Episodes

On this week’s podcast Hagan Kappler joins us from Costa Mesa, CA, where she is co-founder and CEO of Daisy, the national smart home integration brand. With a career spanning service brands like Starbucks, Carrier, Trane, Club Car, Terminix, Merry Maids, and ServiceMaster, our guest today has navigated corporate life, solving, challenges, building teams, and seizing opportunities. Her goal since launching Daisy into the CEDIA channel this past January is to be the strongest national brand in tec...

On this week’s podcast Richard Charschan joins us from Long Island, New York, where he is president of AcousticSmart Home Theater Interiors. Richard founded AcousticSmart for more than 25 years ago and has worked on some of the world's finest custom theaters and developed his own home theater seating and star ceiling products, as well. But just as interesting as that, he also helped create a new coffee table book called “Home Theater-ology” that will debut next month at CEDIA Expo in Denver. Wit...

On this week’s podcast Arnaud Laborie joins us from Paris, France, where he is CEO of Trinnov Audio. Over the past 20 years, Trinnov has earned a reputation for developing advanced sound processing technologies, including proprietary loudspeaker and room optimization, four-element 3D mapping technology, and, most recently, WaveForming Technology. WaveForming promises to improve low-frequency reproduction in home theaters by actively shaping room acoustics rather than just treating them. This app...

On this week’s podcast Mike Jordan joins us from Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is chief product officer at RTI. With more than 12 years of industry experience, our guest today is known for leading productive, successful product teams. Prior to joining RTI this past December he spent the previous five years as senior VP of products at Snap One, which included leadership of the Control4 product line. Prior to Snap One he held a similar role at Core Brands, where he worked with current RTI CE...

On this week’s podcast Ben Bard joins us from Coopersburg, PA, where he is VP of luxury residential business at Lutron. Ben was one of the presenters at an event that Jeremy attended last month at Lutron’s Ketra manufacturing facility in Austin, TX. That’s where Ben and his Lutron colleagues introduced the all-new Ketra and Rania D2 luxury architectural downlights to invited dealers, lighting designers, and press. Today, we’ll get to know a little bit about Ben’s experience at Lutron and find ou...

On this week’s podcast Mike Gleason joins us from Austin, TX, where he is director of sales for Skyworth USA, manufacturer of the Clarus S1 outdoor Google TV, Companion P100 Portable LED Display, and Canvas Art Display. Mike’s career in consumer electronics spans a list of companies that reads like a who’s who of the history of AV integration tech. From the early days of Mitsubishi Digital in the late 1990s to the first consumer plasma TV in the U.S. at Fujitsu General to stints with Sharp Elite...

On this week’s podcast, Jennifer Kirkpatrick joins us from Denver, Colorado, where she is director of sales for American Lighting and its custom integrator focused Proluxe division. Jennifer and Jeremy met a few months back at the Lightapalooza conference in Glendale, AZ, where she provided an overview of her company’s linear and tape light offerings. Today, we’ll learn more about Kirkpatrick’s background and career and discuss what the custom integration channel needs to know about Proluxe’s ex...

Joining us on the podcast from Salt Lake City, UT, is Eric Smith, who most people with a history in the custom integration industry will immediately associate with Control4, the company he co-founded, along with Will West, back in 2003. After some time away from the smart home industry, Eric and Will have returned with their new company, called OliverIQ. Their goal is to put smart home automation “in reach for everyone” through what they’ve dubbed Smart Home as a Service. Partnering with natio...

Joining us on this week’s podcast are Alex Capecelatro, the CEO of Denver-based Josh.ai, the voice-controlled home automation system, and Amanda Wildman, the co-owner of TruMedia, a respected custom integration firm in Ada, MI. As chairperson and vice chairperson of CEDIA, respectively, Capecelatro and Wildman are two of the best people to fill us in on all things CEDIA. The professional smart home industry’s global trade association recently completed a record year for new member acquisitions,...

On this week’s podcast, Jason Griffing joins us from Highlands Ranch, CO, where he is director of product for OneVision Resources, the remote support and RMR provider to custom integrators. Jason is responsible for overseeing the development and strategic direction of the company’s service platform, serving as OneVision’s voice of the customer, advancing their product roadmap and R&D initiatives. Prior to joining OneVision in 2017, Jason spent a decade as a residential integrator doing everythi...

On this week’s podcast, Chris Lehnen joins us from Portland, OR, where he is a business development manager for Luminii, a manufacturer of architectural lighting solutions. Luminii was one of the lighting fixture exhibitors at the third-annual Lightapalooza conference held last month in Glendale, AZ, where the company showcased its specification-grade, low voltage fixtures, including a new LED linear product range and micro-optics solutions ideal for the custom integration channel. Our guest tod...

On this week’s podcast, Eddie Shapiro joins us from the Washington DC area, where is a chief AV designer and owner of the custom integration firm, SmartTouchUSA. Eddie, who recently completed his three-year term as a CEDIA Board member, just this past week joined a contingent of CEDIA representatives in the nation’s capital to advocate for current and future generations of the smart home industry during the Inaugural CEDIA Day on the Hill. Meetings with political leaders on March 6 addressed two...

