Residential Tech Today March-May 2019

PRACTICAL POWER SOLUTIONS | THE HISTORICAL POTENTIAL OF 5G

“ You’re living a pretty good life when you don’t remember which digital assistant’s name you’re speaking.”

PENN JILLETTE THE MAGIC OF TECH

PLUS: A Home Theater Dream Realized Streaming Music with Qobuz Assessing the Value of Home Tech Designing Smarter Student Housing March–May 2019

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From the Editor I was attending my company picnic in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY. It was an appropriately hot and humid mid-August day in the Northeast U.S., but I was enjoying the afternoon out of the office with my colleagues and our families. Then, just after 4:00 p.m., everything changed.

A co-worker with a portable radio heard the DJ break into the music broadcast to say that the city was experiencing a blackout. It was an odd juxtaposition, as we stood there within the natural surroundings of a large city park, the sun shining brightly, and the radio station still on the air.

Executive Editor Jeremy Glowacki

“ The power outage renewed my faith in the kindness of my fellow man and made me appreciate how much we truly depend on our electrical grid in modern life.”

We would later learn that New York City wasn’t alone in experiencing this blackout, as many parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern U.S. and the Canadian province of Ontario were also without power on August 14, 2003. Some would have their services restored by 11:00 p.m., but for others it would take two days before the power came back on.

An outage, especially in New York City, is a weird experience. I couldn’t help but recall film footage from the legendary Summer of Sam 1977 blackout, when stores were looted and other violence occurred as night fell.

With the subways out of service and traffic a mess, my wife and I began to sense the extra distance from the park in the middle of Brooklyn to our apartment on East 79th St. in Manhattan. The decision to walk home (with our dog, by the way), may not have been the best idea, but the experience has left us with vivid memories, especially of daylight fading in extreme darkness as the lights failed to come on in our big city.

Fortunately, it was not the 70s anymore, and people chose street parties instead of looting, and strangers shared taxis (we ended up in one) rather than violence toward one another. But, with only the glow of passing car headlights and a tiny flashlight attached to my keys to guide us, the final bit of our walk home was slow and deliberate, as we tentatively avoided accidentally colliding with anything.

In the end, the power outage renewed my faith in the kindness of my fellow man and made me appreciate how much we truly depend on our electrical grid in modern life.

And, the cause of the blackout? It was a software bug in the alarm system at the control room of FirstEnergy, in Akron, OH – a precursor to cyberattack concerns that are discussed today.

In this issue, we feature two articles on the need for stable, clean, and consistent power in the smart home. Our writers point out how electrical demands are outpacing the existing electrical infrastructure and why homeowners should protect their expensive gear from power spikes, surges, brownouts, and transients. You may not be able to fix the grid, but at least you can isolate your equipment from the problems caused by it.

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

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ASSOCIATE EDITORS

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SENIOR WRITER

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Jamie Briesemeister Ian Bryant Dennis Burger Henry Clifford Michael Dye Michael Heiss Kevin Main Lauren Simmen Joseph Walter

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

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contents

46 Penn Jillette and the Magic of Tech

Cover Photo: Michael Lewis www.michaellewisphotography.com

Departments 10 By the Numbers 12 Quick Bits 14 Smart Devices 16 Inside Installation 18 CEDIA Says 20 Audio 62 Product Revolution 68 Art & Tech 70 Events 71 Coming Up 72 Lighter Side

22 Design Side Beautiful, Functional, and Durable

26 Innovator Profile Kerry Penwell: The Key to Light

28 Networked Home The Fourth Industrial Revolution?

32 Tech Advisor

Smart Home Need vs. Want

36 Issue Focus: The Power of Power Isolating the Electrical Supply

40 P rotecting Installations with Positive Power Habits

42 Industry Relations Working with the One You Love

52 Installation

21st Century Dorm Room 58 Custom Collaboration

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

Contributors As a product and marketing executive at Harman International, Michael Heiss was responsible for many breakthrough audio and video products. On the entertainment side of the business, he was a promotion manager at NBC, was key to the development of hotel in-room movies, and created the first nationwide movie rental service for Beta and VHS cassettes. A part of CEDIA since its founding, he served two terms on the CEDIA Board and headed the Technology Council. He was awarded CEDIA’s “Volunteer of the Year” award and is a CEDIA Fellow. He is also a member of the TV Academy, IEEE, the Society of Broadcast Engineers, and is a Life Member of SMPTE. At St. Louis-based Integration Controls, Jamie Briesemeister leads sales and marketing and is actively involved in business development, including industry outreach and education. In addition to local, community-focused CEU sessions and seminars, Jamie also speaks nationally about the smart, connected home at events such as The Remodeling Show/Deck Expo, IBS/KBIS for Design & Construction week, The Remodeling Leadership Conference, and at CEDIA Talks and Expo panels. She is a passionate volunteer for CEDIA and advocate for technology collaboration within the design/build community.

Henry Clifford founded Livewire in 2001 to meet the growing demand for technologically integrated homes and businesses. Through hard work, honesty, and quality craftsmanship, Livewire has become the premiere technology integrator in Central Virginia. Livewire’s installation and service techs have years of experience and a wide range of technological, construction, and electronic certifications. In January 2018, he co-founded Parasol, a remote service support company.

Ian Bryant currently runs the Indianapolis office for ZenArray (ZenArray.net), which provides system design, engineering, installation, and programming with Crestron and AMX integration systems. He has served on numerous CEDIA panels and working groups and has been involved in content creation and instruction both for CEDIA and year-round. His credentials include Crestron Silver Master Programmer, AMX ACE, CEDIA ESC-T, ISF, HAA, Biamp, BSS, and QSC certifications. Bryant was the 2017 CEDIA Volunteer of the Year.

Dennis Burger is a native Alabamian whose passion for AV and home automation technology is matched only by his fascination with the weather and his love of Star Wars. His credits include writing for and/or editing publications ranging from Robb Report Home Entertainment and Digital TV & Sound to Wirecutter and currently Home Theater Review.

Michael Dye works for Cloud9 Smart in New York and has been working in the CE industry since he was in high school. Today, he creates and teaches content for architects and designers, helping them shepherd the lowvoltage portion of their projects to completion.

Kevin Main is president and chief operating officer at Torus Power Inc., maker of uncompromising, clean, isolation-transformer-based power components. A 30-year veteran of the custom electronics and audio visual industries, he holds an MBA from Queens University. Prior to joining Torus Power, he held sales leadership positions at Jam Industries, Jonic International, and Kenwood Electronics. Currently, he is using his creativity, expertise, and passion for high-quality audio and video to help make Torus Power an industry leader.

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

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by the

A look at the metrics shaping the technology market — and our lives

Clean power is the often-overlooked essential ingredient to a successfully integrated smart home. Dirty power that comes from the electric grid and feeds into our devices can damage sensitive gear, shorten the lifespan of sophisticated AV components, and wreak havoc with sound and picture quality when we settle in to enjoy our favorite media. Plus, inefficient power is also a challenge when it comes to finding ways to maintain a healthier planet. Here’s a look at some statistics about the biggest power consumers, by device and sector.

U.S. Residential Retail Electricity Sales from 1999-2017 in billion kilowatt hours

Shares of total U.S. energy consumption by end-use sectors, 2017

1500

Commercial

1200

Transportation

29%

900

18% Residential

600

Industrial

32%

300 0

20% Source eia.gov

’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11 ’12 ’13 ’14 ’15 ’16 ’17 Source Statista

Residential energy consumption by end use Air Conditioning

17%

Space Heating

15%

Lighting

Miscellaneous

10%

12%

Water Heating

14%

TVs and related

7%

Not elsewhere classified

13%

Clothes Dryer

Refrigerators

5%

7%

Graphic via Vecteezy.com As of 2015, Source EIA

U.S. Energy Wasted by sector 2017 in Quadrillion BTUs Source weforum.org

Commercial 65% End-use efficiency 3.15 Rejected Energy (Quads)

Industrial

Residential 65% End-use efficiency 3.75 Rejected Energy (Quads)

Overall,

68%

49% End-use efficiency 12.9 Rejected Energy (Quads)

of all energy is actually wasted through various inefficiencies

Transportation 21% End-use efficiency 22.2 Rejected Energy (Quads)

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

Graphic via Vecteezy.com

STREAM AND DOWNLOAD WITH QOBUZ Our passion: all music.

Our obsession: premium sound quality - CD & Hi-Res. Curation, digital booklets, exclusive articles.

qobuz.com

© Gettyimages

Let the waves of sound wash over you

QUICK BITS WE ASK INDUSTRY INSIDERS ONE QUESTION

What is your advice to clients about the need for battery backups, surge suppression, or power conditioning to protect their smart home systems?

I typically steer this conversation in four areas: clean power, spike or drop, total loss, and reboot. I usually start with the reboot conversation as it is the easiest. I ask a client how many times has your ISP or cable company asked you to reboot a modem or cable box?

Let us manage that for you; you shouldn’t be having to do anything. I then group power loss and power drop together and explain that not all devices are completely smart.

When you lose power, some devices may not restart, or may restart out of order and not function correctly.

Joe Whitaker, President, The Thoughtful Home We have typically just included it in our proposals. Many do not even question it. If we do discuss it in any detail, we talk about the trips they make to unplug the cable/satellite box that is typically inconveniently located in a rack somewhere, and it is locked up, and we add the ability to do it from an app on the phone, or even by calling us on the phone to do it. Once that conversation is had, it becomes an easy sale. We live in a beta world.

Everything needs updates and subsequent reboots.

Eric Lee, Owner, Integrated Control Experts

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

We always include power management and UPS with all proposals. When clients do question the products and their cost, we reiterate how the IP power conditioners allow us to support them and provide great service – that a problematic device can be rebooted remotely and immediately, as opposed to waiting up to 72 hours for a service technician to come to their home. We also remind them that a service call is charged at our hourly rate, but a remote reboot is included in our service plans at no charge.

Todd Anthony Puma, Owner, The Source Home Theater Some system components are preferences (speakers, TVs, size of an iPad), but power isn’t one of them. BlueBOLT by Panamax is our non-negotiable service standard for power. If you get a system by Cloud9 Smart, it will have at least one M4315-Pro for protection and, most importantly, to enable remote reboots.

Chris Smith, COO, Cloud9 Smart

We live in one of the lightning capitals of the country, so our clients inherently understand the importance of using power protection. Also, when we explain the benefits of using smart surge protectors, like OvrC and BlueBOLT, with network monitoring and the ability to automatically reboot the modem and router when it senses a loss of connectivity, or using scheduled reboots on the cable box to improve reliability, they generally really embrace it.

John Sciacca, Co-Owner, Custom Theater and Audio Today’s home electronics are vastly different than days past. No different than with phones, computers, and tablets, reboots are required to ensure consistent, reliable operation. So, we pose the question of, “Would you rather dig back behind your equipment to reboot devices every couple weeks, or would you like us to install a device that will do that for you automatically, while also protecting your equipment from lightning, surges, and brownouts?”

Eric Crawford, CEO, The Loop We discuss technical power and grounding during the course of a client discovery process. We explain that sensitive electronics are vulnerable to brownouts, spikes, and unfiltered power coming from the utility, causing glitches, lockups, and reduced lifespan of equipment. Implementing a clean technical power and grounding system ensures equipment is always running at its optimum and is unhindered by outside influences.

Greg Margolis, President, HomeTronics I start by telling them that inside every piece of equipment there are microprocessors that need constant, clean, reliable power to operate reliably. Any noise or power fluctuation can cause the microprocessor to lock up or the power supply can fail. It is important to protect these devices to keep a solid, reliable system up and running. When devices do need to be reset, with today’s networkcontrolled outlets, we can simply reboot devices from anywhere we are versus having to roll a service truck to do so.

Ryan McDaniel, President, One-Touch Automation We bring up the topic of power management and the differences between a standard UPS and an online UPS during our initial investigation meeting. We explain that most of our service calls are related to three areas of the system (network, provider issues, and power issues). If you bring up the subject early in the conversation, it’s not a shock when you start discussing it during your system design presentation.

Ken Irvine, System Designer/VP Vendor Management, Premier Luxury Electronic Lifestyles

DEPARTMENTS

Smart Devices

Throwing Shade

Shadecraft Designs IoT Solutions for the Perfect Patio

By Patricia Miller

(Left) Shadecraft’s Sunflower robotic patio umbrella moves with the sun, ensuring its solar panels are fully charged and the table is always shaded. (Right) The Bloom can be added to most parasols to automatically open and close the shade while acting as a voice-controlled outdoor hub.

Interacting with your patio furniture may not seem like a crucial development in the timeline of human existence, but it’s changing lives in some surprising ways.

As a connoisseur of the backyard barbecue, I consider myself an authority on outdoor entertaining. From deli-style lighting twinkling in the trees to a perfectly curated party playlist, my guests know what to expect when they show up for a summertime celebration.

But providing everything your guests expect isn’t always an easy feat. Assuming I have the best in outdoor waterproof bluetooth speakers, it’s still another object on my table or fake rock in my garden. I may need to charge my phone to keep the streaming music flowing, so now I need an extension cord, which is great because I’ll need one to run the mood lighting anyway.

