Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Residential Systems.
A typical CEDIA Expo interaction starts with the same two questions: “How have you been?” followed immediately with, “What have you seen that’s cool?”
I’ll be honest; this is the first time in a while that I struggled with answering that second question. Not that there weren’t tons of cool things at Expo, just that I didn’t really see too many new things that really stood out. This year’s Expo felt far more evolutionary than revolutionary, with manufacturers introducing updates or showing the products that they talked about last year. In fact, I had several manufacturers mention that tariffs had really put a damper on product development this year, but that they’d be back with lots of cool new stuff next year.
However, there were some things, trends, moments that grabbed my attention, so here’s a list of my favorites from the Expo!
Most Demo’d
Without a doubt, F1 was the most demonstrated clip at Expo this year. Think I saw that “24 Hours of Daytona” race clip about five times. Fortunately, it sounded great in the huge demo rooms, with cars racing around the room and the fireworks exploding overhead. Saw the flamethrower fight from Ballerina twice, and the classic “Two minutes, fifteen seconds” from Top Gun: Maverick made an appearance, as did “In the Shallows” from A Star is Born. Other than F1, manufacturers seemed to be mixing it up a bit more this year, which was nice!
Lengthy Chats
One of the best things about Expo is the chance to talk to the decision makers at companies you do business with, those you want to learn more about, and those you’ve become friends with over the years. This year, I got the opportunity to spend some real quality time with several people who fit into these boxes, and you come away from these encounters feeling the passion these folks feel for their brand and the industry.
I got to bend Arnaud Laborie’s (Trinnov CEO) ear for over an hour, and it was fascinating to hear his thoughts on movies and the industry, discuss the company’s new AltitudeCI processor, and learn some history of how the company came to market. There’s not much I don’t know about Kaleidescape, but hanging with Andre Floyd (director of technical marketing) and chatting about movies and features was great. I got a deep dive into L-Acoustics’ HYRISS system from Nick Fichte (business development director) and bonded over shared sleepwalking stories. I spent over an hour getting an excellent one-on-one madVR Envy demo from CEO Richard Litofsky, and it’s pretty obvious why this processor was being used in so many projector and video wall booths, and why I want to bring it in for a review.
Hunter Douglas’ Scott Stephenson (Sr. Director of product) took a small press group on a tour of the company’s Broomfield campus, and it was amazing to see how the company’s products that end in “ette” go from raw material to finished product. I was also fortunate to have several great evenings with dinner and drinks with Veronica Esbona (TIG Global PR), Melissa Andesko (Lutron’s chief brand ambassador), Kim Lancaster and Olivia Sellke (Lancaster Communications), and Jeff Hayward and Molly Barnes (Wildwood PR).
Bucket List Check Off
I’ve been going to Expo since 1998 and CES since the early ’00s, so there aren’t too many products that I’ve never had a chance to experience, but this year I got to check one off my list: the iconic Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus loudspeakers. These iconic, snail-shell-shaped speakers are celebrating their 32nd anniversary, and while I’d seen them a few times over the years, I’d never had a chance to actually hear them. This year, B&W had a working system setup up in a room in Le Meridien across from the convention center, and I finally got to hear it driven by a quad stack of Marantz Model 10 amplifiers. The speakers — which now retail for $120,000/pair — were finished in a gorgeous Ferrari-red gloss that had incredible depth and imaging, and it was a thrill to finally audition them.
Paul Hales Demo
Sitting through a Paul Hales (Theory Audio/Pro Audio Technology) demo is like attending a 20-minute Master Class on how to give a presentation. God help us if Paul ever decided to sell time shares, because I guarantee you that we’d all be spending two weeks a year down in Orlando! This year, he started off his presentation by telling everyone in the room, “You’re all doing it wrong.” He then works through his demo, telling you what he’s going to show you, showing you, and then explaining what he just showed you. It’s smooth, it’s polished, it’s funny, it’s engaging, and it’s real. It doesn’t hurt that he’s also got the products to back up the talk, with a bass slam in a massive room that was so jarring I saw several people jump in their seats. Year after year, Paul’s demonstrations are consistently the best at the show and one of the few that I RSVP for in advance to make sure I have a seat.
