Latest / CE Pro Podcast / Inside Buzz Ep. 17: Bob Schuppe of Resolute Design Group on What’s Next in Smart Home Integration

Transcript

Inside Buzz Ep. 17: Bob Schuppe of Resolute Design Group on What’s Next in Smart Home Integration · CE Pro Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Bob Shoopy is the name.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Company is Resolute Design Group.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am the director for the company and one of the founders.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And being a smaller company, we do pretty much everything.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about CDA Expo 2025.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: So far, it seems like every CIA, and I've been going to them since 1992, is there's this kind of a theme of what's important, what the hottest technology is.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: This year, as you've heard others say, I'm sure, is that it's lighting.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are the kind of the just the the uh bedrock technologies, audio, video, these sort of things that continue on.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: We we see them every year, but their technology is just getting more and more advanced, and the lighting is becoming the next, as I call it the next frontier.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: What is it about the lighting that is new, that is next, that has you excited about it?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd even go back a little bit further than that and say that if we have for too long just taken lighting for granted.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And business partner talks about how most builders, most uh architects even, four cans in a fan is perfectly good.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's functional light.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But here we're beginning to see in a company called Ketra, now part of Lutron, they really, I think, really took it to a new level of using LEDs to be able to tune them to a different kind of light temperature, different quality of light, etc.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're just seeing, I think, is kind of them being the ones who really kind of patented a lot of the technology, other manufacturers, other companies coming up with their own variant of it, and just getting creative with what LEDs have brought to the entire industry.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: How do you take those findings and those learnings from CD Expo and integrate, no pun intended, but integrate that into your lighting plans on behalf of your clients?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's still kind of a dizzying thing.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that we're we're in a kind of an environment right now where there's a blur.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Architects are involved, obviously builders are involved, electricians are involved.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just we're the ones who, as I talk about, we want to be the technology advocates for our clients.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're the ones who kind of get this, all this technology and bring it together and kind of figure out the best solution for a client.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Going through kind of a discovery process where we figure out what their needs are, what their desires are, what is important in their home, et cetera, and then just take the technology we see here.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as I often say, is that you can't remember everything you've seen in a show like this.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you just just remember that you did see it and that the these solutions are there and can be used for a particular need.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we just here it's just it's it's drinking from a fire hose.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: It really is all the technology.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: It is drinking from a fire hose, and it and it is too, but at the end of the day, you have to be able to take it back, yes, process it so that you can work it into and I'm speaking specific, we're talking about lighting.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much more that you do.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: But what's so fascinating about this is as we talk and lighting the idea of lighting is not exciting because it just a generalized topic, we think we know everything there is to know about lighting.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: But we've had the conversation a number of times over the past day and a half.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: The the chronology of lighting itself, going from, you know, when you had full control over your incandescence, but then moving away from that to the horrible CFL days, into the halogen days, into the beginning of LEDs with a binary choice of turning it off or turning it on.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And now where we are, it's almost hard to imagine what's next because of what they're doing right now with this LED technology.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, and I think it's not only just what we're doing now and what's coming, but it it is the embracing by just the common person and builders and architects and such.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We've had an architect we just dealt with recently where they are so fed up dealing with and specifying conventional four-inch light cans.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So when we, my business partner uh showed to them, or at least discussed with them, new technology and the fact that these light cans can go away, they were overjoyed.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: They just saw this new option or an new opportunity for them as just like, my goodness, if I never had to specify another light can, I'd be over the moon.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So give me an example.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is the option for a four-inch can?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's still built-in cans.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a misnomer.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: The the kind of the normal Juno or whatever kind of can that you've seen at Home Depot or wherever, that is kind of the old technology that went from a six-inch to a four-inch, now we're even getting down to more of a two-inch.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now with the the light modules, that's the other thing.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about light bulbs anymore, they're modules.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or a light engine or whatever you want to call it, where these things can just have to go into some kind of a housing.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a low voltage device, so that does give you some opportunities to do things differently.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: But just the the stereotypical light can, is what I'm really talking about, and how that's going away.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's I I love that you say that because one of the other common themes in the conversations that I've been having here is this idea, and I tell this story, the many of the designers I speak with on the podcast, we will inevitably get into their portfolios.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I will be looking through their portfolios, and as we're talking through it, I will say to them, where are the outlets?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Where are the cans?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the recessed lighting?