Latest / Inside Integration / Episode 117: Amicable Splits and Messy Divorces

Transcript

Episode 117: Amicable Splits and Messy Divorces · Inside Integration

0:00
Welcome to the Inside Integration podcast.
0:01
My name is Chris. I am joined as usual while my
0:04
partner Jason. What's up, man?
0:06
I've got a three peat. What's up everybody?
0:09
But I got three in a row going. I feel like.
0:11
I mean they maybe need to buy a lottery card or something.
0:14
I mean, you know, you keep this up.
0:16
You could become a a regular fixture on the show.
0:20
Wow, you can, you can come on back, baby.
0:23
All right man, love it. Dead And, you know, we were we
0:27
were kind of kicking us around this morning and you know, we
0:30
were thinking there's there's some, some, some items in the
0:32
news about, you know, some, some Josh and control 4 action.
0:36
That's seems to be those those two have sort of been going back
0:40
and forth a little bit over the last few years.
0:42
And, and now it, it seems like, you know, maybe the divorce is
0:45
finalized or, or. The, the dust is settled.
0:49
Yeah. I, I think all things being
0:52
equal, you know, the, the powers that be have decided to, you
0:58
know, agree to what they're going to agree on and not agree
1:00
on anything else from, from, from that point forward.
1:03
So it's definitely an interesting development and I
1:06
guess one that has finally come to some, you know, somebody, you
1:11
know, whatever it is, final, final arrangements, final
1:13
agreement here as to what it's all going to look like.
1:16
All that's left to all that's left to figure out at this point
1:18
is like, you know who, who gets the kids on Christmas and what
1:21
days of the week and you know, all these, all these things that
1:25
you know. Man are they angling for 5050
1:29
custody so nobody has to pay child support?
1:31
Like what are we doing? That's not going to no, that
1:33
never goes down that way. No, because there's always,
1:35
there's always that's somebody cheated on you and there's
1:37
always, you know, the aggrieved party and everything.
1:39
It's just it can never be. Nobody's rich, somebody's poor,
1:42
somebody's got nothing, somebody's got less than
1:45
nothing. So.
1:46
Exactly. Sorry.
1:47
You need to, you need to, you know, one of the parties has to
1:50
be kept in a lifestyle to which they are accustomed, I believe
1:53
is the magic phrase. Not that I know anything about
1:56
that, but. God forbid you find out, Chris.
2:00
Yeah, you know, sure. Absolutely.
2:02
I remember where I was when I found out.
2:05
Maybe you can 3D print a new house for yourself.
2:09
Why? Why?
2:09
Why 3D print when I can use the cardboard box that the 3D
2:12
printer came in to live in? That's fair.
2:15
I. Mean it's the reason for the
2:17
divorce and my housing. At the same time, so it's a self
2:22
fulfilling prophecy anyway. But yeah, you know, kind of got
2:26
us thinking a little bit. You know, there's, there have
2:27
been, there have definitely been some, some, I, I mean, I don't
2:31
want to call it odd, right? Like this all, you know, we're
2:33
all, we're all in business here, right?
2:34
Like there's always there's agreements and then there's
2:36
falling outs and this, you know, this person and this person or
2:39
whatever. And I, you know, I was, I was
2:41
reminded of the the Great Tron Wars from.
2:44
Tron. From earlier this century, you
2:47
know, basically, you know, Crestron sewing Lutron, Lutron
2:50
sewing Crestron, everybody going back and forth and this is, you
2:53
know, this is not going to work and our system's not going to
2:56
work with your system and blah, blah, blah.
2:57
And, you know, figured figured this is a pretty good topic just
3:02
because, you know, we're always kind of kumbaya and, you know,
3:06
seem to seem to always be announcing, you know, new
3:08
partnerships and things, you know, companies coming together.
