Latest / CE Pro Podcast / Inside Buzz Ep. 15: Adam Eberhardt of Resolute Design Group on Lighting Control & Smart Home Design

Transcript

Inside Buzz Ep. 15: Adam Eberhardt of Resolute Design Group on Lighting Control & Smart Home Design · CE Pro Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm Adam Eberhard.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with Resolute Design Group.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're right outside of Asheville, North Carolina.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are a residential custom integrator focusing mainly on the high-end market.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: How's the show this year?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Show this year has been phenomenal.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've gotten, I got 10,000 steps in yesterday, lots of exhibitors to see, lots of new things to see.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Focus this year over other years in the past is mainly lighting, seeing a lot of different lighting uh providers out there, a lot of different fixtures, a lot of different solutions.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is our focus for 2025 and 2026.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it corresponds beautifully with what we're doing as a company.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I have heard that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: That is a thing this year.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: How does that impact what you do and how you do it?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so our industry, I've I've been in it for over 30 years.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Our industry is constantly evolving and changing.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I got into the industry when plasma TVs were just starting.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going from a gigantic, very heavy TV to a thin TV that goes on the wall.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: That changed.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Networking changed.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're sort of evolving even into lighting now.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So all of it sort of integrates together.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've always done lighting control, which you know is power on and off or dimming of a light on a schedule.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is just an extension of that, really.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than just scheduling a light, now I can schedule the quality of light, the type of light, the color of light, uh, you know, a circadian rhythm to that light.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So very similar but expanded.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Your clientele.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Homeowner, are you working with the interior designers?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Are you working with the architects, with the landscape architects?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: With whom do you work most?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Most is with the homeowner, honestly, as far as a time consideration.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like we spend a lot of time talking about lifestyle choices.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: How are you going to live in this home?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: What are your goals for this home?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But our focus initially is really on the architect.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: We want to get as far upstream as possible so that we're considering some of the architectural details of the home.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: For example, someone's taken a lot of time and effort to design this beautiful stone fireplace.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: What a tragedy that is to not have it accented, to not have lighting on it, to not be able to show the texture of the stone.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, they may have a very beautiful piece of artwork that means a lot to them emotionally that isn't being accented on that fireplace or on a particular wall.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So our time is spent mostly with the homeowner, but we do spend time with architects and with interior designers as well because the aesthetics of the home on this level are very important.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: What are clients asking you for now that maybe they weren't asking you for one, two, three years ago?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lighting control again, we we've kind of come back to fixtures and lighting.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're hearing more about it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it's an education uh challenge for us because they look at us as an A V guy, like I'm gonna come to you for speakers, I'm gonna come to you for a TV.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're not thinking, sometimes they're not even thinking about shading, never mind, fixtures and outdoor lighting and making the outdoor and the indoor light the same, or you know, having a unified color throughout the house.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: It it's just not something they've thought about.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So they come to us basically, what do you do and and what do I want?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's very much a back and forth conversation with the homeowner as far as here's what we offer, here are the pros and cons of that, how much of that interests you?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's an educational challenge.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: The educational challenge, how much of that is language vernacular versus product knowledge and what's available?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so not my term, but geek speak is a thing that I try not to do with clients.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the vernacular is very important.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So particular uh specifying this, that, the other, or we're talking about a monopoint, are we talking about linears?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care about that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: They want to talk about the function.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: What's it gonna do?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're gonna have a really nice light on this piece of art.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is gonna show off the texture of the fireplace.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care how you do that, they want the result.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're talking to an architect, when you're talking to an interior designer, they do want that.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you sort of need to have both sides of that coin depending on the audience.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: How has your role as an integrator changed?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about it in terms of five and then ten years from integrating whole home controls to lighting, sound, HVAC, internet, Wi-Fi.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it's funny too, because if you walk into an old uh a home that's old enough, you can walk in and you can see hardwired telephone, you can see cable, you can see cat five, you can see knob and tube, you can s I mean if you look hard enough in older homes, you can see just about everything.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: And and for me, and I'm wondering if it's the same for you, it's kind of like if you cut down a tree and you look at the rings of the tree and you can see when there were major changes environmentally, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's some applications even I can go in and say, oh, you had a pioneer plasma TV on this wall of a particular year, because that's the year they used this proprietary cable to do it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've gone into homes and there's five um RG6 coming out of the wall, and like, oh, okay, so you were doing a particular type of high def at that time.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So no, it's very much like cutting down a tree and looking at those rings.