CEDIA Expo 2015: The ‘Future Home Experience’
The CEDIA circus has rolled into Dallas, Texas for its annual show. Peter Aylett was there investigating the big trends.
For those who thought that they were attending the 2015 CEDIA Expo were undoubtedly surprised to see CEDIA’s new visual identity that, in addition to dominating the show, saw this year’s event rebranded as the ‘Future Home Experience’.
Now, there’s an oxymoron to compete with the best of them; how can you experience the future if it hasn’t yet happened?
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That said, the show was fascinating not for its product launches, but for the trends that it both pointed to and reinforced.
Those of you with teenage children will understand when I say that there is a year when they start as a child and finish as an adult. 2015 was that year for our industry. It was the year when CEDIA, as well as the industry at large, grew up.
It was this coming of age that dominated the show for me. Rather than seeing innovation manifest itself in any new product categories, there was the sense that this year everything was just better, more mature and targeted towards making the lives both customers and installation companies better.
Four trends dominated this year’s show:
- Control and automation products are now designed for the user rather than the integrator.
- Immersive audio is now mainstream.
- The industry is now large enough for many dedicated software platforms that help sales, operations and finance.
- High-end AV is still a healthy, global market.
Skills in the cloud, power in users’ hands
It has long been customary for certain industry commentators to usher in an air of doom and gloom when discussing the future for residential technology companies. The main point of contention is that the mobile device (phone and tablet) is taking over control, automation and AV.
While there is no doubt that these devices are changing the landscape of how we design systems, there is much to love about our new, more commoditised future.
One of the busiest stands at the show was that of Savant. It dedicated around 75% of its very large stand to a new, consumer-oriented remote.
The Savant Remote will be sold in big box stores for $US499 and is one of many pointers to the future of the automation market. As many have predicted ever since private equity company KKR invested in both Sonos and Savant, the new system has very tight native support for Sonos with more Internet of Things (IoT) device integration to come.
When a company like KKR invests so much, they usually want a very big return on that investment. In fact, the word on the street is that 2016 might well see the Savant/Sonos empire sold to one of the major CE or IT players so, watch this space…
Instead of doom and gloom, you should look at products like this as a gateway to entice customers into other systems. A remote is nothing without stuff to control – it still needs displays, speakers, lighting, HVAC, access control, CCTV and a robust network to form the hub of a fully integrated home.
Moving up a level from remote controls, but still in the ‘consumer-friendly’ realm, Crestron showcased an expansion to its Pyng system, with more native devices from Crestron as well as integration with third party equipment.
Putting ease of installation aside, the power of this system is in giving the end user control over their own programming and scenes. While most customers would still prefer an experienced professional to set everything up correctly, the ability to change scenes and presets without a programmer having to visit is very compelling.
Though we’ve been able to do this for years with a single subsystem, these new features can build an extremely complicated macro across multiple subsystems in seconds without the time and expense involved in a programmer coming to visit.
The trend here is towards us as integrators providing platforms rather than rigidly programmed and matrix switched systems. These platforms provide a flexible infrastructure that allows users to implement the latest and greatest technologies as and when they become available through the years.
Immersive audio goes mainstream
This year, everyone was getting in on the ‘immersive audio’ game.
The show was full of (mostly thoroughly mediocre) immersive audio demonstrations with some of the longest queues going to Marantz, which had one of the first public showings of the new DTS:X format.
By far the best sounding demo was Wisdom Audio. Using a processor from Datasat, its own amplification and a room built by Maurizio Conti from HTE, the company showed that simply adding additional speakers is only part of the ‘immersion’ equation.
Though 7.1.4 is all the rage, we must never forget that immersion is just as much about dynamics, timbre, detail, imaging and impact as it is the effects and potential spacial resolution that the immersive audio formats provide.
The Wisdom Audio demo was frighteningly dynamic and detailed, and showcased its newest line source and point source speakers. This was in stark contrast to a demo given by a well-known speaker manufacturer that sounded like a thick blanket had been draped over the front speakers. Though it is difficult to get great sound on a show floor, Wisdom Audio showed that it can be done.
It was also interesting to see the smaller manufacturers get in on the act of what is a hugely expensive undertaking, developing the new AV processor architecture necessary to implement immersive audio formats.
Most interesting among these was AudioControl’s AVR-7 and AVR-9 receivers, and ACURUS‘ new ACT4 processor.
Both support HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. It was also notable that both of these new processors support Dolby Atmos and DTS:X up to7.1.4, but AURO-3D was absent.