At this point, most of my outdoor needs are met, albeit with some extra steps and a lot of equipment. Now, I just need to adjust my patio umbrella so it’s actually providing shade to my rapidly sunburning guests. Fortunately, I’m great at multitasking, so I can still hold an engaging conversation while fiddling with a hand-crank.

If this is a scenario you’ve experienced yourself, you know what an orchestrated effort

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

outdoor entertaining can be. These complications were in the forefront of Armen Gharabegian’s mind when he began developing Shadecraft, an American robotics and technology company focused on improving human life outdoors.

Gharabegian set out to create products that would simplify and enhance the outdoor lifestyle.

With the creation of Sunflower, an autonomous robot parasol, the Shadecraft team cut out all the unnecessary equipment associated with outdoor entertaining.

Sunflower moves with the sun, ensuring its solar panel receives a full charge and the table is always shaded. Built-in Harman/Kardon speakers provide top-quality sound, voice activation, and smart assistant compatibility. Plus, solar-charged variable-color lighting will keep you well-lit late into the night.

The Sunflower also houses a camera for capturing candid shots of friends and family, or for providing peace of mind as a security camera.

Many of Sunflower’s features can be controlled via the SmartShade app, available on IoS and Android devices.

The coolest part of having a smart umbrella? Its sensors detect inclement weather, so it will open

or close based on wind speeds or UV intensity. It also offers LTE connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB charging ports.

For a more affordable option, ShadeCraft is now offering the Bloom. The Bloom can be added to most non-tilting parasols, transforming a common umbrella into an IoT-equipped outdoor hub.

Gharabegian said of its development: “We had a lot of requests from consumers and people interested in our product asking us to find a similar solution that they could afford. For example, a veteran came up to me in a wheelchair and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for something like this so I don’t have to go outside, and back in, and outside, and back in.’” Gharabegian continued, “This was a really emotional thing for us to understand, that we’re solving a real problem.”

Like the Sunflower, the Bloom offers voice activation, premium speakers, and app control.

For outdoor enthusiasts, the Bloom promises to make entertaining a much easier process. But perhaps more importantly, Shadecraft’s products are helping the elderly, people with disabilities, and busy families to have more control over their outdoor environment. They’re not just making life easier, they’re making life better. x

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DEPARTMENTS

Inside Installation

Third-Party Validation HTA Gains Ground in Home Tech Professional Certification Initiative

By Joseph Walter

The Home Technology Association is the first independent organization to educate and empower homeowners in their technology purchases, recognize exceptional businesses, and elevate the technology integration industry’s status and stature with a rigorous third-party certification process. Since its launch in the fall of 2017, the organization has grown to 142 certified firms across the U.S. The goal of the organization, according to Director of Certification Josh Christian, is to provide “third-party validation that you’ve always wanted to share with the client that you are truly a good, reputable firm that really takes care of your clients.”

Christian likes to compare HTA certification to similar designations in other businesses.

Consumers buying a diamond, he says, know to look for GIA certification from the Gemological Institute of America. Those looking for a highquality restaurant will look at a chef ’s Michelin stars. The HTA seeks to simplify the process of purchasing home technology systems with its certification standards. HTA-certified dealers consistently meet or exceed consumer expectations at every stage of a project, including post-installation service and customer support.

HTA certification, Christian explained, requires an integrator to exhibit a stellar reputation in the marketplace, a demonstrated history of technical competence, and a commitment to high-quality aftercare service and support. A certified company commits to adhering to the standards set by the HTA to maintain its status as an HTA-certified dealer.

Christian believes that only about 10 percent of the companies in the home tech integration industry will meet the standards to pass its certification. It’s difficult to figure out who the good companies are, but the HTA believes that it has found a way to weed out “the bad apples.”

Over 25 industry experts plus the HTA’s board

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

Photo iStockphoto.com/kitzcorner

of advisors weighed in to create the rigorous standards of HTA Certification. The goal was to empower consumers with the best information possible so that they may research and hire the best firms for their project.

All HTA-certified companies meet a long list of criteria. This includes having an ownership and management team with three-plus years of successful business performance, no significant litigation history, no tax liens, at least $1 million of liability insurance, no bankruptcy in at least the past five years, and more.

During the $400 application process, prospective HTA members must supply the names of three industry peers and three industry partners (architects, designers, builders) that will be used as references. Then HTA also finds three more manufacturer references of its own to report on the prospect company under NDA, making sure to have a full picture of the applicant. Once certified, a company has the choice of paying their dues monthly or annually. Companies also must recertify annually.

Beyond the obvious marketing benefits of

HTA’s budget calculator enables prospective clients to quickly learn a realistic budget range, setting expectations for what installed systems really cost. (Above) HTA Director of Certification Josh Christian.

membership, HTA-certified companies are encouraged to use the organization’s onboarding tools, such as pre-written press releases announcing their new designation, direct marketing to architects, builders, and designers from HTA, an elevator pitch and tech tips, and, most importantly, access to HTA’s budget calculator.

The budget calculator enables prospective clients to quickly learn a realistic budget range, setting expectations for what installed systems really cost. Now an integrator’s conversation can be, “Where do you feel comfortable in this price range?,” instead of trying to figure out what number is in their head (which is usually unrealistically low anyway).

“We’re hearing back from dealers that clients are shopping around less because the budget calculator is helping them enter the conversation more informed.”

In 2019, based on member feedback, HTA is stepping up its digital marketing to architects, designers, and builders to further establish why they need to seek out HTA-certified firms to raise the reputation of the home tech integration industry. x

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DEPARTMENTS

CEDIA Says

The Benefits of a Programming Scope Document

By Ian Bryant

Photo iStockphoto.com/BraunS

Helping Clients Know What to Expect When Their System is Turned Over to Them

A Programming Design Kit (PDK) or Programming Scope Document is the best way for an integration company to document and convey the operation and function of a large and complex integration system in a client’s home.

When an integrator is conducting client interviews or is in the discovery phase with a client, they ask lots of questions about that customer’s home life: how they use their current technology, how technology could help simplify their daily routines, what areas of their home they use the most, and many others.

This gives the sales and design team a starting point to suggest what technology could be implemented to help make the client happy about being in their home.

Once the technology has been selected and designed, however, the next step sometimes gets left out. That’s the time when a client should be presented with the fine detail of how the integration system will look, feel, and operate.

A system may not be fully customizable and configurable – it could even be as simple as the client’s smartphone or tablet – but this must be

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

discussed before the client signs the dotted line, agreeing to a design that they will live with for a long time.

also comes a client that feels very passionately about this system and how it looks and operates.

Whether the project is a million-dollar theater or a small integrated home, every client should receive a PDK or Programming Scope Document. The document will vary in size depending on the complexity of the system that it is being written for, but it should be utilized in every integration.

The most important items to include are descriptions of each subsystem being integrated and how these systems will be operated through the control system, descriptions of each type of user interface in the client’s home, and how to operate each of the different types of user interfaces in the system. Also consider including: the shapes and colors that will be used for the interfaces; keypad engraving fonts and colors; touch panel button shapes, sizes, and colors; active and inactive states and text colors and fonts; images or logos used on the user interfaces; smart phone applications and how to operate them; and automated event descriptions and how they function.

Even a small integrated home utilizing a smartphone application for each of the subsystems needs such a document because many clients do not know the capabilities, limitations, and usability of these apps. A client may see these and decide that they want to upgrade to a unified control system, or they may be convinced that some of these products are just not giving them the level of control or ease of use that they need. This is where documentation and communication is crucial.

Larger and more complex home integration systems with unified control systems and customizable user interfaces must also have these documents. With the price tag that comes with these larger, more complex systems

With a PDK document in hand, the client will know what to expect when their system is turned over to them, and they will know exactly how to use the system and will feel that it is “their system” that they helped to create and customize. x

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DEPARTMENTS

Audio

Following Another Stream Why French Streaming Music Service Qobuz Thinks it’s Time to Compete in U.S. Market

By Dennis Burger According to the Recording Industry Association of America, streaming music services accounted for three-quarters of U.S. music industry revenues by the middle of 2018.

Chances are very high that you already subscribe to a service like Spotify, Tidal, or maybe even Pandora, and that service represents the bulk of the money you spend on recorded music every year.

With all of the sectors of the market pretty well covered – from low-fi radio like streaming for casual listeners to uncompressed audiophile offerings for hi-fi enthusiasts and everything inbetween – one has to wonder if there’s really room for yet another streaming music service.

The owners of Qobuz – a French company founded in 2007 – certainly hope so. After a few false starts in the autumn of 2018, the service is finally making its way to American shores in 2019, offering a rather distinctive blend of subscription streaming, downloading, and purchasing options, with quality ranging from the standard 320 kilobits per second (the highest quality offered by Spotify and about twice the size of a default Spotify stream) up to 192kHz/24-bit, which translates into roughly six times the bandwidth of a traditional Compact Disc.

“It really boils down to the fact that all of the planets are starting to align,” said David Solomon, chief high-res evangelist for Qobuz.

“If you go back in time and look at why people started squishing music to begin with, there were fantastic reasons to do it. Back when the iPod launched, it was amazing that you could take 1,000 songs with you everywhere you went, but storage was extremely expensive. Even five gigabytes was a lot of storage space.”

It isn’t just a matter of timing, though. For high-resolution audio enthusiasts, Qobuz also offers a staggering two million songs in highresolution; that’s a million more than Tidal, its next closest competitor. Qobuz also offers something else that other services don’t: the ability to download songs from the service straight to your computer, not merely your mobile devices. “We’re the second service to offer high-resolution in the U.S.,” Solomon said, “but we’re the first to offer just plain FLAC files that anyone can download and play on any DAC. So, you don’t have to jump through any of the hoops that other services make you jump through.”

Fast-forward to the era of streaming, and even when Tidal launched in the U.S. in 2014, Solomon explained, “a lot of people had connections of one, two, maybe 10 megabits per second, if they were lucky. And it’s difficult to

Those tracks will, of course, be inaccessible if you ever let your Qobuz service lapse. But Qobuz also allows you to purchase high-res tracks and own them in perpetuity. And if you opt for the service’s top subscription tier, which

But why now?

20

consistently stream high-bandwidth files with such a narrow pipe. Even when Tidal came out and people were trying to stream this thing, they were getting a lot of cut-outs and such. But those problems are really going away.”

Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

runs $299 per year, you’ll also get discounts on high-res purchases that bring a full 192 kHz/24bit download down to about the price you’d pay for an iTunes download.

Other tiers range from $9.99 per month ($99.99 per year) for the MP3-quality Premium plan, to $19.99 per month (or $199.99 per year) for the CD-quality Hi-Fi plan, and up to $24.99 per month (or $249.99 per year) for the Studio plan, which gives you access to quality up to 192/24, but without the discounts on purchases.

Qobuz also has announced integration with Roon, the music management and distribution platform popular with audiophiles. Combine Qobuz with Roon’s Radio feature, which creates personalized stations based on your listening preferences, and you effectively have the highresolution equivalent of Pandora. For most of us, who get settled into listening habits at a certain age, that opens up a completely new avenue of music discovery without having to sacrifice quality. “It will take you to places you never knew you could go before,” Solomon said. x

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DESIGN SIDE

Beautiful, Functional, and Durable Meeting the Goals of Architects and Designers Through Education and Execution

By Michael Dye

At Cloud9 Smart, one of our guiding pillars is that, “In our interaction with clients, trades, and each other, we focus on the collective goal.”

Surely, the collective goal of our industry is to work together with our clients and other trades to build the best systems that we can. To that end, we work every day to engage with the architecture and design community in our hometown, New York City, and we have developed a catalog of courses to present to architects for continuing education credit.

Our most successful course is the one that we refer to as “Smart Home 101.” In it, we discuss the goals of our work as technologists, and how we would like to work better together with our design and architect partners on projects.

START WITH LIGHTING AND SHADES CONTROL The three central themes of architecture are durability, utility, and beauty. Coming from the world of electronics, where newer is always better, it is not hard to see how an impasse exists between our industries. As our technology has improved, however, we are encountering pieces that meet those themes. A modern lighting control system can last decades (durability),

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while improving the look of a space (beauty), and making it easier to use (utility).

Our American Institute of Architectsapproved course is designed on the basic premise that we are going to explore together the various technologies that meet these standards. We delve into our experiences with each, and how early planning can make integration of such devices unobtrusive to the design process, and improve the final product. If something is going to be in your design, it should be beautiful, functional, and durable.

The first topic we discuss is lighting – both natural and artificial – as well as the manner in which it can be controlled. We touch on LED lighting and are open about the troubles faced in dimming these fixtures, as well as the various ways we have to ameliorate these issues with proper design and planning. From here we move on to hardware, showing examples of Lutron Palladiom and Forbes & Lomax keypads, switches, and dimmers. We then introduce the concept of a scene and a single device controlling several others. This is followed up by weighing the benefits and pitfalls of wired and wireless connectivity. These are important

concepts in our overall discussion, so we are laying the groundwork for later topics, like networking and control systems.

