I was at the show yesterday for about 6hrs and left feeling a little underwhelmed. Attendance seemed way down from EHX last year in Anaheim. I think the Long Beach convention center may be larger so its possible things were just spread out more, but while most booths had a steady trickle of visitors, just didn't seem to have the energy or charisma of previous shows? Input from vendors working the show seemed to confirm this...
Spent a lot of time at the Automated Outlet booth catching up with Martin and also got the opprotunity to meet and visit with Jim Houston, Wayne and Steve which was a real pleasure. Cinemar has a nice display at the AO booth so it was good to meet David & Dave and see some of the things they are working on. Thier products seem to attract a fair amount of attention. Staff from many of other booths had to try and wrangle people in to have a look at their goods, but passers by the Cinemar display would often glance as they walked past, and then double back to ask questions and see what it's all about.
At Elk's booth I got the chance to meet a few new faces and also play with the new arming station and see a demo of the Russound interface on the Touchscreen as well as full motion video from an IP camera... neat stuff. Our good friend Spanky got a "get out of trade show FREE" pass so wasn't in attendance this year.
As mentioned in another post, Smarthome's booth had just a small display of Insteon and it seemed thier focus was signing up new dealers and displaying a number of other products which is a switch from last years booth which was almost entirely an Insteon display.
I was dissapointed at Russound's booth... the two things I wanted to see (VM1 video switch and the new A-Bus system) were both there as promised, but were both only static displays. I really thought they would have a working VM1 to show by now...
Another stop was by the Leviton booth to get a demo on Vizia... they had all the bits on display (dimmer switch, relay switch, plug-in module, scene keypad & group keypad) but I wasn't really that impressed with the fit & finish and more importantly the feel of the switches. This is an area that Leviton usually has nailed down and it left me dissapointed. I know these devices aren't really in production yet, so maybe some improvements will be made? I had plans to track down the Z-Wave Alliance booth, but never got there.
Rest of the time was spent doing meet & greet with a few vendors and then it was time to face LA traffic on the drive home.
Cheers,
Paul
Spent a lot of time at the Automated Outlet booth catching up with Martin and also got the opprotunity to meet and visit with Jim Houston, Wayne and Steve which was a real pleasure. Cinemar has a nice display at the AO booth so it was good to meet David & Dave and see some of the things they are working on. Thier products seem to attract a fair amount of attention. Staff from many of other booths had to try and wrangle people in to have a look at their goods, but passers by the Cinemar display would often glance as they walked past, and then double back to ask questions and see what it's all about.
At Elk's booth I got the chance to meet a few new faces and also play with the new arming station and see a demo of the Russound interface on the Touchscreen as well as full motion video from an IP camera... neat stuff. Our good friend Spanky got a "get out of trade show FREE" pass so wasn't in attendance this year.
As mentioned in another post, Smarthome's booth had just a small display of Insteon and it seemed thier focus was signing up new dealers and displaying a number of other products which is a switch from last years booth which was almost entirely an Insteon display.
I was dissapointed at Russound's booth... the two things I wanted to see (VM1 video switch and the new A-Bus system) were both there as promised, but were both only static displays. I really thought they would have a working VM1 to show by now...
Another stop was by the Leviton booth to get a demo on Vizia... they had all the bits on display (dimmer switch, relay switch, plug-in module, scene keypad & group keypad) but I wasn't really that impressed with the fit & finish and more importantly the feel of the switches. This is an area that Leviton usually has nailed down and it left me dissapointed. I know these devices aren't really in production yet, so maybe some improvements will be made? I had plans to track down the Z-Wave Alliance booth, but never got there.
Rest of the time was spent doing meet & greet with a few vendors and then it was time to face LA traffic on the drive home.
Cheers,
Paul
