater distances began to appear. “There's been a lot of innovative ways to [push that data],” says Bodley. Companies immediately sprang up to find “a way to equalize or compensate, if you will, for the fact we're trying to get voltage to go over probably a longer distance than expected, over too small a gauge of wire. So, unless you wanted a cable the size of your wrist, there had to be a way around it. HDBaseT Alliance, for example, came up with a way to transport it from an HDMI cable medium to twisted pair cables and back.” “But we're going from something that could flow through a garden hose to something that needs a six-inch steel pipe now,” Bodley jokes. As the iterations of the HDMI standard progress, the notion of that last sentence in HDMI’s own definition of terms becomes awfully critical: “[W]ith bandwidth to spare to accommodate future enhancements and requirements.”
From 1.4 to 2.0 to 2.1 Now that HDMI 2.1 is upon us, Bodley notes that the leaps in HDMI technology have gone beyond the typical incremental versions generally used in the tech universe, and CEDIA’s
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David Meyer concurs: “What they're trying to do here is take a quantum leap, so that we don't need to have a new iteration coming out every few years. We probably still will, for things we can't foresee at this point, or things we can foresee but they're just not ready to develop yet. So, we are going to see a pretty steep evolution. Going from HDMI 1.4 to 2.0 was quite a big step. That was in 2013, and we're only now just actually realizing that we really DO need all of that data rate that's available with that.” The problem? You guessed it. Meyer: “There are some applications where that's already not enough. Eighteen gigabits a second is not enough. If we want 4K 60 with the full color — with HDR, for example — we need an excess of 20 gigabits per second.” So, when 2.1 comes along, what's that cable going to look like? How much is it going to cost? And how reliable is it going to be?
HDMI 1.4 10.2 Gbps
HDMI 2.0 18 Gbps
HDMI 2.1 48 Gbps
CEDIA’s Court Jester Dave Pedigo responds: “It's going to look like a fire hose, it can only go three inches, and it's going to be a million dollars.” Meyer’s in on the joke. “When I get asked that question in the HDMI classes that we run, I've been telling them, ‘We'll, we're going to have to redesign racks, because components are going to have to go back to back, with a steel rod in between.’ Actually, the reality is that we don't anticipate that you'll be able to distinguish the difference between an existing HDMI cable and a version 2.1 cable when it comes along. By sight, you won't be able to distinguish it. They will look the same. The connector will look the same. The way it's terminated, the way it's structured inside, will likely be different, but for the most part, we really won't be able to tell by looking at it.”.1's New Feature: eARC
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2.1's New Feature: eARC Back to the guys at the HDMI homepage for the correct definition of the Audio Return Channel, which arrived in its present form with 1.4: The Audio Return Channel in HDMI 1.4 enables a TV, via a single HDMI cable, to send audio data “upstream” to an AV receiver or surround audio controller, increasing user flexibility and eliminating the need for any separate S/PDIF audio connection. TVs have always been able to receive multi-channel audio through an HDMI connection, and this is still a typical use-case, with the TV positioned “downstream” from content sources and any connected audio equipment. However, if a user had a TV with a builtin tuner or DVD player, and wanted to send content “upstream” from the TV back to the audio system, a separate connection had to be installed, typically an S/PDIF cable. • An Audio Return Channel-enabled TV can either send or receive audio via HDMI, upstream or downstream, depending on system setup and user preferences. • LipSync functionality, introduced in HDMI 1.3, ensures that the audio stays matched to the video, automatically compensating for any processor delays whether the audio is traveling upstream or downstream.
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installer’s point of view, the audio return channel is not popular. One of the first things that people ask is, ‘Who's going to turn it off?’ Well, then, that's going to disable audio return. So, it's one of those things where it doesn't really work that well. “eARC is going to have significantly higher bandwidths. It's going to support the hi-res audio formats, immersive audio. We're talking in the order of 15 times the bandwidth capability. It'll be a lot more stable, but the most important thing that really excites me is the fact that eARC is going to be able to be deployed independent of any other HDMI 2.1 functionality. It'll actually run on a separate chip in an AV receiver, for example, or a TV, from the actual HDMI chip.” What’s more, “It's going to be self-discovering, and not have to use CEC to do so.” There’s much more info in the podcast, of course; it’s a freewheeling discussion that covers a lot more ground on the work-arounds involved in pushing all that data down cabling originally designed to be only as long as an average person and other issues such as chroma subsampling and the emergence of fiber-optic cable as a necessity, not a luxury. One upshot of the ‘cast is a truism that’s held for decades:
The Enhanced Audio Return Channel is actually a significant enhancement on what we've currently got.
