Change of Pace- In Home Client Demo

This is a republish of an article of mine from an industry-only publicatio

I’m not that old, but back when I started in this industry, integrated AV and automation control was pretty close to black magic. People did it, but not many people understood how or why. Six-figure systems were bought and sold on two things; your relationship with the buyer and the demo “wow”. These days, the demo seems to be a lost art form. People buy from a bid package and don’t really know what they’ve bought until the demo at the house months or years later and most of us take that time to show the client how the system works, not to blow the doors off and impress. What a lot of us don’t realize is that this could be the best demo opportunity we have ever gotten, showroom or not.

Now, ill admit that I’m pretty rusty on demoing. We don’t have a showroom, I don’t do sales, and the demo’s I tend to do are more of how to use the system vs. wowing the client. What I have started to do is alter the traditional demo to better suit my role and our product. The demo has become- The client life demo.

Basically, instead of wowing the client in a showroom, you are giving the demo of how to use the system, in their homes. Most of the time (at least in the case of Innerspace) the system programming is wrapping up as the client is moving in, so you really have a chance to make them realize how this impacts their life on a day to day basis.

I like to schedule at the end of the day, when people aren’t (as) rushed. As Production Supervisor, I like to get to the house early, check in, check the system out to know what needs work, and what doesn’t, and set the stage for what’s to come. Know what music is on the server, know what movie and what scene I want to demo, and run through the house to see what vignettes I want to stage. That’s right, what better place to stage a vignette, than to set it up where they are about to spend a large portion of their lives. Many showrooms use vignettes to give potential clients a taste of what a system like this might be like in their homes, this is where you have the upper hand!

Now, of course you’re going to do the jaw-dropping demo. The IronMan in the theater, the Dark Knight in the Media room, but what else? How about (pre) recording an HD football game in the study or bar? Why not show Bloomberg or MSNBC on the TV in the bathroom, or AM/FM and local news in the kitchen? Yes, you absolutely want to impress and show them what the system is capable of, but you also want the client to realize that you understand that this was a lifestyle choice, and you get how they live their lives to some extent. Play summer music in the dead of winter out by the pool, show off the lighting preset that gets them to the bedroom without fumbling for switches they have yet to discover. Make the house feel like home as soon as you can. This is also a great time to upsell. Show them the iPhone apps, sit them down at their computer and show them E-Control. Have all of this at the ready so that when they pick their jaws off the floor, you can make a quick, tidy profit and just bring these awesome features online near-instantly. You don’t just want to show them how to use it; you want to show them how to use it in their new life in their new home. What better time could you have to wow someone, than right after the stress of building and or moving into a new home?

Now, like the old days, the key to the demo is to lead the demo. You certainly don’t want the system to completely blow their minds but leave them unable to use it. Make sure it’s interactive. Make sure they learn how to do what you just did. The system is likely easy to use, but it might be their first system of this caliber and may be a bit intimidating, especially to the rest of the family. This is not like the old days in that you want to be seen as the “all powerful stereo guy”. Leave that to someone else. You want them diving right in. Nothing is better than coming back for an add-on and seeing the system being used by the whole family, with the exception of them loving the system so much that all their friends call….

Mac in AV

As we have all seen, Apple computers- Macbooks, iMacs, etc... have become the computer to have. Surprisingly, this seemingly new found ubiquity has been lost on most of our manufacturers. Name a vendor who allows you to program their systems from a Mac without virtualization? Savant doesn't count, as they are totally Mac based. Harmony doesn't either, as its primarily web based. I bet most of you are struggling to answer that and virtualization doesnt always work. I don't know of many either.

Controlling systems and integrating to Mac's is a challenge as well. Here are just a few examples: Audio ReQuest and their integration to iTunes on Mac is a labor intensive process that is NOT intuitive. At least they have something for the Apple lover. Kaleidescape has their conductor software to send your music from your K-Scape to a computer and it's PC only. Crestron JUST came out with Xpanel for Mac, years and years after you could control your system on a Windows box. Meridian's software configuration is Windows only, and programming a Niles system is a Windows affair as well. I can go on and on and on.

The point is, while everyone seems to jump on the iPhone bandwagon, most of our vendors in the industry seem to be recalcitrant in their support of the OSX platform on the actual computers like iMac and MacBook Pro. In the age of 'global' Intel hardware on both Mac and Windows boxes, why aren't more manufacturers and vendors at least starting to make the push? Everyone seems to be overhauling their software for the latest and greatest features and newest buzzwords, but why forget a growing part of the computer using population on both sides of the industry?

I do applaud Savant for taking the Mac approach, but then they are a Mac based system. With that being said, using their product on PC is equivalent to all the examples i've listed above, on the other side of the mirror.

The industry needs to get on board. These aren't the days of the Apple Lisa and the Apple Pippen; Apple has an ever increasing markets share, and more and more people have a comfort level with Mac that they have NEVER had with a PC. Its time to at least embrace everyone. If you're going to do a major software revision take the time to do it on a Mac, it can't hurt.

- JTM

Full disclosure- Written on a Mac

Sonos- A good start for the connected

As I mentioned in a tweet earlier, we've started carrying Sonos. Part of me loves the product (or it's potential) and part of me has some hesitancy (in what it's missing)

For those of you that clicked on the link or already knew about the product it's an interesting idea in quite a few ways. It has the potential to be a multi-room audio system that does room to room wirelessly. This is a big jump in some ways for multi-room and in other ways it falls just a bit short for some people.

The system consists of the controllers , what they call zone players and the other various widgets; Speakers and zone bridges and possibly a networked hard drive are the last of the components really need to get a system off the ground of any size more than a room or two. Place the zone players in each room, attach some speakers, make sure it all shows up on your network and you're off to a good start. Now, about the music. You have a couple of options:

1. Fill a hard drive full of your favorite tunes and connect it to the network

2. Setup the internet music functionality via the network- This could be pandora, Last.Fm, even Sirius internet radio. A fair selection of music

3. Some sort of 'older' source- CD player, iPod etc.... (no, I personally don't think iPod is an old source)

The challenges of a Sonos system are focused on standard source components (CD, FM tuners, xm tuners even iPods etc...). Sonos doesn't control these sorts of devices, and it doesn't even try. If you want to attach one to the system, you can, but you better be pretty close to your CD player or iPod when you want to do track forward or track back.

This is where Sonos falls short. Most of us use iPod's, still have CD's, and maybe have a tuner of some kind at home. To have so little control over these sources really makes the system a tough choice for a fair number of people.

I know you might be thinking that, how big a house could you live in that this is SUCH a heartache, but i'm not the client for this product right now.

Imagine having a two story house, plugging your iPod in down in the family room on the first floor, and walking upstairs to the bedroom and turning the system on. Now, imagine you want to change tracks on your iPod... that you left downstairs, plugged in. Once or twice this is going to happen and you're going to be annoyed, more than that, and you'll probably wind up using the system less and less because you see it as a hassle.

I do think that if the system is well planned and discussed with a professional or if you really give it some thought on how you really live in your home and where you spend your time , this system can be an AMAZING choice for quite a few people. I also think this is the next coming of multi-room audio and automation in nascent form. The idea of wireless communication from room to room amongst all devices in the system, content being primarily "cloud" based and control that follows you from room to room are going to be the tenets of what the industry is in the not so distant future and Sonos is definitely on that bleeding edge.

Once we have our first large scale (for Sonos) installation, which should happen in the next 30-60 days, ill give you my thoughts on how the system behaves and how the client likes this "cloud integration". Let me know what you think in the comments below.

- JTM