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And don't you think that that's part of the conversation or the reason why clients are so dubious?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's because things keep changing so rapidly.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm spending money on certain things.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: How do I know that this is gonna be useful in five years from now?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that that is a challenge.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So five years is a doable horizon.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a thing where pretty confidently you can look at manufacturers because there's some momentum there as well.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna come up with something new out of you know pure cloth.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So looking at the industry, having experience with the industry, we with pretty good confidence can say five years from now, either this wire, this fixture, this piece of equipment will still be fine, or we are confident enough that we can prepare you for that thing that is coming five years down the road.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ten years, fifteen, that's an absolute unknown.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So where does your role in this come in?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it's at a show like this where you're talking to the folks at CDI Expo, you're going to the town halls so you can engage and ask questions, or you're talking to the brands and the manufacturers.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, look, guys, don't change the cables again.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have those conversations and are those conversations effective?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Are does it make a difference?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It it does.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: They they do listen to us to an extent.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: There are some that sort of come out of nowhere.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: As an example, in this show, POE, power over Ethernet, four shades.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Up until now, it's always been a four-conductor wire, goes to your shade, and that gives you power control.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can do them battery and wireless, what have you.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, POE.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: At first, I'm skeptical.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, now what if something happens to this manufacturer?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a category cable coming to my shade, I'm out of luck.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, there are multiple manufacturers and large manufacturers now that are supporting a PoE standard.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there is something to that to where you do get a little dubious and you say, yeah, I'm not jumping on that bandwagon yet.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: A year, two years down the line, you start to see more um adoption.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, now we'll jump on.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Which is all the more reason why a show like this is critical every year.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because the the trends do move fairly quickly.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: You might be able to skip a year, two years is too much.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: You really need to stay on top of it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: How about mid-year in between the shows?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: How do you stay on top of mid-year advancements?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: There are a couple of different ways.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a number of great websites that I'm on literally every day, constant um contact with the manufacturers, the manufacturers' representatives, um, distributors, because they're looking at the wide array of products that are available and leaning on them as as the knowledge of well, how does this product differentiate from that one?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And why would I do this instead of that?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And where is all that moving?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: How are you seeing smart the idea of a smart home?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's funny too, because w in the past, what we've called smart homes let's be honest, they're not smart.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they they were smart for the time.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're performative.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a programmed home more than a smart home.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I delineate these particular things that I want it to do, and it will do those things.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: A true smart home, I feel, is really more autonomous.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It it knows like aux and vacancy sensors, so it knows when you're in the room, when you've left the room.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't need the interaction.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: The lighting does what it does as you come into the room, things like that, where it needs to be smarter.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of us have moved away from even the term smart home because people heard that for a number of years, and now they're wondering, like, well, was my home smart then?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be smart now?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be smart five years from now?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and so that's that's changed a little bit for sure.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: What is your idea of, and I don't want to call it modern because I don't want it to be confused with a modern style or even contemporary?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: But as you look at and take budget out of the equation for a second, which I know is hard to do, but but for for the for this exercise, take it out.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: What is a what is a must have in a in a current smart home?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: A technologically advanced home.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I would say taking budget out of it is is hard because clients are always interested in budget, but if I would, a absolutely lighting control, shading, lighting fixtures, those sorts of things are are I think absolutely essential in a home.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because it really accentuates the home itself.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: And these are all things you can build to scale.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: So then you've also got the idea of a home theater.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And don't you you know, let me get your take on a home theater.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: The the idea of a home theater where you have one space that is uh as theater esque as possible is is a novel idea in some areas, beach communities, where you don't have the space to do it, but there are other things, there are other options.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, absolutely.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're finding in our market, and I'm not sure about other markets, that the multi-function room, so it's sort of a home theater, but it's also got a shuffleboard or a pool table or ping pong.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's other things going on there.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really more of a social space now than just sit down, be quiet, watch the movie space.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're interacting with the other people at the same time that you're enjoying the entertainment.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: What about advanced entertainment options in rooms that were traditionally completely ignored, like a bathroom?