“Conduit is the closest thing to ‘futureproof’ we’re ever gonna get.”
The Enhanced Audio Return Channel — eARC, that is — “Is actually a significant enhancement on what we've currently got,” according to David Meyer. “There are a couple of issues. Currently, the limitation of the ARC is that it's basically compressed surround-sound formats, or basic two-channel, and that's it. From an
To listen to the Podcast in its entirety, find the show on cedia.net as Episode 30, on iTunes as Number 1746 (Season 1, Episode 30).
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GDPR IS COMING
ARE YOU
CEDIA Communicates looks at the latest in data protection, and what this means for the home technology industry.
READY?
WHAT IS GDPR AND WHEN WILL IT COME INTO EFFECT?
WHAT CONSTITUES PERSONAL DATA? SO, WHO DOES GDPR APPLY TO?
Data protection and how personal data is managed are changing drastically. On the May 25, 2018, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force. GDPR is an EU initiative which intends to enhance data protection rights for all individuals within the European Union. The key objective of the regulation is to streamline and create a clearer legal environment which will help to improve business opportunities and lessen ambiguity with sharing data. Personal data is any information that is related to a person or “Data Subject” that can be used to directly or indirectly identify that person. This include a name, photo, email address, bank details, posts on social networking sites, medical information, or a computer IP address. The task of complying with this regulation falls upon businesses and organizations operating within the EU, as well as any organizations outside of the EU that offer goods or services to consumers or businesses based in the EU. GDPR contains several new protections for EU data subjects and threatens substantial fines and penalties for non-compliant data controllers and processors. Businesses can be fined up to 4% of their annual global sales for breaching GDPR. With greater enforcement power held by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) moving forward, it is important for organizations to be ready for the changes and have a structured plan in place.
HOW CAN CEDIA HELP?
CEDIA has made it easier for integrators and manufacturers to ensure they are GDPR compliant. CEDIA hosted a 30-minute webinar in December, and this is now available via the CEDIA website. The webinar was structured to help companies navigate and understand GDPR, providing a clear overview of the key principles, and the most important elements of the regulation. CEDIA has also published a white paper offering a deeper dive into the webinar content. To complement the webinar and white paper, CEDIA also hosted a workshop for CEDIA EMEA members in January. This interactive session educated attendees on GDPR, allowing them to build a solid plan for the future with information on the legal aspects and templates for sales and marketing. During the workshop, teams were given workflows they can use to get started, as well as case study campaigns to share ideas, and tips on how to run campaigns that engage customers more effectively.
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We’re Coming to You:
CEDIA Why?
If you’ve gotten an email from CEDIA in the last few months, there’s a good chance you’ve heard that we’re taking training “on the road” these days — specifically, we are offering two-day sessions that provide an opportunity to become certified on day one, as well as a second day of industry-related training. CEDIA’s plans include more than 10 of these two-day events in 2018. We’ll be in your neighborhood soon, and here’s the low-down:
It continues to be our mission to bring face-to-face education and certification to our members. As our global footprint grows, it becomes increasingly critical for us to be more accessible. For some, CEDIA Expo is not the best time for our members to take advantage of their education benefits: We want to offer year-round opportunities for members, which means we’re taking it on the road.
What is different about these “on the road” experiences? The big difference is you won’t have to devote full days only to travel. Many members cannot be out of the office for several days at a time. Additionally, we will have the opportunity to offer training that may be specific to that member population, allowing us to use our time wisely and address needs that are unique to the area. We are happy to hear from you if you have course suggestions that are pertinent to your locale.
What type of certification opportunities will be available? Currently, we are offering members a review and exam session for ESC-T, but that may be expanded to other certifications as the year goes along. The review/exam package for a non-member is $500 and $350 for a member. Exams can be taken year-round at our global testing facilities, but the four-hour review class is the perfect opportunity to brush up on foundational knowledge and put yourself in a great position to ace the test.
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If you are looking to motivate and recognize your upand-coming technicians put this on their calendar and make it a part of their 2018 personal development goals. A new version of the ESC-T exam is out in early 2018, so it is a great benchmark for your technicians to show that they are on their game.
What will the full day of training include? Day two will vary depending upon our location. A handful of factors may come into play as we make those decisions. What type of members are in that area? Have we recently offered a certain type of content nearby that should not be repeated? Were there popular classes at Expo that might be beneficial for this group? The format for day two could vary from two, three-hour sessions to potentially a full-day session. It all depends on the answers to those very important questions!