These processors fill in the gap between relatively inexpensive processors from companies such as Marantz, Integra and Onkyo, and the high-end space currently dominated by Datasat and Trinnov.
Software matters
A sure sign that an industry has reached maturity is when software platforms appear that are dedicated to the business side of the industry. Stalwarts like D-Tools continue to evolve but the 2015 CEDIA Expo premiered many new entrants.
In difficult times, companies need to look at how they can become more efficient in all of their processes from sales right through to aftercare.
Two new software platforms stood out this year; ihiji’s ServiceManager and Slateplan.
ServiceManager allows companies to store all their customers’ information, documentation and service plan information in the cloud, making it all accessible to technicians attending service calls. In addition, the software makes tracking customers’ service and maintenance contracts much easier as they are all managed from a single portal.
ihiji pioneered simple cloud based remote monitoring and now ServiceManager completes the picture.
Slateplan showed a piece of software the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Though still a little rough in places, having the ability to work with a customer in real time placing devices on a floor plan and seeing how these affect the overall price was mesmerising.
The time needed to prepare a budget proposal has traditionally stalled a sales discussion but software like Slateplan, or ProjectQ from Clavia, allow real-time proposals to be generated.
High-end video is alive and well
4K is oh so 2013. In fact, it is arguable that 4K/UHD displays are only relevant when the viewing distance is close enough to make use of the four-times-greater pixel density when compared to a similar-size 1080p display.
Rather, an upcoming technology that has the potential to enhance every display is high dynamic range (HDR), which will greatly enhance picture detail in both the shadow and highlight ends of the scale.
At the show, Sony was showing a very effective demonstration of this using two flat panel displays side by side.
The best projected image of the show easily went to Barco, which was showing a very bright image (the calibrated screen brightness was a claimed 96fl) using a laser-illuminated DCI projector producing probably the best colour and uniformity of any projection system I’ve ever seen.
Pat Bradley from Display Development, who set-up the demo, challenged the audience to pick out the native 4K from the upscaled 1080 content. I thought I could a couple of times but this just showed what a great job current 4K display devices can make of upscaling.
There was nothing really ‘new’ here, just the current stuff done really, really well.
The Barco image was exceptional but other great laser-illuminated projector systems were also being shown by Epson, Digital Projection and Sony.
When Texas instruments (TI) finally comes out with its single chip 4K DLP light engine, we’ll probably see the resulting projectors sound the death knell for incandescent lamp illumination in favour of LED and laser.
Barco was also showing a new ultra-short throw rear projection system that could be fantastic for big screen gaming environments where front projection is totally unsuitable.
Innovation alley
As its name suggests, Innovation Alley is a dedicated zone for startup companies on the bleeding edge of the technology we use.
Two companies in particular caught my eye, offering an insight into a huge trend that will affect us all over the next few years – a complete re-imagination of how we consider lighting.
ilumi was showing a connected luminaire similar to LiFX and Philips hue.
“Nothing new there,” I hear you say, except that this system uses Bluetooth LE Mesh communications. This is the first product I’ve seen that does that.
With bio-adaptive, circadian (if you don’t know what that means, you need to research it as it’ll be the next big thing in lighting) lighting built in, these connected luminaries will continue to mature and become integrated into the new popular cloud-based control systems discussed earlier.
Innovative Lighting had its GENISYS Power over Ethernet (PoE) lighting system on show. This architecture is the first manifestation of power distribution in the home moving to ELV DC. With LED bulbs getting ever more efficient with better colour rendering, PoE could be the dominant lighting system of the future.
CISCO is all over this as its main aim in life appears to be selling ports on switches. Once it releases its offering and gets behind the concept, the technology will mature and expand very quickly.
Wrapping up
This coming year will see a lot of negative talk about the future of our industry. Yes, consumers are becoming far more savvy about the available DIY solutions but this also makes them far more aware of what a professionally-designed and -installed system can bring.
CEDIA’s 2015 show demonstrated that the products exist to deliver the most incredible experiences to our customers. The other side of this equation is the knowledge and skill for which CEDIA hosted a carefully curated and exceptionally well attended education program.
Courses at the show went through a rough patch a few years ago with poor attendance but now business owners are getting savvy to the need to ensure that all of their staff members are working as efficiently and effectively as possible.
The products are there. The knowledge is available. There has never been a better time to demonstrate how a grown up industry installing grown up product is the key to experiencing technology that is simple to use, reliable and truly life enhancing.
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