Inside CI Tech Talk - News, Reviews and Interviews
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Inside CI Tech Talk - News, Reviews and Interviews
What’s New In Custom Install - Live from Cedia Summits Part One
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The fastest way to learn what’s changing in custom install is to listen to what integrators and manufacturers are actually solving on the show floor. From the CEDIA Tech Business Summit, we bring you short, practical conversations packed with real install takeaways: what’s new, what’s working, and what to keep in the van so you can fix problems without turning a job into a science project.
We start with AWE on the gear that keeps systems stable, including Eero mesh networking in Wi‑Fi 6 and Wi‑Fi 7, and why active optical HDMI at 48 Gbps is becoming the “just make it work” answer for modern 4K HDR and projection rooms. We also get into the refreshed Denon Home speakers, the value of a physical microphone disable switch, Dolby Atmos music, and the upcoming option to use Denon Home as wireless rear surrounds with compatible Denon AV receivers, all tied together with HEOS multi-room audio.
Then we hit smart home integration and infrastructure: Janus Technology on Control4 and Crestron Home drivers, virtual thermostats, smart TRVs, and a genuinely useful smart energy monitoring dashboard that can turn PV generation and usage history into better automation decisions. BlueStream shares where AV over IP, Dante, AES67, and power management PDUs are headed. We round out with Gallo and Aquavision on new speaker formats, custom colours, and a configurator that simplifies specifying complex TVs, plus Nice on wired, wireless, and hybrid smart living. Finally, KEF previews a serious outdoor lineup built around Uni‑Q, buried subs, and new DSP amplifiers designed with integrator control in mind.
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Welcome From The Tech Summit
Right, so James, we're here today at the Senior Techa Business Summit. Um, you're here as Mr. AWE. I mean, you are pretty much Mr. AWE. I I've only ever known you at AWE. Well, between me and Mal, there is sort of 40 plus years of AWE. Yeah.
AWE Highlights And New Networking
Just in the two of us that are here today. So yeah, we've been here a while. Actually, I've worked with him for over 20, well, 24, 25 years, because we were a previous company together as well. Well, I think the thing is like if you go back to, I think it was middle of last year, wasn't it? Your 90th or not, your 90th anniversary. I know I'm looking at the 90th. No, it was the AWE's 90th anniversary last year, and I I sat down with Stuart in the old boardroom and we did a podcast on that, and uh we talked about the fact of that you know I've been a customer of AWE for nearly 20 years now, and you know, people do come and go, but the the fundamentals of AWE have stayed the same for so many years. It's like you, Mel, Nick, uh, Paul, you know, just like Jackie, all the eye, Christina. I can just carry on with this. But anyway, tell me just name everyone at once AW. So tell me about what your I mean, obviously, you do uh a lot of brands, yes, um, all complementary to each other, not like chucking loads of the same product at the you know, the same integrator. But what have you got on show here today? What what's new and what's coming up? So I think that the there's a few new things to AW over the last sort of 12 months, and one of the newest actually is the uh Eero for uh wireless networking. Yeah, um, absolutely fantastic. Wireless mesh works phenomenally well, and we've got that in Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 versions. So um it's a really easy product for you to get involved with as an integrator. It's worth having, it's sort of a product that's worth having in the van. So if you have uh wireless issues in a certain point in a property, you get like a uh three uh pack of these, the Euro7 or something like that, just in the van, ready to go. Pop it in. Uh very simple to set up, and uh you can extend your Wi-Fi straight away. I've got to say, I got given one as part of a uh a broadband package. I moved to a broadband provider that was giving me two and a half gig. Yeah. And and of course, their own router, many routers, won't support, won't support two and a half gig. So they gave me an hero, and I was like, oh, I'll just chuck it in and then I'll swap it out and put another one in. And six months later, it I have another network behind it, but it's still there. And I am really pleasantly surprised in how robust it is. You know, it tells me it's going to do a software update. I can log into the app and I can look at uh specifications. Yeah, it's it's it's a prosumer product. It's geeky enough for us, isn't it? Yeah, it's something that we can look at and get really geeked out on, but not something that you open a menu up to and go, help, and phone mel up. It's one of it's one of those ones that it actually is as plug and play as you need it to be. But if you need to drill in and find out a little bit more of what's going on, then it's all there
Active Optical HDMI For 48Gbps
for you as well. So excellent. We find that really great. Um, other new uh brands to us, obviously not new brands, uh cords, cabling. We've got them, and what we found incredibly successful with them, and even in our own uh demo facility, is their active optical HDMI. Yeah. We um yeah, we've we've stepped up now, projection systems now need more than 18 gigs. You know, the the if you're if you are running 4K HDR with um HDR 10 or whatever it happens to be, or as simple as something like um your Apple TV menu, Apple TVs have this wonderful habit of going, oh the ed says that I can pump out all of this and does it, and you put an well, you know, our our demo rooms is a great example, all 18 gig cables, all certified, tested the works, and then all of a sudden it doesn't work anymore. Yeah, so you put in a 48 gig active opticals, and we've done it in both cinema rooms, and it's been absolutely flawless ever since. So that sort of thing is really good for installers to know, and it's really great to have in our portfolio that something that is literally designed and made by and for installers. Yeah, and I mean uh you know, say uh active uh HDMI, optical HMIs, we started using those in as the integration uh business five years ago, whatever, to replace our runs of cat six. Okay, we still put cat six next to it, and they've been a lifesaver, you know. You just go in, you pop it in up to a hundred metres, I think, you know, is a hundred meters