I don’t want to jinx anything, but sitting here at the end of 2024, I think it’s safe, at least for now, to breathe a sigh of relief. Another grain passed through the hourglass and boy did it cause a ruckus. The integration industry has seen quite a bit of activity in 2024, and now’s the perfect to gather round the symbolic hearth fire (replaced now by the electric glow of whatever screen you may be reading this from) and read up on the stories and headlines that caught the attention of CE pros this year.
As per usual, we’re taking a few elements into consideration with this list of top news headlines for the custom integration industry in 2024. Namely, we’re looking at:
The goal, hopefully, is to come up with a highlight reel that simultaneously depicts some of the biggest events in the industry this year as perceived by integrators, while also spotlighting topics that seemed to capture everyone’s attention.
So without further explanation, let’s look at the top headlines that helped to define the custom integration industry in 2024.
Recurring revenue has long been an aspirational goal of many custom integrators, and to Snap One’s credit, they’ve been trying hard to make that dream a reality with the likes of OvrC. So when the company rolled out Control4 Connect and Control4 Assist, it’s not too surprising integrators took notice.
Lightapalooza took place in late February, and the growth of the event has mirrored the rapid ascension lighting fixtures and controls.
Similar to OvrC, Control4 Assist is a proactive remote support system designed for system maintenance. Unlike OvrC, however, Control4 Assist puts the task of ongoing support into the hands of Control4, rather than that of the integrator.
Snap One is usually the one making headlines with its buyouts, such as when it acquired Clare Controls back in 2022, or perhaps its blockbuster merger with Control4.
However, in a move that nobody likely saw coming, Resideo bought out Snap One. The colossal deal, finalized in June 2024, saw Snap One and ADI, two massive distributors in the CI in space already, merge under a single parent umbrella, with the two executives heading these respective firms pretty optimistic over their future with Resideo.
Despite this year’s CEDIA Expo pulling in fewer attendees compared to previous years, interest in the show has not dampened in the slightest, with wide-eyed newcomers to the space like Hagan Kappler of Daisy and industry vets like Amanda Crigar expressing their enthusiasm for the show.
The hub page for CEDIA Expo news ended up being one of the most viewed pages on the site with people still popping in to catch up now that the show has long since concluded. Air fare might be thrashing travel budgets, but people still want to make sure they’re not in the dark when it comes to all the goings on at the show.
It’s the nightmare of any integrator walking in on a retrofit project. How do you fix a broken system if it turns out the person or company the system was tied to has long since gone defunct?
While the pro space has displayed significantly more stability over the years compared to the DIY space, there are still stories like that of Orro that have seen companies unceremoniously snuffed out, and despite Brilliant being largely seen as DIY, it still has shown up in a handful of integrator projects, making the potential shuttering of Brilliant a pertinent reminder of some of the risks involved in installing these systems.
We will say, however, that Brilliant has since found a buyer, so there’s at least some good news there.
Maybe it’s more people wanting to keep up to date with the industry. Maybe there was an air of uncertainty about how things were going heading out of 2023. What we do know is that there were certainly a lot more people this year looking at the CE Pro State of the Industry Report this year
Despite HomeKit not usually factoring into professional installs, Apple still has a surprising presence in the pro space, something further exemplified by this year’s CEDIA Expo. However, it’s likely the most ubiquitous Apple product in a smart home is the iPad as a control interface, and with Apple supposedly releasing a dedicated control interface very soon, it’ll be interesting to see how its role in the smart home changes (if at all).
The home theater category saw a tremendous resurgence in popularity this year, so it comes as no surprise that people are interested in seeing what the industry has to offer. Richard Charschan has Home Theaterology, and we have our roundup of many of the home theaters that have been featured in the magazine throughout the year.
We originally penned this article upon noticing that a lot of brands this year announced competitors to the acclaimed Samsung The Frame. These include TCL’s NXTFRAME, Hisense’s Canvas TV, and Skyworth’s C1. The fact that so many people then read up on this phenomenon shows that there was at least a similar intrigue in the new trend of art TVs that caught the attention of integrators.
Closing the year out after the Resideo and Snap One acquisition, Bose had news of its own. After selling off its Pro division last year, the company bought out McIntosh Group, putting two massive audiophile brands under the company’s roof and leaving many to question what the future of these brands might be.
In another major industry move, two titans of the industry announced a merger that would combine Gramophone’s design and installation business, with World Wide Stereo’s store infrastructure. Following the announced merger, the two companies declare the move as a “fusion of strengths” between the companies.
As it turns out, there was a ton of interest in products this year, with a significant number of our round-ups receiving their fair share of attention. Unsurprisingly, a lot of them had to deal with home entertainment, with streamers, loudspeakers, and big-screen TVs heavily in focus. We also had a surprising number of people checking in to this year’s Brand Analysis of the CE Pro 100. Could it be more people interested in what the most successful companies view as their go-to products? Maybe.
Here’s a quick list of all the products we caught pros peeking in at:
The post 2024 Lighting Controls and Fixtures Report appeared first on CEPRO.