We close out lighting and shading with the idea of natural light being the final light source in a home. Architects understand and work with natural light extensively. That being said, the advantages of automated control are often something they had not considered before. We discuss the benefits to the longevity and durability of their designs and their client’s material investment by controlling UV light, the obvious comfort advantages, and the new design ideas that this may open up to them. A bedroom with windows on four sides is far more livable if you do not need to be concerned with the number of shades or drapes that must be moved by the occupant. During this topic, we pass around samples from Lutron with higherend finishes. These may not be materials that the architects would specify for their project, but it emphasizes that smart shades can be attractive and functional.

HOW WE DISCUSS AUDIO We begin our audio technology discussion simply by exploring the basics of speakers –

DESIGN SIDE

Beautiful, Functional, and Durable

During Cloud9 Smart’s Smart Home 101 class for the New York architecture and design community, the veteran integration firm discusses lighting and shades control, distributed audio, discrete speaker systems, basic facts of speakers, the benefits and pitfalls of wired and wireless connectivity, ideal placement and solutions for outdoor audio, and creative TV and projector concealment options, using their own project photos as examples. Photos courtesy of Cloud9 Smart

dispersion and frequency reproduction of various driver sizes. We then move to the types of speakers that blend into the look of a room, while still providing a clean and comfortable audio experience. We go over the custom sound bar solutions from Leon as well, which allow audio to appear to emanate from the screen while not adversely impacting the look of the room in a significant way. For distributed audio, Sonance and James are our main vendors for discrete speaker systems that are meant to match high-end recessed lighting. We make a point of carrying grilles for several sizes and finishes from them to discuss, comparing them to similarly-sized lighting fixtures. Finally, we cover invisible speakers. Here, Sonance and Stealth have excellent materials to utilize.

Invisible speakers represent a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate the commitment to the three themes, as they are beautiful, durable, and utilitarian. We cover typologies where invisibles are absolutely invaluable – places where occupants entertain and impress. We also talk about ceilings with designed, uneven fixtures, or walls with art that require splitting the woofer and midrange/tweeter. These are all opportunities to show that you care about the client’s experience as well as the design, and that you have experience working with design partners.

In spite of Cloud9 Smart’s very city-centric clientele, our architect partners usually offer design services for projects outside the city, so we do as well. That’s why we take a moment to discuss outdoor audio solutions, covering the

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

ideal placement and solutions for outdoor audio, echoing our discussion of indoor discrete systems.

networks that do not intrude on a space, and can last much longer than a big-box store mesh network device.

THE TV IN THE ROOM

CONTROL SYSTEMS

Our next topic is the television. We do not discuss 4K, HDR, or smart features. Instead, we engage from the perspective of someone trying to fit a large black rectangle into a space where it is unwelcome. An art lift is our favored solution, providing “real” art and a high-performance TV solution. We follow this up by covering rolling art and digital art television solutions. We include a word about recessing a TV and then coverage of some of the creative lifts that we can source from our partners at Future Automation.

As a finale to our exploration of the technology, we discuss umbrella control systems. We call this the “I wanna” that leads to the “ya gotta.” We are, after all, from New York.

If we have a room where a client has invested in a mirror TV and invisible speakers, it is unlikely they “wanna” see a cable box and an amplifier in the room. A control system of some sort is not the answer to this “I wanna.”

The final TV point is to cover specialty hardware. Here, our partnership with Seura is invaluable as we demonstrate, with samples, the difference in material between a vanity and a living mirror, as well as the ways mirrors can be incorporated into non-traditional TV spaces and sizes of mirror. We also cover waterproof and outdoor TVs before moving on.

Networks and control are our penultimate topic. The need for robust networking, particularly for the clientele we serve, is a foregone conclusion. Demonstrating your knowledge here is important, as well as relating the gear we specify to what the architects are already familiar with. I always take a moment to describe the components that make up a cable company’s all-in-one router/modem and show how we are breaking them out and making them better and more serviceable to create robust

Further, the idea that each of the systems we had covered thus far would be on its own app can be intimidating. The need for an overarching control system that is intelligent and reliable becomes expected rather than added on. Taking a moment to discuss the ability of these systems to control HVAC, particularly multiple discipline HVAC – i.e. radiant mixed with forced air – intelligently is a solution architects are hoping to find, and a good opportunity to win yourself some additional credit.

Engaging with the architect and design community benefits us all. As technology integration ceases to be optional and becomes standard, we are setting the tone for how we will be understood. It is our sincere hope that we can all work together to bring best practices to our design partners and bring about the next iteration of our industry as colleagues in the design process. x

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innovator profile

The Key to Light

Experienced Lighting Designer Kerry Penwell Offers Insights into the Business

By Jeremy Glowacki Soon, his company had added Lutron programming and installation to their skillset, and from there, customers started to ask him for AV design advice and dealer referrals.

“We truly became a low-voltage lighting/ electrical architect of projects,” Penwell said.

But, despite their best efforts, Penwell often witnessed clients getting much more than what they had asked for when it came to AV designs supplied by referred integrators.

Kerry Penwell is a pioneer in the blending of architectural lighting design and AV integration professions. But unlike most AV integrators who are only now beginning to consider lighting, his career started there more than two decades ago.

The owner of the 13-person Greenville, SCbased Kasted (the lighting design division) and Drakes Penwell Design Group (the AV integration division) studied electrical engineering and physics, before taking his first job in the electrical engineering field doing construction and power distribution work. He was soon drawn to architectural lighting design, an area that his boss at the time wasn’t as interested in pursuing.

“He had a different interest; we were doing power distribution plants and a lot of industrial stuff,” Penwell recalled. “But, people were coming to us for lighting design and consulting, so I decided to start my own firm, eventually moving into commercial and high-end residential lighting design and consulting.”

Penwell eventually realized that the user experience, via lighting control technology, was a key to satisfying lighting designs for his clients.

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“Fifteen years ago, it was typical for customers to end up with the Starship Enterprise in their home, whether they asked for it or not,” he said.

“Eventually, clients started asking us just to do the whole thing for them. So, we partnered up and had someone pull the wire, and we were off to the races with AV design and integration.”

These days, the Kasted lighting design division of the company services clients all over the U.S., while the Drakes Penwell Design Group, under the guidance of AV integration veteran Steve Drakes, handles a more regional client list in Greenville and throughout the Carolinas.

On the national lighting design projects, Kasted will still partner with top-quality integrators for on-the-ground work, having found many of them through their Kasted’s Azione Unlimited buying group membership.

Lately, however, the lighting design market has begun to change. In recent years, for instance, Penwell has witnessed high-end architectural firms that embrace lighting in their designs, pulling some of that work in-house. Changes in technology – particularly the addition of LED options – have also changed the business for the better.

“It’s night and day,” Penwell noted. “We’ve moved from incandescent to low-voltage halogens and LEDs, and that’s doubled our toolbox and our precision. No longer are we using this big chunky chainsaw. Now we have scalpel-like precision. At this point, the sky’s the limit. We can really be creative, and really bring the architecture interiors and finishes to it, and we have so many tools to do it. We just have to navigate the 10 options and decide which is the right one for a particular application.”

So, a designer must not only learn how to use a new palette of paints, so to speak, with more fixture options, but also navigate which bulbs to use and which ones to avoid. That’s getting easier, according to Penwell.

“With LED, it’s now 90 percent good and 10 percent bad, whereas it used to be just the opposite,” he said. “But you have to start thinking about more specific applications. You get to be much more precise, and you can really be creative. We’re past rolling an art piece with a roller brush; we’ve got all the brush sizes to give us a final pencil level of detail. LED is a huge positive in what we’re able to do.”

That being said, Penwell adds a word of caution about the AV industry’s interest in moving into lighting design and fixture sales.

“I’m not trying to be a doomsday person,” he clarified. “I’m trying to make sure we can have success as we look back at this point in history for the AV industry. It offers great potential, but also a huge opportunity for a black eye for the industry. My concern is that AV guys are quickly gaining access to a dangerous amount of stuff that they don’t understand and aren’t being given enough information about. When you’re talking messing up lighting, you’re talking about taking down ceilings and walls and rewiring to

fix it. You’re talking about huge-dollar mistakes.”

Penwell likes the approach of one integration firm that he met at a conference recently. In the early days of home network design, this firm outsourced 100 percent of IT work. Two years later, that company felt confident enough to bring that work in-house. Now, they’re taking that same approach with lighting design.

“They dabbled in one project and went, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute … Things are getting tricky, and we’re going to burn relationships.’”

That being said, Penwell believes that the AV business is the right field to tackle advanced lighting design.

“I think this business is going to leave 99 percent of electricians behind as that industry goes through major changes in the next five years,” he noted. “We’ve seen all of the other building industries forced to change and get better at what they do. Electrical is one of the last groups being forced to change.”

Kasted, owned by Kerry Penwell, services lighting design clients like these, all over the U.S.

For AV integrators moving into lighting, Penwell says the biggest key to success is understanding that lighting is completely subjective. “It’s about understanding what the owner expects to see when they walk in. Is it dramatic or is it wall-to-wall light?” he asked.

“It’s subjective, and you have to be able to communicate that, set expectations, and document what your client wants. Because, a year down the road, when they turn the lights on – memories are really funny things – the client might say, ‘Wait a minute. It’s too bright…’ or, ‘It’s not bright enough.’ We told them we were doing a dramatic space, so we accented certain areas. Having those things documented is important. It’s about what that owner wants and has in their head. That’s the key element of success in lighting design.” x March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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NETWORKED HOME

The Fourth Industrial Revolution?

5G Speeds Up Mobile Communication in 2019, But How Transformative Will It Be?

By Michael Heiss It’s not often that you hear a new technology described as a “transformative enabler” or the start of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

However, that is exactly the way the new 5G for mobile communication and data has been described at industry conferences and in the business and general press over the past two years or so. Starting in 2019, the gestation period for 5G is over; the rollout is now underway.

Because of that, the buzz over 5G will continue to get louder, and we want to make certain that you are able to hear through the noise and understand what it is all about.

By way of background, the current global standard for what is popularly called “cell phones” is 4G/4G LTE. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the 4G nomenclature represents the fourth in a series of standards, and the new one is the fifth. The original “1G” cell phones were analog only. Following that, 2G and 2.5G brought us digital communication and a global standard with text messaging. The third-generational iteration, 3G, is still in use, and it enabled audio streaming and web browsing. The current 4G system took us to where we are with video streaming and calling, high speed downloads, and many more advanced features that many people now take for granted.

Despite the success of 4G, there has been an industry push to increase speeds dramatically, not only for today’s uses but for applications that let data drive things such as 8K video, remote access to broadband, remote medicine and learning, autonomous vehicles, and a whole range of possibilities that now require hardwired network connectivity. Delivering all of that and more is what 5G is all about.

Yes, of course, 5G will be in phones, and a number of them were shown both at CES in January and at the Mobile World Congress last Photo iStockphoto.com/Bill Oxford

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month in Barcelona. But, the most important thing to remember about 5G is that it is more than just “the latest and greatest cell phone.”

That was proven by the fact that the first availability of 5G service in the U.S. by Verizon was for “fixed wireless.” For that, you place an antenna outside the house or on a window, connect its RF lead to an access point box, and voila, super high-speed data without fiber or cable! Yes, I did say that the antenna is not the internal, unseen type that we’ve been used to since 3G phones. The reason for that is due to one aspect of 5G that we’ll have to get used to.

5G can, and eventually will, use the standard 600Mhz-range frequency bands cell phones use today. Referred to in the trade as “Sub-6,” they enable longer range from the antenna tower to the receiving device and they (usually) pass through walls so that the signals may be received indoors. Sub-6, however, does not deliver a few things that make 5G so versatile. To deliver on the promise of 1Gbps downloads and even faster simultaneous signal paths (slices), the second group of 5G frequencies are way up there in the 28Ghz and above range.

Those frequencies are very short, called “millimeter wave.” The good part is that the speeds are much higher, and there are more “slices.” The downside is that millimeter waves are “line-of-sight,” short range, and they can’t typically pass through walls. That, in turn, means that the cell phone carriers have to use more “micro-cells” to flood a given area with coverage, which is costly on a variety of levels.

The inability of millimeter wave technology to pass through walls means that, at first, external antennas will be needed. For the most part, they will be compact, flat panels rather than a conventional TV antenna or satellite dish.

A Few Other Notes About the Early Rollout

A wide variety of 5G devices are, or will soon be, available, including combination receivers/Wi-Fi access points, portable 5G hotspots, and carriersupplied fixed wireless devices from service providers.

First, note that the equipment now being placed by Verizon uses a version of 5G technology called “5G TF.” The true worldwide standard is called “5G NR” (New Radio). The other carriers have said that they will use the “official” NR standard, and Verizon said they will update or upgrade existing equipment.

As mentioned, the use of millimeter wave means outdoor antenna, so the ability to connect outside to inside wiring is also March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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NETWORKED HOME The Fourth Industrial Revolution? something for early adopters to ask about and consider. As a back-up, the in-home equipment will also have a 4G radio, so if the 5G service fails, at least one service still will be available, albeit with slower speeds.

So, What Do We Have to Look Forward to?