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how did you w put a work put a lighting plan together with none of these things?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll say, Oh, well, we photoshopped that out.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: To which my rep my reply is it seems almost disingenuous to me because if you create a design and that's the finished product, yet when you want other people to see it, you're taking you're editing things out of it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's is that really the authentic representation and why is it there in the first place?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: But you don't have a choice, but then it's the chicken and egg scenario.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think that it's interesting because we we finished a project in our our market where we put in what's called small aperture speakers.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So a very small, low-profile speaker that instead of getting away from these six and eight-inch speakers, we're now matching the form factor of light cans or the new this new light technology.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we saw some of the uh professionally taken photographs of the house, they're all gone.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's easy, we're lucky because he's allowed us to use these images on our website, but it's like, gosh, it would be nice to be able to see more technology than a TV.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think it is disingenuous because it is part of the home.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is really what people need to know does exist in a home.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And even though talking about small aperture speakers, there's invisible speakers now as well.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you you don't see those.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that being said, it how does it feel tongue-in-cheek, firmly planted?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: How does it feel being in an industry where everyone wants to hide everything you do?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely love it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, having started in this industry in 1990, when I still remember an interior designer saying, You audio people are an interior designer's worst nightmare.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it was because we had big, gigantic speakers and all the stuff that as the technology evolved, you know, gosh, in the early days, flesh mount architectural speakers didn't exist.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: We used to get actually box speakers and kind of do some framing up above the ceiling to put those in there.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that we're trying to make technology disappear but still be present is huge.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I have kind of a longing for the good old days where you had in a living room the the infinity house, the infinity home speaker system.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: The back to the old, what was it?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: The is it live or memories?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or was it the Max L?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: The one where he's in the chair and his UDXL2.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And his hair's being blown back.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's funny you mentioned that because we had a client who we engaged with his client and he wants those old style speakers.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we put together a proposal for him where I actually found that image of the guy kicked back in his chair and his hair being blown back and all that, and that appealed to him so much.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, you talk about that because we as a company engaged some manufacturers here who had the kind of large-scale speakers, and we got some from one of our dealers, and they're luckily sitting in a demo space that my wife and I get to take advantage of now.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And she, her one comment about those, having grown up listening to music and being very serious about it as well, is that oh, these speakers are not going anywhere.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it it is, I think we're hearkening back a little bit to a bygone era when as we deal more and more with on intangible or untouchable content, streaming.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hearing more and more about, well, obviously, vinyl is the rage again.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: People want to be able to touch and feel the content and also not only that, but own it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're not paying for a streaming service if you own these thousand CDs, which I've been finally getting my CD collection once again available to be able to stream throughout the entire house.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it I think there is a hearkening back to a bygone era that's refreshing.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: So my background is in radio.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was a music rep for an alternative station in Dallas in the 90s.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that gig was my program director every week would bring me a, you know, remember those old containers that would hold the mail like in an office?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: They would just bring in those containers, those crates.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'd get a crate every week.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what's dropping.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Every Tuesday, I would get a here's what's dropping.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So my CD collection, I still have a lot of them, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what's interesting about it, and I'm glad that you brought up vinyl, because I think the speakers, the house speakers, it's it's a moment that many long for to go back to.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the simplicity.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing the performance is the question.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you listen to those CDs and you twos rattle and hum versus a record, an actual vinyl of rattle and hum.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: You put some you put some cans on and you listen to those two, and you could switch between.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: You will hear two completely different performances.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: They are.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: They are, and and being an engineer myself, I just know that uh there's a lot to be said about digital.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know that the vinyl, there are the people who are passionate about that and feel that that's still the best representation of sound.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I I would probably argue that a little bit.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's funny, you mentioned you know, your days in radio, early years of me being involved with the company in California, we did these Virgin Mega stores across the country.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, one was in oh gosh, some some towns right outside of Dallas.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we so during that time I acquired a scary number of CDs.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it just and being from Orange County, California, near Los Angeles, we were lucky we had a great station, KCRW, that was just a just a wealth of just exposure to content that I think is lacking now.