#372 - AU - The Future of Home Automation - Archispeak

Episode Transcript
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Evan Troxel (00:09):
Welcome to the Archispeak podcast.
And today we are joined by twoguests and we're talking about
the future of home automation.
In this episode, we're joined todayby Jeff Thomas and Michael Smith.
Welcome to the podcast, Jeff.
Great to meet you for the very first time.

Jeff Thomas (00:25):
Yeah, likewise.
Thank you.

Michael, we've been on calls before, but this is
the first time on the podcast.
Great to have you.

Michael Smith (00:32):
Thanks.
Excited to be
here.

want to start with just kind of a quick little background for both of
you guys so that we can kind of orient theaudience to what you guys have done to get
where you are and then what you're doing.
So, Jeff, why don't you kick us off?

Yeah, I, I've spent most of my career in the smart
home space joining Control4 back.
Really when Control4 started in 2000,just after they started in 2004.
been a product manager the whole timewith them covering a variety of different
products and product categories.
And I'm currently the, the senior directorof product management for lighting.

(01:07):
So that's been my focusfor the last five years.

And Michael, give us a little bio on what you've been up to.

Yep.
So I actually started my career as aprocess engineer in the chemical industry.
I'm a chemical engineer by training,so working in control rooms, plan
automation, uh, and designing, uh,unit operations before then moving into
marketing and moving into managementover the years to where I've been
with Bromack now for over three years.
And really looking forward to seeingnow where home automation comes into

(01:36):
play, and where the industry's going.

That's a interesting background.
I would've never guessed, you know,that's a, that's an interesting
change is can you just kind ofallude to how you made that change?
Because I think a lot of people in thethis industry stay in it like forever.
Architects like Cormac and Isay, you're gonna die at your
drafting table kind of a thing.
Right.
So when you make a shift in

Cormac Phalen (01:56):
my retirement

that's, yeah.
That's cor expert.
So how, how, how did youdecide to make that shift?

Probably early in my career ended up getting pulled into kind
of new projects big plan expansions,then through kind of interest in how the
business was run and how we were makingbusiness decisions for investments.
I got pulled into marketing justin terms of what's a good decision
to make in terms of expansions.

(02:23):
And then I got my MBA and startedgetting into the world of business
development and marketing.
So it's, uh, kind of was more of aninterest in terms of strategy and growth.

Nice.
So you planned this all out along time ago and it just, it just
unfolded exactly like you planned.

just

was the baby steps.

Exactly.

All right, well let's jump into the topic today, which is
home automation and the future of it.
And there's a lot ofresidential architects, I'm
sure who listen to this show.
And home automation is a hottopic in that, I mean, a lot has
happened, you know, in the lastfive or 10 years even, but also.
I'm sure a lot of clients are askingabout this stuff, and so how do

(03:03):
they even keep these architects?
How do we keep our fingers onthe pulse of what's happening?
What are the standards?
What are the best practices?
There's a lot of different thingsthat we can get into today.
I'm, I'm wondering, Jeff, if you couldjust kind of give us kind of an overview
of what you've seen in the last fiveyears to kind of get us started in
this conversation before we really getinto kind of the combination of indoor

(03:27):
outdoor home automation and technology.

Sure.
Yeah, that's a good question anda good topic because as we look at
what happens in the market, from ourperspective, we're a manufacturer.
We sell through custom integrators.
And the custom integratorshave different approaches.
We see some of them.
They'll come into a job opportunity, maybea little late in the game and the whole
thing is designed and they'll come in andsay, you know, the customer may say, Hey,

(03:51):
I decided I wanna put a home theater in.
And they come in and you know, thebuilding is already going on the
opportunity to do a lot of do it adda lot of nice things to the home is
a little bit behind them because theydidn't plan it out ahead of time.
We see a lot we see a lot of motivationfrom our perspective, and we see some

(04:13):
very successful integrators developrelationships with architects and
designers to get into those conversationsearly and they become successful at it.
'cause if they can get in early,they bring a lot together the, for
all of the trades that are involved.
They can bring, you know, they.
They bring the lighting together, theybring all the low voltage together,

(04:35):
and they end up managing a lot of that.
And then they can also, when inthose conversations, those early
conversations present all theopportunities to those that are involved
in decision making and they can,you know, lay out the whole picture.
Here's the vision of whatwe can do, and we plan it.
Now, we, as integrators, I'm speaking,you know, for integrators, we as

(04:55):
integrators can help you along inthis whole process because we'll cover
this, we'll manage this, we'll do this.
If you look at it the other way around,for those that come in late, a lot of
times things roll downhill and they'll getstuck with trying to resolve a problem.
That could have been resolved mucheasier if there was some planning done
from the, by the with the electricianor with the framers or whatever.

(05:18):
So involved with architects,having architects understand what's
possible with the whole solution.
They can then work together to presentthe customer with all these great
options that make their house even nicer.
And ultimately, you want the homeownerto be really happy with the end product.
Where if you design all this in and theintegrator's very, you know, positioned

(05:41):
well to execute and be successful, theneverything can come together a lot better
than having to having the integratorscome in late and just integrate some
things here and there and, you know,potentially run into some issues.
Experience isn't as great.
And you, you may miss out on someof the opportunities that a lot of
the new technology can provide thatreally make your house nice, make
your life a little simpler, your housesafer, more comfortable, et cetera.

Can you give some examples of what the kinds of things are that
you're talking about so that Yeah, I meanthose, there's a lot of categories, right?
In home automation, and I'm sure you guyshave a pretty specific focus on that.

because I'm in the lighting category.
I can give a an examplefrom a lighting perspective.
You may bring a lighting designerinto a project that says, want
these, these recessed cans in thesespecific locations, because that's
where the customer wants artwork.
Or you know, for whatever reason it,there's a specific design done very

(06:38):
purposefully by the lighting designer.
there's no conversation done on, youmay get a joist stuck in the ceiling
right where you need to put a light,you may have some framing come together
where you can't put a speaker in,and that's really where you're, where
you wanted to put that speaker in.
These are the types of things thatif you plan ahead, you can make

(07:00):
sure everything is done just right.
Some of those things may not becatastrophic or really impact the
experience a lot, but others can.
And so planning everything together,making sure you know where all the wire
runs are gonna be making sure you planout where the equipment is going to
be located, all those types of things.
When you plan 'em up front, you canreally deliver the best experience.

So you're talking about kind of like the ideal situation of new
construction where you know you are ableto work with the architect, especially if
you get there early on that you're ableto kind of like coordinate these things
so you are missing the joist, you aremissing, these things so that you can't
have a fully integrated system that youknow, kind of gets installed flawlessly.

(07:45):
What about retrofittingor renovation work?
I mean, are you in that end aswell and what are the challenges
in that side of the thingsrather than in new construction?