The ability of 5G to deliver high-speed data is coupled with very low latency. In layman’s terms, that means that there is almost no delay between data at one end of the path and the other. In practical terms, think of games with instant “click to shoot.” The bad guys won’t be able to get you while your data is moving from you to the cloud and back down to the other player.

This low latency will bring other very important advancements. Combined, the highspeed data and low latency will mean that devices will be able to talk directly to one another without the trip-to-cloud servers.

Perhaps the widest use of this will be for autonomous vehicles. Think of a four-lane highway in both directions and a car trying to make a left turn onto the main road. 5G will enable each car to talk to all of the other cars, report their GPS position, and signal their speed and directional intent, then determine if it can take the turn without getting hit.

Or, think of how these capabilities may be put to use for things such as factory automation, remote medical exams, surgery, and “smart city” applications such as advanced energy management and traffic control. The best example here is that the traffic system can know all the data mentioned above about the cars on the road and adjust the flow accordingly.

Terms that you’ll see more frequently going forward to describe all of this are “V2V” and “V2X.” The former is “vehicle-to-vehicle” communication, where one vehicle talks directly to another, while “V2X” stands for “vehicle-toeverything.” Whether it is self-driving cars or the autonomous delivery vans, police cars, or even helicopters that were shown at CES and other trade shows, 5G is the virtual gas that powers these computing and communication engines and activities.

Back to more typical applications we have today, 5G will make it possible to stream full 8K video to in-home and remote displays without wires or fiber. The maps that we now use on our

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The speed and bandwidth of 5G will be a big boon to in-car navigation, enabling not just autonomous cars, but a wide range of self-driving delivery vehicles.

Photo iStockphoto.com/scanrail

5G may be a key part of distributing 8K content directly to consumers, as demonstrated by Sharp at CES.

phones, tablets, and in-car navigation displays will become amazing 3D images rather than the flat, two-dimensional maps that we have today.

VR goggles and AR headsets will drop the need for wires and react instantly to other players or event actions and activities.

After making the point that 5G is more than “just another cell phone standard,” it is important to go back to the roots. 5G cell phones will be here soon. Just remember that they will likely be expensive at first and due to coverage rollout issues they will not be able to deliver 5G connectivity everywhere. They may be heavier, and whether or not they will require external antennas is yet to be seen – same for battery life. Keep in mind that the first 5G

phones will be Android, as Apple appears willing to wait until late 2019, or more likely 2020, before bringing out the first 5G iPhone.

Time will tell.

At the end of the day, 5G is no longer a science project; it is real. The rollout is starting with fixed wireless to bring high-speed data to your home without cables of any kind. Phones, tablets, and all other non-phone, but datacentric, products and applications will follow as the infrastructure rollout picks up speed.

We started this article with a few bold statements, and hopefully now you will see why.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution? You bet.

Some say that the first was steam, to power the original industrial revolution. Second was

electricity, which made it possible to do production anywhere and safely light the world.

Data came third, delivering information to all and in ways that advanced the quality of life and changed the way products are developed, manufactured, distributed, and sold.

5G? It may well be the Fourth Industrial Revolution by harnessing data to make it available everywhere at high speeds, with low latency, and regardless of the location. As noted here, that may well be a “revolution.”

A final note: as said at the top of this article, it is clear that 5G is a “transformative enabler.”

I can’t wait to see its benefits spread everywhere. x

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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TECH ADVISOR

Smart Home Need vs. Want Evaluating the Value of Home Technology Based on Safety, Security, Comfort, and Convenience

By Henry Clifford

Clients often ask me, “Will home technology increase my property value?” I usually cringe at the thought of responding. It’s a question our industry has been long afraid to answer. So much so that we generally avoid the return on investment (ROI) conversation altogether.

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We’ve done it to ourselves over the years with bad products, poor installation quality, and lousy service after the sale. In an effort to change things up a bit, our company recently began addressing ROI in our pre-sale conversations through the eyes of the client.

unsettling each time I hear it. Are we truly wanted and not needed? I don’t think so. My own home has systems in it that are simultaneously loved and loathed by my family. The remote control that magically makes all the components work together seamlessly one moment but runs out of batteries the next. The printer that performs tirelessly day after day but never seems to work properly when needed by my wife. They each have their place and provide some measure of safety, security, comfort, or convenience.

One of my mentors is fond of saying, “We sell things everyone wants and nobody needs.”

He always gets a laugh from the crowd, but it’s

Each one was carefully selected and installed with the express purpose of making our lives easier somehow. Were my selections made

Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

qualitatively or quantitatively? What drove me to invest in home technology? What sort of return am I getting? Just like everything else in our industry, the answer is the same: it depends.

I decided to look at each of the systems installed throughout my home and Livewire’s Design Center to find out.

SAFETY & SECURITY Security Systems: Professionally monitored security systems are very popular with clients who place a high premium on peace of mind.

We never try to convince anyone to invest in physical security if they don’t express an

A well-lit exterior can help deter crime by removing opportunity, as illustrated by Automation Design + Entertainment’s installation of Lutron RadioRA and ELAN home control in this Michigan lakefront home.

interest. The selection process tends to be polarized, with clients expressing strong convictions one way or the other. Just like politics and religion in mixed company, we don’t argue the point; rather, we mirror our conversations to match their preferences. We see a high level of engagement and low service call rates with our security system business. In other words, clients tend to be very happy with their investment.

installed system investment of $2,000 breaks even in two years and more than pays for the monitoring (assuming $50 average monthly monitoring subscription) after that.

Payback: 5- to 20-percent discount off homeowner’s insurance annual premiums and peace of mind.

Outdoor Lighting: We’ve found deterring crime by removing opportunity is one of the best ways to deliver peace of mind. A well-lit exterior does exactly that and serves to heighten the aesthetics of the home in the bargain. We seldom see clients evaluating outdoor lighting based on financial payback and wondered if we could increase sales by better communicating ROI.

Illustration: A $5,000 insurance premium discounted $1,000 annually against an initial

Payback: Peace of mind and beautification.

Real estate news resources like Inman claim up

to a 50 percent ROI with a professionally installed outdoor lighting system.

Illustration: Outdoor lighting systems average $300-$500 per installed fixture.

Assuming 10 fixtures installed with a total of $3,000-$5,000 invested, homeowners can expect to recoup $1,500-$2,500 in resale value.

COMFORT & CONVENIENCE Heating & Cooling Control: Smart thermostats are nothing new, but we don’t talk enough about energy saving as a means of justifying the investment. In my own home, I’ve seen a 20 percent decrease in heating and cooling bills since installing smart thermostats a few years ago.

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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TECH ADVISOR Smart Home Need vs. Want

(Left) Smart thermostats, like this Multistat from Savant, are nothing new, but we don’t talk enough about the energy savings as a means of justifying the investment.

(Center top) Clients tend to be very happy with their investment. Nortek Security & Control’s 2GIG GC3 panel enables partitioning of zone groups to arm some sections of the property while leaving other areas disarmed. (Center bottom) Once we set client expectations, ROI on control systems, such as this Crestron PYNG setup, can be expressed mainly through efficiency. (Right) Lighting control, illustrated here by a custom-engraved Vantage keypad in a home installation by Easy Living in Clearwater, FL, has the highest benefit and lowest market penetration in the industry.

Payback: Even using conservative assumptions, the payback period is less than three years based on the energy savings. There are a ton of great resources like a well-written perspective by The Flannel Guy ROI available online, which back up these claims.

Illustration: Smart thermostats average $250$400 installed. Assuming an average climate and 3,000-square-foot home size, energy savings amount to $250 annually in energy costs.

Depending on the number of thermostats in the home, payback can easily happen in less than two years.

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environments. Those numbers are impressive and resonate with facilities managers evaluating new building decisions. Residential payback can be calculated based on the use of dimmers, timers, photoelectric sensors, and occupancy sensors. The single biggest impact on residential energy savings is the use of dimmers in a family or living room, according to a recent study by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency.

Lighting Control: I feel like this category has the highest benefit and lowest market penetration of any home technology system out there. The current Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the entire industry is around 18 percent, and it is projected to continue at this pace well into the 2020s. Since the average price per light switch ranges between $100-$450, lighting control has yet to reach mass market adoption. With more LED fixtures coming into the market with intelligent lighting controls built into them (like Lutron’s EcoSystem), we’re seeing the commercial market adopt lighting control at a much faster rate than residential.

Illustration: Assuming 10 controlled lights at $200 per switch installed, an investment of $2,000 saves an average of 150 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. Based on an average electricity price of $0.12 per kWh, that’s $18 saved annually – a payback of 111 years for the average home. Clearly our industry has some work to do before we can start using hard numbers as the only means of justifying a home lighting control system, whereas the commercial world is ready now, seeing paybacks between three and six years. On the home side, we have qualitative ROI in the form of convenience and the elimination of switch clutter. It’s hard to go back to manually turning off lights once a client experiences the bliss of automating routine lighting tasks like turning off the lights at bedtime or pathway lighting to the kitchen in the morning.

Payback: The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) reports independently verified energy savings of 54 percent with lighting controls and 78 percent when combined with LED fixtures in commercial

Control Systems: These solutions highlight the biggest gaps between expectations and experience. Thanks to a steady diet of Hollywood movies, clients already expect home control systems to be intelligent, self-healing,

Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

and anticipatory. Current offerings are none of the above. That said, once we set client expectations, ROI can be expressed mainly through efficiency. When each sub-system in the home is able to talk to the others, it’s possible to save minutes each day, which can add up over the course of the year into many hours. Depending on how our clients view their time, control systems can be seen as tremendously valuable if we can demonstrate how the system makes daily life easier.

Payback: When we add up the time it takes to manually interact with light switches, thermostats, door locks, garage door openers, security systems, and entertainment systems each day, we can easily demonstrate ROI by equating time savings against an average hourly rate.

Illustration: Assuming we can automate lighting, HVAC, and some basic entertainment options, we’re conservatively saving the client 15 minutes each day. If our bills to our clients value time at $100 hourly, we’re saving $25 daily, $175 weekly, $700 monthly, and $8,400 annually. Since most of our clients view time as their most valuable resource, we’re hoping this perspective will resonate well.

I’m encouraging our sales team to start using ROI as a means to justify investing in home technology. Armed with some quick facts about total cost of ownership and the associated payback periods will go a long way to helping us guide clients through their technology selection process. x

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ISSUE FOCUS

The Power of Power

Isolating the Electrical Supply Practical Power Solutions for Today’s Home Technology Systems

By Kevin Main, Torus Power

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ISSUE FOCUS

The Power of Power

W

Water and electricity are considered two necessities of life.

Here in North America, we often take access to clean drinking water for granted. Once that basic need is met, we can focus on the other provisions that help us live, work, and play. For many of us, that includes smart home technology, electronic devices, and the electricity that powers them.

Just as our bodies need clean drinking water to function at their best, our electronics need clean power to operate at their maximum capabilities. Dirty power that comes from the electric grid and feeds into our devices can damage sensitive gear, shorten the lifespan of sophisticated AV components, and wreak havoc with sound and picture quality when we settle in to enjoy our favorite media. In short, inconsistent power can diminish the technology experience and, the more technology you have in your home, the more you will feel the effects.

“I have been involved in homes that have over $2 million in sensitive equipment installed,” said Arthur Kelm, CEO of Ground One AV Inc., a consulting/engineering firm that addresses power and grounding solutions for professional recording facilities and high-end home installations. “The unfortunate reality is that utility power and generator power and solar power is not adequate for critical load applications like these.”

Behind the Struggles of Today’s Electrical Grid Just as, today, many areas of the world struggle with the distribution of clean drinking water, the electrical grids here in North America struggle to keep up with the increasing demand for power. Today’s electrical demands are outpacing the existing electrical infrastructure, as new residential and commercial buildings put increasing strain on the system.

The number of households in the U.S. alone has grown from 52.8 million in 1960 to 127.59 million in 2018, according to Statista, while the number of appliances and electronics requiring power within those homes has also increased exponentially, with multiple TVs, laptops, smart appliances, sophisticated lighting systems, home automations, and more all drawing from the existing power supply.

Much like industrialization has polluted clean water supplies, just as population growth created more people who need clean water, the increasing demands on the electrical grid are resulting in inconsistent, unstable power leading to voltage sags, brownouts, and power surges.

Fortunately, for homeowners willing to invest the research time and the money, or to hire a qualified custom electronics integrator to help, there are solutions to today’s power challenges.

Photo iStockphoto.com/wx-bradwang

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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ISSUE FOCUS

The Power of Power | Isolating the Electrical Supply

“The best way to counter the effects of inconsistent power created by a variable grid is to regulate the voltage going into your electronic components and isolate the equipment from all the problems on the grid,” explained Ken Erdmann, cofounder and part owner of Springville, Utah-based Erdmann Electric, Inc. and the co-author of Fundamentals of Residential Electronic Systems, a CEDIA publication.

“To control power quality,” Kelm added, “one first has to look at the source of the power and how it is being distributed across the system. Ideally, all loads need to be divided into categories and isolated from one another.”

Three Types of Electrical Loads in Today’s Smart Home

Legrand brand Middle Atlantic Products offers its High Power DC Power Distribution series, specifically to manage power on the AV rack. Available in 200W and 300W models, both units offer high current capacity to up to 24 devices – maximizing the same voltage in a single unit, 5V, 12V, or 24V, or splitting between 12/24V.