on uh HDMI cable where you're thinking an HDMI run, if it's longer than this, yeah, you're bummed longer than this, you start to worry, don't you? Um but no, it's absolutely great. And then they've got other HDMIs in there as well. So the these ones here do them in really short lengths over 0.3 to whatever uh up uh to whatever length you like, really, but then more for racks because they've got great bend radius, easy to get in. Ah, cool, excellent. So very, very nice product there, and of course, uh something that they're very famous for is their Slimcat cable, and now they've got an external Slimcat which does use exactly the same connectors as the original Slimcat cable, so you don't have to buy different things for the external one. And I think the the the pre-terminated patch leads. Yes, I think I was doing a job in um London and flew over to the desk. Uh I think I mentioned this in the podcast with Stuart. Flew over to the desk because I'm like, oh my god, I think it was the old network we put in was uh rear face, no, was uh was front facing or rear facing, but this one meant like my leads weren't reaching. That was it, it was front facing, so all my leads were nicely like this, but they were all like this long. So it's like, oh my god, what am I gonna do? I'm like, how far's Epsom from here? And it was like in the van, 20 minutes, picked up a load of patch leads back to the client's house and patched it in. And there's uh yeah, great things as well. They do these belt packs, so you've just lots and lots of cables in there, really um nice, simple packaging. It's like the um it's like a Batman, literally, yeah, it's like a utility belt. Yeah, so so for that kind of instance, there are just a whole bunch of one meters, all there ready to go for you. And then behind this, we've got Den on Home,
Denon Home Atmos And Wireless Rears
which you did a video on the other day. I saw that. I did a video on those, and we did uh an integrated training with Trevor, if you know Trevor from uh Sound United. Um, yeah, great new product actually. So this is to replace the older Den and Home product. Um, but this has come uh it's significantly upgraded from before. So certain things have simplified. So on the back, you literally the main connection now is just a single USB-C. But you can put if you wanted to have this as a wired uh speaker rather than wireless, yeah, you put your Ethernet adapter in there, and they work with any Ethernet adapter. Not a specific one that you have to put in with anything like that. Okay. Um they are all uh voice as well, but as we know a lot of our clients really don't like having microphones and listening to you, there is a hard switch on the back, right? And that is a mechanical switch that physically detaches. There is no remote way of making that attach back. You have to click it across if you want to or not use it. But from actual uh sound, not only are they a great speaker, so they all actually are uh Dolby Atmos music enabled, obviously the small one that kind of uses DSP to do that, but once you go up to the Denon 400 and there's also a Denon Home 600, they've got up firing speakers to do so, it's a stereo speaker, yeah, and then upfire is to do Dolby Atmos, so you can have Dolby Atmos music on there. Okay, and my right in thinking, I saw me and Simon on the podcast the other day did a story on one of the new Denon amps, and later this year there's a software upgrade coming, so you can use Denon Home as your rear surrounds. This is actually even better than it first sounds. Because that was like, I was like, really? Right, so it has to be the new Denon product because it's using the I think it's Bluetooth LE, which is the one that's got basically no latency. Yeah. Um, so we'll only work on the new ones, which we've literally just put on our website now, so we'll have those very soon indeed. So is that the 290, 290, 2900 or 3900? I'm not familiar with the model numbers yet, and I'll literally put them on the website, I think, on Friday. I think I put a press release out last week. I think that's why press release, we're all doing that at the same time. We all got it at the same time. Anyway, we'll learn the model numbers soon. But we can insert here. Yeah, just put it across the portal, just track down there. That's it, yeah. Right. But what you can do is you can take as simple as two Denon Home 200s and they will wirelessly can be integrated onto that amplifier to be your surround channels. Yeah, it gets cleverer than that. You could do two Denhome 400s or two Denon Home 600s if you wanted more full range for those. Okay. But as a really nice party trick, because the Denhome 400 and Denhome 600 are actually proper stereo speakers, you could put one up the bag as both surround sound channels. Oh, you have a single stereo uh den and home 400 or 600 in the back of the room doing your surround sound channels there. I mean, it's a great idea because I think as me and Simon sort of discussed on the podcast, um, was that you do do clients. I mean, we do do jobs for clients who are like, oh shall a two-channel system. So you put like a den on AVR in, and we always sort of say to them, look, don't go with two-channel. If there's you've got a tiny inclination, you're gonna do a surround sound at some point, put a multi-channel lamp in, and we'll just do it as a two-channel at the moment, then you can have surround sound. But if you've got no cables running to the back, then pop one of those in. And it's like a lot, a lot of these media walls, you can do a 3.1 system, so you might as well put a proper AVR in. And if you've got the capability at a later date and you go, actually, I do fancy having something at the back. You don't have to think, oh well, we didn't do the cabling because there wasn't the cost in the job. It's you pop one or two of these at the back of that room and away you go. So it's a really interesting proposition. But what's great is it's the denim home product and all of the uh denim AV receivers, Marantz AV receivers, amplifiers, they all have Hios built into them, yeah, which means that they all integrate as part of a multi-room audio system. So you put a Denon and Marantz A V receiver in, that means that that room's a zone. You pop one of these in a kid's bedroom, that can be uh that's a zone within there. You put a couple of these as a stereo pair in another room as a listening room, that can then be integrated as a zone, so you can do all the things you'd expect with party mode and all of the uh streaming services that you would absolutely expect to be on there. Excellent. So, and obviously on the table here we've got Stealth, you've got Marance, you've got Bows and Wilkins over there. You can see all the brands you do on the back, but obviously the the biggest thing for me as a Prince fan is that the hoods now come in purple. Yes, well, you know, we we have our uh it's from our kinetic brand, and kinetic is a purple. Purple, yeah. So so we've uh literally it's just so you can see them in the ceiling. It's a purple firehood, they're basically the same as before, acoustic firehoods uh available in two sizes, so if you're six inch and yeah, eight
