THE STYLE COUNCIL

Outdoor entertainment is also becoming big business, again driven by the home building/ decorating shows and plethora of gardening improvement shows. It’s even happening in the UK, with our unpredictable weather, but most definitely across Europe and other areas with more settled weather patterns. Sanus has just launched a pair of dedicated outdoor TV mounts – tilting and full motion – to satisfy the growing demand for outdoor entertainment areas.

Once again this provides real opportunities for installers. The TV, the mount, cabling and an audio system to go with it. Just think of it as another room in the house and make the suggestion to the client that they could easily add an outdoor entertainment area while they are drawing up the requirements list for their install.

Style and convenience are the driving forces in this category. The aesthetic of a person’s environment is so much more important these days, which I would put down to the massive increase in interior design and house building programmes on TV, and the success of events like Grand Designs Live and The Homebuilding and Renovating shows. This has created a realisation that technology, which is often intrusive, can, with a little thought and planning, be complementary to the room’s décor and enhance the environment.

Take for instance the rise in multi-room streaming services and how this has simplified the audio systems in many homes – no stacks of black boxes, big speakers and trailing wires anymore. We’ve noticed a huge uptake in demand for products like our stands and wall mounts for Sonos as these types of products have taken off. Putting your streaming speaker on display on a matching stand can make it a focal point, and give it an almost sculptural presence in a room.

The same can be said for TV mounts. In the old CRT days, the TV was a big box that sat on a piece of furniture. That furniture was often only there to act as a stand for the TV. With the dawn of flat panels there was a realisation that they could be taken off the furniture and fixed the wall, which revolutionised the layout of rooms.

The floorspace could be liberated and the TV securely mounted to the wall – improving the viewing experience and making the room a safer environment as the risk of accidents with the TV was removed.

The attachment sale opportunities for TV mounts are a great opportunity for installers. Not only is it an additional sale, but the margins are substantially better than can ever be achieved by just supplying the TV!

We continue to see requirements for additional AV equipment to support the ever-growing smart home category and this has had a huge impact on the high demand of AV racks within the residential and commercial space. For installers, the Sanus AV Racks provide a simplicity of options on size and include all the required parts to complete a set-up on-site. Sanus offers four pre-assembled sizes: 15U, 27U, 36U and 44U, and three stackable skeleton racks (10U, 15U and 20U) which have the option to be wall-mounted with a swingarm mounting solution. The skeleton racks are are great space saving option as they come flat packed, take up very little room in a van and can be assembled on site in just 15 minutes.