The electronic devices in today’s homes fall into three categories: • Motor loads, which include refrigeration and air conditioning, which are certainly critical within the home but not reliant on clean and consistent power for optimal operation • Lighting and appliances, such as dimming circuits, microwaves, toasters, etc.

• Sensitive electronic loads, including audio video equipment and control systems, which require stable, clean, and consistent power for optimal performance The third category is the most susceptible to power spikes, surges, brownouts, and transients, which can be harmful or fatal to these electronic components.

“If you don’t isolate the electrical supply, it can lead to performance problems that users will see in video systems, hear in audio equipment, and experience in digital control and home automation systems,” Erdmann stated. “Fortunately, today’s technology provides solutions to the power problems that plague today’s homes and by following best practices for sensitive electronic loads, users can protect their gear from both

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Torus Power Isolation Transformers – not to be confused with power conditioners or surge protectors – decouple and isolate electronic components from the power source to eliminate transients and improve audio quality by dramatically lowering the noise floor while adding better dynamics, imaging, and bass.

Panamax’s single rack unit, 20 AMP 8 BlueBOLT, offers programmable outlets with auto reset capability.

sudden, catastrophic events and damage caused by prolonged exposure to unregulated power and improve the performance of their systems.”

Using Power Isolation and Voltage Regulation to Protect AV Gear and Improve Performance Isolating the power going to sensitive loads is the first step in protecting expensive equipment and improving audio, video, and control system performance. Toroidal isolation transformers specially designed for AV applications provide complete isolation of primary and secondary loads, a clean power supply for electronic systems, and attenuation of power line noise from 2kHz to over 1MHz. The low impedance provides instantaneous and consistent power, with reduction of noise and interference for improved visual fidelity and a brighter, cleaner soundstage. Simply put, audio has better dynamics, imaging, and bass, while video is noticeably crisper with brighter colors, deeper blacks, better contrast, and a more captivating overall image. Perhaps the most significant benefit of using isolation comes from removing artifacts and harmonics on the voltage supply that cause ongoing reliability issues for sophisticated modern home technology systems.

In addition to power isolation, voltage regulation plays a key role in AV system protection and performance. “In a typical North American system, the line voltage can vary from less than 90 volts to more than 130 volts,” Erdmann said. “It is critical to get that variance

to a steady output of 120 volts, ± 5 volts.” There are several ways to regulate voltage in sensitive electronic systems, including a full online UPS system, which adds battery backup to the inverter/regenerator design, delivering pure sine wave output even when utility power is lost.

“A battery backup system is important for components with microprocessors, but it shouldn’t be the only method of voltage regulation within a sensitive system,” Erdmann added. Multi-tapped isolation transformers that monitor and control the output voltage are able to seamlessly switch to the correct output voltage, delivering clean, uninterrupted power with no surges, sags, or spikes.

Power and Protect Your Home Technology Systems Like a Professional Recording and post-production studios have relied on power isolation and voltage regulation technology to segregate sensitive electronic loads for decades, with Kelm playing a role in designing some of that technology. Today’s smart home technology systems require that same level of attention to ensure clean power reaches critical components, improving reliability and enhancing the overall technology experience.

“Power and grounding are the heart of any electronic system,” Kelm noted. “Keeping voltage distortion, current harmonic, Normal Mode Noise, and Common Mode Noise to a minimum in a power distribution system, is absolutely necessary for reliable operation.” x

Best Practices to Power and Protect Sensitive Electronic Loads Choosing the right equipment for power protection and power management is the first step to cleaning up the “dirty” power that makes its way from the electrical grids into today’s homes.

Following documented best practices when choosing and installing power protection can make the difference between an enhanced technology experience that includes fully immersive audio and video and malfunctioning equipment, frustration, and unexpected costs when equipment fails due to inconsistent power.

In addition to ensuring that power loads coming into the home’s most sensitive systems are protected and regulated, these are the eight primary considerations when installing power management systems in a high-end home technology system: • A properly engineered and installed grounding system • Components should be connected to an electrostatic shielded isolation transformer • Power protection device should include low-pass filtering to attenuate EMI, RFI, and harmonics • Surge protection should be non-sacrificial to protect from power spikes and surges • Stranded wiring of adequate gauge should be used to feed receptacles • Distance from isolation transformer to outlets should be no more than 15 meters or 45 feet • Isolation transformer should use hospital-grade receptacles or equivalent • Battery backup power (UPS) should be available for components with microprocessors

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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ISSUE FOCUS

The Power of Power

Protecting Installations with Positive Power Habits

By Lauren Simmen, AMETEK Electronic Systems Protection The beginning of the year is a great time to start fresh and develop new, positive habits. For integrators, a power foundation is a good place to start to ensure that common power problems don’t disrupt system performance for new installations today and into the future.

The first step to preventing power problems is knowledge. We tend to think of electricity as constant and flowing, where whatever you plug into the outlet will start to work. If it didn’t work or stops working, a common first step is to check the equipment for broken or faulty parts. But what happens when a device fails, as does its replacement, or other devices in the system?

integrators communicate the need for a solid power foundation for any home system, as installing on top of known power problems can result in a finicky system that requires frequent reboots, product-replacement, and support.

SurgeX engineering team created surge elimination technology that does more than divert surges, it completely eliminates them with zero let-through to connected devices. The technology had a development breakthrough in 2005, and continues to advance; complete surge elimination, rather than suppression, is possible through multi-stage protection capability called Advanced Series Mode.

Conditioning equipment works to clean the power coming in from the utility from noise and electrical transients to prevent long-term degradation, and surge elimination equipment helps to protect against surges that occur daily as devices Instead of looking to the equipment power on and off. Key technologies to blame, poor power quality could be within these solutions include: the culprit when repeated damage is catastrophic over/under voltage present, affecting one or many devices.

SurgeX surge elimination technology uses multi-stage protection to insulate shutdown, inrush current Home technology professionals and against surges that occur daily as devices powers on and off. elimination, A-1-1 certified surge homeowners need to be aware of power Technology is the second step to protection. issues and how they can impact devices and protection, and multi-stage protection. The To create a solid foundation that will safeguard systems to properly diagnose and service them, equipment is built here in the U.S. to suit any project from these issues, integrators need as they occur commonly in almost any home installations of any size – from an average-size to understand these issues and know what to without proper equipment. In fact, power smart home to a large private yacht – and look for in power conditioning and surge problems are the root cause for up to 40 percent anywhere in the world. In addition to a surge elimination equipment. In cases where clients of system downtime, and there are many elimination solution, conditioning equipment are unsure whether to invest in a power different kinds: surges, spikes/sags, keeps systems running on clean power, without foundation, integrators can look to the facts electromagnetic and radio frequency harmful electromagnetic and radio frequency gathered from analytics devices like the interference, over/under voltage, ICE–inrush interference, to prevent downtime and device enVision. The device can be used to help dealers current, etc. (according to Florida Power). degradation. manage an installation or address power These interferences put devices offline when problems before starting installation. Remote Protecting against common power problems there is a power event; uneven power can slowly monitoring allows them to diagnose, prove, that are invisible to clients is a tiered process degrade equipment over time, or a large surge understand, and troubleshoot a home’s power that starts with understanding and can break down devices completely. issues, whether before starting a new installation communicating with the client. It can be to show the problems upfront or in a completed A general contractor, for example, wouldn’t simplified when integrators are armed with the project that’s experiencing problems like renovate a home without first addressing a crack proper knowledge, technology, and support. frequent downtime and equipment failure. in the foundation. A power foundation may be This year, set all of your installations up for included in an integrator’s first proposal, but success with a solid power foundation to avoid Quality power conditioning and protection could be chiseled out by a homeowner who system downtime and protect equipment’s equipment make good habits a no-brainer for doesn’t understand the value. It’s important that integrators to create a solid foundation. The lifespan. x

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

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INDUSTRY RELATIONS

Working with the One You Love How to Manage Proper Work/Life Balance When a Spouse or Sibling is Also a Business Colleague

By Jamie Briesemeister

Gary and Jarmila Singer are spouses and colleagues at Sound Living, in Barrington, IL. Jarmila says, “About half of the time, I wonder why we do this and yet, when it all works beautifully with our complementary skills, I’m reminded exactly why. I think we both truly love being our own boss, making our own schedule, and being in charge of our fate.”

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

INDUSTRY RELATIONS

When I tell people that I work with my husband (happily… most of the time), the reaction I get most often is surprise with a bit of, “I could never do that,” followed by a peering, “How can you do that?” Yet, many home technology firms – along with heating/cooling, electrical, plumbing, building, design, etc. – are comprised of people who work with someone they love. I know I’m not alone.

This can create a live/work/play trifecta of greatness or great struggle, depending on the strains that each side plays on the other. Chances are, it’s a balance of blurred priorities, social demands, and financial obligations. While a perfect formula for the infamous “work-life” balance is yet to be found, you have influence over how the scales move; it starts with setting healthy boundaries.

While your individual set of boundaries and what defines them will be unique to you and the people in your working relationship, I’ve noted a few common themes pulled from my own experiences and those shared by dear friends.

First, set working hours and hold true to them, while being flexible with life’s priorities. A dear friend and mentor, Mitchell Klein, once told me that since we owned our own business, we could “work any 16 hours we wanted in a day.” While his comment was half-true, it sparked the notion that I could, indeed, come home and “turn it off” so I could be “Mom.” My husband and I could enjoy dinner as a family with our child and, when the little guy was comfortably in bed, it was time to turn it back on and finish the last bit of work for the day.

Equally important is understanding that each of you may have roles and responsibilities that require different working hours. Mutual respect

(Top) Husband and wife colleagues Janeen and Shaka Gaskins extending a business trip to spend time together in Page, AZ. (Above) Pat and Valerie Johnson are husband-and-wife colleagues at UltraMedia Inc. in Richardson, TX. Valerie jokes, “Some days are better than others.” That’s their van being towed for service. (Right) Matt and Dana DeVance, Devance Electronic Lifestyle, Carrollton, TX, are not only married work colleagues, but they are also Platinum McIntosh Dealers. Their secret? “At the end of the day, there is never any business disagreement that keeps us from talking to one another and working things out,” Dana says.

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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INDUSTRY RELATIONS Working with the One You Love

Jeff and Jamie Briesemeister realized that they needed a way to try and keep work conversations at work and home conversations at home. They worked a system involving a “safe word” when the two worlds start blending too much together.

for each other’s working time goes a long way toward finding common ground.

Although early financial sacrifices and investments may be needed, draw a line in the sand about how deep you’ll go, and hold firm.

You are in business to make money, after all, so don’t get caught in the trap of not paying yourself what you are worth. Same goes for your spouse, relative, or friend. Early on or short term – fine – but not long term. It dilutes the true cost of business and is an inaccurate representation of your business costs. Think of it this way: what would it cost to replace you?

That’s the true cost of your worth. If you aren’t paying yourself that value, why? Work on changing it. Either pay yourself more or do less!

Ensure that the roles assigned to you or your loved one speak to your strengths and interests.

Is your spouse, once joyous with a sparkling

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

personality, now dying behind a computer screen punching in numbers because you don’t want to hire a real bookkeeper? Perhaps your sister hates her sales role and would do better at marketing strategy or business development?

The need for everyone to feel equitable and respected is important to avoid feelings of resentment or unjust treatment. Speak up if a role isn’t working for you. Listen if you are on the receiving end. Hire people to perform work you do not enjoy or are less proficient at doing.

Uncover your triggers and discuss them with an intent for a resolution, instead of seeking blame. For my husband and I, we needed a way to try and keep work conversations at work and home conversations at home. It was anxietyprovoking when they blended too much. I’d get overwhelmed and would shut down. Instead, we created a set of “safe words” that we use to

help the other person realize when it’s time to cut it off for the night. We picked a word we’d likely never say otherwise, to speak in the moment of frustration when conversations started to blend. It alerts either my husband or me to switch the conversation back to work or home, but not both.

So, if you are ever in our office and hear an emphatic one-word statement, “banana,” then chances are someone started a “home” conversation. When we are at home and a work conversation creeps up when it shouldn’t, it’s called a “banana split.” A simple solution to something that once was a source of frustration, now makes us smile. It was one of the first healthy boundaries we made with each other.

What’s yours going to be? x

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Cover Story

Penn Magician and Tech Enthusiast Penn Jillette Discusses Connected Technology and How Video Gaming is the New Rock n’ Roll

By Anthony Elio

Photo JSquare/The CW

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Tech

Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a magic competition, broadcast on ITV and The CW, in which magicians perform tricks in front of the magician-comedian duo for the chance to win a trip to Las Vegas to perform as the opening act in Penn & Teller’s show.

Photo Jacob Kepler/The CW

O

ne of writer Arthur C. Clarke’s famed “three laws” claims that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” While they often seem like opposite sides of the coin, the concepts of magic and tech definitely have their similarities, something that is apparent when speaking with Penn Jillette. The more vocal member of the magician entertainment duo Penn & Teller, Jillette has hands in both the tech and magic worlds. Best known for the illusions performed in his Las Vegas shows and television programs such as the CW’s Penn & Teller: Fool Us, Jillette is also very involved in the tech world, conceptualizing the game Desert Bus and making an appearance at the recent CES event.