AWE Expo Plans And Invisible Audio
inch speakers. Um yeah, and then we've got the expo coming up at the end of June, yes, which has been re-jigged for obviously we didn't do it in 2025, did we? Um so you've re-jigged it for 2026. Well, it was almost a victim of its own success, so popular that people weren't getting around to see everything. So we're gonna formalise it a little bit more with small group sessions so everyone will get to see everything. It's a bit of a guided tour. Yeah, a guided tour. So throughout the course of the day, uh we'll have an opening presentation and then you'll go around split into small groups. Now we'll probably limit it to five or six in each group. So this is uh definitely book your place because we're running for two days, and and when we run out of space, we run out of space. So don't think you've I I reposted it yesterday, but I know on LinkedIn the post went up yesterday about it, so all the information is on LinkedIn and social platforms about that. So it's a little bit like the October event you did yesterday where we were all in. Yeah, yeah, we've done that, we've done it for single brands before, we've done it for Optome, we've done it for Epsom, we've done it for Sony events. But this time round, we're uh we've got sort of uh six different spaces within our uh showroom facility, and we'll take you around to all of the different things. So uh, you know, I'll be talking projectors probably. We're not quite uh down on exactly who's gonna be doing what things, but almost certainly I'll be doing things on projectors and the and no hog roast this year, but Pete waits as well. We say we don't know for definite, we haven't confirmed because I mean that's why I cut. Yeah, I know you could tell. Yes, but but yeah, there will there will be street food of some description for lunch. Yes, definitely. And one last question what were the dates? Oh, yeah, 30th of June, 1st of July. Excellent. Uh so and that's there, and you will get to hear things like you did uh hint that we've got the stealth acoustic there. One of our demo rooms, we've now put these in as surround sound speakers. Okay, works fantastically. That's a great demo to come and hear. The wide dispersion on these means that actually a little 5.1 system that we've put in sounds like a 7.1 system because it if if you remember how old dipole bipolar speakers used to sound, you couldn't quite tell where the sound's coming from. So putting these in does exactly the same. What I love about invisible speakers, especially the stealth ones, is that if you can't quite put the centre where the centre needs to go, then it doesn't matter. I mean, I can always remember when you first did the cinema and it was with a certain speaker brand, and you put the sentence speaker under the screen and everybody commented on it because they could see it. But next year you hid it, it was in the exact same place, and everybody's like, I sound so much better. It sounded no different. It was a perception thing, we covered it. And I think in where I've used invisible speakers before, that's been brilliant because if it's in the ceiling and there's a beam and you put it slightly off centre, it really doesn't matter because you just you just don't see it. I've I've been doing some cheeky demos with it in there, so it's the it's the room with the media wall. So it's the little media room that we've got there. And I'll just start running a demo. I'll start looking behind them, going, what's going on? And it's not until after the first demo they go, yeah, actually, we're using the invisible speakers in here. And it but you don't know whether they're coming from the side or the back, it's just this because it it's lovely, especially if it's a plasterboard wall, it makes almost a whole wall of speakers. Yeah, oh it's oh, it just it just works really well for that kind of situation. And particularly, you know, like the media room that we've done, where decor and the interior design is so important, you don't want something like this in the wall. This is great for a cinema, particularly if you're going to, like a lot of us do now, where we fabric the fabric over it or it's behind the screen. Yeah. But if it's someone's actual living room, but you want the surround sound in there as well. You're not going to have something like that on display. Well, the interior designers are not very likely to allow that to get through, but that's you don't see it at all. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for your time. Um website address for AWE is www.s. Order w's aweneurope.com. And then obviously the expo's coming up. Expo's coming up. And if uh you haven't received the emails about that already, they will be coming out. I'm pretty sure that the first round of the case. Yeah, I got mine as as press. I got mine the other day, so I was straight in there yesterday, I think it was. So but no, definitely worth coming to. I've been to it pretty much every year it's been on, and it's always a great, great catch up. Great to see AWE, great to see the product. So, James, thank you very much for your time. And uh, I will see you again at well, actually, probably in Bristol, but next month. In a couple of weeks, but I've have to say, congratulations on the inside C. I think that's uh that's a great move for you. I think adding that with your home cinema alliance uh is it's gonna work great with you. Well, thank you, and thank you for the support that you know AW have shown HCA over the years. And yeah, I mean people like Stuart has turned around and said, look, what we want is a business-to-business brand with the same ethos as HCA, and you know, thankfully, because of David Slater's going off and retiring. Well, it just works well for you. It's a platform that already exists that we all know, and uh, I think the way that you've taken that brand so quickly, well, or as you call it, inside CI 2.0 2.0, yeah. Yeah, it's doing great already. Great guns. Well, thank you very much in the body. Cheers, yeah, thank you.