3:12
But yeah, I mean, what's, you know, what's your, what, what's
3:17
your memory on, on the, the absolute, you know, the sit, sit
3:22
down in your folding chair and grab your popcorn and what the
3:25
hell? Let's see how this plays out
3:26
right? Yeah.
3:27
You know, I mean, you know, as we, as you mentioned, there's
3:30
been some pretty, pretty big partnerships.
3:33
But what you and I have talked about mostly here recently is
3:36
about acquisition. It's about money changing hands,
3:38
it's about, you know, formalized partnership or it's a joint
3:42
venture or we're going to start this new company or whatever
3:45
that looks like. So you know, this, you know,
3:48
Control 4 and Josh AI kind of occupied different spaces, you
3:52
know, I would say historically because Control 4 had the
3:56
traditional model of the touch screen in the wall and all the
3:59
physical infrastructure and all of the physical iOS.
4:03
Like, you know, we got a door lock sensor and we've got a gate
4:06
thing and we've got a we can talk to your pool.
4:09
All the parts and pieces for integration seemingly except
4:12
for. The voice part where you can
4:15
actually have some intelligence or have some have something to
4:18
talk to or, you know, give your give your house the actual
4:21
smarts of the smart home as opposed to the the knucklehead
4:25
Rook in the control pad or whatever.
4:26
Right, just poking away, right? Sure, just, oh, I don't know
4:30
what's the home button do. I don't remember.
4:32
What does watch TV do? I'm not really sure.
4:37
See, let me, let me step out of this for a second because we
4:41
always, it's funny, we always seem to just kind of, you know,
4:45
the way that we describe homeowners and clients, it's
4:49
just just a babe in the woods, right?
4:52
Like a total? Like what?
4:53
Scared. A scared deer in the woods.
4:57
No mommy nearby. Just cars whizzing by on the
5:00
highway and you're just shivering on the side of the
5:02
road. That's how we castigate our our
5:05
end users sometimes. Check checkbook is a lot lighter
5:08
and they're just scared to use their system just.
5:10
Don't even know what they bought.
5:11
I'm afraid of this. I don't.
5:12
I don't know why I spent all the money on this thing.
5:14
I don't. I don't want to touch.
5:15
It and that's how you I don't want to that's how you know that
5:17
we were actually in the business because we've done run that
5:19
walkthrough at the end of the project where it's like you're
5:23
in the back of your head it's like wow, you spent a lot of
5:25
money on this system and. You're terrified of me.
5:28
You're terrified. Oh God.
5:30
You're afraid to turn the lights on and.
5:32
Off. Not what you want, but that's
5:34
usually how it goes, right? Yeah.
5:36
Well, I mean, I think that's probably why we see the control
5:40
fatigue and some of the other situations that we talked about
5:43
in our industry. I'm going to throw the system
5:44
into the ocean. Is the.
5:45
Recurring theme. I cannot wait to chop up my
5:48
house with an axe and throw them over so I can start over.
5:53
Wow. All right, but you know,
5:55
Needless to say, you know, the the two worlds really lived
6:01
harmoniously next to each other because Josh was so focused on
6:05
and is still focused on voice control and natural, you know,
6:08
language to control things in your home.
6:10
Certainly things are built around the LMS that you know
6:15
that make that make AI work. You know, those, those language
6:18
models are really important and the fact that Tim and Alex and
6:22
the guys at Josh AI spun that into their own Tim dot AI or
6:27
whatever. You know, I think Tim actually
6:29
wrote the software for Josh AI, which is nuts just to think
6:33
about like a human is behind, behind all of that, which is
6:37
really, really cool. You know, that they they
6:41
occupied different spaces so he could layer the two together to
6:44
to live harmoniously. And then as things do, we see
6:47
some creep, right? So we see Josh moving into more
6:51
of the hardware centric hardware focused types of things.
6:55
And we're also going to give you a remote and we're going to give
6:58
you a touch pad and we're going to give you this other widgets
7:01
and GUG deals to to make it work.