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I that's part of what I do kind of long for the old days, is just being exposed to quality music and where people just cared about it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so editor's note.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: For those who are listening, thank you.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And for those who are hoping to talk more about A V integration, I'm sorry you're gonna be disappointed because we're gonna talk about radio and music for a minute.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Manhattan Beach.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh product of the San Fernando Valley in the 1980s.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about KCRW.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Christy Redis.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm more K-Rock.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh 91X.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh San Diego.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: 91X.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't get in the valley, and we didn't get 91X.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we got K and A C.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: KME.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: KME T.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: KLOS.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: KLOS.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um in college, I was an intern for Mark and Bryan.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Great, great radio station.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Great program, I should say.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: When it was actually 95.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: KME T.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: That was a tremendous KME T was amazing when you had Jim Ladd, Jeff Gonzer.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: You I mean just Steve Downs, you had amazing.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's when you talk about nostalgia, but here's the thing.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And here's where I want to challenge you a little bit.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're an engineer.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Audio engineer, you're an EE.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the thing.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way you can listen to a CD versus a record and tell me that there's no distinction or no difference.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, there's 100% there's there's a distinction and difference.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's it's a it's the sound you prefer.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I prefer the clean sound of a well-produced CD.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Although a record is good.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the tradition of sitting down and listening to one side of a CD, or sorry, uh an LP, going over and turning it over.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And listening to it.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: B-sides, man.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: B-sides.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and not only that, but I mean, the one thing is I'm passionate about the mix.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Who mixed it?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Who's a producer?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Who's all the stuff?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: That stuff has gone fallen to the wayside.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: It really is sad.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where where did you go to school?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: UCI, University of California, Irvine.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: As an EE.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: How does that experience and being a music fan and being an electrical engineer inform the way that you approach CDA Expo, the way that you approach the vendors, the exhibitors, the way that you that you try to obtain new product knowledge?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd say that the one thing is having been doing the stuff since 1990, I realized that there is a lot of excitement about new technologies and such.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: But having been with the previous company I was with, where we embraced what we call bleeding edge technology and got burned by it.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So a big part of what I do, and plus I have this technology in my own home.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't work, I get a call from my wife.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the most important things for me is it's just got to work.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's got to be, I worked the company I was with was for a while owned by Best Buy for about seven, eight years or so.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And their motto was it's gotta be bulletproof.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: It must work.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the thing to be able to provide a solution to a client where we know day in, day out it's gonna work reliably is critical.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I get excited about the new stuff, but I'm always wary.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wait.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why you come to CDA Expo.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it is.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's why.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm I'm it's gosh, it's been a seven-year drought for me of going.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Last year, or last time was in San Diego.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it it is vitally important to be exposed to neck new technologies and also be able to have an influence on manufacturers.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: To be able to let them see as like, okay, we tried that, that didn't work.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do anything proprietary, stay with technology we know that will be in 10 or 15 years still with us.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it we do get an opportunity, especially when you've been in the industry for as long as I have.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, I'm also uh fortunate to be part of a buying group and to be on their board, to be able to influence uh the education of the board members, or I should say the other members of the buying group, but also be able to influence manufacturers is key.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they're thirsty for the input we give them.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why you have to come every year.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: As much as, and the the beauty is uh Denver, beautiful town.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think the yeah, the last one I went to, as I mentioned, was San Diego, great town.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit more challenging now that I live out in North Carolina.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but no, we will be back next year for sure.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: The what the what we have gained from the show, the hassle of it, or losing a few days of business, it's outweighed easily.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is 100%.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for doing this.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: My my pleasure.