Smart Energy Monitoring And HVAC Drivers
So, Richard, we're here at the uh Cedia Tekka Business Summit, um, and you are here with your plethora of goodies on the table. Tell us a little about what you're showing off at the show today and what's new uh from you. Okay, thank you. Um, well, we're showing it a number of things. I mean, one of which is our new integrations with sort of polar bear. Um, so the thermostats, yep. Yep, luxury thermostat. We we've got integrations with control for and crushed on home that now fully support their virtual thermostats. So that really helps bring the cost down of overall systems, and you can design systems with this in your primary room, AC control, underfloor with just virtual thermostats directly connected to the UMC. Great solution. Um, we've also got advanced diagnostics, firmware updating, all built into our integrations. So very exciting. That's brilliant, really good. Um, we're also showing um in a new version of our sort of BMS monitor at uh Smart Energy Solution for Control 4. Right. Allows you to monitor anything, any variable in control four we can bring in, monitor, visualise the history of. And um we're showing here, I guess you can do something. I mean, that yeah, I mean that that was that was amazing when you showed me that at um uh Manchester, I think it was. I mean, let's have a look, see if I can get it close to the camera, see if it goes into focus. But uh, but yeah, I mean that was just for me, that's something that I've looked at as an integrator for the last 20 years and gone. That is just that's what we need. That's amazing. So, this is a live view of my house um monitoring the NG using A B B energy clamps. I mean, that's a great solution we're sort of launching now. Um, as well as that, we've also got a configurable dashboard. Right. So this is a fully configurable dashboard that the installer or the end user can create to show whatever information is relevant for their house. Okay, let's just have a look, get that on the camera as well. So I was that so we're not seeing any glaze. There you go. And so on there you can put alarm information, um, anything that's status of the house that's um that's of importance for you. Yeah, I mean, for me, that was like saying about Manchester was the fact that you take those little clamps and you put them on the power supply coming out of your unit, and then they are then completely monitored, and then you could see where energy is being drawn in the house, so then you can make informed decisions of where you well that that's it, that that's the next stage that we're working on. So it's more than I mean, visualizing and understanding where the usage is that's that's very important. Yeah, but where it gets really exciting then is about taking that to the next level and automating things so that when you've got excess PV generation, you can rather than exporting energy, you can use it internally, which is much better. Um, look at countries like um Belgium, it's very interesting. They've got a very um unusual way of costing for electricity, and they've penalise you if you go over a certain amount. Okay, and the penalties can be sort of quite horrific with many sort of tens or hundreds of euros per day if you exceed a certain usage. Wow. So with this, you can actually start monitoring am I on track to exceeding that? And then take decisions, switch off the AC, turn the temperature down, maybe not have the speakers running quite so loud. I think that's for me, it's like I mean, a few years ago we switched over energy supply and we got the smart meter that literally just shows you what you're spending, doesn't show you where you're spending it. So, yeah, you can not use the kettle more, you can turn the computer off if it's you know, rather than leaving it on standby. But to physically be able to, you know, as you say, to monitor and manage your environment and to show where you can save or where you can, you know, sell back to the grid or something like that. Um, it's brilliant. I mean, to me, that was a fantastic product that you're showing here. Um, and you know, people could see it in the other shows. Anything else that you're I mean, obviously you're really well known. I know you guys very well for helping me out with my control four drivers for heat miser and all those types of platforms. So talking about heat miser, um we're um just very excited that our integrations for control four crush on home now fully support this latest smart TRV valve that heat miser. Okay, so that's a heat miser product, isn't it? This is a heat miser product fully compatible with their Neo Hub, right? Fully working with our drivers. Ah, okay, brilliant. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I mean, put what's the website address so people can go along and have a look? JanusTechnology.co.uk. I was saying, because uh being a control four dealer for ages myself, you know, it's always one of those, yours is always one of those websites that you go and look, see what's new if I've not heard from you, because you've helped me in many years through my integrations, and uh certainly some of the stuff that you've got to show here. If I was still doing lots of integrations, would be first and foremost. The smart energy monitoring is something that I've even like I've already looked to putting in my own home. Right. So uh, but uh yeah, so uh website again, best way to find you. JonasTechnology.co.uk. Excellent, Richard. Well, look, thank you for your time and uh um and say anybody who's come into any of these, pop along and have a look and see what uh they could do for you. Thank you very much. Excellent. Cheers, Richard, thank you, mate.
BlueStream AV Distribution And PDUs
So we're here with Blue Stream at the senior tech of business summit. Tell us a little bit about what you've got on show here today. Thanks, Chair. Um yeah, generally everything that we do for the rese market with regards to video and audio distribution. So we've got a variety of different products based on AV over IP, HD based tiers of technology, some HDMI stuff, some audio stuff as well. Um, we're also uh showing off some of the new power management solutions that we have, our PDUs. Okay. Um, talking to some of the guys here about. uh some of the new PDUs that we've also got in development at this moment as well. So trying to glean some uh some ideas and feedback from the market about what is uh what is needed out there. So what would you say is the big thing this year? What's a what's what's sort of popular this year? I mean and we a lot of times we speak to people they're talking about Dante a bit more is it power management? I mean I use power management quite a lot in my integrator days. Is there anything which people maybe new to market that people might not know about or sort of people are finding useful and using more of at the moment? No indeed I mean look the the the power management side of things yes it's it's it's a new vertical for us with regards to uh to product type that we've been manufacturing and they've been in the market for sort of 18 months now and certainly starting to build some traction and as we glean more information back from the people that are using these at the sharp end um we're able to build in some of the additional functionality that people are needing uh and wanting and obviously with with the the the keen price points that BlueStream sell at um they're proving to be very popular at the moment. But with regards to to other stuff Dante you've mentioned as well Dante you know traditionally has been used in the uh in the commercial world for donkeys years and and it's been a staple go-to technology wise um in the residential side of things people haven't quite yet caught on to that um certainly with some other brands that use Dante or AES67 as uh as an audio platform for moving that audio around it's something that we can integrate with and uh we're very much bringing out some uh some some new products that that puts a twist on the way that Dante and AS67 can be used rather than just copying what everyone else has out there with regards to encoders decoders and those types of converters so um we've got products that that do multi-channel into Dante which uh which has been great for for for some of these speaker brands like Divi Alley for instance that that have that Dante built into them we can now help them with multi-channel surround setups using Donte as the architecture to move that audio but breaking it out from HDMI switching for instance. I mean BlueStream is certainly one of those brands where you know when I spend time on the forums or in our own home cinema alliance members group it's almost like I need something what does this have you spoken to BlueStream so you are a platform which are your Swiss Army knife type of we try yeah yeah indeed and and look it all comes back from the sharp end anyway and and we we spend as much time as we can talking and it's the reason why we come to these types of summits we're not here selling we're here actually developing for informing what people are wanting and look we're not at the sharp end I'm not on site seeing the struggles that people go through when they say I really need one box that does this this and this rather than having three different boxes three different power supplies three different sets of cabling um it it's it's taking that genuine market feedback and we get that from places like this which is why we're here which is brilliant as you know an integrator previously myself it's like it's great when brands listen to that and you're like but you know I've had this problem or have you ever thought about this and it's great when brands listen because okay you might not see it straight away but you know because it's got to be developed but maybe 12 months 24 months later you'll be like do you know what that have that product we're talking about yeah indeed indeed best way to get in touch with you guys to see your products um reach out to any of us directly obviously the social platforms that are out there we're we're we're there on all of those um look at the website bluestream.co.uk um or just give us a tinkle excellent I think most guys out there have got my mobile number anyway and whatever yeah but no it's all good. Awesome well look thank you very much for your time that's all right have a good show cheers cheer cheers buddy thanks tell me what you're showing off today.
