ADVERTISEMENT

Xyte AV Cloud Summit 2024 Highlights Future of AV Management

Published: November 26, 2024
Photo courtesy: Xyte

Xyte, developer of the all-in-one cloud platform for device manufacturers and system integrators, hosted the inaugural AV Cloud Summit, earlier in November.

Per a statement, the event featured a panel of industry leaders throughout the entire value chain, including Pam Hoppel, president of LegrandAV; Scott Walker, president of Waveguide; Eric Snider, CTO of CTI; and Ron Sklaver, global lead for In-Office Meeting Experience at EY. In addition, AV companies such as AtlasIED, Planar, Legrand AV, Symetrix, IMSTS and others presented their cloud implementations.

AV Cloud Summit Underscores Need for Effective, Centralized Management

According to Xyte, the Summit’s discussions stressed the importance of a unified, interoperable cloud platform to address the complexities of AV system management and monitoring, and meet increasing end-user expectations of simplicity and efficiency. The AV Cloud Summit highlighted that cloud integration in AV is more than just device connectivity – it’s about effective, seamless, centralized and efficient management.

With the industry moving toward remote monitoring capabilities, Xyte states that the AV Cloud Summit uncovered a major challenge: the fragmentation of cloud management systems. AV devices are often monitored in a decentralized manner, creating a significant overhead for IT/AV managers in assuring continuous operation and a seamless user experience.

Legrand AV President Pam Hoppel thus spoke about adopting cloud solutions, emphasizing cloud technology as an opportunity for manufacturers to improve offerings, enhance device management and align with industry requirements like heightened security. When answering why Legrand chose to use Xyte, an external platform instead of internal cloud solutions, Hoppel says, “That’s not my core capability. I want to really stick and focus in the manufacturing space where I can excel in where my engineering talent is and then leverage partners. And if I think about where the technology is going on the evolution, partnerships inevitably are going to have to expand.” Meanwhile, Eric Snider of CTI highlighted the industry’s pressing need for a platform that integrates data from various systems into a unified, compatible and customizable interface.

Other Highlights

Scott Walker of Waveguide and Ron Sklaver from EY shared insights from the design and end-user perspectives. Walker emphasized simplicity and security, envisioning a future where AV systems proactively communicate status changes to other systems. For example, a room-booking system adjusting availability if AV equipment fails. Sklaver noted that AV is increasingly seen as an IT function, requiring alignment with IT standards and security.

Sklaver highlighted the value of a unified cloud platform in enabling efficient system health monitoring and uptime, stating, “What I really want to know is heartbeat monitoring. It is that simple when you’re talking about this kind of scale — just tell me if it’s down. If I can reboot it remotely — fabulous. But if not, let me know.”

Sklaver also emphasized the importance of one layer to manage all the different platforms, adding, “If I have no choice but to have multiple platforms, then what I really want is some layer across the top that lets me tie it all together. Don’t make me train everyone how to use six or seven or eight different platforms. Give me one that can lay across the top. If I could have one feature today, I’d ask for a standard way for every manufacturer to say – OK, here’s how you can simply have my heartbeat.”

Key Demonstrations

AtlasIED, Planar, Symetrix and WyreStorm demonstrated advanced features in their cloud implementations, such as e-store for license enablement and advanced features, secure tunnels and more. AtlasIED’s Atmosphere Cloud, for instance, uses secure tunneling to allow real-time remote system adjustments, reducing operational costs and improving response times. Meanwhile, Symetrix showcased cloud licensing as a means to provide product flexibility, where customers can instantly activate new features through software licenses rather than physical upgrades.

Andrew Gross compared Xyte’s position in the pro AV industry to Tesla: “When we talk about dashboarding and a legacy hardware space, the automobile industry comes up immediately, they took a legacy industry and turned it on its head through a software-defined experience. What they did is less turnover, higher customer retention and now some of the greatest sustainability metrics. Outside of Tesla, the highest customer retention rate in the auto industry is Toyota. It’s a 50% customer retention rate. Tesla’s is 90%.”

The AV Cloud Summit called for collaboration among manufacturers, integrators and industry stakeholders to establish open standards, crucial for accelerating cloud integration in AV, and for allowing an improved user experience that increases efficiency and simplicity.

Xyte will host another industry event on May 7, 2025, looking at additional industry cloud trends and cloud use cases.

Watch the Inaugural AV Cloud Summit on Demand

Posted in: News

Tagged with: AV Cloud Summit

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
B2B Marketing Exchange
B2B Marketing Exchange East