7:04
And now toes are being perceived to be stepped on.
7:07
Of course, things are, you know, need to protect this thing and.
7:11
And then we see, you know, lawsuits.
7:13
It's no, it's no secret because if you Google control foreign
7:17
Josh AI lawsuit is the first thing that populates on the on
7:23
the Google A. Great commentary on our industry
7:25
is that, you know, you've got a, you know, you, you float the
7:29
proposal across to the client. The client looks at it and says,
7:32
oh, there's Josh AI in here. Let me, let me, let me pivot
7:35
over to my Googling machine and, and take a look and see what
7:38
that is. And yeah, first thing that comes
7:39
up. Lawsuit What?
7:41
The. Yeah.
7:43
But I know conversely, Josh has stepped up to to the hardware
7:48
game. So they have processors, they
7:50
have touch screens, they have remotes, they have products that
7:54
can talk to the spa, can talk to the pool, can talk to the gate.
7:58
And understandably, because you don't, you know, at at the very
8:01
most basic level, like if you're, if you're beholden to 1,
8:06
you know, to, to one gravy train.
8:07
Like if that thing jumps the tracks, then you're screwed,
8:09
right? Like you sure you know?
8:11
That's sound, Sound. Business for sure.
8:13
Yes, absolutely. So these two things, you know,
8:18
matriculate in their own ways. Control 4 also has developed an
8:22
AI platform, also has voice control through several
8:25
different platforms. And I'll be honest with you, I
8:27
don't know all of the intricacies behind the why we're
8:31
suing each other, why that all fell out.
8:33
But apparently that's been settled and the at the end of
8:37
the day, it works out to where I think after April 26th of 2026
8:44
or what's called the end of April don't make I'm not
8:47
official. So I'm not the, I'm not the
8:50
standard. Bearer for and definitely a good
8:52
time to to say that we've we've done a tiny bit of research on
8:55
this, but please do not take the words that we say as the.
8:59
Gospel full on disclaimer because neither one of us idiots
9:01
know what the fuck we're talking.
9:03
About Please don't sue us, but. You know, the reality is that
9:09
you know these two entities have matured on their own.
9:11
Mom and dad have grown apart and it's time for us to continue to
9:15
operate on a platform where we can still function together, but
9:19
we're we're going to go in our separate ways.
9:21
So after again, the end of April, we'll call it the only
9:26
functionality that new Josh systems will have with Control 4
9:31
is voice control. So you'll be able to talk to it
9:33
and make the voice actions happen.
9:35
None of the Josh peripherals will be able to be linked into
9:39
an E1 or to a processor. And then conversely, nothing in
9:43
the control for space is going to function with Josh except for
9:47
the voice control function, you know function.
9:50
So you think well what what happens to the existing system,
9:53
existing systems that are out there, everybody's grandfathered
9:56
in on systems that are sold before the due date.
10:00
They don't have to be commissioned, which puts a
10:04
little bit of a weird time stamp on some things.
10:06
You go, well, when, when is that actually going to happen?
10:09
So what is it? What does that mean?
10:12
But I guess if you buy the Josh system before the due date or
10:17
before the the drop dead date or the voice only date, whatever
10:20
you want to call it, you'll have full functionality.
10:23
So you'll still be able to you'll be grandfathered in, I
10:26
guess, as they say. But how, how long that
10:28
grandfather clause lasts for I I really don't know.
10:30
Yeah. And, and I mean, that kind of
10:32
that that speaks to one of the things in this industry that's a
10:35
little, you know, it's always a little bit I, I don't know,
10:39
maybe say tricky, maybe maybe a little hairy is, is things like
10:43
features and, you know, pay to play and that kind of thing.
10:46
And all the subscription based stuff is like, all right, well,
10:48
is my lighting system just going to stop working if I don't pay
10:51
the monthly? And this, this kind of kind of,
10:55
you know, is along the same lines.
10:57
And I mean it sucks. Sure.