Gallo LCR And Aquavision Configurator
Well first of all it's great to be here because it's only one hour from my house and normally we're normally we're traveling the length of the country to do a tech summit. Gallo and Aquavision together we we we exhibit both the these are the two brands under our under our stewardship um we exhibit both together every exhibition now so latest thing at the show is the new Gallo profile LCR so we developed the profile series over the last few years it's gone very very well it's now a significant part of the business um but the obvious question when people saw the long ones was is is that an LCR? Right so last year we developed the LCR um and it's launching in a few weeks and this is the larger version which is kind of roughly um 65 inch TV. So this is this has fundamentally got um so it's three independent speakers with three independent binding connections on each one basically yeah um two versions small and large to begin with I expect we'll have to keep going larger as the world goes larger. Tell me about it. But it's gone down a tree it sounds fantastic. It's a great product we had it we had the samples at ISE in Barcelona um launching soon and it's yeah very really exciting available in black and white and it just complements the rest of the range as well yeah um obviously Acrovision is here as always um I don't have my little remote control to turn this off and on to show you the mirror finish. We're overlay cyclists that were um but lots of stuff coming on the Acrovision side as well a load of stuff under development um that we'll be talking about hopefully at the later kind of probably the July tech summit in London. Right. So yeah it's good to be here and it's good to know that I'll be home like four hours before my bedtime rather than four hours after my bedtime not not like me who's got to go back to the hotel which is 45 minutes away then an eight hour drive back tomorrow. But uh so and you're obviously what you're famous for is the is the original pendant. Yes so our spheres actually the new colour never been in Edinburgh before is a gun metal the Lux gun metal which is great we actually just finished a we just finished a beautiful project that we posted about on LinkedIn yesterday um with the gun metal um lighting obviously and speakers um both sizes micro is this is the Adiba we have micro as well um but what we're doing a lot of these days more and more actually is custom colours yeah I've seen on the website you're doing some nice uh nice sexy videos of like the being coloured and uh well shout out to Daniel yeah the the the office light box next to the spray painting has gone well um yeah it used to be the kind of specialists installers were picking this because because they were looking for really creative options for the clients but it's now everybody because everybody knows it's available now so at the end of their end of their picks to the consumer they'll say by the way you can have this in any colour you want and it's a it's a small cost up so suddenly suddenly they're all doing it and it's it's it's a it's really really good. It's great what you're doing because obviously you know that used to be a privilege to very expensive you know speakers from like British brands who would match yes Rolls-Royce or McLaren colours a lot of the green yeah um but yeah you can you can you can deck and we've we we've been at installations last year where every room is a different colour and has different colored speakers to match the room or contrast the room and it's completely accessible. Compared to the cost of the project it's nothing. So it's it's it's gone down really well. Awesome. And best way for people to get in touch go to the website galloacoustics.com aquavision.tv the latest thing we did um late last year was launched the configurator for aquavision because aquavision is it there there was a thousand skews on the price list and and people would open the price list and close it again. Yeah so you go into screenbuilder.tv and you can just specify specify the TV you want involve mirror outdoor super yacht whatever and it just walks you through it like specifying a car and it's that's a that's been a game changer for us. And it's been good watching because you launch that and you don't know who's going to visit it and then you start to see things happening and people sending in quotes from the website and you there's such satisfaction in that that works. So screenbuilder.tv well I think a lot of things I mean if I look at some of my clients from my integration days and I look at myself a lot of people only do it on a Saturday or Sunday where a lot of the offices are closed. So they want access to price lists or they want access to configurators or they want to be able to say to the client look sit down on Saturday when you're back from London and and do this. So it's useful to have those platforms. And you need to because you know they're back on some other site on a month on Monday. So when I got in when I see an email popping in the Saturday afternoon looking for prices for Gallo say I always try and reply if I'm if I'm fortunate enough to be CC'd because you know they're just want they're not wanting to hang around for the answer. And we're working on some stuff for Gallo as well the ability to go on and for our trade guys in the UK here to place orders and make it really really simple for them. So that's all coming too excellent cohen well thank you very much for making the the long trip yeah I'm looking forward to going back south tomorrow. Thank you very much Stuart thank you so Stuart we're here today at the CD Tech of Business Summit um obviously you're representing Nice here um tell us a little bit about what you're showing to the integrators today.