What is the probability of offering more labs on the road? Any thoughts on boot camps on the road? We realize the importance of hands-on training and are diligently working on a cost-effective solution to make this a reality. We wanted to get something out sooner, rather than later. The networking racks have been the most practical to take on the road, and we conducted seven of these sessions in 2017. We’re talking about shipping a pallet of small racks versus a truck of lumber, metal, and tools with some assembly required, which is necessary for boot camps.
on the Road There’s science behind students retaining information better when it can be put it into practice, which is why hands-on training is so important to us. We want to build these sessions so that employers can see immediate performance improvement when they get back to the office. We have been sketching up some solutions so there is a hope that we may provide handson training on the road. But, having said that, the training facility in our new Indianapolis headquarters (opening in November 2018) is going to be so state-of-the-art and amazing, everyone should consider joining us for a boot camp there!
How will I know if a two-day training event is coming to our area? Don’t worry, we will be shouting it from the rooftops about two months before we visit an area. We will keep our events page on cedia.net up-to-date and as soon as registration is open, we will alert all members in a 200-mile radius. For now, go ahead and mark your calendars for these dates:
Elk Grove Village, IL Sunrise, FL
February 13-14, October 16-17 February 27-28, December 4-5
Fresh Meadows, NY March 13-14 Woburn, MA
May 22-23
Gaithersburg, MD June 26-27 Rockleigh, NJ
October 2-3
Denver, CO
October 2-3
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LOOKING BACK
ON 2017
GORDON van ZUIDEN
MIKE MANISCALCO
ALEX CAPECELATRO
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If a single word could describe the home integration industry in 2017, it’s likely that the same word will be used to describe both 2016 and 2018 as well:
“Disruption.” And what specifically caused — and will continue to cause — disruption as technological advances go roaring forward? We asked some rather large brains in the CEDIA universe to weigh in.
VUI and AI CEDIA’s Young Professional of the Year for 2017, Alex Capecelatro — who’s also the driving force behind the VUI (voice user interface) system known as Josh.ai — was pretty succinct: “2017, simply put, was all about voice control as a clear breakout.” 2018, in Capecelatro’s mind, will see the advance of what he calls “real automation.” We’ll begin to see true artificial intelligence take hold in more and more systems. “The home will learn and improve on its own.” An email to Gordon van Zuiden, founder of cyberManor and CEDIA Tech Council member, elicited a priceless van-Zuiden-esque reply: Big stories for 2017 and 2018:
…AND FORWARD TO 2018 1. Voice Control for the Home 2. Voice Control for the Home 3. Voice Control for the Home Mr. van Zuiden did elaborate later: While the technology may change, van Zuiden’s 20 years in the industry has revealed cycles of the aforementioned disruption follow familiar patterns. Things begin as complex systems, become simplified, staggering through the transition period — as in “Why doesn’t this thing work exactly the way I need it to?” — and then become so ubiquitous we don’t even think about their presence much. “Everyone who comes into our office will always say one thing to us: ‘It has to be easy to use. It has to be simple,’” says van Zuiden. “All these various things promised to them in the past that were supposed to be easy to use, were not that easy to use and had some challenges. And if we're really honest with them, we're going to say, ‘Well, we're on a continuum here. We're going to make this easier. We're going to make it better to use.’” And last year and next are simply part of that continuum regarding the evolution of user interface. For van Zuiden, the shift from endless keystrokes to using a mouse for one’s PC is parallel to switches and buttons morphing into GUI (graphic user interface) app controllers — which are becoming supplanted quickly by voice control. “So, you see what happens in the interface and in the control space as, I call it, a march towards the frictionless home,” notes van Zuiden. “A march toward the ultimate goal of: ‘I think something. I want something. It should do something.’ And Alex, from Josh.ai, refers to this as ‘NOUI’ or ‘No User Interface.’”
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HOW MUCH PRIVACY ARE WE WILLING TO SACRIFICE FOR CONVENIENCE? Right now, “Voice has all the promise, not quite yet all the delivery,” says van Zuiden. “So, we're back, doing kind of the same thing we've always been doing, which is trying to vet all this stuff, make sense of it, so that we can get our enterprise solution to our client.” For van Zuiden, that “frictionless home” will allow immediate recognition of a user’s wants: Can one family member say “Hey, Mom?” while that person’s in his bedroom — and have Mom appear on a video screen from the kitchen, for example? The elegant summation from van Zuiden: “It’s home as personal concierge.”
Networks and Security Mike Maniscalco, VP at Ihiji and regular CEDIA volunteer/instructor, had a slightly different train of thought: “In the space I cover, the continued evolution of networking tech — coverage and throughput — was a big story for 2017. Ultra-high-speeds will continue to put new strains on the networks. While that’s happening, I’m interested in how mesh Wi-Fi solutions have developed, and what features and services are coming next.” As for 2018, security is going to be a biggie. “There’s a greater and greater level of sophistication happening when it comes to hacking, and you can get your hands on tools that can do quite a bit of damage pretty cheaply now. How are we going to react to that? We’ve seen solutions on the enterprise side, but will the brands that CEDIA typically works with step up — or will new brands enter the space?”
The Latency Issue For van Zuiden, Maniscalco’s take dovetails with his predictions when it comes to the pressure we’ll be putting on the home network. As VUI becomes more sophisticated recognizing different voices, for example — the current architecture is bound to experience hiccups. “I'm finding increasingly, whether it's Amazon, Sonos, or Josh.ai, that you're sending fairly complex command strings to the cloud and back and that has to initiate a number of triggers and events in the home that oftentimes don't work as expected,” van Zuiden explains. “And, a lot of times, that's due to the latency of commands that have to come up to the cloud, back to the home — and latency is a very complicated topic that involves the performance of your broadband connection, the performance of your router, and the quality of your wired/ wireless infrastructure.” “Voice is a processing power game. It's taking incredible amounts of processing power to handle the sophisticated heap of information, the most complex of which is the interpretation of voice. The rest, once the computer knows exactly what it is you've asked it to do, the rest is very, very easy and lightweight.” The solution? Localizing the architecture. Instead of taking all that info that the user’s vocalized and sending it to the cloud for interpretation and parsing, do more of it locally.
And Maniscalco poses the big question, one that’s been asked repeatedly as data becomes “the new oil:”
Using Capeceltro’s Josh.ai devices as an example of what he’s illustrating, van Zuiden notes that the Josh mics are also little CPUs. “So, you're going to get the CPU functionality, coupled with a microphone that will be able to handle that local processing more effectively to give a better result. So, by the end of 2018, I think you'll see much more reliable performance. You'll see personalization, you'll see rooms, you'll see spatial feel, and you'll see tens and tens of thousands of skills and drivers across the board.
“How much privacy are we willing to sacrifice for convenience?”
“So, you'll see a pretty robust interface, I think, by the end of 2018.”
Mansicalco believes that a proactive approach is critical: “There could be fallout from a reactive approach. As consumers become more aware of the dangers, from common criminals to nationstates, will users revolt? Will they feel that a level of trust has been violated?”
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CEDIA experienced a successful 2017 in terms of global reach. With 27 new members in Australia and New Zealand, 33 in Latin America, 12 in Asia, and 48 in EMEA (not including the UK), CEDIA’s reach is extending far and wide. To maintain momentum, CEDIA continues running its international calendar of events.
LATIN AMERICA Towards the end of last year, CEDIA attended Tecnomultimedia Colombia, where it hosted a number of training classes, including Fundamentals of Home Theatre Design: Troubleshooting, Repair & Preventive Maintenance; and IP for Technicians. Around 50 professionals attended these informative courses. CEDIA also ran its Connect with CEDIA event. Sponsored by Chief, Vaddio, and Da-Lite, the networking session was attended by around 25 companies. To maintain its education presence in Colombia, CEDIA has formed an alliance with HomeTech El Hogar Digital to offer monthly CEDIA training. Starting in Q1, these sessions will alternate between Bogotá and Medellín.
INDIA In December, CEDIA returned to India for the second time in the year to host an education and networking event. Sponsored by Casadigi and Prince AV Concepts, CEDIA ran the Advanced Home Cinema Package, as well as Boot Camp, which was presented in Hindi — a first for this event. Around 70 industry professionals joined the training classes over the three days, with approximately 35 attending the Connect with CEDIA networking event. CEDIA left India having signed up five new members.
AROUND THE WORLD AUSTRALIA Recognizing the potential in Australia, the association launched the CEDIA Outreach Instructor (COI) program in this region, and hosted its first COI Train the Trainer course in Melbourne in November. With nine accredited COIs in Australia, the aim is for these members to now present CEDIA’s “Designing Integrated Future-Ready Homes” class to the design and build community. To celebrate the end of another successful year in Australia, CEDIA hosted Christmas Connect events in Melbourne and Sydney.
2018 ACTIVITY CEDIA is looking to host and participate in over 40 events in 2018. These include dedicated training in China and Colombia, where CEDIA has education partners who are offering CEDIA core education in the local language on our behalf. CEDIA will also be focusing on dedicated CEDIA technical and business training events, COI training, Tech Forums, and networking events. The Global Development team will be taking on responsibility for Canada and initiating programs and services to support the market.
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TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY A collaborative relationship between the technology integrator and the client’s interior designer is critical to the success of many projects. Here, James Tillyard from the integration company Mosaic Audio & Visual and Susie Rumbold, Creative Director at Tessuto Interiors, discuss how they work together to deliver top-quality projects. THE INTEGRATOR’S POINT OF VIEW Mosaic was introduced to Tessuto nearly a decade ago, when our founding director began work on our first development project. Since then, we have almost continuously had at least one project underway with Tessuto; thus, the relationship feels more like a partnership than separate contractors working for a common client. Collaborating with another business for several years obviously now makes the process relatively easy from concept to completion. What helped from the outset was Tessuto’s willingness to embrace technology and see it as part of the package that needed to be provided to the client, rather than a necessary evil that must be tolerated. Ten years ago, Tessuto was unusual in that they offered a one-stop practice with architects, interior designers, and lighting designers. This has become more common in recent years as other businesses recognize the opportunities that these complementary disciplines give them. For Mosaic, it helps us create a thoroughly coordinated design that enhances a project in many ways. Involving Mosaic very early on in a project allows space and layout coordination, particularly for
“back of house” hardware such as utility room controls and AV racks, and avoids unnecessary variations later and tension on site. Design drawings and documentation are almost foolproof by the time they have been delivered to site, as the Mosaic and Tessuto designers will have been working together on advancing the drawings with our technology information. Collaborative lighting design allows us to optimize the space required for controls and balance the cost to the client while giving the functionality required to deliver Tessuto’s vision. Cohesive, coordinated site documentation helps reduce our project management time and minimize mistakes made because of misinterpretation on-site. This assists us in accurately quoting our labor and management costs up front. As much as we might view variations as a profit opportunity, the ability to maximize retained profit on the original contract, not having to ask the client for additional unexpected funds, and scheduling unplanned additional labor keeps everyone happy and enables us to maintain focus on other live projects. Finally, the trust and general knowledge in each other’s work allows Tessuto and Mosaic to refer private and business clients to one another with confidence.
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WHAT THE INTERIOR DESIGNER HAS TO SAY Tessuto was first introduced to Mosaic by one of our high-end, residential development clients. Up to that point, we had worked with various technology integrators and had mixed experiences with them. For most projects, we would introduce an AV consultant to our clients, but often it became an exercise in seeing how much expensive “stuff” the consultant could sell them, without any sensitivity to the client’s needs or reference to the overall design proposal. After this, working with Mosaic was like a breath of fresh air. I think the clue is in their company name — they see technology as a part of the design, to be seamlessly integrated into the whole client experience. As a practice, Tessuto has always been passionate about embracing new technology, as we believe it can really enhance the end user’s enjoyment of their built environment. We recognize that technology moves at such a pace that it is essential to bring in an expert at the earliest possible point in the project to advise on the latest industry advances. I have been designing long enough to remember a time when “patch panels” were considered a cool idea — and look where we are now! We always try and bring Mosaic on board in the very early stages of the project. We generally give them the design proposal and then set up a client meeting to introduce them and discuss what the client knows they want, and what else might be possible. Often at this stage, beyond the obvious TV points in each room, the clients have no idea what can be achieved, so we go through each system in the property and talk about the pros and cons of automating each. We like to go beyond just AV in this initial meeting, so we discuss lighting control, heating and cooling, security, building management systems, and the all-important user interface. Mosaic slots easily into Tessuto’s professional project teams. They work with us and with the M&E specialists on and off site to ensure that all drawings are fully coordinated. This is especially important when allocating space for plant rooms, service routes, and other back-ofhouse areas. Clients need to make their spaces work hard, and Mosaic is sensitive to this, but as a design practice, Tessuto is realistic about how much space the gear requires, so between us, we effectively manage the client’s expectations in this regard.
CASE IN POINT A good example is a recent project that Mosaic and Tessuto worked on together. Once the client had completed planning approval with Tessuto, they approached Mosaic with a budget and broad scope. (One specification: The client asked for Lutron products in the project.) With Mosaic being on board right at the beginning, they were able to help and advise Tessuto on the size of the service routes through the structure and the utility and rack spaces that would be needed. Tessuto ended up with several of those locations in the building. This in turn enabled them to rationalize the cable runs and ultimately saved the clients money. Direct involvement with Tessuto at this early stage allowed Mosaic to revise the lighting control schedule and service riser spaces so that the lighting panels could be split over two floors and placed in what would have otherwise been wasted voids. AV, door entry, and heating control are provided by Control4. With Tessuto embracing the inclusion of technology and discussing and agreeing on sizes, positioning and specification of visible equipment were simple tasks.
www.mosaic-av.com www.tessuto.co.uk
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DISH.com/CEDIA TM
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