We do make products for retrofit.
Also.
We see of business going both directions,new construction and retrofit.
So we have a lot of.
products that are made to offer reallythe same experience in a retrofit job.
Challenges are a little bit different.
You're, you're retrofittingso you probably

Yeah.

rip out joists and things like that.

Right.

and in a lot of cases you can, not in all cases, but
in a lot of cases you can providea pretty good experience with a
wireless configuration, whether it bewifi for audio streaming or ZigBee.
We happen to use ZigBee for all ofour lighting control and HVAC control
and other controls that are, that,that fit, that, that protocol well.

(08:41):
So the challenges from a wirelessperspective is really making sure your
wireless network, your environment isset up such that you can ha, you can
have, you know, really good, clearcommunication for those wireless protocols
so that everything functions seamlessly.
And this also take some expertise.

(09:02):
network configuration and foranyone that's messed with it

Hm.

can be a little mysterious, you

Yeah.

you swap out an access point or whatever and you know, maybe
it, maybe your neighbor put in a newaccess point and it messes up your house.
There are lots of things thatcan, can affect that installation.
So having integrators come in thathave really good equipment, really good
training and tools so that they can makesure environment is going to work really

(09:30):
well and provide the customer with theseamless experiences very important.

Can you just speak to kind of the reliability of wired
versus wireless really quickly?
Because I, I, moving into an, anolder house, but not super old, not
as old as Cormac house, for example.
Right?
Like it's, it's a little, it'sstill the same problem, right?
It's like you can't runethernet cables everywhere
after the fact to wire stuff up.
And so,

Yeah.

and, and then wireless, it's like if you really want to count on
it, you can't count on wireless, right?
You just can't.
Sure that it's gonna work ahundred percent of the time.
And, and I think this also kindof gets into a question I have
about maybe what you guys are doingdifferently or similarly to the
consumer brand home automation stuff.
A offered by Apple and Googleand Amazon as far as kind of like

(10:16):
their, their frameworks or theirplatforms for home automation,

Yeah, your first question was about,

wired versus wireless.
Yeah.

how well can you do with a wireless
Um, you can't control whatyour neighbor's gonna do.
You can't control the wireless environmentaround you, especially in the 2.4
gigahertz spectrum.
So it is a little bitof wild, the wild west.
Fortunately, wifi technology hasimproved quite a bit, and you see

(10:46):
con, continually, we see updateswith, wifi technology, wifi six, wifi
seven, so forth, that that help a lot.
They can really help, um,address some of those issues.
The, the five gigahertz spectrumthat's now available in there, that's
available in the newer wifi accesspoints and used in conjunction with 2.4,

(11:06):
give you some flexibility there.
But also it means that the density ofyour access points needs to be a little
higher to ensure good communication.
So for example, we rolled the clockback when we were really focused on 2.4
gigahertz wifi.
You might go into a 4,500square foot house and put access
points in and, and it was great.

(11:27):
All the laptops work fine.
You really didn't do alot of audio streaming.
here we are where not uncommon to have.
You know, tens or 50 or whateverwifi devices connected to a network,
and here you are trying to audioto your den so you can listen to
music and you can't get it to work.
It's super frustrating.

(11:47):
So now you look at modern wifi technologyand you have, you have somebody
that's really experienced in it.
They're gonna come and designa pretty robust wifi network.
It may mean that you put four accesspoints in that home and based on the
environment, and there are more channelsavailable in five gigahertz, maybe
they design five, uh, five gigahertznetwork that really is going to be
robust for you for your wifi streaming.

(12:10):
You know, that's an example of how youcan build around it to, you know, it's
never gonna be as good as as wired,

Yeah.

you can get, you can get a pretty you, you can build a pretty.
Reliable wifi network given thetools, uh, the design tools and the
hardware that we have available today.
let me talk a little bit about ZigBee.
That's where we, that's the protocolwe use for lighting control and
for H-V-C-H-V-A-C control andfew other types of products.

(12:38):
also exists in the 2.4
gigahertz spectrum, so it's in the, it'sin the wild west also, however, ZigBee
is designed to be low bandwidth, shortbursts of control protocol rather than
media streaming, data streaming, andthe channel width is a lot narrower.
You can run into signal interference,but because of the nature of the protocol

(13:03):
and how you can configure it and howit's used, and based on our experience
of using ZigBee, we, we've been usingZigBee for 20 years and we started before
ZigBee was a standard on an on on, on anearly version and proprietary version.
We used it for years.
And, um, found that reallyworks quite reliably.

(13:24):
And again, you've gotta payattention to some things.
If you've got wifi in the home,which everybody does, then you, you
allocate your channels, your ZigBeechannels so that you can avoid the
wifi interference as best as possible.
But like I said, because of the nature ofthe protocol, we find it very reliable.
And, uh,

Nice.

yeah, it works really well,

And so that, that's kind of operating a little bit differently than
the, the consumer brand platforms thatare, everybody's buying, you know, smart
switches and outlets and devices that,that run on, you know, the different
Apple, Google, Amazon ecosystems thatare all pretty much competing at the 2.4
gigahertz level.
But ZigBee is kind of like its ownslice of that, that, or is it's a

(14:04):
different protocol you're saying.

It, it, it coexists in 2.4,
but there are products that, uh,for example, Amazon Echo has this,
a lot of the Amazon Echo devices.
Um.
Have they, they have ZigBee in them also.
So

Okay.

you can buy, if we, if we ship to talking about consumer grade
devices, you can buy them that are wifi.
You can, you can buydevices that are wifi.
You can buy devices that are ZigBee.
You can buy devices that

Okay.

that are Z-Wave, those are the common protocols that are

Okay.

And they can be all, they can all be configured to work reliably.
But again, you've gotta payattention the, to the environment.
Like I said, wifi is subjectto a lot more interference.
in my experience, it's a little harderto get a wifi, uh, light switch,
for example, to work as reliablyas a ZigBee or Z-Wave light switch.

(15:00):
Um, but there are a lot of 'em outthere and a lot of 'em can work really

Yeah.

Z let me talk about Z-Wave for a second.
Z-Wave is another very commoncontrol protocol and it.
Operates in the 900 megahertzspectrum um, not 900 megahertz.
900.
that's right.
900 megahertz.
I have to get my numbers correct.
and, and there are someadvantages of using 900 megahertz.

(15:25):
You get a little bit better range andso those devices can work really well.
Um, there are systems built aroundZ-Wave control, light switches,
thermostats, just like we use ZigBee.
You can, you can very effectivelybuild a Z-Wave network that
works really well for control.
It doesn't conflict with 2.4.
Um, and it's, you know, it'sa very complimentary protocol.