Nice Smart Living Wired And Wireless
Yeah great so yeah hi I'm Stuart from Nice um it's great to be here at the CD Tech Summit so here on show today we've got um our our full smart living portfolio um so we've got everything from our wireless world with our UBOS um systems and then we've got into our Alan OS um the wired world and then we can hybrid that together so we've got a wireless wired and a hybrid which that integrates all our our gate and automation side of things all our sun shading solutions and then all into obviously into the into the home or the premises or the property whereas all your lighting A V control your utilities etc all under one application. So it is a great system in way it can be hybrid. So for instance you know many a times I've done a smart home and I don't want that I don't want that I don't want that and then six months after you complete the job the client says do you do this or can I add this 100% so you can integrate with your basically your both your both solutions. Yeah that's it so um obviously we've got our own ecosystem of products yeah um which is yeah retrofitable or obviously if you're on the new build side with the cabled side of things yeah um but we also integrate with 3000 plus others as well which really makes it really really powerful um so yeah you can start off very small but then you can grow up into massive you know huge huge projects which uh which obviously we're capable of doing so um which is great. So here you're showing you've obviously got control thermostats uh door entry um uh touch screenshot yeah so yeah we've got obviously our controller security exactly yeah we've got all our brand new cameras which have just been released uh into our new 9.0 uh OS system um and then obviously the the integration into the system through our controllers with the doorbells obviously all the UB side of things all our sensors lighting climates um and then the shading side of stuff and our gate side of stuff all integrated in one one platform which can be obviously standardized or it could be personalized right and that's the beauty of the whole system. So it could be completely personalized. So if you've got an integrator wants to follow a script and do a design that's very formulaic and set for them or they can get a little bit creative and do their own exactly right. Yeah so you can keep it as simple as you want or you can actually make that more personalized and customized shall I say um to make the uh the better interface for your customers so awesome so best place for people to find nice obviously you're I've seen you everywhere at the moment uh at the uh summits and things like that but what's the website address for the brand? Uh website's wwwniceforu.com um so head over to there obviously we've got global websites um but one main uh website there for nice for you.com and you distributors in the UK or do you self-distribute? Uh yeah we've got distributors in the UK obviously or you can come speak to us if you need design specification support all that sort of stuff so we're here to support any walks of life to sort of to help them with their projects and there on the way forward. So awesome all right well look thank you for the time Stuart thank you very much thanks mate cheers by Ron we're here at the CD atek a business summit and obviously you're here with KEF I mean I've never known you not being at KEF but um you've got some new products on show and some old family favourites so tell me a little bit about what's going on at KEF in 2026 and and what you've got on to show at the summit.
KEF CI Strategy And Going Direct
Well thanks Stuart thanks for popping by here in Edinburgh um yeah so other than the the core line of CI products that you see behind us which is a really strong core line of products it's only a small offering obviously we offer a whole lot more in the category as well as obviously traditional connected media products soundbar more recently etc etc CI this year has taken a hell of a lot of focus um not only in terms of financial focus but also personnel okay so we've taken the decision this year to go direct into the market instead of using distribution partners um two main benefits really it gives us all the control on that on that in the way that on the way on the route to market for Kev CI but also for our install partners gives them commercial benefits as well so it's much stronger um opportunities commercially for our CI partners right yeah um so we've been working quite frantically over the last sort of two three months to get really good strong stock holding of all of our core lines especially the core lines you see behind us but also we've also reinvested heavily into into the category as well so we're enhancing the category even further and as you can see we're previewing some new products here which we took to ISE
KEF Outdoor Uni-Q Speakers Preview
back in February. Yeah um we're focusing on not only kef on indoor but also kef now on the outdoor yeah that one that was the one I think we saw in you showed me in Manchester at the last CDS summit. I mean that's that's uh a massive new avenue for kef totally is it's brand new category for us it's something we've never never we've we've done outdoor speakers we've done terrace speakers with our Ventura series yeah I think I've used the Ventura everything from outside it's one of the longest standing products within the CI family but this is completely new it's as well as well as business so this is a completely new uh approach for us this um we're we've we've invested a lot of cash as you can see we've we've put a lot of focus and a lot of effort into this um initially there'll be um three um pendant type speakers there'll be a four inch full range driver which we don't have featured here a four and a half inch unicue for the for the outdoor yeah and a six and a half inch unicue outdoor and this is the first time we've ever done unicue outside so that's so is that the driver so if you look at that compared to like the CR uh CI 200 RR you could see the same unicue driver in the middle it looks in essence like the the same thing the same device and in essence it is it's doing exactly the same thing. What's special about this this uh Unicue over those that are used mostly internally is that there's no air gap between the tweeter and the mid range. Right okay it's it's an invention um that was created for the old 3005 egg series way back in the noughties. Using silt suspension technology so it's a rubber isolation ring that sits between the driver and the and the and the tweeter magnet. So although the driver can move freely around the the around the high frequency position it's no air can escape. Which means if no air can escape then no moisture makes it a perfect device for outdoor sorts of their full IP rated and exactly yes yeah absolutely and these can be buried as you can see here in in planters or within you know um they can be warm they'll they'll come with a warm mounting solution so you can mount them up high. Ah um they'll come they come with a ground stake so they can be fitted directly into the ground uh and all the infrastructure the cabling can be buried therein um and we'll also offer as an accessory as a pendant um mounting option as well which you can hang from under a pagoda or so like in a barbecue area above a dining room table type thing. So the possibilities for this or the applications for this is is is is pretty much endless. So you don't necessarily need to use it also outdoors but with the pendant um offering you can also use it in commercial applications as well you know like we were in the brew dog last night. Yeah huge exposed open you know ceilings you can hang it from that infrastructure as well so yeah we we we don't want to limit the appeal of this it's just as an outdoor series you can use it pretty much anywhere you want which benefit of what of what Unicue can offer and then you've got the sub so there'll be three pendants so we've got the four