Hype or Reality: Which ‘Hot Technologies’ Actually Matter?

CI Summit 2015 panel debates wearable technologies, transparent video, networked AV, app-based control and wireless audio.

Tom LeBlanc

There’s passion for new technologies. There’s passion for making money. There’s passion for solving customers’ problems.

It’s at the intersection of all those passions where the commercial integration industry exists, and they all came together during a panel discussion at CI Summit 2015 With “Fresh Horses: Hot Technologies & Applications for Commercial Integrators to Ride to Increased Revenues & Profits” the title says it all.

Moderator Tim Albright, founder of AV Nation and director of operations for Innovad, got the panel to speculate on whether or not various “hot technologies” ought to actually play a role in system designs.

Regarding networked AV Chris Neto of AV Helpdesk addressed the elephant in the room which was that clients’ IT managers still might not trust AV integrators to put content on their all-important networks.

“Regardless of what you all think we’re still not [a high priority],” he said, adding that he still sees opposition to, for instance, an automation system on the network. “The still see their data traffic and how they manage that [as top priority].”

Meanwhile, Internet of Things and wearable technologies may seem like buzz terms, but they’re not as far out there from a programming perspective as one might think, said Steve Greenblatt of Control Concepts.

“The conversations are moving toward having less buttons on a touchpanel, less interaction with something that you’re actually touching and more of being a presence and having technology think a bit more for you,” he said. “So wearables are your way of identifying your place in the environment.”

Transparent video can provide more than just a Twitpic opportunity at a trade show. IMS Technologies’ Michael Shinn offered that transparent video in glass conference rooms provides an alternative to traditional video solutions, worth at least considering.

“We have the ability to offer the customers a different style of solution with OLED,” he said quickly adding that integrators “are begging” manufacturers to deliver those options.

Check out some highlights from the panel discussion:

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