L-Acoustics HYRISS
This was on my preview list of things I was looking forward to, and this was one of only three HYRISS systems deployed in the world. HYRISS (Hyperreal Immersive Sound Space) is designed to acoustically transform a space in the home into a variety of listening and living spaces, using a minimum of 12.1.9 speakers, stacks of amplification and processing, and active microphones to convert the space into different uses. I’ll admit, the demo left me a little confused as to the actual application for HYRISS and I told Nick Fichte as much. But after he explained the system and its real-world application, the lightbulb went on. Imagine not being tied to the “this is the front of the room” mentality of a typical theater layout, but being able to enjoy stereo audio in a seating area off to the side, another stereo area in the back of the room by a fireplace, giving the club a nightclub vibe for playing live music, or using the speakers to create give the room a more spacious, open feeling with sound. HYRISS is unique, and in the right space, could unlock a lot of options for how to have great sound in a multi-use room instead of just being a theater.
LED Walls
As expected, MicroLED video walls were prevalent at the show, and while they’re still nowhere near “inexpensive,” they are definitely getting less expensive. It’s tough not to love this technology, as they have brightness that easily competes with ambient lighting, achieves near true-black, and has HDR for days. AWALL was showing at Expo for their second year, and the company offers a 162-inch 16×9 screen with 1.2-pixel pitch in its C-Series for $37,800, which is certainly doable in a large project. The company debuted its upgraded I-Series — brighter, blacker, more contrast — which is offered in 0.7-, 0.9- and 1.2-pixel pitches, with a 162-inch ranging from $78-160,000, depending on pitch. (AWALL said that multiplying the pitch by 10 determined how far away in feet you could watch without seeing seams.) Just Video Walls had a massive 217-inch video wall that players were race-gaming on, which was incredibly immersive. Barco Residential debuted its Runar, which has DCI-certified HDR performance, and TruePix Bifrost, which is meant for high-brightness applications while being more energy efficient.
However, for the fourth straight year, the panel that won my eyes and heart belongs once again to Quantum Media Systems. The company displayed a 20-foot version of its XDR4-8K, a 0.7-pitch panel that now supports 8K input signals up to 48 Gbps. I’m really susceptible to seeing seams or dimples in these systems, and that is never an issue with the Quantum walls; it’s just a pure, beautiful, super detailed, bright and contrasty image. Part of that is the hardware Quantum uses, while another is the extensive white-glove calibration and installation Quantum performs on every wall that is deployed. To me, the Quantum walls are like watching a massive QD-OLED panel. You know how people say if they won the lottery, they’d do this-or-that? I’m calling Ken Hoffman and team and getting the biggest damn Quantum wall I can fit into my new mansion! Five stars, would recommend!
Lights and Shades
These are the fastest-growing categories in our industry, and there’s no shortage of choices in either of these segments. On the lighting side, Lutron once again had its terrific experiential “day in the life” walkthrough showing how Ketra lighting and shading can be used to change the feel and environment in a space, either using color to bring out the depths of a painting or tunable white lighting to help with Circadian rhythms. Lutron also announced its Native by Design program that merges Lutron intelligence with “world-class design partners to create experiences that redefine how spaces look, feel, and function.” One of these partnerships is with Coastal Source, renowned for its high-performance outdoor lighting and audio systems. Lutron will be embedding its intelligent lighting — including Ketra and Rania — directly into Coastal’s outdoor fixtures, enabling a truly premium outdoor experience.