inch full range four and a half inch unicue six and a half inch unicue then there'll be two subwoofer options okay here the 8B so this is the uh um the BL8B so there's an eight inch subwoofer in here this is a subwoofer that can be buried up to two thirds so it can be buried almost to the point where the grill is obviously that gives you you know it means you can anchor it anchor it down it also comes with a ground spike so if you just wanted to sit it on a on a on a on a terrace you can do that. It'll also come with the mounting ears to mount it underneath a deck. So if you've got a deck in area or decked area and you want the subwoofer hidden away you can bury it underneath the deck. So that all comes back it's nice because it's just like it's almost like you thought about the product. You know it's been annoying development yeah I mean annoyingly I think there's there's so many products you you see that are released and you oh if only they just did this if only they just does that and and actually it just seems that I mean I was speaking to Jeff and I think he was coming down to a meeting because I was talking to about the gallery I think he was coming down to a meeting at Maystone and this is obviously what he was going down to see with some of the new CI stuff and um but it's nice to see that you know you have thought about those options as a very historic speaker manufacturer. The E in our name stands for engineering and we we we understand loud speakers we've been doing a hell of a long time but celebrating our 65th anniversary this year which is incredible. So we're always looking at innovating we're always innovating we're always pushing the technology forward especially for Unicue and we're always looking at applications for Unicue not only domestically with traditional loudspeakers but also within our active series but also here in custom with Unicue was invented primarily for this for this this application and one more people don't use it beggars belief. I think everybody should be using Unicue well this I can't I've got the grill on it now and I can't I can't get the grill off in a minute so this is a little plaster in it is yeah Unicue driver side plaster two speaker. Spike two sorry plaster two speaker so you've got the so the cage will go in on the first fix stage the plaster will come in feathering up to the the up to the point where the the grill ends yeah and then the last fix is when you drop the driver in and then put the grill on top right okay becomes part of the ceiling. Yeah yeah so it is completely fittable before in in the set in the first fix second fix and then final fix stages. And they're very popular and they're that's a five and a half inch and that sounds incredible and ceiling it's really good for the for the size of it it sounds sounds incredible. But it's Unicue so you expect it to well you've got that dispersion haven't you you've got yeah you know the reason I've used it for so many years is you know for ceiling speakers like the um CI200 CI 160 QRs um is because of that dispersion and because of the the sound field you get from the versatility of placement as well so you know when you're looking at building a cinema bespoke cinema room and you can't quite get the the let's say the the atmosphere speakers or the or your surround speakers exactly where you want them to symmetrically meet the the requirements of the room Unicue allows you more flexibility you can you can have them slightly off slightly off more axis and still get a really good you know engagement from the driver itself so that's the benefit of Unicue you don't have to angle it to the position it's doing exactly the same thing in every direction. So net result is you know if you're sitting on access to the speaker you're sitting on access to the sound not only for the high frequency but also for the mid-range and that's the key selling message for Unicue last week because and then what's this puppy this new puppy in us? So this is all going to come around September. So this is a preview and this is only a trade only event so that's this is all good. So sorry just to just to labour on this point we've got an eight inch subwoofer coming we've also got a 12 inch subwoofer coming right in addition to those there'll also be two bollard heads that will be available as well so there'll be a six and a half inch Uniq in a bollard configuration as you see on this image which will sit on top oh hello nice so and then we'll also have an eight inch version I'll just get that back on there. Sorry you're on camera that's why we'll also have an eight inch version which will sit on top of the 12 inch so you can either use the subs as as passive subs no problem you can use those or if you wanted to increase the performance and use those as a three-way in the garden hi-fi speaker for the garden
New KEF Amps With DSP Control
go figure. Nice you can add the bolard head and then make that a full three way and so that's all that's all great so that's all the the the passive side of of of what we're bringing out speaker wise but to support that and to drive it all we're bringing out a whole suite of amplification as well we've got two models here okay it's going to be four within the family we've got a two by two by two forty coming we've got a four by four hundred and we'll have two eight channel amplifiers as well coming. Nice so we'll have an eight by one fifty and an eight by two forty and these are the these are examples of here. They'll all be preloaded with the DSP for which to depending on which speakers you use not necessarily only in the in the outdoor category but also within our core lines. Right. So you can use these now indoors as part of a zone zone system their matrix yeah it'll come with a full UI user interface where you can then assign the zone to the specific space to a specific room all you really need to do is add a source and cables and then you're pretty much up and running. And integration into the control systems or yeah yeah all that is all that is is catered for it's um control over network okay and you can daisy chain off so you can run as many of these as you as you as you want. So these so with the subs are you running those off the sub amps or can or the sub can the sub run off this no no no so all of these speakers come crossover lists. Right. Okay so these are dependent on the amplification. Yeah so the amplifier will these are these are all high resistance so these most of these speakers will be 16 ohms so each of these channels of these amplifiers will run a pair or up to four of these right pendant speakers. So 16 ohm four of those in parallel gives you dropships down to four ohms so that means you can run four channels of pendant speakers off of one channel of amplification. Right and the other channel of amplification we can be used to drive a woof right okay okay so yeah and then bear in mind if you've got four channels eight channels you can run up to eight eight four six twenty yeah thirty three speakers cost one outfit. That's a nice card potentially if you live in Hampton Court Palace. So um so everything's coming around September time that's our And that's our targeted launch launch date. Price is to be confirmed, but we're pretty we're almost ready with the pricing. The industry will know about it relatively quickly. You guys will get the press release and all the information leading up to that. Um, well ahead of time. So when we go to launch, um, you have all the assets available, we'll have all the assets available. Obviously, the the products will be hopefully put out for review, so we can give you an opportunity to do that. Yeah, definitely. We'd love to get that down. I'm building a studio for doing reviews on, so uh and that's what and that's one thing I think the industry needs is more CI enabled reviews because you know it's a very large part of our what we do, but you know, other than going to experiential centres, no one really gets to understand what the product does.
