November 4, 2010
Redefining the role and expertise of
the custom electronics integrator
Our clients now expect that they
can enjoy a Netflix movie streaming
download to each of the main TVs in
their home, and they want to manage
and control this content by not
only using traditional handheld
remote controls but also through
an array of iPad-, iPhone-, and
Android-based multi-touch
graphical devices.
In my opinion, the successful
integrator in the next decade must
have a thorough understanding of
three areas to best meet the current
and future electronic integration
needs of our clients: streaming
entertainment products and services,
iPad/iPhone/Android control
platforms, and the home network.
1 Streaming Entertainment Products and Services.
Entertainment content for our clients is coming from their
broadband connection as much as it is from their cable or satellite
services. They are watching TV from Hulu, movies from Netflix, and
music from Pandora. These experiences are, or will be, delivered from
products like AppleTV and Google TV. They will be watched and
listened to in the fixed whole-house audio video solutions that we design
and implement, but they also will be seen and heard from myriad mobile
devices inside and outside the home.
The ESC has to know how to best match this emerging broadband
entertainment content with the needs of their clients. This will be a challenging task, because the landscape for these entertainment solutions
changes daily, yet we are expected to be the paid professionals that keep
up to date with these evolving technologies.
2 iPad/iPhone/Android Control Platforms. The iPad, iPhone, and
Android products are three of the more powerful electronic solutions to
enter the home since always-on broadband internet services were wired
to our residential clients almost a decade ago. In less than six months, the
iPad has become a phenomenal control platform capable of integrating
the control of intelligent home network devices onto a beautiful 10-inch
tablet that has quickly become what author and cartoonist Scott Adams
calls our “exobrain.”
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Sometime in 2011, the integrated home will consist of a page of applications, such as this example of
Control4’s 4Store apps, that allow clients to control everything from lights, sound, TV, security, pool, and hot
tubs to viewing and controlling the home’s electrical energy production, monitoring, and usage patterns.
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Sometime in 2011, the integrated home will consist of a page of
applications that allow our clients to control everything from lights, sound,
TV, security, pool, and hot tubs to viewing and controlling the home’s
electrical energy production (think solar panels) to electrical monitoring
and usage patterns. Eventually, ESCs will spend less time writing custom
control programming for a proprietary touchpanel and more time
designing and installing of electronic subsystems that deliver the “app
experience.”
3 The Home Network. We have become the designers and integrators
of digital home networks. Understanding the infrastructure and operating
characteristics of the hardware devices that carry the home’s audio,
video, and data is no longer an optional skill set. ESCs must know how
to install, manage, and troubleshoot routers, switches, wireless access
points, computers, and network attached storage drives. The quality and
reliability of the whole-house custom electronic solutions that we provide
our clients depends upon the skill with which we design and deploy these
network infrastructures.
The custom electronic systems contracting channel is on the threshold
of offering the richest entertainment, communications, and control
products that we have ever offered to our clients. Enabling these rich new
experiences for our homeowners will require the professional talents of
ESCs prepared to deliver iPad-based control solutions and reliable, highquality
digital streaming services across a robust and well-managed IP
network connected home.
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