Penn Jillette: You know, I just wanted to move to a place that was more conducive to my wife and children being happy. So we’re just in a community where they can walk to their friends’ houses and ride bikes, all of which was not true in The Slammer, which was in the geographical center of nowhere.

Additionally, Jillette is quite experienced in the world of home technology. His former home, known as “The Slammer,” was an architectural marvel with a full recording studio and theatre as well as seven bedrooms within over 7,900 square feet. In an interview with USA Today, Jillette himself referred to the compound as, “the house of a 12-year-old with a lot of money.” In this exclusive interview, Jillette opens up about how his new abode differs from The Slammer, problems with the current state of voice technology, and his experience in the world of gaming.

My family are early adopters. As my son said the other day to my wife, “You’re living a pretty good life when you don’t remember which digital assistant’s name you’re speaking.”

Residential Tech Today: You’re no stranger to interesting architecture from living in “The Slammer.” What makes your current home unique?

So we drove a tank through that and then we moved here. The art we have on our walls is eccentric. We have a lot of stuff by Tony Fitzpatrick and David Greenberger and Elliott Freeman. And we have a huge statue, by Davey Alvarez, of a gigantic pink insect Buddha that looks over Vegas. It was done by the Amazing Randi’s husband, who I guess still works under the name José Alvarez, although in day-to-day life he’s gone back to his real name, which is Davey.

RT Today: I saw that The Slammer also had a 14-seat movie theater.

PJ: We still have a theater in here that’s very nice. But you know, the thing about tech that’s so fascinating, if you bought a house that was built today, the tech in that house would be greater than the fanciest mansion five years ago.

We forget that progress is so amazing that even lower income people in the United States live better than any king did 300 years ago.

Just tech like refrigeration, gas stoves, all of that. So the stuff that I had built into my Bronco

25 years ago for self-starting and window control and stuff like that, is all standard issue on not just the Tesla, but even a non-rich a**hole car.

RT Today: Speaking of voice assistants, is there one that you prefer, or are they all interchangeable to you?

PJ: You know, I don’t think anyone has really nailed it yet. Voice recognition being at 98 percent, even 99 percent, is not nearly good enough. So we can’t really relax. You can tell when a person is doing voice-to-text in their messaging. You can tell. And until you can’t tell, it’s not really there.

And it will move very, very quickly, as processing power gets better, and so many people are working on it. You know, there’s this wonderful moment in tech when all of a sudden, it’s not tech anymore. All of a sudden it’s just part of your life. And when that moment happens, it’s really, really wonderful.

It’s pretty hard now to be on the cutting edge.

I mean, I had a really good stereo in the 70s.

And that stereo would not be nearly as good as anybody’s iPhone now. I’m also one of the people, although I have a turntable, and I do have a couple thousand vinyl records, I am not one of those people who actually thinks there’s a big difference in vinyl sounding better or smoother. MP3s can certainly sound better, but I’m not quite in the Neil Young camp.

The compression, I think more of the problem is in the engineering and less in the tech. But you know, I had fancy Dolby speakers, and now March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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FEATURED

Cover Story // Penn & Tech

Penn & Teller’s show at the Rio is the longest running headlining act in Las Vegas history.

Photo Jacob Kepler/The CW

$100 speakers blow them away. They were $1,000 speakers back in the 70s.

It’s just been the cliché that the average watch has more computing power than it took to get Apollo to the moon. That cliché, that trope, every time you think about it, is so profound. I mean, when you think about the computers in the 50s that could not touch, never mind the iPhone, could not touch a phone that has no features on it at all. It’s a pretty great thing.

So it’s very hard nowadays to be an early adopter, because the difference between early adopter and adopter is now measured in months.

RT Today: What tech trends have you been particularly interested in lately?

I’m desperately playing catch up with my children. My son is 12, so he understands things we can’t possibly understand. And I said to him, “You know, when I was your age, I listened to music all the time. I mean, that’s all I did was listen to music.” And my son said, “Dad, that’s because they didn’t have video games. If they’d had video games, you wouldn’t have listened to

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music, you would have played video games.”

And that sounds kind of so flippant, it sounds like I’m making fun of my son. Except the reason I’m telling you this is I think he’s right.

100 percent right.

When I was 15, I could listen to Blonde on Blonde a thousand times. Now, with a job and things like that going on, I can’t listen to anything a thousand times. And my son can play video games for hours and hours and hours, which I can’t do.

So I’m forced to be at this kind of distance.

But I believe that everything interesting artistically is happening in video games, and that I’m a little left out of the party. As John Sebastian of Loving Spoonful might say, “trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll.” I am, by necessity, one level removed from what’s really happening artistically.

And by the way, that’s what I love. I used to spend time in the 80s saying, “God, I really want a kind of music to come along that I don’t understand. I want that feeling my parents had of, ‘What the f*** is this?’ When the Sex Pistols

hit in the late 70s, I understood it immediately.

It was no stretch at all. I listened to Velvet Underground forever.

And all the music that came up in the 80s – Blondie and Devo and all of that stuff – is really simple for me. And then, when Eminem came along, easy. Nothing to it. But video games, I can’t quite get to. And it’s a wonderful feeling... to have something you don’t understand. And all of this I’m talking about, which seems like art, is always tech. Tech and art are always the same.

RT Today: Speaking of gaming, tell me a bit about Desert Bus. PJ: It’s considered to be that Penn & Teller tried to do the most boring, stupid video game ever. But that was not the case. It was a political art piece. Eddie Gorodetsky created the shows Mom and The Big Bang Theory. Eddie, one of the experts on the music throughout the world, won Emmys on Letterman, Saturday Night Live, everything. Funniest writer alive, and he’s a good buddy of mine.

Eddie and I were listening to Janet Reno, who

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Cover Story // Penn & Tech

was attorney general under Bill Clinton, and she had just lit Waco on fire, the Branch Davidians, and those children were dying. And Bill and Hillary Clinton came out very strongly against video games.

And then Janet Reno, the attorney general, who had just lit fire to a place with children in it, she came out and did this speech where she blasted video games, and then made a cry out to video game developers to make games that weren’t violent, that prepared people for real life.

And Eddie and I were listening to this speech, and we said, “What the f***?” That’s like telling Shakespeare, “Don’t have just kings and killing each other and s*** like that. Have just people working at a mead shop. Let’s not have any excitement or art in your plays. Let’s just have the boring.”

And then Eddie just kind of spit out the idea full blown. And I think the first thing he suggested was “toll booth operator.” We’ll just do a game that’s just toll booth operator, where cars just come through and you take 25 cents from them.

“ Voice recognition being at 98 percent, even 99 percent, is not nearly good enough. So we can’t really relax. You can tell when a person is doing voice-to-text in their messaging.

You can tell. And until you can’t tell, it’s not really there.”

Photo Francis George

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

And then, after banging it around a little bit, we said, “How about Desert Bus? And how about you have it drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas, an eighthour drive?” You have a limiter on the bus so it won’t let you go over 54 mph. It pulls a little to the right, so if you don’t correct it all the time, you’ll go into a ditch. And it’s absolutely real time, and absolutely nothing happens. Except, five hours in, a bug hits the windshield. And you can stop and you can open the door, and you can close the door, but no one gets on.

And when you do your full eight-hour shift, you get there, and it gives you one point and asks if you want to drive back. So, the point of it was really the strongest “f*** you” possible to the Clinton administration.

RT Today: I know the game has evolved now into a VR experience.

PJ: Yeah, we did a VR version. As a matter of fact, Randy Pitchford actually bought a bus so that they could make the details in VR absolutely perfect.

And I believe on the radio, in the VR version of Desert Bus, you can hear the Janet Reno speech. The only thing playing on the radio is Janet Reno talking about how she hates video games.

RT Today: In the past year, you made appearances at E3 and CES. What have you seen that’s really impressed you at those events?

Penn & Teller material varies from lighthearted gags such as graphic tricks and clever pranks to tackling issues through political satire and by exposing frauds.

Photo Jacob Kepler/The CW

PJ: Well, you know, I can’t skip over the fact, when talking about tech, that tech helped save my life. I was wicked crazy fat; I was 110 pounds heavier than I am now as I sit here, and my blood pressure was like voltage in the U.K., and I was doing badly. And a friend of mine, Ray Cronise, who founded NASA, had been working on ways for people to lose weight. And the first words he said to me were, “Buy Withings,” which stands for “Wi-Fi Things.”

You wouldn’t think that the internet would help with health/weight control, because it just has to do with not eating the American diet, right? How hard is that to do? You just change to a sensible diet.

But a scale that is Wi-Fi connected, that can do body mass and send it instantly to your doctor.

Now, of course, 30 years ago, you could weigh yourself and then call your doctor, or you could weigh yourself and then call a friend. You could do that. It was there, it was easy. But you didn’t.

You just didn’t. And the scale doing that makes a difference.

And we’re now doing a VR bit in our show. We bring someone up on stage and put a headset on them, and get them into VR and do a trick that moves from reality to VR and back and forth while the audience watches. And that’s all

[Gearbox Founder and CEO] Randy Pitchford and us. You know, Randy’s a professional magician. He’s not a dilettante, he’s not f***ing around. He’s a real magician. So, being able to work with Randy Pitchford on magic stuff where all he uses is gaming stuff is just incredible.

What interests me is this game we did with Randy, it’s all tricks you can play that bleed from VR into reality and back again. We’ve been working with Randy on that forever, because just doing the motion capture and getting all the pictures taken, and then using those VR puppets, is a difficult, long thing.

But it’s so, so exciting, and I love looking at the way VR looks now, which is mindblowing and primitive. That combination. Like, when you look at the kinescopes in the early movies, you know, you have that feeling that, “Boy, this is so primitive. It looks so s***ty.” And yet at the time, when they put a train on a movie screen, people ran away. They did that in the 19th Century.

RT Today: Outside of VR, in what other ways has tech really influenced your act over the years?

PJ: You know, that’s the thing about magic is, magicians used to be, 100 years ago, on the

cutting edge of technology. And magicians aren’t any longer, and the reason is very, very simple. The reason is just that technology is so much better publicized, and so much better communicated by everyone, that everybody knows everything.

So the kinds of things you could do with technology now, like having a computer with an earpiece being able to get all this information, all of that stuff, which we could think of to use technology for magic, the problem with that is, everybody else can think of it, too. Everybody knows everything.

And that really means that when you come to a live magic show, what you want to do most is just lie. The stuff that fooled people 500 years ago still fools people. And with very few exceptions.

Our VR bit uses VR as a kind of magic wand, but the real trick that we’re doing is that we’re using technology that’s 100 years old to make the trick happen. So, if you’re talking about the Penn & Teller show in Vegas, and you want to say what technological changes have been made, the answer is going to be moving the lights, spotlight, sound technology, and everything else that’s in every theater show. ❖ March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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INSTALLATION

r y u t n e 21st C m o o R Dorm

By Alex Moersen

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INSTALLATION

Paul Ostrin Shows How His Company is Upgrading Student Housing at University of Texas, Austin The dorm room is likely something that most people are familiar with. Whether from personal experience or a variety of movies or TV shows, you can likely imagine floors and walls adorned with dirty laundry and band posters. For many, the dorm room is a rite of passage, a first opportunity at true independence, a refuge from the watchful eye of strict parents. However, while the dorm still represents a certain new level of freedom, the modern dorm room looks different than it did even just 10 years ago.

With the constant proliferation of technology and smart devices in today’s world, many universities have been implementing upgrades. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that in 2014, Brad Zucker of Zucker Properties approached Paul Ostrin, CEO of Unlimited Integration, about integrating smart technology into a new multidwelling unit for students at the University of Texas, Austin. “I have this idea for student housing,” Zucker told Ostrin. “I feel that these kids love technology and if we go and really boast about technology, it’s going to help us lease significantly faster.”

Thus, Ostrin and his team set out to integrate technology into these three-, four-, five-, and sixbedroom units. The five- and six-bedroom units even had an option for an in-suite theater. “Basically, it’s just another bedroom,” Ostrin explained, “but without a closet, and instead we put in a 100-inch screen.”

However, every unit, even those without a theater, has a 60-inch TV, a receiver, a Savant control system, and an on-wall iPad. That was the first building that Ostrin outfitted for Zucker Properties.

Then, in 2016, Zucker came back to Ostrin with a new project. While the previous building had 15 units with in-suite theaters, this new one would have 35 theaters, and 15 units with what they called a “vanity room,” each of which included a Seura mirror TV. The units, with or without these specialty rooms, each included Savant control, Lutron’s Caseta lighting, an iPad with a Sonance LaunchPort mount, Sonance inceiling speakers, and a 65-inch LG TV. For the second project, they also revamped the common area. “In both buildings, we have full control of all the common areas on the Savant system, as well,” Ostrin explained. “We have iPads located around the building so the kids can walk up and control music around the pools and around the spa … It’s a very cool system.” They even installed an aboutGOLF simulator for students to use in the common area.

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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INSTALLATION

21st Century Dorm Room

Lessons learned from the last two projects have informed Ostrin’s strategy and decisions for a third project near University of Texas. For example, for the first project, they installed wall-mounted iPads. Then, the second year, they had to go in and replace many of the frames because people would pull on them and break them. Because of this, for the second and third projects, they used LaunchPort mounts so the iPads would be removable.

As another example, for the first project, they utilized a standard type of closet and put all of the equipment and boxes on shelves. “The kids just destroyed the shelf,” Ostrin explained. “We have to go back in and rewire them every year because people want to plug their own HDMI stuff in … So, on the second project we built racks and included wall-based HDMI ports in every unit so they can plug in a game system or even an HDMI splitter.”

The students’ feedback has provided a number of surprising lessons, especially when it comes to entertainment. As Ostrin explained it, “We expected cable cutting. Every year I think that we can go with no DirecTV service and let them do streaming, but when we poll the residents there, they’re like, ‘No, we want regular TV, too.’” Additionally, when they were considering putting TVs in the bedrooms, they found that students are happy to use their iPad or laptop to watch in their room and only want the TV in the living room.

Security was another learning point for Ostrin. “We tried to do security in the first building,” he said. “We thought that we’d cover the cost of all of the panels, so we went and bought 150 2-gig panels and installed them. I couldn’t get a single student to bite. They leave their doors unlocked all the time. Other than outdoor security, of course, the kids don’t care about any of that stuff. They don’t want alarms in their units. It’s been a learning experience for us on everything.”

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

Ostrin’s buildings come with a number of amenities: an outdoor pool (top left), a 60-inch TV in each living room (top right), and vanity rooms for some suites (bottom right).

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INSTALLATION

21st Century Dorm Room

Now, everything they have learned from the first two projects will culminate in the third. The upcoming building will contain many of the same features found in the first two, just updated versions of the tech.

“Going into our third project, we will have even cooler things,” Ostrin expressed. “We’re trying to be as up-todate as possible. We’re talking about more lighting control and colored strip lighting.”

However, when Ostrin approaches these projects, he doesn’t just install and walk away. His team makes sure that there is proper maintenance and tech support in place. “We’ve taught the maintenance guys how to do some basic resetting,” Ostrin said. “We go about once a quarter and they line us up with questions, if there are maintenance issues or anything like that.” Plus, because each room is designed and set up the same way, it makes installation and maintenance that much easier.

“Because the buildings are exactly the same, it’s muscle memory … Every single basic unit has the exact same program in it. It’s just changing the ID numbers and stuff like that. And every single theater room has the exact same program and every single vanity room has the exact same program.”

Technology is surely seeping into every home. For students, who will be growing up with smart technology in their homes, there is a new expectation – an expectation that technology will be present in their everyday lives. For universities and student housing developers trying to be competitive and attract more students, integrated technology into student housing may just provide an extra incentive.

“Nobody gets this kind of tech in student housing,” Ostrin concluded. “Brad Zucker completely equates that to having the right technology in the building and knowing what his clients want.” x

(Top Right) 5- and 6-bedroom suites have the option for an in-suite theater room. (Bottom Right) Ostrin collaborated with aboutGOLF to install a simulator in one of the common spaces.

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

WallSlide

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INSTALLATION

Custom Collaboration Indiana Home Tech Pro Helps Client Realize His Home Theater Vision

By Jeremy Glowacki | Photos Bram Wahl

Michael Foit’s fascination with James Dean inspired this unique design flourish in the theater next to the home pub he named “The Grange.”

When it came time to personalize the home he shares with his wife, Michael Foit envisioned bronze, copper, reclaimed wood, Star Wars, and cinema legends of the past (his wife is partial to fairies). It might seem like an odd combination, until you see it in person.

gaming area of his basement and not far from a custom bar area named, “The Grange,” and a custom theater that was designed by Eric Steining of Bloomington, IN-based Experience Technology with special details added by Foit himself.

When Foit wasn’t able to custom build his home in Zionsville, IN, he knew he had to find a way to make the seven-figure spec home his own. The owner of high-efficiency window supplier Apex Energy Group is a former actor who also enjoys painting and other designcentric hobbies. Foit’s artistic side came in handy, as he designed many of the custom elements that make his home unique.

Let’s start with the bronze and copper. “The whole house is done in bronzes,” Foit said on the start of our tour. “We spent $4,000 with Control4 on our switch plates alone.” Later in the tour, Foit showed me the copper drinking straws on top of his bar that are placed in copper caddies from England, copper menu covers from New York, copper liquor bottle pourers, 1880s fire extinguishers plated in copper, copper lighting pendants and sconces, napkins with “The Grange” name (font designed by

His father-in-law helped him design an exposed wine cellar that’s a focal point next to a

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

Foit) embossed in copper foil, custom bronze rivets (with copper center) and custom copper cupholders on his Lotus leather theater seating (thanks to Gabi Wolper at Fortress), and even bronze-colored weightlifting plates in his home gym. The bronze and copper serve to complement the reclaimed wood elements throughout the home. The red oak floors in the basement were converted by Appalachian Flooring from a West Virginia barn that was built in 1863. “I bought these floors even before I bought this house, knowing that I wanted them,” Foit said. “You just have to grab them when they’re available.”

Even the visible speakers (two subwoofers and two rear channels) in the home theater are built from reclaimed barn wood veneer that Triad

INSTALLATION

The wine cellar is within view of the theater.

(Below) A look back from the theater to the basement bar area.

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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INSTALLATION

Custom Collaboration

Close-ups of the starry ceiling, which includes custom features such as nebula, Mars, and the Death Star.

matched as close as possible to the floor’s material. The wood in the exposed wine cellar is not reclaimed, but Foit didn’t want it to look like just any other wine cellar, which are mostly hidden from view. This one needed to be built like a piece of art. The glass was custom fabricated by an Indianapolis company, and a firm out of Cincinnati built the racks in a way that you usually don’t see.

“I had them stained in that espresso color, which is actually kind of a big deal because most racks are just cedar, so they don’t contaminate the cork,” Foit said. “So, if you stain the wood, the VOCs from the stains could contaminate the cork and the wine. This company in Cincinnati had this water-based stain that doesn’t do that.”

All of the brick in the basement, whether in the gaming area (featuring 4K Xbox and vintage arcade games and, soon, a pinball machine), bar

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area, or theater, was added during his renovation. “When this was white drywall and the theater space was just bookcases, Michael’s comment that stuck with me was ‘the New York loft look,’” Steining said. “He had so much vision about what he wanted and just said, ‘Let’s make it work.’”

The Control4 system was programmed by Steining to play a “Gym” 80s playlist with “dim lighting” to “avoid the harshness of reality” (Foit is 49) and a “Pub Day” setting, which changes channels on the TVs above bar to ESPN and Nat Geo and makes the star field above the theater a little brighter. Hit “Pub Night,” and automated blinds covering a large egress window raise to expose a bricked-in window well with outdoor lanterns, creating a Ratskeller look outside the bar.

As cool as everything described so far is, the real centerpiece of the Foit home is the

dedicated theater, which, true to form, is a real original. Sure, there’s the aforementioned reclaimed wood on the Triad speakers and the custom rivets on the Fortress seating. But, it’s the details on the walls and ceiling that really make the theater a head turner. “Eric [Steining] and I have known each other forever and we’ve always dreamed of doing a theater together,” Foit said. “I think it turned out really nice.”

That was truly the understatement of the tour, though what you see in the open-ended theater isn’t over-the-top or garish. Yes, it’s classiclooking in a bricked-in German pub sort of way, but it’s the starry sky ceiling and famous faces on the walls that catch your eye. They’re not mere movie posters, mind you; they’re the familiar faces of movie legend (and native Hoosier) James Dean and legendary writer/director/ actor Orson Welles. “I’m a James Dean nut, and I’ve always loved this picture of him that I only saw once in a book that came out in 1974, so it’s

This home theater sconce is just one of many design elements. (Right) Triad fulfilled Foit’s wish of matching his theater speakers with the barn wood used on his custom flooring.

really obscure,” Foit said. “It shows him in a suit and tie instead of the typical leather jacket.”

Procuring that unique photo is a whole other story, but suffice it to say that a fortuitous connection to the James Dean Estate landed the only known print of the photo in Foit’s mailbox, with the simple request not to publish it and to insure it for $100,000 when shipping it back. “You won’t see this in any other theater in the world,” Foit said. The Dean photo is printed on acoustically transparent material and two-inch mineral fiber, as is the “mate” photo across the room of young Orson.

“One of my other heroes is Orson Welles, and this is also an unusual picture,” Foit noted.

He and Steining designed the room with arched porticos, knowing that they would put the faces there to set the tone for the theater. “I worked hard to find a picture of Orson Welles at the age of 23, because that’s Jimmy at the age of 23 in the other photo. They’re both wearing a suit and tie, and then I designed in Photoshop so that when you measure down from the top, their eyes are exactly at the same level. This is definitely the actor’s theater here.”

Now, about that starry ceiling. Steining told his client/friend that they weren’t as popular as they used to be, but that he knew just the right place to design it, and it was right up the

interstate in Lafayette, IN, home of Matt Call of Simplified Acoustics. The starfield was designed in Photoshop by Foit himself, and installed and programmed by Call. “Matt and his engineer were here forever,” Foit said. “We kept adding whips of light, lights that twinkle, and extending some of the stars up and some down to get depth. I added the Death Star as an homage to Star Wars. When you click ‘Wow’ and this goes into its full glory, the Death Star blinks SOS in Morse code. There’s actually a little Millennium Falcon that is flying out from it, too.”

And that’s only the beginning. When the Control4 system is set to “Pub Day,” the stars are really bright, but if you go to “Movie,” they fade, the blue sky is barely visible, and all of the galaxy and nebula patterns disappear. A dedicated Mac laptop drives the whole thing behind the scenes.

The Dolby Atmos 5.4.2 theater also features an Integra DRC-R1 preamp/processor, Sony project VPL-VW675ES, Middle Atlantic rack, Furman Reference Series power filter, and Stewart Filmscreen micro-perforated fixed screen with masking (150 inches diagonal in 2.35:1 or 120 in 16:9). Steining made sure to add a lot of acoustic absorption behind the screen to keep the Triad Gold LCRs from

bleeding into the gym area right behind the screen. The two Triad In-Rooom Silver Powersubs sit back in cut outs in the brick below the screen, and wool carpet was chosen for the space to reduce reflections from the brick. Art lights are aimed at the visible speakers to feature their craftmanship.

“I realize that having speaker out on display is a bit of an old-school thing, but I always thought that speakers should look like furniture,” Foit said. “Just like the wine cellar, you should be able to see this stuff. I really believe that when you see the equipment, you’re almost expecting it to rock. I love priming the pump like that. It’s like seeing the engine bay of your Ferrari or something. It means business.”

For Steining, the project was a great opportunity to help a friend realize one of his dreams by connecting him with equally passionate manufacturers and suppliers.

“To have a client like Michael who had an idea of what he wanted is unique,” Steining said.

“And being at this all of my professional career, I know that I can go to Stewart or Triad to make special requests because they are as passionate about what they do on the manufacturing level as I am for a client who knows exactly what he wants.” x March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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PRODUCT REVOLUTION

Two new products from OSD Audio enhance the streaming digital entertainment experience. Based on Class D amplifier technology (50 watts x 2-channels of solid power; 200 watts peak power), the Nero STREAM XD Wireless DAC/Streaming Amplifier gives users a compact but dynamic 2.1-channel wired and wireless streaming music solution. The amp’s wireless streaming solutions include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX. OSD Audio’s Nero Studio5 speakers were designed for a true monitor-grade performance at a budget-pleasing price. STREAM XD $299.95. MSRP Studio5 $199.95/pair

Atlona is now offering a Dolby Vision feature option for its OmniStream AV over IP platform. The new capability enables 4K Dolby Vision-enhanced video, at 60 Hz with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling and 12-bit color resolution, to be distributed over standard Gigabit Ethernet data networks. Available via download, the new capability is available for single-channel OMNI-121, dual-channel OMNI-122, and OMNI-521 networked AV decoders. Free download

The all-new speaker design employed in Atlantic Technology’s 8600e LR features internally braced non-resonant MDF cabinets housing seven new drivers configured in a D’Appolito/M-T-M array; four 8-inch fiberglass woofers, two 5.25inch fiberglass mid-drivers, and an advanced 1-inch aluminum/magnesium dome tweeter with a powerful neodymium magnet structure. The midrange and tweeter drivers are internally isolated within their own airtight sub-enclosure. The cross-over is a 4th order Butterworth asymmetrical timealigned Linkwitz-Riley design with bi-wire inputs. $2,599 each

An IMAX Enhanced firmware update for AudioControl cinema products enables the Concert AVR-7 and AVR-9 receivers and the Maestro M5 and M9 preamp/processors to feature DTS:X immersive audio decoding that is optimized to properly reproduce the full dynamic range of IMAX theatrical sound mixes available in IMAX Enhanced content. This proprietary IMAX audio mix is translated for home theater environments and exclusively delivered using a special variant of the DTS:X codec technology. Free with Firmware Update

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PRODUCT REVOLUTION Leveraging its CinematicColor technology and the latest DLP chipset, BenQ is now shipping the first sub-$10K installation projectors designed to deliver true 4K high dynamic range (HDR). The CinePro Series HT8060 and HT9060 4K UHD HDR projectors feature a chip that eliminates pixel shifting and blending, producing 8.3 million distinct pixels for true 4K UHD performance. Furthering color and contrast quality, the THX-Certified HT8060 utilizes BenQ’s CinematicColor and Rec.709. $7,999 (HT8060) and $8,999 (HT9060)

beyerdynamic’s new TEAM TYGR bundle pairs its TYGR 300 R gaming headphones with a FOX Professional USB Studio Microphone for gaming applications in quiet environments. The TYGR 300 R features an acoustic fleece with soft ear cushions.