(15:48):
We actually support Z-Waveas well in our controllers.
So if somebody wants to put Z-Wave,light switches or Z-Wave door locks in
their system, they can, and we supportthat and they can work very well as
long as you build that network out well.

I wanted to bring all that up because like we, we got.
Super deep, super nerdythere for a minute.
And, and the, and the reason that'simportant is because there is a
lot going on under the surfaceof quote unquote home automation.
Right.
And I think a lot of people, architectsincluded, will be like, what do you mean?
Like, I just, we, wifi works foreverything we can, we can retrofit,

(16:24):
we don't have to coordinate.
Like we will just save all that for later.
And I think it's just important to pointout that there are experts in these areas
and they are worth their weight in goldbecause they are dealing with all of
the things that Jeff just talked aboutand they know it and it's constantly
changing and being updated and this isan area that's moving pretty quickly.

(16:45):
So appreciate you kindof laying that out there.
But it also kind ofillustrates the point that.
There, there are consultantsdirectly for this.
Like you said, there'sintegrators, there's Cormac.
How many av consultantshave you used every project?
Right.
It's like,

project.

mean, these are commercial projects, but, but for a reason.
Because it's, it's complex andit, and it's not just a simple
thing to add on during a project

And honestly, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
And

you don't wanna

always, and I don't want to.
But I also wanna be able to, you know,you, you said it best, Jeff is you, you,
you want to give them, you know, thebest possible outcome and you know, so
it's finding people that you can workwell together with, that they're asking
the questions that we don't know what to

Yeah.
And there's enough informationhere to arm people to start asking
questions, but also to say like, we,we've gotta get somebody involved.
Most likely.

I've gotten over my head,

Yeah.

so let me ask this.
So, you know, as Evan said, you all tookthe deep dirt dive, which is great, but
with all of that said, the, the questionthat I would have and, and I would as,
as, you know, a, a consumer as well as adesigner, is what is out there available?

(18:02):
I mean, what are you seeing thatpeople are actually, you know, I know
Jeff, you were talking specificallyabout, you know, that you're.
Your forte is, is lighting and,and lighting is a huge, um, you
know, part of home automation.
But what else are we seeing as this?
Like, you know, bigumbrella of home automation.

Let me start talking about how, how I've seen it evolve over
time, how I've seen this, products,these product categories develop.
Um.
From our perspective, from a Control4perspective, we started in, like I said,
2000 company founded in 2003, 2004,2005, we started releasing products.

(18:41):
this was before before the RingDoorbell, before Nest Thermostat.
And so it was a little community that wasable to deliver these types of solutions.
But these new categories developed,Thermostat comes out and look at us now.
Everybody, everybodyhas a Nest thermostat.
Not everybody but ev you know, it'spretty common to have a connected

(19:04):
thermostat now and to be able tocontrol it on your app from anywhere.
Um, doorbell cameras are another one.
If I would, I would be willing to betthat many, if not most people that
are building a new home look at adoorbell camera as one of the things.
Well, I want a doorbell camera.
Who doesn't want a doorbell camera?
They're so handy.

(19:25):
You know, I wanna seewho's at my front door.
I want to know who came to my front door.
These, these types of things havereally opened the door in this
iot world of great experiencesthat can be offered to customers.
Um, but as the market has moved along,
you get more and moreof these at some point.

(19:45):
Now I've got, you know, my thermostatand my doorbell camera and my garage
door controller and, you know, acouple of other things in my home
might have some audio streaming.
And, now I've got multipleapps on the phone.
And, and some people are okay withthat and it works fine for them, but
at some point you can hit this levelof, okay, I've, I'm beyond my DIY

(20:09):
comfort level of installing, or thisis a little bit of a pain because
none of these things work together.
And that's where these integratedsystems can come together.
Well, and then we, well, and you know,we talked about the, the big companies
like Apple and Google, they're, they'reproviding these types of experiences
and they're great experiences.
And, and with the voice integration,you can do some really cool things.

(20:33):
But there are a lot of customerswho, who look at that and
they're overwhelmed by it.
And they, they need some help.
They hear about these things, wow, I wanta doorbell camera, or, can't believe your
lights turn on automatically at sunset.
And, you know, these types of things.
And they're like, well, I want to dothat, but I have no idea where to start.
And that's where move from DIY, buying itat Best Buy or Amazon and trying to figure

(21:00):
out how to do, to install it yourselfto bringing in somebody that can help.
Now, you may bring someone in, in a simpleway to just install one device for you
and hook up your app, and that's fine.
But as, as you roll forward andyou want to integrate more and
more and more, that's really where.
We start to play a role wherewe can integrate everything.
You bring in an integrator that'sgoing to integrate everything, design

(21:23):
everything, configure everything, andthen provide a really nice cohesive and
customized experience for your house.
just, just tell me what you want.
We'll make it work.
And that's one of the beauties of, uh,of this market and the things we do.
We've built a platform where ourpriority is to enable integrators to,

(21:43):
to meet the needs of their customers.
That's our base level priority.
So we've built this platform,it's an open platform.
We design our own products and we,we make sure that they integrate very
tightly, but we also are very open in ourplatform to allow almo just about any,
anything that has an API that you canconnect to, you can connect to our system.

(22:04):
And now you have, have one userinterface, whether it be on the mobile
app, a touch screen on your wall, um.
Uh, on a, a remote in your handor, or even a keypad button on the
wall, you know you have access to doanything in that system, and it can be
customized to the experience you want.

Nice.
Mike, we've kept you waiting long enough.
This is one of those things wherewe, we just go down a rabbit
hole and it's hard to get out of.
But I appreciate your patience,

is,

so

love geeking out on this

I, I'm sure, I'm sure you, I was like, everybody's kind
of nodding their head here, so.
Yeah.
It's all good.
Um, well, maybe you can give us kindof a, an overview of what you guys are
focusing on from, from where you'recoming from with indoor outdoor,
this ecosystem that you've created.
And, and as, as more and more people areoutfitting their outdoor spaces to be

(22:58):
comfortable out there in all seasons.
And, and just give us a, anoverview on, on what you're
doing and what's possible there.

Yeah, definitely.
So, uh, from Brom's perspective, right?
We've been working with you guysand really, uh, like living the
experience of, of having that indooroutdoor space be, be part of a unified
environment that, that customers want.
to live in and experience, right?
And, and heat brings thatcomfort, to expand the seasonal

(23:27):
use of those kind of spaces.
Um, with that then comes the needto make it easier to control.
So it's less of an activeinvolvement to where it's just
naturally part of the environment.
Um, so the, the comfortsolution is always there.
Uh, and so we, we launched a new productline of, of IOT devices, smart devices.