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, bathrooms have always been an interesting space.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you've you've got, of course, the behind-the-mirror TV, those sorts of things where people can have technology in there.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Lighting in the bathroom, oddly enough, is is probably the number one or number two space where I find people are very interested in it for a number of reasons.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So as a man, if I put on a pair of socks, I want to know if they're the blue socks or the black socks.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, if I have better light in there, I can tell that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: For a woman, if I'm gonna go out and go golfing, I'm gonna be in the sunlight, I want to know if my makeup appropriate for that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I want that that correct color temperature and that correct lighting in in that space.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: What about as you get deeper steam showers with speakers and entertainment and lighting?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because chromatherapy, aromatherapy, it's it's gaining momentum.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: And what's interesting too is especially if you talk to some interior designers or kitchen architects who are now being asked for the coffee station in a master bedroom, and or doing one right now, actually.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Are you really andor moving in refrigeration drawers and heating drawers, full real appliances into a bathroom space?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that that is very interesting.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of these lines are getting blurred.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So to you know, backtrack a little bit to fixtures, how much of that is the electrician and how much of the of that is the CI guy?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a little bit of a blurred line.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: At least steam showers, these other appliances, that becomes a little interesting also because how much of that is, you know, your plumber, how much of that is some other trade coming in and doing that?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: We even have a client with a refrigerator who has four cameras inside the refrigerator.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So who's responsible for making sure that camera has internet access and is working?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so it's a very interesting time when we all really need to work together as trades and not just sort of stick into our lane.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: One of the biggest issues that I hear about today from architects and interior designers is this idea that because everything now has an app, everything is connected to a cloud, which again, as I understand from being here, there are some issues between cloud-based and and a localized network, and I want your take on that too.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: But also this idea that there is no real go-between to say your Wi-Fi, your system just doesn't work.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you go induction in a kitchen, you have to you have to look at your your power fee because you have to you have to upgrade, you may have to upgrade your board.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: But when people think about all of the quote unquote smart tech that they're moving into the house, that's all dependent on a Wi-Fi signal that we haven't really paid enough attention to.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would agree a hundred percent.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then you've got streaming and standard pulling from that, you've got your security system pulling from that, you've got your appliances pulling from that, and what you do is so dependent on the I mean, if if the if the connections and the systems don't work because they're not getting fed a signal, what you do doesn't really matter.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that that is one area where I'm pretty intractable when talking with homeowners is everything rides on the network.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It it's very easy to say, oh, well, you know, my cable provider or my phone provider, they're gonna give me internet, they've got a gateway that broadcasts Wi-Fi, it reaches the whole house, we're fine.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right, sure.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So even just myself, I have a phone, I have a watch, I have an iPad, I have a laptop.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's four devices just for me, just where I am.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: You've got multiple guests visiting the house.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're all trying to hit that same access point at the same time.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, as you say, you're streaming, you've got wired stuff going on.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like that kind of traffic is just insane.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no way that we can give any guarantees of performance if you don't have that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and to speak a little bit to the cloud in thing and the app thing, there was a movement, you know, five years or so ago where everybody was saying, well, why do I need a control system?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Everything has an app.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't this great?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my phone, I've got an app for everything.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now you've got a phone with 10 apps.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you really want to switch between all those apps?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some folks are fine with that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and great, good for you.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Most folks like, yeah, this is a pain to keep the app updated, to make sure it's connecting, to make sure it's doing all those things.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a movement back to a unified control system.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those control systems, you know, you could say some of the large names that we all know depend on a cloud.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've seen cloud providers go down.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon Web Services, AWS goes down.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is your control of your house now gone if that happens?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you want something more dependable, something reliable, something on premise that can control your house at all times.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Security systems, same.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I can just get this security system from ABC Manufacturer, put it in, and it works well.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, as long as your internet's up.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: If your internet goes down, where are your recordings going?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, when all that data goes to the cloud, who owns that data?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is that a product also that could be resold?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of considerations here that you know a lot of homeowners aren't thinking of.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's a danger in making them too wary and making them afraid, but they should be aware.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Which is why you want a skilled and talented integrator.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And why you want a skilled and talented integrator who goes to CDA Expo every year to get educated.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be aware of all the pros and cons of everything so that you can tell someone, even if it's the simplest, yeah, that's not a concern, don't worry about that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, that's a concern.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: We should think about that.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome.