Strategy in TECH...
High Note Sales, a custom integration-focused manufacturer sales representative firm based in Boca Raton, FL, announced this week that it has expanded its team – adding Sammy Garber as Vice President of Sales. Garber is well-known throughout the state of Florida having worked in various roles in the industry there for many years.
Only six months to go and word has emerged that the Consumer Technology Association – the trade group behind the annual Consumer Electronics show – has proactively taken steps to avoid repeating the mistakes that caused them to endure a plethora of embarrassing headlines last year. The controversy, a self-inflicted wound, surrounded the Association’s awarding – then rescinding – of a CES 2019 Innovation Award…and retroactive cancellation of booth space for that company. The news dominated the early headlines during the January 2019 event…mostly because the matter involved sex.
Perhaps this story will be a bit of a mirror of my experience from CE Week, some short takes on the interesting stories and technologies I uncovered there. Nothing was particularly earth-shattering…but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t many interesting items. So I encourage you to read on…
At CE Week last month, I was prepared to see the usual crop of gadgets and doodads designed to be sold to the masses through the retail channel. However this year, I was pleased to see a few more exhibitors offering products responsive to the custom integration channel. That includes the acoustics experts from Acoustic Innovations.
Smart home and security solutions were all over CE Week last month in Manhattan at the Jacob Javits Center. One solution I saw that hits both of those markets was the cleverly designed Smart Safe by Motorola. Didn’t think you needed your really dumb safe to be smart? Didn’t think you needed a safe at all? You may rethink all that when you hear Motorola’s pitch for their Flex and Bolt Smart Safe.
One of the more interesting booths I visited at CE Week earlier this month was by a company called Plott, a startup that offers very cool digital interactive measuring tools featuring augmented reality (AR) – or what they like to call extended reality (XR) – technology that interacts with an app on your smartphone in remarkable ways. This could be a game changer not only for the consumer, but for the construction, remodeling, custom integration communities as well.
On Tuesday, Lenbrook invited members of the media to an “intimate album listening party” in Manhattan’s trendy Soho district. Despite the fact that the weather was less than cooperative – with warm, extremely humid temps, and at times torrential rainfall – there was an bar and hors d’oeuvres, which is always a strong draw. Maybe a strong enough draw to entice an editor from New Jersey into Manhattan in the traffic and the rain!
But this listening party turned out to be a bit of a preview opportunity for an interesting and relatively new product – a streaming amplifier. And not just any streaming amplifier, mind you – but a streaming amplifier being launched in the NAD Master series. That got my attention…
At CE Week in Manhattan last week, I ran across Kangaroo, a simple home security system that just might disrupt the professional security world. Systems are simple, hubless, expandable, and incredibly affordable…what’s not to like?
CE Week, a production of the folks from CT Labs (publishers of Dealerscope, Technology Integrator, Connected Design), launched their latest iteration of of the event last week again at the Jacob Javits Center in midtown Manhattan. The gods were smiling on the promoters…granting them stunningly beautiful weather that was brightly sunshiny, with deep blue skies, and insanely comfortable temps in the mid-70s. What a dramatic contrast from the normal mid-June heat, humidity, and rain that is much more typical.
Innovative architectural loudspeaker designer/manufacturer James Loudspeaker announced this week that it will split off its Mavericks theater products into their own division, the Mavericks Architectural Cinema (MAC) division. This new division will offer the company’s dramatic Mavericks theater speakers for both the high-end residential and commercial cinema installation markets.