(23:48):
Uh, we called our affinity line.
Um, it gives really kind of a, a, a fullblown, uh, solution set, whether it's.
basic, you know, I'm using GoogleHome or I'm using Alexa, integrating
with voice Command to be able toturn on and off heaters, you know,
to using a, a more sophisticated, ourapp to, to do scheduling and scenes,

(24:11):
uh, remote access, manage multiplesites, potentially multiple homes or
multiple restaurants, uh, to then moreintegrated solutions worth, you know,
integrating into, you know, Control4system or the like, to make sure that
we stay part of the overall environment.
And I think that's the real excitingpart about the design space is that not

(24:34):
only is it just about having an outdoorspace, but now integrating, so the,
the home really becomes living a livingenvironment that supports the end user.
And as things like the Nestthermostats continue to evolve and
they get ai, uh, that really, thatintegrated experience becomes the,
the normal part of the environment.

(24:54):
uh, that's kind of where we're atin our journey and, and making sure
that, you know, the outdoor heat andand comfort solution is part of that
as we continue to grow and evolve.

What I'm curious about Mike, with these kinds of things is, I
know you guys also integrate lightingand heat, and so there's a kind of a
convergence going on, I think, betweenwhat you both are doing and the kinds
of things that you're dealing with.
And we're, I mean, the thing thatkept coming to mind, Jeff, when you
were talking was like, especiallyduring new construction, like this
stuff, just kind of like, the goalis that it disappears and that you

(25:24):
don't see it until you need it.
Right?
It's like the lights are hidden awayand then they start to come on when
the sun sets and then like, it justhappens and the shades automatically
come down when they need to.
And, and it's like this extra layer of,of technology, but it's kind of magical.
But it, it's not in your face, right?
You don't see.
All this stuff at the surface, it justkind of happens in the background.

(25:46):
And then when, when I think about heatand I think about ambiance and I start
to think about color with lighting, andI think about sound and that sound being,
you know, it's the same music playingin this room and outside, and there's
no, uh, delay between any of that.
There's, there's nothing that makes meperceive, like I'm hearing this, you

(26:06):
know, a skip or anything like that.
When I walk from one space toanother, it's this kind of,
ecosystem's a word, right?
But it's like this whole ambiancethat brings things together.
So, Mike, can you talk about justkind of what Brom has been doing to,
I mean, start, like I said, convergethese different things and, but
also like they're really elegant.

(26:27):
They also kind of disappear and,and that's I think what's, what
could be the most interesting thingto the audience who's listening,
who are designing spaces that aregonna integrate these technologies?

Yeah, absolutely.
So, uh, I, I think bro's approach hasalways been, uh, solution oriented, right?
So rather than, you know, play toan industrial product into a home
environment, we design the product tosuit the space and the aesthetic, so that
it is seamless into the, um, the spacethat, that someone's trying to create.

(26:58):
Whether that's been an architect or.
design builder or, or contractorwith a home homeowner.
Uh, and then with that, then the controlsare just a natural extension to make
it easier to have that level of, ofcomfort in knowing that you can turn them
off when on and off whenever you want,wherever you are, uh, rather than, you

(27:20):
know, driving away from the house andyou go, did I remember to turn that off?
You know, you know, whichis, is, is a big concern when

Uh,

about a six kilowatt heater

yep.

uh, you know, that's a lot of energy.
And so putting that peace of mind ispart of the overall solution set that
we're after and that we'll continue toinvest in and, and evolve over time.

Nice.
Nice.
Go for it.
Who was gonna say something there?
All right.

I was

I hear.
Okay.

a question, so.
You know, we were, because Jeff, I mean,sorry, Mike, you, you kind of brought
up a, a, a, a concern, um, that a lot ofpeople have, especially, you know, when
designers are, you know, center saying,oh, and you can, you know, automate
your home this way and you can addthis to it and this to it, this to it.
And then people start to seedollar size, like, oh my gosh,

(28:07):
this is going to, know, add to myelectric bill and things like that.
And so, you know, I'm, I'm, I wantto ask this question to both of you.
It's, how has the new technologies inhome automation and the products that
you sell and the integrations that youdo actually helped manage like energy
use, um, and energy consumption in thatso that, you know, you aren't feeling,

(28:31):
you know, yes, you are being able tolike fully integrate as Evan saying,
you know, like create this ambianceand this, you know, kinda like seamless
integration of all of these different,um, you know, add-ons to the system.
But like, how does it also helpmanage, you know, electric consumption?

Yeah, I, I think from our side it's, it's, uh, pretty
straightforward, um, and a lot offlexibility in how apps function, uh, to
be able to set timers and, and schedulesto say, okay, I wanna make sure the
system always shuts off after 10:00 PM.
Um, or, you know, uh, doesn't startbefore 6:00 PM to, for the dinner
crowd or, or for my evening meal.

(29:09):
Um, to, um, then also then, uh,having, uh, the remote access to
say, okay, let's make sure the, theperson that's at my Airbnb, uh, has
that turned off, uh, when they leave.
Um, all those things give the,the potential peace of mind to
reduce, uh, potential for waste,um, and to make sure that it's

(29:31):
being used seasonally appropriate.
Meaning you're not turning this onduring the middle of the summer,

Hmm.

so you can have that override in your schedule
to say, Nope, it's locked out.

from my perspective, looking at, at a, looking at
this as a, as an energy savingsopportunity at a systems level, I
think about configuring everything.
To be one action touch of abutton, a vacation mode or in a
commercial environment, an off mode.

(30:01):
And behind that button you canreally do anything you want.
You may have solar panels and batteries,and you may have additional feedback
coming into your system that the power'sout or the battery's low or whatever,
that, and you can have a differentprofile for that environment, or you
can have, know, a different profile forvacation mode or off mode or whatever.

(30:22):
If, if I get specific to describean example, let's say you've got
bro heaters and you've got, uh,you know, you, you just had a
party and you, you hit goodnight.
And goodnight is going to ensure thatthose heaters shut off along with
everything else in your system that youwanna make sure that you control and turn

(30:43):
off to manage the energy that's going on.
And, and that can all be configurable.
In addition to that, you can set alerts.
You may have something set up like a.
Uh, a current monitor to make sure thatthose heaters as to, as a, as like a
double check aren't drawing any power.
And if they are after they've been turnedoff, or while your, your home is in

(31:05):
vacation mode, then you can receive analert and then you have remote access.
You can go in and, and makesure that you shut them off.
So the system provides all thatflexibility to provide you with a simple
example, to really configure anything,any element of your system in this off
mode or goodnight mode or vacation mode.
And then you have the ability toconnect remotely and manually manage

(31:27):
any of that, as well as getting alertsif you have sort of anomaly go on.
So it really gives you the controland convenience of all of that.

Jeff, can you talk about some of the latest stuff that
you guys have come out that kindof combines lighting and sound?
It sounds like there's somepretty interesting products
that are, that are pretty fresh.