11:00
Control. Control as a Control as an RMR
11:03
model is attractive certainly to the people that are installing
11:08
and selling control, but maybe to the end user.
11:11
What do you mean? If I don't pay my 100 bucks a
11:13
year my lights don't work? What are you talking about?
11:15
That's, that's a, that is not a fun conversation.
11:17
No matter what, you know, the matter, the value that you're,
11:20
you're showing or anything else like that is never a good
11:22
conversation. And like, it kind of makes me,
11:25
you know, when I'm confronted with something like that, like
11:27
say I want a piece of software or something and the thing pops
11:29
up. It's like, well, you know, you
11:30
can, you can get this software for 30 bucks a month in
11:33
perpetuity. Yeah, that doesn't make me feel
11:37
so great, right? Like that subscription model is
11:39
just another symptom of inshitification, you know?
11:42
Just just another Leech on the vein.
11:44
Of no cash flow. Checking out dollar bills,
11:47
that's. That's a good it's a great way
11:49
to put it. Yups, Comcast is taking their
11:54
cut. Oh yeah, these guys are getting
11:58
having the having the time of their lives with my wallet.
12:01
But. You're right.
12:02
Wow, that was a good save because I know what you wanted
12:05
to say and it was a really good, nice job.
12:09
You know, and, and you feel like no matter what, at the end of
12:12
the day, you feel like it, your client feels like you kind of
12:14
feel like you're getting nickel and dined and you know, it's
12:17
true. That's we've, we've talked at
12:19
length about service programs and, and, and that kind of thing
12:22
and, and, and RMR and it, you know, at least with that, if you
12:26
can roll these things into something like that, then you're
12:29
showing value, right? Like, OK, you are paying for,
12:32
it's essentially insurance at that point.
12:33
And here's, you know, here's why, right?
12:36
And it's not just your foresight license because it's not just
12:39
your whatever license, it's your, your oversea.
12:42
All that stuff, right? Yeah.
12:43
Exactly it's rolled into whatever it is a month that your
12:47
integrator is, you know, charging you to make sure that
12:50
their S is there when you have a problem, right like and that's
12:53
that's a value. So, yeah, you know, it kind of
12:55
it kind of falls on its integrators to to make that a
12:58
little bit more easy to swallow, I would say.
13:02
But yeah, we're man, I've I've gone way far from the beginning
13:07
of this thing talking about talking about corporate giants
13:09
fighting with each other and getting well, I think it's.
13:12
In share, I mean right, let let's you know, let's classify
13:16
that like corporate giants. What are we talking about here?
13:18
I mean the the Josh AI team is a small one.
13:22
It is, but it's it's very much a, you know, it's not mom and
13:25
pop, but it's certainly not some corporate juggernaut, You know,
13:30
and when you look at the kind of infrastructure and the kind of
13:33
team that Control 4 has, sizably different, sizably different
13:37
volumes, massively different. Absolutely.
13:40
You know, absolutely. Massively different revenue, you
13:44
know, offset between those two I would say.
13:46
And just again, Control 4 has such a lead in terms of over
13:51
time on what you know how long Josh has even existed, right?
13:55
And so and and. Just an installed base and
13:57
everything else, right. Of course, that's that's kind of
13:59
where you know, if you're a control system company, that is
14:02
kind of the end all be all is how many systems do you have
14:05
installed? You know, how many users do you
14:07
have and, and where, you know, where are they coming from?
14:11
And, and you know, how do you basically how do you have them
14:15
and how do you, you know, you've got them locked into a control
14:18
system, like somebody would be locked into Mac or Windows,
14:21
right? How's you know, how's that go?
14:24
And yeah, you know, that kind of that kind of length of time, you
14:28
know, you, you definitely have dedicated control for users out
14:32
there. You've got dedicated Crestron
14:33
users out there who you know, they if if you present Crash
14:38
John in the next project, they're probably going to take
14:41
it if they've had a good experience.