On the shading side, Hunter Douglas impressed me with two different products. First was adding PowerView Automation to unusually shaped windows, named “arches and angles.” The company will take field-measured templates for these windows and make custom shades, allowing automation to happen on almost any window shape. Hunter also debuted its Pirouette A Deux, which is a super elegant dual-shade solution for its PowerView line. This allows a huge range of diffusion for allowing daylight and preserving views, and full privacy/blackout when needed.
Josh AI X OS
The Josh.ai booth was once again crowded throughout the show, and if you sat through the demo, you got a great idea of how Josh’s new AI X OS platform has been streamlined and updated, while also allowing for a ton of customization by the end user. Josh is also heavily leveraging AI to help users more easily and quickly create scenes. Now you can speak to Josh and say something like, “Create a scene where guests are coming over from Italy to create a chill lunchtime vibe,” which will then use AI to generate a full lighting, music, and shading scene that can be quickly launched and edited by a client. Another cool feature was JoshVision, which uses real-time AI to analyze what cameras are seeing and then announces this to homeowners with a detailed description of what is happening.
Most Unexpected Find
Expo is definitely filled with cool stuff, but let’s be honest, most of it you’ll look at and then likely never give a second thought or use in the real world. I’m always looking for that thing that I wasn’t aware of that I will go back home and use on jobs, and this year I found it in the Sanus section of the Legrand AV booth. There, the company was showing three models that showed how much thought they put into the design. Two of them — WSSATM1-B2 and WSSAWM1 — are designed for Sonos Arc Ultra bars, the SAT to integrate with an arm mount and the SAW on its own. These mount flush tight to the wall right below the TV, but then allow you to pull the bar out up to 5 inches so the upfiring Atmos speakers can clear the TV for better sound. That’s brilliant. The third product, the VLF828, has an ingenious 4D + Shift feature that allows the TV to raise or lower ± 4 inches after install. Why? Say the customer decides to add a soundbar — or gets a larger/smaller bar — or they want to occasionally have the TV higher to place things on a mantel beneath it. Smart!
Remotes – Small is the New Big
No one loves a good remote like the CI industry, and this year both Crestron and Josh.ai unveiled a couple of cool models that buck the bigger-is-better trend by going smaller, smarter, and more streamlined. As Crestron says of its new Cevo Mini Remote, “Simple doesn’t mean limited, it means focused.” With the use of dynamic, interactive “cells” that can be personalized and change depending on the application — media, lighting, shading — the Cevo also has haptic feedback with each press to let you know it received the command. Josh took a similar, less-is-more approach with its new Edge Remote after polling users about which remotes they liked the best. The answer? AppleTV and Roku. Based on that, the Edge has just 16 backlit buttons for simplified control over TV and media, along with battery life measured in months. With the microphone button, the Edge Remote can also launch any Josh-related automation.
Pickleball Meetup
For the second year, I ran a pickleball meetup on Tuesday before the show began. This year we played indoors at 3rd Shot Pickleball in Wheat Ridge, and had over 60 players and 19 sponsors, including Autonomic Controls, CEDIA, Crestron, Daisy Co., Hunter Douglas, InGear PR, Josh.ai, Just Add Power, KMB Communications, L-Acoustics, Legrand AV, Level Up Automation, Origin Acoustics, RoseWater Energy, Somfy, Stealth Acoustics, Steinway Lyngdorf, Theory/PRO Audio Technology, and TIG Global PR. The event was a blast and raised $4000, which went to support the CEDIA Foundation and provide scholarships and grants to fund education, certification, and career development in the industry. Also, turns out the big winner, Andrea Rokicsak, founder and CEO of Gumbuni and co-founder of AV Imagined, happens to have previously competed as a professional pickleball player, medaling in national events, so maybe one day we’ll see Ben Johns or Anna Leigh Waters transitioning into a career as a CI!
We’re planning on doing it again next year, so mark your calendars now and plan to come join us!
About the Author
John Sciacca is a principal with Custom Theater and Audio in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In his free time, he blogs prolifically about the CE industry and is publisher for cineluxe.com.