Yeah, we released, uh, a pretty interesting, really cool,
um, lighting and sound product.
It's called Episode Radiance, it'sa sound system that's designed to
be used outdoors that provides bothsound and audio, and it, it runs
over the typical outdoor lightingto conductor wire, uh, burial wire.

(32:09):
So an installation perspective, it's easy,for a landscaper who's used to running
outdoor lighting wire to run the wirean integrator's perspective, can connect
it to the, the amplifiers just likethey would connect any other amplifier.
And then from an experienceperspective, you have the flexibility

(32:29):
of providing both audio and lighting allthroughout your, your, your landscape
in your home, wherever you want.
that all integratesinto the control system.
So now.
We talked about having audio playingin the home as and outside, Now you
could click your party mode buttonand the lights on outside come on.

(32:53):
the, uh, the audio plays in the, the,in the, you know, the, the, the rec
room or whatever where you have thepool table and the bar and so forth.
And when you walk out the back doorinto the backyard, it's seamless
'cause the same audio is playing.
And this can be done witha push of one button.

Nice.

so all that can come together really nicely.
You can have the same for youroutdoor TV and your indoor tv.
You have a game playing and you canhave that playing inside and outside.
And that can be seamless as well.
So it all can be configuredvery easily and really whatever
configuration the customer desires.

That's really cool.
So you don't actually have to layconduit and go through all of that
expense with a system like that.
You can, like you said, you could justdo buried two wire and, and get that kind
of functionality and it's pretty simple.

That's exactly

Very cool.

Yeah.
It's a, it's a, it'sa very unique product.
It's, um, I'm, I'm not aware of anythinglike it on the market, and it really
provides that combined lighting audioexperience with an easy installation.
It's, it's really a, areally great product.

And it's not wireless.
Let's go back to that.

And it's not wireless.
That's right.

Michael, what about you guys?
What have you guys, uh, released recentlythat the audience should be aware of?

the affinity controllers are our newest launch, uh, which
really gets us into the iot space.
Uh, really, uh, in termsof voice control commands,
integration with Google and Alexa.
Um, it's, it's been a major product launchfor us, uh, so far, uh, this year, and
it's been well received by the market.

(34:28):
Um, and then, uh, from there it's justcontinuing to evolve the heater spectrum
to build the outdoor comfort space.

Nice.

and teaching corn a little bit that the fact that, like you, you'd
kind of talked about the eclipse and,and like just the aspect of heaters.
know, integrating lights, integratingother things into, something that, for
residential, are looking at a differentway of being, more aesthetic way to

(34:57):
provide heat and that outdoor comfortthat extending that outdoor living in a
much nicer way than, the old box heater.

Right, exactly.
Really make an inviting space that peoplewant to be in that, uh, doesn't look
like it's being forced into the space.
Um, similar with our recess kits thatwe've come out with that make it easier
to recess the platinum lines, you know,just they're not, you know, unique in
themselves, but in combination reallygives, uh, designers a huge degree of

(35:26):
flexibility in how they incorporatecomfort into the outdoor space.

One of the things that, you guys both mentioned is just kind of
this ability to control things remotely.
So like there's a riskpart of that, right?
Oh, did I leave the heater on?
Did is the garage door still open?
Like, what?
What's going on in the house?
And you have a way to likeuse your device, right?
Pull up an app and youcan see what's going on.

(35:51):
But I, you know, I think we've allfelt this over the years, right?
More and more apps to control things.
So I've got the.
This app for these iot devices.
I've got another app for the vacuum.
I've got another app for the sound system.
I've got another app, but, but itseems to me like the voice assistant
stuff is kind of a great equalizer.
At least maybe not a hundredpercent of everything.

(36:13):
Right.
But I'm just curious from, from bothof your points of view, is that a
trend that you're seeing as well,where there's kind of this ability
to control things with your voice?
Or maybe there's just some, somehome assistance, you know, not home
assistance, but devices throughout thehouse that you can just talk to and,
and control just about everything now?
Is that really kind of where it's come to

Yeah, in our experience with voice control,
uh, it is certainly evolving.
It's certainly getting better.
Um, look at what you can do witha TV remote to search for to

and not type it in?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a

Yeah.

experience.
It's a great application for voice.
Um, I, I reflect back on my own experiencewhen I, I connected one light in my
living room, had it controlled overAlexa, and it was awesome because I
would just say, Alexa, turn on the

Mm-hmm.

and they would turn on.
And then I connected a wholebunch of lights and I found
myself saying, uh, what did I

Totally

that I want to turn on?
And, and the

Yeah.

kind of starts

uhhuh.

fall apart.
In fact, at that point, my familystopped using it at all, and they were
using it before when it, it was reallyeasy just to say, turn on the lights.
Um, there are things that are happeningin voice control that are improving
that, uh, we see that from multiple, uh.
vendors of voice control.
We recently introduced, some newfunctionality where we, where we can

(37:48):
have pretty tight, uh, apple Homeintegration and that helps address
some of those issues and gives a littlebit more native speaking capabilities.
So that will continue to improve andit will address, I'm, I'm certain
it will address, um, these types ofexperiences and make them smooth, make
them, you know, room specific typeexperiences, make them work better.

(38:10):
So I, I'm confident that willevolve and continue to improve.
Yet there are still other experiencesthat are where I think, we'll
continue to, I mean, I'm not, Idon't wanna sit and say volume up,

Mm-hmm.
Right.

volume up.

Totally.

things that's, that's a basic example, but there are other experiences
around the home that are more naturallysuited for other, other user interfaces.
Um.
But we, we believe voice willcontinue to play a significant role
and, uh, you know, it'll evolveand get better and better, and
we'll continue to invest in

I, I think it's important because you, you, you
brought up an important point, whichis like the, the home app, right?
The on Apple devices and, and there's,Google's got their version and Amazon,
Alexa's got their version, but itreally does help kind of pull lots
of things into one place, so I don'thave to go to all those separate apps.
And then you can start to set up,you know, scenes that, that combine

(39:04):
groups of items so that they allturn on or turn off together.
Uh, and then you can set up automationsin there, you know, so like, like we have
one in the wintertime that we use for.
Christmas lights.
Right?
Those come on automaticallyat a certain time every day.
Or, or in our, our orchard, my wifehas very tiny trees that need heaters
on, in, in the, she has these littleheating pads in the winter, and it's

(39:26):
like when it drops below 36 degrees, turnthose on, or the trees are gonna die.
Right?
And, and that's, that'sreally amazing stuff.
But, but I always still kind of havethis reservation in the back of my
head, which is like, did it turn on?
Did it turn off?
Did it do these things?
And so a lot of times we still are kindof at the point where we have to double
check these things because at least inmy experience with like Apple's home app,

(39:48):
it, the automations don't always work.
And, and it's not life or death,but it, it is inconvenient.
And then you have to troubleshoot it.
And I think these are all things thatarchitects need to keep in mind when
they're specifying things like these.
I am not talking about the, thepro grade stuff that you're talking
about, but I'm talking about justlike the consumer grade stuff.
It definitely still has some bugs inthe system and it's kind of frustrating

(40:10):
and, and I'm a techie guy and I, andit, I still ram my head against the
wall sometimes on it because it'sjust like throws you for a loop.

