Innehållsförteckning för Vol 4/ Issue 4 från Residential Tech Today

Power and energy discussions were on many attendee’s minds at CEDIA Expo 2022 in Dallas. There were four CEDIA Education sessions directed toward the integrator interested in getting into power and energy solutions for their client and looking ahead at what’s coming quickly down the road. Multiple manufacturers exhibited their new solutions and explained how integrators can easily implement them into their business offerings. Now is a perfect moment for consumers and trade suppliers to act, with nearly $400 billion in clean energy provisions included in the recently passed U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Parks Associates had a star-studded panel discussion with representatives from Span.io, Sunnova, Reliant, Schneider Electric, Savant Power, and Blink Charging. They discussed the role of energy management in the future home. These manufacturers are investing a lot…

Through dedicated collaboration and constant R&D, Airzone has found a way to keep the original features and functionality of an HVAC inverter solution intact, even when deployed in conjunction with a smart thermostat from ecobee, Honeywell, or Nest. The Aidoo Pro enables HVAC professionals to preserve all inverter features, while realizing the efficiency, energy savings, connectivity, and comfort enabled by a smart thermostat. The market for HVAC inverter solutions is expected to nearly double from 2020 to 2025 from $17.6 billion to $31.9 billion. Simultaneously, the global smart thermostat market is expected to triple by 2028. These are two of the fastest-growing categories in the HVAC industry, but deploying devices from these categories together currently negates the benefits of both. Adding a smart thermostat to an inverter system prevents key…

ISSUE FOCUS POWER The connected home market is expected to continue growing over the next five years, with the evolution of both existing home technologies and new market entrants alike. Smart home technology isn’t going anywhere, and as it continues to permeate new spaces in the home, the infrastructure will need to adapt to support it. Consider this: Whether a home is five years old or 50 years old, chances are its electrical infrastructure wasn’t built to support the massive and ever-changing demands that modern home technology brings. This presents a major prospect for the custom integration channel in the next few years. New Tech Puts Power Infrastructure Under Pressure CEDIA’s latest Integrated Home Market Analysis reveals that home technology’s growth has increased consumers’ willingness to invest in properly designed…

We have the pandemic to thank for so many innovations. Who could forget groundbreaking life hacks such as virtual meetings, virtual happy hours, and virtual sewing bees? So many virtual opportunities to be virtual. The trouble is, we’re all burned out on virtual. In-person is what we’re craving now. Anything short of a face to face interaction now feels less-than. Technologies trying to break through have to do a better job at mimicking real in-person interactions. That’s exactly what the new PulseAudio Collaboration Video Bar claims to do. The folks at Vanco sent me their new all-inone conferencing speakerphone, far-field microphone array, and 4K video camera solution to try out. Would it shine or fall flat? I was about to find out… Unboxing the PulseAudio Collaboration Video Bar The PulseAudio…

LIGHTING DESIGN Shining a Light on DMF Touring DMF’s headquarters building in Carson, CA, in mid-August, provided an impressive glimpse into just how much the lighting fixture category has grown in significance for the custom integration channel. The tour aslo offered a closer look at the company’s CEDIA Expo 2022 product introductions: the iX Series Small Aperture fixtures, DID M Series Square Housings, and Tunable White Light Modules. Lighting fixtures are still a relatively young product category for professional integrators. Although more and more members of the channel are designing lighting layouts and specifying and selling fixtures, many more are still not yet comfortable with a category that was once the exclusive domain of certified lighting designers, electricians, and builders. That’s why my in-person facility tour of one of the more…

Prior to October, Apple had three major events in 2022, including two product-centric announcements and the annual World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), which is their developers’ conference. After each of these events my question was, “Where is a new Apple TV?” To be clear, while iPhones and iPads, as well as the various OS versions are typically on a yearly replacement cycle, Apple TV has not been. After all, it was three and a half years between the first Apple TV 4K and the second-generation model brought out in April 2021. Thus, it was both a surprise and not a surprise that a press release from Apple popped up in my inbox on announcing the latest third generation versions of the high-end streamer. For whatever reason, Apple brought its third-gen…

There are a variety of ways of controlling a smart home. Some of the most common methods involve using individual smart phone apps provided by manufacturers, an integrated app that ties together smart devices, handheld remote controls, dedicated touch panels, wallmounted keypads, or voice control. All of these options have their advantages and disadvantages, but I was convinced that I could find an alternative user interface for my smart home, which is how this article came together. I really like wireless keypads and use them in my own home. Battery-operated models are great to place on a nightstand, table, desk, work bench, etc. and programmed to perform a few dedicated functions. For example, Shelly makes a basic single-button Wi-Fi keypad, called the Shelly Button 1. It is rechargeable, so you…