14:42
Right man. I I just had AI, just had a
14:44
thought in my brain where I was like, here's where I show how
14:47
old I am. That's.
14:49
Do I, do I go to the wheel of power?
14:52
You know, do I talk about the wheel of power Control 4?
14:54
Is that even a thing at control 4 anymore?
14:56
Like don't hit the four button in the middle of the don't don't
15:01
hit the four button like it's an OK in the middle of the
15:04
controller of a controller. You got to hit this button over
15:06
here. Like, I mean, that's.
15:08
Correct me if I'm wrong that used to on the older systems you
15:11
would hit that 4 button and it would pop up the the user
15:14
interface on the TV, correct? That was the the.
15:16
Which was quote UN quote wheel of power where it was the the
15:19
things in a circle on your screen that you could.
15:22
Do right so. Yeah, I'm going to go out on a
15:26
limb and suggest that that's probably not the interface of
15:29
control for these days, but no, that's how old I am.
15:31
It's a bit. Different now only slightly.
15:35
Yeah, and that's OK, right? Like, I mean, everybody's got to
15:38
grow, everybody's got to adapt, everybody's got to evolve.
15:41
And it's exciting to think of that.
15:44
This is a mom and pop. No, sorry, they're not a mom and
15:46
pop, but this is like a made in America.
15:48
This is a private corporation that built this thing that got
15:53
sold into a much larger entity, right?
15:55
That's kind of the corporate American dream for a lot of, you
15:59
know, entrepreneurs and a lot of business people where they're
16:01
like, yeah, I want to build this thing up and sell it off and
16:03
make all my zillions so I can go sailing on my boat and do do all
16:08
the stuff that I want to do, Rev up my vet, you know, do do all
16:13
that kind of fun stuff boat. Gas is pricey, especially when
16:18
you can sell it out from the people who built it.
16:20
Sorry, but I said hey. Whoa, whoa, hey, sorry.
16:23
We're. Just friends talking here.
16:24
Yeah, that's all good. But, you know, think about like
16:29
these big corporate entities, like we were talking before and
16:32
to kind of steer the conversation back to where we're
16:34
going. Like, what do you do when they
16:36
break up? What do you do when the things
16:37
don't go right? How is it that these two
16:41
couldn't figure out a way to either integrate into each
16:44
other, Maybe there wasn't ever an opportunity to buy somebody
16:47
out or buy it one way or the other?
16:49
And then what what happens with partnerships going forward?
16:53
Does do does the Josh AI world just take, you know, I want to
16:59
use a use a terrible analogy here, whether they grab their
17:03
bootstraps and pull themselves up by them or.
17:06
Wasted by their own Picard. Or or do they look for another
17:12
partner with an install base to try to build, you know, build
17:16
that I. I think there's you.
17:19
Know like, what do we do there? I I.
17:20
Don't I don't know anything. Let me just start there about
17:23
about anything we knew. That yeah, I.
17:26
Mean about anything life parenting, like you name it,
17:28
control systems, podcasts, who knows you could say that about
17:32
any aspect of my life. However, you know, I think, I
17:36
think when it comes to that, I, I think there's a lot of merit
17:39
in building the best product that you can, right?
17:43
But at the same time, anything that you're going to do in this
17:46
space as manufacturer, if you're just starting out, you're,
17:50
there's a, there's a run rate that you have, there's a burn
17:53
rate, there's whatever, while you're, you know, you can have
17:56
the greatest product in the world, but people need to know
17:59
about it. And especially when you're
18:01
dealing with dealers and, and, and putting systems into homes
18:05
and, and, and interfacing with the public and that kind of
18:07
thing, there's got to be a level of trust there, right?
18:09
Like, so you need as a manufacturer, you need to build
18:12
that level of trust, right? Like, so you're new in the
18:15
marketplace, you know, say you've got, say you've got a
18:18
technology or, you know, you've got a company that competes with
18:21
somebody established, right? So you have a video product and
18:25
it competes with AV Pro or you have a control product and it
18:28
competes with Crash Tronic Control 4, right?