Reviewing Gear Like An Integrator
Well, I think when I you know in the podcast when I speak with Simon, you know, we quite often will talk about the news, and quite often one of us will comment what's into what's the integration like? And I think there's so many people doing so many reviews out there, like the new soundbar, but they come at it from a consumer point of view, which is perfectly fine. And I think what we're trying to build with HCA and for Inside CI is that we come about it as an integrator point of view. So it's like, okay, if we're putting this into an integration, uh, does it have a control for? Does it have a crest rod driver for it? Um, you know, has it got a web interface, a GUI that could be uh accessed remotely? All those little things that we know as integrators, we would probably think about. And that and that and that's the checklist of things that we look at when we're developing products like this. And I can rest you can rest assured that when this comes to market, all of those touch points that you've just you've just touched on, especially will be covered within within our electric electrical suite. We've been doing amplifiers for a long, long time. You know, a lot of our active products feature technology that's heavily featured inside this this enclosure. Um and obviously we've used the KASA. So this is an I've used that so many times with the C THX SAP Waffles. Exactly. So this is an evolution of that. So you know it's smarter to look at, there's less control physically, a lot of it's done electronically, and that's that's kind of the way it's all going. And it's all rack mountable, you can park it in in a in a in a plant room. Rack ears come in the box, yes, all come with it, everything. Okay, yeah, absolutely. And um, so obviously you've just had uh an affiliation with WeQote, that's part of the the press release that went out. We're now the whole portfolio is now available through the WeQ platform. Okay, so for the integrators or specifiers that use WeQote and have an account with us, then they can access the whole portfolio within that. And as soon as they're as soon as they're loaded up, we get a notification, we can then load their pricing in. So it's literally very it's all done. And anybody who doesn't realise that you're now a direct to consumer, what's the best way for them to get in touch with KEF to open an account? Yeah, so the easiest way is to obviously reach out to us um across our contact channels within our website or through to me via LinkedIn or you know via Yeah, I think uh I think Simon said on the HCA community the other day, who's doing KEF now? And I just pinged him your mobile number. If anyone knows that, you know, yeah, everyone's got access to it. So most people have got your mobile number. I'm sure they have. I've seen it in many phone boxes. Don't worry, I'm not gonna put it on the screen now. No, no, you can do that. I don't mind. Yeah, just reach out to us, let's have a discussion. Um, we'll we'll also have sub-distribution partners like Leisure Tech, um, they're very strong for us. So you know, if if that someone doesn't want to go to the full extent of opening a full account with Kef, um maybe only wants to do a couple of pairs of speakers a month, then we have an outlet for that and have an opportunity for you to get access to KEF. We're you know, obviously, as I say, it gives us the control and it gives the can the the installer a lot more uh of a focused brand. So you know using distributed distribution partners is exceptional because it gives us access to a lot of installers that we wouldn't necessarily as a manufacturer have access to. Um but this way we you're getting a relationship with the client at the end of the day. Ultimately, yeah, ultimately, and um yeah, I mean when we're focused on one brand because we are the manufacturer, yeah. You know, we're not peddling 30 brands and we're uh you know spreading our our um uh resource across all of those brands. We're only focused on one, so that in itself, in terms of our training package that we're putting together as well as we move into the season, it's gonna be very strong, and also with our facility in Maidstone and our facility in
KEF Demo Spaces And How To Visit
London. I was gonna say because you've obviously got the facility in London just off of Oxford Circus, yeah, exactly, which is um open uh Tuesday to Friday, isn't it? No, no, no, from it's gonna be open six days a week from I believe from the end of this month. Oh Mondays as well, so it's gonna be open six days a week. The only day it'll be closes for the Sabbath. Yeah, so um yeah, so you can go up there, you can book a demo, you can experience this stuff. And if even if installers are considering KEF, but you know, I've never experienced it before, would like to come and get eyes on it and hear it, then certainly do so. Or if you've got a customer that maybe could benefit from using kef speakers, happily bring them along to KMG. We'll happily have them there. Show them the varying levels of of products we can offer across not only custom install but also traditional hi-fi, yeah, connected media, soundbar, everything available, anything that's that's that's that's available from CEF is available for demonstration and for listening at our KMG, including on Muant. So and obviously they do good coffee at the cafe as well. Sorry, Cafe, still the cafe, yeah, it's the cafe. I mean I I've been up there well with with Steve May and to David Slater talking about inside CI. You're up there or more phone. I think I've gone up there like five or six times in the last you're up there more phone than I am. I've got I've got a bat phone, I've got a bat phone, which isn't called Jeff. Exactly. And it's great that the industry can use it. I mean, you know, just go just go in. I mean everyone's welcome. At the ground at the ground level, anyone can go in and use it. Anyone can use it off free Wi-Fi, anyone can sit there, they can have meetings, they can use our podcast studio, they can have access to the to the to the bristle. Um, and then obviously what we do offer obviously because of the the the amount of time and uh to take to sell up demos, etc. You know, ideally book ahead to come down and listen to the subterranean systems, which obviously in the lounge and also our UER, which is our ultimate experience. And the muons. And the muons, especially. Yeah, these things do, you know, we're we're we're very busy there, but um the calendar is there right, there is availabil availability in the calendar, mostly mostly all of the time. So there's always someone available to come and uh help you out. Excellent. Well, thank you, Ron. Uh thank you for your time and uh yeah, we'll see you in the next one. We'll see you. Looking forward to a long drive home. Oh, I've got some. I'm staying up here tonight and then uh uh podcasts on the eight-hour journeys better down home. Are you going back tonight then? Yeah. Oh no, I don't know. I didn't I didn't want to get I didn't want to get home at like three o'clock in the morning. I'm like sausage that. We're too busy. I'll do it. I'll sit in my hotel room tonight, get me Uber Eats and uh edit some videos. Awesome. Cheers, buddy. Thank you very much for your time. Cheers, mate.
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