OK, here is my take on the convention:
WOW, much bigger than I expected. Pretty impressive. What was most astounding was the amount of vendors and the competition between them. I had no idea there were so many manufacturers offering the same things. example: if they took out all the speaker, tv mount and theater furniture manufacturers the show would have been about half the size, LOL. Good god there must have been 20 vendors offering TV mounts! Crazy. I just need ONE, as should most of us.
If we as an industry are overwhelmed by the choices, imagine the consumer. The biggest thing learned was FOCUS! Focus on your own spealized solution, keep the manufaturer offerings to a select few as possible, and LEARN them inside and out. While larger installers can have teams of people specializing in multitudes of vendors, for the most part, IMO, our industry is made up of many much smaller companies. I am convinced my success will come from LIMITING myself to fewer choices. Chances are consumers are completely clueless anyways as to what is out there and will rely on our expertise and suggestion anways. Stick to YOUR solutions and fit them into your customer base. As a newbie to home automation, what I learned most was this is a VERY competitive field and can get extremely technical. As an installer, its the resonsiblility of us to choose, install and train customers. The last thing customers need is to be confused and not able to use the chosen system. the point for me is: Chose a set standard (product, manufacture, etc) and stick to that. become expert on what you do and not try too many vendors to deal with. offerings are TRULY overwhelming but if one can chose just a few and learn those, success is at hand.
The most WOW thing was indeed the 3d tv. However, I didnt see a tv that you didnt have to wear glasses. What was that manufacturer?? The biggest issue with 3d tv is, as explained by Samsung, was that there is not much media at this time. Their HOPE is to have more movies recorded in 3d for consumers. They did say there is software that converts any existing media into 3d but admitted it was not that great. I saw star wars in 3d, I dont think it was recorded in 3d and guessing it was software implemented and if it was they are WRONG that its not that great as I was blown away by it. Both Samsung and Mitsubishi said 3d is in most of their new tvs right now. Certainly looking into that. IMPRESSED!
Now, what did I like? Never heard of Convergent Living, but it's likely they will become our standard. Why? It APPEARS to be simple and straight forward and the one of the most reasonably priced offerings out there. They "claim" no central processor (no server or stand alone pc to make it all work), however if you look closer you find that the main unit ( a touchscreen LCD) actually works like a main processing unit. I was impressed. works on Linux and its all imbedded. Meeting with a rep next week and will post more findings on using their solution then. Convergent Living will be the front end while on-q/hai (for now) will be the back end. However, I may be moving my audio to Russound instead of on-q as at this time and the near future, on-q will not have an audio solution that automation can tie into. on-q also implied it could be a year or two before their audio can be tied into that. Well that simply sucks and on-q will lose out and continue to lose out on audio installs. There are MANY that have on-q lyrix and it seams like it would be so simple for on-q to allow us to simply tap into the lyrix system.
There are many many many many optoins to chose from. My standard was going to be a Cinemar/Mainlobby frontend. But what I learned was that mainlobby is eons away from going mainstream and is pretty much DIY. Why do I say that? First let me say that mainlobby, IMO, it WAY AHEAD of the game as far as the ability to configure pretty much anything as well as the ability have whatever look and feel you want. its still VERY impressive on that side. Some of their plugins are simply plug and play and they rock. The problem is I just cant see it being in a production environment. The amount of time it takes for programming (they call it configing, but everyone else calls it programming as it should be called) and the learning curve is simply too much. Will the day come when mainlobby is system whereby all you do is chose the options via drop down menus like EVERYONE else? When that day comes, mainlobby will move from the DIY environment to a professional enviromment. That will likely take millions dumped into the company or a sell out to a competitor or investment group. Personally, I think its vital to the success of cinemar (if their goal is to move from DIY). I spoke with many manufactures and most had not heard of cinemar/mainlobby. Of course some had and those where mostly the ones that cinemar has plugins. I also spoke with many installers and ALL agreed on the DIY vs production. Most agreed also that cinemar is "cool" and they would love to see it simplified so it can be used in production environments. The main issue with everyone was that the amount of time of programming and the inevitable reboots and maintenance. I am saddened that i have spent so much time enjoying and learning mainlobby only to think i wont use it in a production environment. Maybe cinemar can share with us some future projects that will encourage us as installers to keep cinemar in the radar. Cinemar? Please? Surely they can see that the competition requires no .(~{}|!, etc. I saw ZERO that required the coding that Cinemar does. Not ONE. I am no programmer, but it surely appears that drop down boxes with all the programming already written is the ONLY way to go when trying to sell to installers. Not sure what it takes but it simply doesnt matter. Its a must. Most of the selling points from vendors was "ease of setup". Anyone disagree with this summation? Is Cinemar planning any major updates to address the pro installers ease of setup? I simply dont want to have to figure out if lift out an "{" and thats what keeps an install from working. Its crazy, just makes zero sense. Am I off base here? Please chime in. I got the impression with Cinemar not being at the show, its more of a DIY product. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The spring show is in April and now in Dallas not vegas. Looking forward to that as well as meetings others in the industry. Met three cocooners there. Spanky, thanks for your hospitality.
I am REALLY looking forward to learning more about Convergent Living. Input welcome!! Anyone using it? Pro's Con's? I will see if there is a thread already on this.
Thanks!