I think the, the technology is definitely going to evolve quite a bit.
I think, uh, we've, we'vebeen surprised with voice.
It looks like about 30% of ourusers are using voice controls.
Um, I think it does kind ofwear on you because it's still a
little stagnant in development.
think as things like the, the gen fourkind of nest controls, the learning

(40:40):
thermostats and things like that,that Google's investing in as they
get AI and you get better languagemodels built into these systems where
you, they're more conversational.
I think that's where you'll see thenext inflection point in terms of end
users and then in terms of things moreadvanced, um, digital integrations rather
than just analog connections on, on oroff, where you're actually getting more

(41:03):
realistic feedback loop into the system.
They know, oh, it didn't run becausethe water valve didn't turn on or it
didn't run because, you know, somebodyunplugged the, the Christmas lights.
Right?
So that there's a feedbackloop into the system.
That's where we will reallysimplify the end user experience.
It's, it's not there yet, but theinvestment in the growth rates will,
will definitely bring it there.

(41:25):
I dunno.
Jeff, if you have similar thoughtsfrom what you've seen side.

as you were describing that, I, I thought of this fatigue
factor that you can see happen.
Um, people hear of something or theybuy a new gadget and they install it.
And, and when you use it, if, if youcan get past about four weeks and
it becomes part of your lifestyle,your, your golden, but what happens

(41:51):
to a lot of these, it only takes alittle, just a little bit of fatigue
for you to burn out on it after threeor four weeks, and then it goes away.
And that's, you know, I describedmy experience with voice.
And, and expanding lighting control.
And I introduced that fatigue factorand my family fell off that so fast.
Like it's just a, it's just enoughthat I'm not gonna do it anymore.

(42:15):
And, know, there are other ways to dothat and I don't wanna deal with it.
'cause it doesn't always work.
You know, that's one thingabout automation, it's gotta
always work the way you want it.
And if it doesn't, then thefrustration level goes high.
You know, let me tell you aboutyour thermostat not working
or your lights not turning on.
These are,

Big

know, not, not streaming audio is one thing, but some of these
things are mission critical for the

Mm-hmm.

and, um, and they've gotta be simple.
And so, know, like I said, we'll,we'll see voice continue to evolve
and it needs to reach that pointit doesn't introduce fatigue.
Just that little bit of fatigue thatdrives, drives you away from using it.

let me ask this question, and this is more of, I guess, maybe you
would give designers when they're, lookinginto doing home integration, like a
fully integrated type system that, as yousaid, is evolving and will be changing.
So what, designers and, and I guessdesigners as they're talking to consumers.

(43:19):
Need to know about kind of like, youknow, evolving, this evolving ecosystem
of like, what do we need to know about,like, you know, alright, understand
that, this is the kind of infrastructurethat you should put in because it is
something that's flexible enough to adaptto future changes that we see coming
down the road and things like that.

You use the term infrastructure and, and, uh, we talked
a little bit about networking before,and that is the basis you know, what
I would recommend to anybody buildinga home, even if they weren't going
to initially plan on installingany, any of these connected devices.
Wire your house, wireit up for the network.

(43:57):
And I think that's pretty commonly that's,

Hmm.

well understood these days.
But you've gotta have that in place.
'cause that gives youa lot of flexibility.
So after you make sure you have a, agood solid network or communication
infrastructure and environment builtout that will enable you to adapt
to other devices, then I think froma design perspective, you really
need to understand what's possible.
Um, the, the common devices out therethat I think most people, or many

(44:22):
people understand well are thermostats,doorbell, cameras, door locks.
These provide a great experience.
There's a lot of value in thesethings, but as homes get larger and
as people want to do different thingsin their home, they, they, they can
add at other, other experiences.
cameras all around thehouse can be very valuable.
A camera in the garage, forexample, to see what cars are

(44:44):
in the garage when you're outtatown, that can be very valuable.
Um, your lights coming on outsideautomatically and making your house
look occupied when you're not there.
These, this kind of anexperience is great.
We talked about integrating audiooutside and inside, so it's seamless.
Um, designers understandall of these things.

(45:06):
It's hard to understandeverything, but that's out there.
But have a good comprehensiveunderstanding of what's possible.
I like to say with our system that theplatform that we've built, you can.
You can integrate just aboutanything that has an a PII can
integrate my pool controller.
I can automatically shut itwhen I hit my Goodnight button.

(45:26):
I, I can automatically turn offthe spa, I can do all kinds.
It's, it's amazing what ourintegrators do with, with our system
because it is an open platform.
So understanding that you have thatflexibility to provide a, a pretty
broad spectrum of, of experiences foryour customer based on their needs,
uh, will help you understand what,what's possible and what you can offer.

(45:49):
Recognize license plates when they pullup to the gate, that license plate is,
my husband, I'm gonna open up, or my mom,I'm gonna open up automatically, or it's
unrecognized, so send me a picture of itin a notification so I know who it is.
You know, all these kindsof things are possible.

Mike, you guys have an app, right?
For the controls of, of whatyou're doing with the heaters.
Can you talk about the kinds ofthings that you can do with that?
I mean, o obviously it's got on and offand you can set the temperature, but,
but like how, how far are you able togo nowadays with, with the modern tech?

you go pretty far with it.
I, I think, uh, starting with able tomanage multiple sites, so if you own
multiple homes, you know, a vacationhouse or, or summer home, or if you have
multiple Airbnbs or multiple apartments,uh, to be able to, to manage them
separately, to then within each, uh,home or or restaurant, being able to

(46:44):
set up zones of heaters to say, okay,this is the pergola, this is the patio.
To be able to bring that all together.
And then with that, then set up scenesfor what, you know, say maybe your,
your lunch hour or your, your eveninghour of operation, or you know, when,
when you're gonna have your morningcoffee, you know, outside by the pool.

(47:05):
to have everything set up and ready togo when you, when you go out there to,
to enjoy your cup of Joe in the morning.
Um, and then, uh, from there, beingable to set in those safety things of,
oh, I only want it to run for an hour.
Um, you know, 'cause I don't want to thinkabout it when I step out of the jacuzzi.
I just want to go inside,

Yep.

Um, so we thought about a lot.
We still have, I'm sure lots to learnas, as the technology evolves and,
and we get more and more feedbackfrom how customers want to use
the products in different ways.

The cool thing about that though is that, that the app
is just like a new version comes outand it has new functionality and it
just gives the end user more controlover the devices they already have.
I think that's absolutely fantastic toget like those quote unquote over the air
updates and, and be able to do new thingsand, and I think I love that about it.

(47:55):
Yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely a, a nice feature to be able to do
and, and offer new solutions to, tocustomers as, as we develop them.

Jeff, I, I assume it's the same with with lighting and
probably sound too, but maybe youcan give an idea of, of the kinds of
controls that your customers ultimatelyhave over those kinds of devices.

Yeah, we, we have pretty broad control over lighting and, and
what the keypads can enable you to do,like I alluded to a little earlier, is
to set a keypad button to do anything.
So got lighting control, both wiredand wireless lighting control.
That gives you pretty broad compatibilityover control in just about any type of

(48:36):
light load and, and non lighting loads.
We can control fans and, and.
And heaters, and I know theBrahmic heaters, some are zero
to 10 volt control, a lot of 'em.
And we have zero to 10 volt controlbuilt into our lighting as well.
So those experiences are provided.
We also introduced a few yearsago, RGB Control, and this is,

(48:58):
uh, an area of control thatreally provides great experiences.
I remember when I was thinking aboutit originally, I like, why would
I want an RGB light in my house?
Or, this is kind of weird, it's, it'slike, makes me feel like I'm, it's
kind of gimmicky and I don't want that.
And, but now what we're seeing is willcreate an accent wall and put a color

(49:18):
on it and it's really purposeful andit can really be done beautifully.
And so there are some really niceapplications of RGB lighting that can
be used interior inside and outside.
I, I had an experiencewith some outdoor lighting.
Uh, mostly because of my ignorance.
As it started, we startedselling a, a great outdoor

(49:39):
product line called FX luminaire.
And I got a system and was ableto, to put it in and, and test it
as we developed the driver for it.
And they asked me, do you wantRGB lights or do you want just
just white or, or white with, uh,you know, tunable white lights?
And I said, well, I don't know.
What should I get?
And they said, oh, get rrg B.

(49:59):
And I thought, well, what the heck?
I don't know if I'll ever use it,but maybe I'll use it for holidays.
So I put RGB lights around myhou around my yard and I shine
'em up on different trees.
And Wow, putting, putting landscapelighting in on your house is so awesome.
It makes your house look

Okay.

at night.

It just looks like way more expensive all of a sudden, right?
It's like, Ooh, this is so nice.
Yeah,

It's amazing, and, and maybe this is just coincidence, but
since then I've noticed several ofmy neighbors put up outdoor lighting.

it's contagious.

in that, um, I, I should have talked to the FX
Luminaire folks a little more before,but I started playing with it.
And as I played with the colors,we have a, little, um, Japanese
maple tree by our front door.
And as I was playing with colors, I turnedit to red and I thought, wow, this little
Japanese maple tree just really lights up.
It looks like it's on fire.
It's beautiful if I put that as red.

(50:51):
And I started tinkering withit and I found that, oh, you
just put it slightly red.
So, so the, I mean, if you put itreally red, then, then you know
it's by the front of the house.
It makes the front ofthe house kind of red.
But if you just put it slightly red,it still makes the leaves really pop.
And I then I went over to one of my crabapple trees and I did the same thing.
I just

Thanks.

red and I thought, wow, this looks great.
Then I went over to one of my pinetrees and I moved it slightly green.
you can imagine this.
This look of, of shining a bunchof white light on these trees and
it looked great compared to puttingjust a little bit of color in there.
And all of a sudden, I mean, you don'tnotice that there's color in the lighting,
but you just notice the colors of the

Mm.
Mm-hmm.

it looks beautiful.
And I mentioned it to the FX Luminaireguys, and they're like, well, yeah, you,
you should have asked us about that.
That's what we recommend.
And um, you know, it's, it's,it's one of those elements that
of, of, really beauty in making.
Making your system be really,you know, do exactly what you
want, make your house look nicer.
And, and now we have control, youknow, all of that control is in our,

(51:57):
in our system and in our application.
I can go out in my front yard, I canset all my lights to a new color scheme,
whatever for my football team or whatever.
I can save that scene.
And on my app I can say, you know, havethat come on automatically tonight.
And, and all of this can be done by me, byme as the homeowner, not the integrator.
And so we've opened up the capabilitynot only to control colored lighting,

(52:20):
but we, we, the RGB lighting, but togiven the customer some capabilities.
I mean, on top of that, if you've ever,if you haven't ever lived with tunable
white lighting, and you do it, you putit on what a lot, a lot of people are
calling the circadian lighting this,the scheduled lighting where the color
temperature changes throughout the day.
This is an incredible experience.

(52:42):
You know, I like to say you gointo Home Depot and you buy a
light bulb today, you choose acolor temperature, and guess what?
You're gonna be

Yep.

every time because you put it in, you think it looks great, and then
it gets dark and oh man, it looks bad now.
Or vice versa.
But this, this, this tunable whitelighting and, and our system and
other systems provide this as well.
You, you put it in and, and you, you, youknow, you know those lights are capable
of that and you set it automaticallyto change throughout the day.
And it is an incredible experienceto provide nice, bright lighting.

(53:12):
It just feels like you havemore windows in the room.
Great experience.
I think that one is, that's somethingthat we'll see a lot more on the, on the
inside of homes and, uh, this RGB lightingand like we said, the landscape lighting
can really make your yard incredible.

That's cool.
Cormac, I have an idea for you.
You, you've gotta, you've gotta automateit now so that, that it pulls in the
football schedule so that when yourlions are playing or when Auburn's
playing, it automatically swaps the colorof the lights out front so everybody
on the block knows it's game night.

And, and, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, our neighbors are fans of our biggest rival, so just to
stick it to 'em when they're playing.
I put our team colors out.

There you go.
See.

See it's your own version of sports right there in your front yard.

That's right.

you.

That's That's awesome.

It's fun.
It's fun Rivalry.

I'm glad you brought up Jeff, this, this thing about, well,
well, you should have asked, right?
Like your guys said you should have asked.
Uh, and it's like, well, howwould I have known to even ask?
And so I think, you know, for an audienceof architects who are listening to
this and they're hearing a lot of thisstuff for the first time, and of course
nobody's gonna remember all of it.
And of course it'll bedifferent when their clients
get their hands on something.

(54:22):
But this all goes back tokind of like, where's the best
place to get this information?
And, and I think the best questionto always ask in the very beginning
is like, tell me what I don'tknow, like, what questions should
I be asking you because you.
Both have your fingers on the pulseof your categories, right, of not only
your products, but your categories.

(54:42):
And I find that it is absolutely the bestmindset to go in as the architect and
say, tell me what I don't know, becauseI can't know everything about everything.
And so it sounds like you guys bothhave those resources available to
architects and designers out there.
So Mike, can you talk about Bromic'sand then Jeff will pass it over to you.

Yeah, we have a, a design team here that supports, uh, you know,
architects and designers in terms of howto incorporate outdoor heat and how to
then enable controls, like to ask thequestions of how do they plan on using
this space, you know, what's the, themain uses of these areas and who's gonna
be using them to then be able to talkthrough different control solutions, uh,

(55:26):
as well as then help lay out the heatersto make sure they have optimal coverage
of the areas for, for maximum comfort.
So we're all here to help and, you know,there to, to help in that journey and
understanding what's the best way to,to bring comfort to the outdoor space.

And we continually build on our, our training resources
from a manufacturer's perspective.
We, we train our internal sales team,our sales engineers that are in field,
in the field, and our sales reps thatare out there in the field helping
support all of the, the dealers andintegrators that purchase product from us.

(56:04):
And I would say to a, to a, an architectto really help know what's possible is
to with one of the integrators, uh, anintegrator that's already involved in
the, in the build or an integrator thatyou know, or the one that is local.
Um, our local.
Control4 sales reps also would behappy to entertain that conversation

(56:26):
and sales reps or sales engineers and,um, they can come in and have that
conversation to really help you understandand have a two-way conversation.
Really trying to understand what, whatyou as an architect are trying to deliver,
what the homeowner is looking for, andthen what's possible from a, from a,
a smart living experience perspective,

Hmm.

um, bringing those people together and having those
conversations is very valuable.
And like you said earlier, like wetalked about earlier, this, this market
continues to move and there there willcontinue to be more and more experiences.
So this isn't a one time conversation,but um, you know, getting together, we,
we encourage our integrators, connectwith architects, get upstream in the

(57:09):
project build and the design conversationearlier and everything works out
better and with, with interest coming.
Coming from the architects downalso to, into the integrators.
You know, combining those, those twoefforts, putting them together and having
those conversations is the best way to

Nice.
I guess final questionthen for, for both of you.
We'll start with you, Michael.
What, what are you excited aboutwith the latest technological
advances that you've been seeing

Uh, how I'm nowhere near done, uh, exploring the, the
opportunities we have for our new affinitycontrollers, uh, in terms of helping
people understand the, all the different,uh, options that, uh, they enable.
and then, uh, down the line, we've got,uh, new updates to our products to really
improve the aesthetics, whether it's our,our leading platinum series or our clips

(57:57):
line to expand that out of the overallsolutions, uh, for, for the outdoors.

Nice, Jeff.

We, we continue to iterate on all of our products.
Um.
Some of the changes are, small incrementalchanges, some of our larger, more
innovative changes, and, and, uh, they,they're applied across the spectrum
of all of our different products.
Um, one question that may come tomind is, what about AI in all this?

(58:28):
How is that going to impact what we do?
Um, a user's perspective,from a homeowner's perspective
and how they use their home?
You might think, well, I can just use AIand it's gonna make a lot of decisions
for me and make it a lot easier.
And there are some cases where, wherewe could say, we could have the app say,

(58:49):
Hey, we notice you do this every night.
We notice as you're going to bed,you, Turn off the hallway, like you
want us to do that automatically.
And there are those types ofexperiences that we can enable.
But as we go down that path froma user's pers from a homeowner's
perspective, you have to be carefulabout how we, how you apply that.

(59:13):
You look at walking in the laundryroom, every time I walk in the laundry
room, I want the lights to come on.
Let's just use that as an example.
I know that every time I walk in thelaundry room, I want the lights on.
if the lights, you know, there, thereare no cases 'cause it doesn't have
windows, I want the lights to come on.
But if I configure theater To,to turn the lights slightly on.

(59:36):
Every time I press pause,that may sound great.
I'm, I'm gonna press pause.
I want the lights to come on becauseI'm gonna go answer the door,
or I'm gonna go get the popcorn.
Those, those types of things may happen,and you might think, I always want
that, but the first time you watch amovie and you press pause because of
some other thing, and you don't wantthe lights to come on, the lights come
on and you're like, oh, I hate that.

(59:58):
I don't want that.
And so you have to be careful asyou go down this path of making
sure that you only the thingsthat you know you want every time.
And there's a line therebetween that's so great.
The system does it for me, liketurning on my outdoor lights.
I want that every night.
It's awesome.
I never have to think about it again.

(01:00:19):
Versus some of these other experienceswhere, you know, we're, we're creatures
of habit, but we don't follow theexact same pattern all the time.
And the second you're out ofthat pattern and you want to do
something and your system's doingsomething else, it's very, very

Evan Troxel (01:00:31):
Yeah.

Jeff Thomas (01:00:32):
So you have to, we have to be careful about where we, where
we apply AI and how much we apply itso that we can, you don't want to get
in the way, you don't want to makecreative a frustrating experience.
So that from a homeowner's perspectiveis we're going to see improvements
there and there'll be, there'll begreat improvements, but there's a
line there you have to be careful of.
From an integrator's perspective,there are a lot of things that

(01:00:52):
we can, we can use AI in to make,the integration life simpler.
There may be configurationtasks that they think, oh man,
I don't wanna have to do that.
'cause every time I have to do that, ittakes me 45 minutes because why don't
we apply AI to that configuration?
you know, those types of things thatseem tedious are often good targets

(01:01:15):
for, for some AI to take care of.
So there are, there are areaslike that from the integration
perspective, even even design froman integration perspective, uh,
we can use AI to really help help.
that process.
so it's a, it is a buzzword to somedegree, but, uh, I expect to see it
applied more both from a, from thehomeowner experience side as well as
from the integrators experience side tohelp improve things that we're doing.

Evan Troxel (01:01:38):
Fantastic.
Well, thank you both for teaching ustoday about the future of home automation.
And I, you know, like I said in thebeginning, I know there's a lot of
residential architectural designers andarchitects doing work, and this is one
of those layers that's becoming moreand more asked for by clients, right?
Because of the conveniences that itaffords and kind of the excitement

(01:02:00):
that it, that it could bring.
but of course, we're balancingthat with some real world talk
here of, of the things to look outfor, the frustrations that exist.
And, you know, this, these are allthings to keep in mind as we're
talking with our clients aboutintegrating these new technologies
into our projects and into their.
New upcoming houses, right?
So they've gotta live with it.

(01:02:21):
so that's gonna be a whole other levelfrom, from us, just specifying things.
we'll have links to the resourcesthat you both offer in the
show notes for this episode.
And until next time.

Michael Smith (01:02:32):
Thank you guys.

Cormac Phalen (01:02:33):
Thank you very much.

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