The single-sided connection cable is terminated with a 3-pole, gold-plated mini jack plug and a screw-on gold plated adapter. The FOX Professional USB Studio Microphone boasts high-quality sound with features such as an integrated headphone output that allows listening in real time without any delays. $399 MSRP

DISH is offering Google Assistant for its Hopper family of receivers. Customers will be able to use the DISH voice remote to ask the Assistant to control smart home devices, provide weather and news updates, and display photos. Customers with a DISH voice remote and broadband-connected Hopper (all generations), Joey (all models), or Wally will have access to the Google Assistant. Free with Voice Remote; $20 Upgrade with No Voice Remote Nortek Security & Control is now shipping its new line of ELAN architectural speakers, which consists of 15 new in-ceiling and in-wall models. The 400 Series features half-inch tweeters and polypropylene cone woofers. The 600 Series features upgraded injection-molded polypropylene cone woofers and pivoting one-inch soft dome tweeters.

All seven 800 Series Speakers have a vocal enhancement switch that increases vocal clarity and enhances dialogue. Dealer Pricing

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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PRODUCT REVOLUTION

The 4312G studio monitor from JBL by Harman offers a modern take on the classic JBL loudspeaker. Utilizing a compact monitor-type footprint, the 4312SE features advanced JBL transducers, including the 12-inch (300mm) JW300SW-8 Pure Pulp cone woofer, the 5-inch (125mm) JM125PC-8 Polymer-coated Pure Pulp cone midrange, and the 1-inch (25mm) 054ALMg-1 Aluminum/Magnesium Alloy tweeter with waveguide. The speakers include front-panel, mid- and high-frequency trim controls. $2,500/pair, MSRP

The first set of headphones from the all-new KLH Audio, the Ultimate One are classic openair, over-ear headphones. They feature real ebony wood finished earcups complemented by handstitched headbands and ear pads made of premium-grade leather and filled with highdensity microfiber fill, all but ensuring the utmost in comfort and longevity. Inside are 50 mm (2-inch) pure beryllium drivers that deliver frequency responses of 18Hz -22KHz. $499 MSRP

Parasound’s new $599 Zphono XRM phono preamplifier bridges the price gap between the $200 Zphono and $1,495 Halo JC 3 Jr. The new model includes balanced XLR outputs, a switchable rumble filter, a mono-stereo switch, plus continuously variable load adjustment for moving coil cartridges. Separate input jacks and independent circuitry for MC and MM cartridges allow it to accommodate two turntables. It uses the company’s compact 1U high x 8-1/2 inches wide chassis. $599 MSRP

The new PSB Speakers Alpha Series is comprised of four models, available in a choice of Walnut or Black Ash finishes. In PSB’s new Alpha range, the P3 and P5 are classic two-way bookshelf designs that are both compact and versatile. The T20 tower adds an additional woofer in a larger floorstanding cabinet, yet occupies a small footprint. The C10 center channel speaker can be used as the center or dialog speaker in a home theater or could also be used for music. P3 ($199 per pair), P5 ($349 per pair), C10 ($299 each), T20 ($599 per pair)

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

PRODUCT REVOLUTION IP Video Tiling is now built into Savant’s IP Video input and output modules (with video processing) and can be offered with no specialty equipment required. The feature allows for viewing of multiple sources at the same time on a single display. Unlimited sources can be connected to Savant’s IP Video distribution system with tiling, only limited by the size of the network. All features are built in. Free with IP Video

Eleven Engineering Inc. has launched the new SKAAcompatible Aquarius Wireless Speaker System from Dillinger Labs that are transparent in both style and operation. The matched pair, bi-amped speakers join Helix headphones in the Dillinger Labs lineup of studio-quality monitors and headphones. When a pair of Aquarius speakers is purchased, the buyer will receive a coupon for a free SKAA transmitter of their choice. $999 MSRP

The Aeon CineGrey 5D – AT Series from Elite Screens is a fixed-frame projection screen that is perforated for acoustic transparency. The screen format is mounted using a stylish Edge Free design. The screen features Elite’s proprietary CineGrey 5D ambient and ceiling light rejecting (ALR/CLR) projection material. The 1.5 gain angular reflective surface delivers outstanding picture clarity, contrast, and color temperature and retains 88-percent polarization during 3D presentations. PRICE

With a shared commitment to superior sound and great design, Sonos and Sonance have partnered on a collection of architectural passive speakers optimized for Sonos Amp. When paired with Sonos Amp, Sonos In-Ceiling by Sonance allows you to use Trueplay, which accounts for the size, construction, and furnishings of the room where the speakers are placed and automatically adjusts the EQ for the best possible sound.

Power up to three pairs of Sonos by Sonance Architectural speakers with a single Sonos Amp for greater sound coverage and more immersive listening. In-Ceiling $599/pair, In-Wall $599/ pair, Outdoor $799/pair

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ART & TECH

Form Following Function RAYVA Adapts Turnkey Theater Concept to Accommodate New Design Features

By Jeremy Glowacki | Photos Phillip Ennis and Antonia Papatzanaki

RAYVA was launched in 2016 by home technology industry veterans George Walter, Theo Kalomirakis, and David Rodarte to provide turnkey dedicated home theater designs to the custom integration channel. The company has evolved in the past two years to accommodate dealer partner requests for more flexible products used in its theaters and most recently in how the company designs and ships the acoustical panels and integrated LED lighting fixtures that make up several of its room styles.

In its initial lighting-centric designs, the company had created the decorative and acoustical wall coverings out of wooden panels wrapped in fabric, with brackets for lighting elements. “As we got into our design concepts that featured LED lighting, we had to change our production a little bit,” Walter explained.

“The first tier of products that we had, the panels were all acoustic panels (absorption, reflection, or diffusion) wrapped in acoustically transparent material. It could have print on it (colors, images). They were fundamentally a panel that was wrapped, and then we had a unique way of mounting that on the walls. But, once you added lighting elements, there’s weight and complexity to the design.”

Those elements proved to be expensive to ship and awkward at the jobsite, due to the size of the crates required to contain them. So, Kalimirakis and retired integrator Paul Stary (formerly of Brilliant AV in Southern California) went back to the drawing board and created an acoustical panel/lighting rig combination that can collapse

down into a relatively small shipping container and fit back together on the jobsite.

“Now you can make this big structure in a couple of minutes,” Walter said. “Then the acoustically transparent fabric that goes around the outside works like a fitted sheet. Form follows function.”

Those building-block elements can be used for all of RAYVA’s different designs, so the company can produce the design elements in higher quantities. This system enables RAYVA to use the same backbone for seven different turnkey designs.

While many consumers want a “custom” theater, RAYVA knows that repeatable design efficiency reduces labor costs for the integrator and simplifies manufacturing as well. And while RAYVA’s designs are not “custom,” the company maintains that its designs can be “personalized” to a client’s preferences.

“Our theaters can be unique to each customer, even though everything behind the scenes is a ‘rinse and repeat’ design,” Walter explained.

RAYVA offers custom themes, where a client selects high-resolution images and prints it on acoustically transparent material (think sports themes, “Daughters of the Sea,” and “James Bond, 007”). It also offers the aforementioned LED lighting-centric design like “Light Edge,” “Illuminations,” and “Origami,” (featuring intentional folds, bends, and angles and sleek triangular acoustics backlit with customizable LED lighting) that are relatively similar, with custom touches. x

(Top) Rayva President George Walter. (Right) Rayva provides a bevy of customer themes reflecting various interests as well as LED lighting-centric design.

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ART & TECH

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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MEET-UP

Events

The HTSA Spring Conference will take place in Chandler, AZ.

APRIL

MAY

3-5

Azione Unlimited Spring Conference Bonita Springs, FL

23, 25

Southern California Technology & Business Summit Irvine & Los Angeles, CA

JUNE 8-14

Infocomm, Orlando, FL

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Residential Tech Today | March–May 2019

15-18

HTSA Spring Conference Chandler, AZ

29-May 3

The ProSource Spring Meeting San Antonio, TX

Azione Unlimited brings its spring conference to Bonita Springs, FL, this year.

9

Toronto Technology & Business Summit, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

21, 23

Texas Technology & Business Summit Houston & Dallas, TX

COMING UP

Residential Tech Today

COMING ISSUES May/June

The Commercial Crossover. With the Googlefication of the workplace, more and more corporate office environments are reflecting the same technologies found in the most advanced intelligent homes.

July/August

How Remote is Remote? The evolution of home control technology has involved not only voice integration and cloud-based infrastructure, but the incorporation of new security technologies and inhome health monitoring to allow an aging population to remain in their residences longer, and more safely.

September/October

The Voice-First Revolution. Smart speakers driven by voice control have been one of the most successful consumer electronics trends in history. Yet, most of these devices are used for only a fraction of their full capability. What will it take for smart speakers to become the hub of the smart home or will they always be just one input into a more sophisticated system? How will consumer behavior, expectations, and the user experience play out in a voice-first world?

November/December

Clean Living and the Healthy Home. The smart home is great and the intelligent home is even better, but what about the healthy home? New technologies and better science are finding ways to help homeowners from all economic strata live in environments with cleaner air and water, as well as more natural lighting. Find out what opportunities exist for single-family and multi-family homes, and how technology integrators and forward-looking architects are leading the way.

Photo iStockphoto.com/wayra

March–May 2019 | Residential Tech Today

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RELAX

The Lighter Side

A Walk Through the Social iTunes iTunes FitFinder FitFinder Media Graveyard Ping Ping

By Anthony Elio

Social media has become a nearly essential part of our everyday life. We’ve all found our eyes drifting to social notifications when we know we should be paying attention to a ball game, movie, or relative’s funeral that we’re attending. But, despite the power of time-wasting apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, not every social media site has been as successful at attracting users and stealing their personal data. Let’s take a walk through the large, depressing graveyard of attempted social media platforms.

iTunes iTunes Ping Ping

FitFinder FitFinder

FitFinder

iTunes Ping

Have you ever wanted to confess your crush on someone in a way that’s creepier than simply starting a conversation but less unnerving than posting in Craigslist personals? Then FitFinder was the website for you!

Launched with UK campus libraries in mind, Fitfinder allowed you to “find a fitty” that had caught your eye by posting a simple description.

As you could imagine, the website commonly featured simple, romantic posts, such as “Female, Blonde.

Gorgeous blonde. I mean I didn’t think these existed in Cam. Red stripey top. Wah wah wee wah,” and “Female, Brunette, saw you walk through, WANT YOU.” Truly a showcase of the chivalrous vocabulary of a UK library user.

Looking to be a more musicfocused social network, iTunes Ping was Apple’s 2010 attempt to continue making a whole lot of money. The site was meant to connect users and make purchasing songs on iTunes extremely simple.

However, the service failed to get much of a following, folding in late 2012. This is likely no shock to anyone that watched Steve Jobs give a keynote on iTunes Ping where he demonstrated the massive potential of the platform by commenting “Cool photos” on a post by Jack Johnson.

Yahoo!

Yahoo!

360360

Illustrations by Freepik

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TheThe Rest Rest

Yahoo!

Yahoo!

360360

Yahoo! 360/Kickstart/ Mash/Meme Now, I know what you’re thinking.

“Yahoo! has failed at something?”

Well, I’m as surprised as you are, but Yahoo! has had their fair share of doomed social media attempts throughout the years. Yahoo!

Kickstart and Yahoo! Mash both lasted a year, Yahoo Meme survived three years, and Yahoo! 360 trucked on for a notable four years. It’s too bad that these all ended up falling short, as the company has a pretty high success rate outside of Yahoo!

Screen, Yahoo! LiveText, Yahoo!

Games, Y! Live, Yahoo! Messenger, and Yahoo! Music Unlimited.

TheThe Rest Rest

The Rest And those were just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to deceased social media sites. Mugshot, created in 2006, was surprisingly not a dating site for the recently incarcerated. Yik Yak offered anonymous discussions, which is a terrible idea if you know anything about people that use the internet.

Classical Lounge was a social networking site specifically for fans of classical music, which was most likely unsuccessful because it was a social networking site specifically for fans of classical music. Even Google has tried and failed numerous times to break into the social media world, meaning they never simply took the time to search “How to start a social media platform” on Google. While the ever-growing list of social media sites may seem bleak, it has given me a brilliant idea: A social media platform specifically for CEOs of defunct social media websites.