The pressure of product commoditisation is very strong, making many of the products we once found extremely profitable much less so, or even free. (Notice the traditional equipment rack vs apps on an iPhone – they can accomplish many of the same functions.) Further, consumers are well aware of these price pressures and expect much more from us at significantly lower prices. This applies to hardware and, by association, labour services. We need to be clever. We need to diversify into new products and markets.

I emphasise a powerful trend I call C2C, or cloud-to-consumer. This is ‘disintermediation’, which aims to eliminate the traditional retail and service channels, like CEDIA. Big companies are creating technologies to reach consumers directly, without the need for professional technology integrators. (Think of Amazon, Apple.) Of course, most consumer technologies are imperfect and often require professional assistance. So we’re still relevant, but for many integrators, large groups of products and services we once thought to be our exclusive domain will be available directly to consumers. Sonos comes to mind, as does the Nest thermostat, wireless lighting controls and lamps, and all manner of devices easily controlled by apps running on mobile devices.

There are many technologies that enable the C2C trend. Wireless is key, and we are seeing very rapid developments in NFC, Bluetooth, WiFi, 4G LTE and beyond. 802.11ac WiFi has become the new normal, with very high throughput to support media streaming. Bluetooth beacons, such as Apple iBeacons and products from Estimote, along with objects with embedded NFC tags will open up creative opportunities for home controls and automation for those integrators who are paying attention to these rapid developments.

Look at the prototype pCell technology from Artemis. This is similar to 4G LTE with the ability to stream simultaneous 4K video to many mobile devices (like at a football stadium) without the usual dropouts. This may be a way to stream 4K content directly to a display without the need for a local area network – the content would stream from an antenna out on the street!

With the world-wide deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT), we have even the tiniest of devices connecting to networks – automatically. I am encouraged by the current surge in Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) from all manner of manufacturers. APIs will enable integrators to join devices running on mobile apps into coherent user experiences. Apple’s announcements for many new API’s, including HealthKit, HomeKit and WatchKit, will open up a flood of clever user experiences like we’ve never seen. CEDIA integrators will soon have many new, powerful tools in their software kits.

This is really good news.

Ultimately, our biggest opportunity is where we started: audio and video. With the release of Dolby Atmos for the home and Auro 3D coming soon, ‘object-based audio’ will transform our home theatre and media room designs in profound ways. Coupling these immersive audio experiences with 4K video and content will create a renaissance in home theatre. Clients will love it and demand it!

Beyond immersive home theatre is the emerging explosion in virtual reality (VR). This is where the real action will be in the next 10 years. Oculus Rift, Sony Project Morpheus and others are in the space now with personal VR experiences.

It’s only a matter of time before these technologies will fill entire rooms for many, simultaneous users having shared experiences. Microsoft is already showing consumer-grade VR experiments based on Kinect and surface-mapping video projectors. The opportunities for CEDIA integrators are gigantic. It’s a bit far off, but ignore this trend at your peril.

I’ll end with a discussion of ‘slow technologies and slow design’. We dare not forget our humanity in all this speedy technology. Design thinking points back to human beings. Technology must always serve the human condition and work flawlessly for all intended users. That’s a hard challenge and requires expert communication skills with a lot of empathy for the experiences our customers have with technology.

Grace in technology is perhaps the hardest aspect to achieve; technology that disappears into the background and simply works.

CEDIA integrators have a profound responsibility to guide their designs to serve a better purpose.