18:30
Like in Josh's case, it there is a very, very, very, very, very
18:35
long time that it will take in order to get people to trust
18:39
you, right? Because, you know, that's the
18:41
thing at the end of the day as dealers, it's not the
18:43
manufacturer who's sitting in the in the, you know, in the
18:46
guy's living room just trying to figure out, you know what, you
18:51
know, how to fix this thing that's that's broken on
18:53
Christmas morning or whatever it is, right?
18:55
Like it's the dealer. The dealer is in that position.
18:58
And you know, you need to be able to trust your manufacturer
19:02
that they're not going to put you in that position with gear
19:04
that goes bad, has a bad firmware update, just plain as
19:07
doesn't work like there's, you know, there's so many things
19:11
what? Some control system manufacturer
19:14
would release a product that doesn't actually work, no.
19:17
No, I'm not a fog. Couldn't, couldn't imagine,
19:20
couldn't imagine being partnered with several of those over my
19:23
career. But we have a.
19:25
Firmware for that coming what it like when that?
19:28
Feature. That feature isn't available for
19:31
however, right? I'm glad we sold it on that
19:34
specific feature. Oh.
19:35
Man, yeah, I'm getting, I'm getting uncomfortable even just
19:39
thinking about that because Jesus Christ.
19:40
Yeah, that's, that's how it goes.
19:43
But you know, I think about it like, here's your, you know,
19:48
here's the, you know, here's one of the things is you, you, you
19:52
need that as a manufacturer and that takes cash, right?
19:55
So like put yourselves in the position of of a manufacturer,
20:00
you've got this brand new widget and it's awesome or you're
20:03
starting out from scratch, right?
20:04
You need to hire and pay a sales team, right?
20:09
To to get that information out there.
20:11
You need, you know, back end development, you need Technical
20:14
Support, right? And there's going to be a very
20:17
long period of time that you're not going to be generating any
20:21
revenue. And especially and it's
20:23
especially, you know, it's a big ass hill in custom.
20:27
Integration because it is a trust thing.
20:29
It's not just the, you know, it's, it's not just a widget
20:33
that it's like, OK, here's your, you know, here's your thing.
20:35
You know what that thing broke. I'm never going to use that
20:37
thing again. It's like, no, it's an entire
20:39
platform. It's like this person's house
20:40
may not work. If we do, I'm going to have to
20:42
RIP all this gear out and I'm on the hook for it, right?
20:45
So that's hard. I'm looking at you.
20:50
I mean, let's go. What was the one that was based
20:52
on Windows that was like HP, whatever that was, Remember that
20:56
the home something or other, You don't remember that thing.
20:59
There was AI don't even. Remember there was a.
21:00
Windows Home based PC integration company and they
21:04
were big like they spent money at CEDIA where if I remember
21:09
correctly and it's going back quite a few years, they had they
21:14
they bought out that parking lot across the street where like all
21:16
the outdoor manufacturers do their thing where.
21:18
Coastal Source has their party every year, yeah.
21:20
Where exactly? Right.
21:21
That's they, they had that entire thing and they had a
21:24
trailer in there with like, you know, the home or whatever.
21:27
And it was, yeah, it was a windows based like it was, it
21:32
was home something or other. And man, it didn't last long.
21:36
What do you do when you get a four O 4 error?
21:39
Whatever a windows and it was windows right it.
21:42
Was all running on Windows Embedded, which is insane, but
21:45
you know, like that's the thing. Like the the, the, the path to
21:48
here is littered with with. Bodies, right?