On this week’s podcast, Charlie Porritt joins us from Portsmith, New Hampshire, where he is CEO of Russound, an internationally respected leader in manufacturer of audio products and technology. While it seems as if those of us who know Charlie today only associate him with his 24 years at Russound, they’re failing to recognize early stops in his career at such other legendary brands, Harman and SpeakerCraft. Today we’ll look back a bit on our guest’s career arc, finding out what wisdom he picke...

On this week’s podcast, Richard Litofsky joins us from Rockville, MD, where he is co-founder and CEO of madVR Labs, the developer of the Envy Extreme and Envy Pro video processors for the high-end home cinema market. Ric is a serial entrepreneur with an expertise and focus on several technology categories, including, of course, real-time video processing, which we will dive into on the podcast. Many CEDIA EXPO 2023 attendees felt that the home theater demo featuring madVR tech video processing w...

On this week’s podcast, our contributing editor Michael Heiss joins us from his home in Los Angeles to talk about his experience at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show, including the biggest trends, biggest surprises, and most over-hyped and most-under-the-radar introductions. Like I said last year at this time, we especially appreciate Michael’s reports from Las Vegas. He was there so you and I didn’t have to be. Although he didn’t leave Sin City unscathed (stupid Covid…) there’s still no on...

On this week’s podcast, Tim Bigoness joins us from Atlanta, GA, where he is chief marketing officer and VP of sales for D-Tools, the provider of business software for low-voltage system integration firms. Founded in 1998 by chairman, Adam Stone, D-Tools pioneered the category of data-driven proposal, system design, and field service management in the system integration industry with its on-premises System Integrator software. In 2019, D-Tools introduced its cloud-based platform, D-Tools Cloud, w...

On this week’s podcast, Tom Doherty joins us from Palm Desert, CA, where he is a director for the HTSA buying group. If CEDIA had the equivalent of the Disney Legends program for its founding pioneers, then Tom would be in its inaugural group. He was literally there at the beginning of the industry’s premier trade association’s CEDIA Expo and he has led an impressive career as integrator and manufacturer, culminating in his current role where his vision has brought the lighting category to the f...

On this week’s podcast, Mark Grobman, CTO of machine learning for Hailo, and Derek Webb, surveillance product manager for Snap One, join us to discuss a recent announcement from Snap One about how the company’s Luma Insights security system has leveraged the Hailo-8 AI chip to allow for advanced security capabilities. The Insights service integrates with existing Snap One products and requires minimal setup for integrators, allowing for near-instant access to AI-powered visibility from Luma came...

On this week’s podcast, Terrence Dover joins us from New Haven, CT, where he is senior global product line manager for Nice North America. Following an award-winning four-year stretch with Harman’s Mark Levinson audio brand, Terrence joined Nice North America in August 2021 where was tasked with updating and modernizing the company’s brand portfolio, which includes 22 products launched over 18 months. Today we will learn more about Terrence’s career path in the audio technology and music recordi...

On this week’s podcast, Michael Don Ham joins us from the New York area where he is co-founder and president of RePure, a company that is on a mission to transform indoor spaces into smarter and healthier environments. In a post-COVID world, awareness of Indoor Air Quality has surged, yet we're still awaiting regulations and codes to ensure our homes and buildings are as safe and healthy as possible. It’s crucial for architects, interior designers, home builders, and custom integrators to recogn...

On this week’s podcast, Hank Alexander joins us to discuss his role as director of Nationwide Marketing Group’s Oasys Residential Technology Group and its impressive progress this year in its “Drive to 1,000” members. Nationwide, headquartered in Winston-Salem, NC, is North America’s largest buying and marketing organization for independent major appliance, consumer electronics, and home furnishings dealers. Oasys, a custom electronics and installation network inside of Nationwide Marketing Grou...

On this week’s podcast, Jeff Shaw joins us from Petaluma, CA, where he is vice president of product management for Nice North America. This is Jeff’s second time on the podcast, so today we skip most of the usual biographical part of our interview and dive right into news from Nice, including an exciting promotion for Jeff’s colleague Paul Williams, as well as insights into smart home product category trends, best practices for custom integrators, and even a look ahead to Nice’s product roadmap....

On this week’s podcast, Airzone North America’s National Operations Manager, Victoria Garcia Massimo, and Regional Sales Manager for the US Central & West, Bob Howey, join us from Miami and Dallas to discuss their company’s smart control solution for HVAC systems. Airzone’s Aidoo Pro acts as a bridge between proprietary HVAC inverter and mini-split manufacturers’ protocols and IoT device or smart home control system APIs. Our guests today describe how the market for inverter and mini-split syste...

On this week’s podcast, Gavin Lantzy joins us from Denver, CO, where he is president and founder of SaaviHome, a custom integration firm founded in 2004. SaaviHome recently launched a franchise business model to provide entrepreneurs with a turnkey program to enter the smart home technology and light commercial markets. Our guest today has spent years developing a business model that offers franchisees the tools and support necessary to build a successful operation. The program offers comprehens...