When the opportunity to review the DreameBot D10 Plus auto-empty robot vacuum and mop come along, I felt like I was already pretty late to the whole robot vacuum trend. With mass availability online and at retail, it just felt like I was more “late majority” than “early adopter.” The thing is, despite the evolution of the category and the growing number of brands competing in it, we’re still very much on the early side of consumer adoption of robot vacuums. There just aren’t as many people buying them as you would think. I imagine that my own hesitancy to embrace the category aligns pretty closely with the slow adoption of the robot vacuum. The price point is still relatively high (although quite comparable to a highquality upright vacuums) yet…

Nice, the global manufacturer of smart home, security, and building automation solutions, has completed its transition from Nortek Control to Nice North America after acquiring the company from Melrose Industries in October 2021. As part of this transition, the company is "sunsetting” the Nortek Control company name and is absorbing the ELAN, SpeakerCraft, and Panamax brands into Nice. Nice North America is headquartered in Carlsbad, CA, where it has created an experience center to showcase all of its smart home brands, including several that were introduced this past September at CEDIA Expo. This transition will take place throughout 2023. Other Nice North America brands — 2GIG, Abode, Furman, Gefen, HySecurity, IntelliVision, Linear, Mighty Mule, and Proficient — will not be renamed at this time. Among the CEDIA Expo introductions was…

Luminii HŌM is a new brand of curated lighting products focused on the highest color quality, design aesthetic, and made-to-order craftsmanship. Designed, engineered, and built in America, the brand has a dedicated team for the custom integrator channel with deep knowledge of lighting, lighting design, controls, and the channel in general. Residential integrators can expect easy-to-use configuration tools, step-by-step lighting design guides, available design services, product knowledge in the form of presentations, specification sheets, scheduled trainings, showroom discounts, and demo kits featuring the Luminii HŌM curated line of products. STENOS by Luminii is a micro-linear track and downlight system. The product’s streamlined profile and proprietary micro-lens make it optimal for detail-critical applications. Its optic design leads to unvarying light output, color uniformity, high CRI, high R9, and efficacy featuring 96…

ISSUE FOCUS AUDIO Spatial, the immersive audio company and software service, has created Space Kit, a turnkey all-in-one solution that includes preconfigured hardware with Spatial’s software to make it easier for integrators to bring immersive audio to commercial applications. Spatial Space Kit allows designers to deploy Spatial right out of the box, dramatically reducing installation time, complexity, and cost. Spatial worked closely with Sonance’s James Loudspeaker to develop and engineer a purpose-built speaker marking one of the first speakers designed for immersive audio applications. “The team at Spatial took years of learning from custom experience design for audio projects including installations of a few speakers in small environments to hundreds in combined indoor and outdoor spaces,” said Calin Pacurariu, co-founder and CEO of Spatial. “We’ve packaged those lessons with everything…

In September 2021, Draper, the motorized shades and projection screens manufacturer, unveiled its Draper@Home line of products, signaling a renewed focus on the residential custom integration business after decades of success in the commercial market. That unintended “soft launch” of Draper@ Home at a lightly attended CEDIA Expo 2021 (due to the Delta variant of COVID-19) might have been a blessing in disguise for the company from tiny Spiceland, Indiana. It essentially allowed Draper to test the waters a bit more in the resi channel, learning what other business support elements and product features were needed to properly service residential dealers. As the company gained valuable insights and feedback, they joined the HTSA buying group, promoted 20-year company veteran Clint Childress to director of residential markets, and began hiring regional…

Video display technology has come a long way from what really wasn’t that long ago when your choice was CRT or CRT. We now have many varieties of LCD, QD-LED, OLED, and QDOLED displays to choose from, along with conventional projection systems and Ultra Short Throw (UST) projectors. Moving into 2023, it is clear that direct view LED is now, from a technical standpoint, “ready for prime time,” and should be considered as a viable option in more cases than before. When exploring LED (light emitting diodes) technology for a video display, there are several details to consider before buying for a specific room, installation, or client proposal. LED is a ubiquitous technology for video displays but given that LED is not one single thing or used in one specific…

Access Networks Basic Configuration Services was created to help integrators consistently and efficiently deploy small- to medium-size networking systems. The program’s initial rollout will focus on delivering preconfigured networking solutions comprising Access Networks access points, switches, and Sophos firewalls. Dealers receive configuration services and support historically provided for more complex projects requiring a Custom Core network; Basic Configuration Services provides a valuable subset of those services to the masses. AiSPIRE has created a new series of LED recessed light fixtures, called ALPINE. The entry-level luminaires use static white light in color constant LED with either a 2700K or 3000K temperature. The fixtures are available with a low voltage remote power supply (RPS) and line voltage standard wiring and are offered in a variety of aperture sizes, from 2 inches up…