21:51
We've done this entire, you know, this very same thing and
21:55
you know, it's it's a really hard thing, especially for, you
21:58
know, just look at Josh AI, right, like they're, you know,
22:01
it's it's hard to get venture capital into something like this
22:04
because it is very much a gamble and you know, whatever man, you
22:07
can have the best widget ever and it takes forever to get the
22:10
market and you're just not, you know, you're just not getting
22:14
paid. I think that's so you seek out
22:16
partnerships. You know that's the.
22:18
Passion play too, Frank from, from Tim and from Alex, again,
22:21
just from the outside looking in.
22:22
And that's, I mean, that's that, that's their money, right?
22:25
That's no, they've, they've funded that.
22:26
I know they've certainly done rounds of funding and they've
22:29
done, they've done some other things to, to keep the, to keep
22:32
the ship sailing on the on the water.
22:34
But at the end of the day, that's, you know, that's their
22:37
lifeblood and sweat and tears poured into that along with that
22:41
whole team. So it is kind of cool to be able
22:44
to point to people on that team as still the owners, as still
22:48
the founders. Unfortunately, that's not
22:50
something that we can do with Control 4 at this point.
22:52
Well, yeah. But and and again, but that part
22:54
of controls four story was a long, long time ago, right?
22:57
Like, I mean, you remember we talked about, you know, the Oh
23:00
yeah, I was talking. About the wheel of power, the.
23:02
Wheel of power, but you remember that first CDO when it came out?
23:05
And like that's the thing. Control 4 didn't start as
23:07
control 4. Control 4 started as Panja and
23:10
Fast and a couple of other iterations with other big
23:14
companies, right? And you know that first CDO when
23:16
they came out of the gate and gave everybody those little mini
23:18
remote control cars. That's that's what a lot of
23:21
people remember. I absolutely do.
23:25
That sticks in my head because there was an old, there was an
23:27
old guy in my company who I was at CDO with who was like, wow,
23:30
these are the coolest things. And like, I'm asking them
23:32
questions like, OK, well, you know, what does it look like?
23:35
What does it do? Because at that point we were
23:37
the company I was with was doing AMX and Crestron, which were the
23:40
two, those were the two biggest pillars.
23:42
There was nobody else, you know, like you couldn't you couldn't
23:45
go elsewhere. And you know, here's the first
23:47
Tron. War.
23:48
Yeah, the first. Tron war right and won.
23:50
By Crestron. Here's the first upstart, you
23:53
know, that's kind of coming in here and doing this thing.
23:56
And, you know, it was, it was a lot of, well, you know, it
24:00
doesn't quite do that yet or it doesn't quite do that or it
24:03
doesn't do this or whatever. But like they all started out
24:05
that way. I mean, look at, look at savant,
24:07
right. You remember, I, I don't
24:08
remember the first meeting, you know, the first time I ever
24:12
heard about Savant, it was at a, you know, it was a, it was a
24:14
meeting to kind of like introduce him and try and get my
24:17
company to buy them. And it was, you know, Oh yeah.
24:21
It's all, it's all Apple, it's all Mac mini based.
24:23
All all the in wall touch panels are forgotten.
24:27
It's so. It's a it's a computer touch
24:30
screen that you mount in your wall and run VGA back-to-back to
24:33
a computer in Iraq. That, that was where Savant
24:36
started. Yeah, man, those.
24:40
Those were the days, right? Like here's here's your thing
24:42
and here's this. And it was all based on like,
24:44
oh, the iPad is a new thing. And here's this and and the.
24:47
Coffee table, right? Like a coffee table.
24:49
Oh God. People still talked about that
24:51
like, and that was right at the same time as like the Microsoft
24:54
Surface came out and it was like, right, oh, cool, can it do
24:57
this? Can it do that?
24:58
Like no, it's just a giant touch panel that goes in your coffee
25:00
table. That you know, it's not that
25:03
great. Really.
25:04
It's and it's $15,000. That's going to look dated in
25:08
about 3 years. Oh my.
25:09
God, I believe. I believe it was all black
25:12
Formica if I'm not mistaken. Polished.
