It’s easy to stereotype the annual CEDIA Expo as a residential-only event with nothing of interest to commercial industry professionals. That stereotype, however, is rapidly becoming an outdated notion. CEDIA 2017 just wrapped up in sunny San Diego, California (Sept. 5-9) and, reflecting the increasing diversity of the integrators that attend the show, manufacturers exhibited more products that are designed for commercial industry installations than ever before.
Prior to the recession of 2008, home theater was the marquee category for the residential market. Today, post-recession, networking emerges as the star category for integrators because, now, everything is built from the network: home control, streaming media, basic security, and of course normal computing/networking activities.
For several years, the residential market professionals have integrated commercial-grade enterprise level networks to support the increasing amount of devices that are in the home. As a result, the dealers of today increasingly look at A/V-centric networking solutions.[related]
Highlighting some of the best products from CEDIA is Commercial Integrator‘s sister publication, CE Pro. Editors Julie Jacobson, Arlen Schweiger, Chelsea Cafiero and myself visited hundreds of exhibitors during the fall trade event.
On CE Pro, our editors report the growing influence millennials have on product design, the increasing number of home theater audio systems that are utilizing commercial audio technologies and design concepts, and much more gleaned from roaming the CEDIA 2017 floors.
They’ve found that many Commercial Integrators attend CEDIA for the 70-volt audio systems that are commonplace in the residential market, as well as the growing number of networking solutions. They can look at consumer technologies in the audio and video categories to see what will drive future consumer demand in the commercial market.
While our editors came across many products during the show that we feel will make an impact on the commercial market, these are the ones they think will dominate the market.