25:15
Lacquer, you can get it. In Blacker white from Micah, you
25:19
know, let's go. But.
25:21
That's that's where all this stuff started.
25:23
And you know, Savannah's still around now, right?
25:24
Like they've got, you know, interface, user interface and
25:27
everything else. Like there's a reason for them
25:29
to be around just like there is for Crestron and Crestron Home.
25:32
And I mean, shit, Crestron Home started this way a couple years
25:35
ago, right? Like here's this new thing.
25:38
And people bashed it, right? Sure it's not good enough.
25:40
Oh, it's this and that. And like now, I would say that
25:43
they're easily one of the big three, if not maybe one of the
25:47
premier, right? Do you really think that's not
25:51
going to survive? It's going to survive.
25:52
It's bad, you know, So there's there is it's really hard.
25:57
I mean, and, and I guess just to kind of sum this all up, like
25:59
it's really hard to break into this industry.
26:01
It is it is exceedingly difficult and you know, you're,
26:06
you know, you, you pick up, you pick a path and you go with
26:08
custom integrators. Well, that's an even smaller
26:10
slice of pie, right? Like now you're, you know,
26:12
you're, you're cutting this pie down smaller and smaller and
26:15
smaller to your OK, you know, guys who are competent.
26:19
We need competent installers to be able to put in our stuff and
26:22
they need to go to training smaller piece, you know, like it
26:25
just it's hard, man. It's it's really hard and you
26:30
know, this is this whole thing everybody's got to do what's
26:33
right for them. Our market is shrinking.
26:36
Partnerships maybe aren't what they used to be.
26:38
You know, there's there's a whole you.
26:39
Know they're going to circle back to our our kind of the
26:42
foundation of this conversation is it is you know what you
26:45
people you've either got to merge to to stand up together or
26:49
stand out on your own and try to grow on your own.
26:53
I I'm I'm cheering for the guys at Josh.
26:55
I'm, I don't have anything against the folks at control for
26:58
either, frankly, but you know, I'm cheering for the guys at
27:00
Josh because I do think that AI is clearly something that's a
27:05
big deal and absolutely is aligned with It's an.
27:09
Emerging technology where? You know where homes are going
27:13
to be if we're not, even if we're not wiring everything for
27:16
surround sound and all the other sensors and stuff that we kept,
27:20
we keep talking about and we cringe because oh, we're
27:23
building $1,000,000 house and they didn't, you know, they put
27:25
$30 all over the place or whatever we're whatever we're at
27:30
about, right. But, you know, I think that that
27:34
AI space is absolutely going to be the place where IoT and Wi-Fi
27:40
6 or Wi-Fi 7 and everything's talking to each other.
27:43
And the the need to have physical iOS or maybe some of
27:47
the, we'll just say legacy connectivity that is required
27:51
for a control system probably doesn't exist in the way that it
27:54
does today. So, you know, again, I'm
27:57
cheering for the guys at Josh and cheering for the guys at
27:59
Control 4. I want everybody to be able to
28:01
have a slice of the pie and, and make a dollar.
28:03
But it is a strange thing in in the face of all of the mergers
28:07
and acquisitions that we see to to have like this call out of
28:12
like, yeah, well, after this date, not so much.
28:15
I'm not going to not. Going to work, but we're not.
28:18
Going to be doing that. Anymore.
28:19
Yeah, it's hey, it's happened before, right?
28:21
Like here's here's a subscription model.
28:23
You need to pay the subscription to be able to control your
28:25
lights for example. You know like 35.
28:28
Dollars a year for the heated seats in your BMW.
28:30
This is this is where it's all going.
28:33
Nothing pisses off people more than that.
28:35
That's where we're heading. Yeah.
28:37
It's gotta love it. Inshitification is a thing.
28:41
It's a real thing. And that sucks.
28:43
And you know. On that note on that.
28:48
Note everything sucks. It's all on fire.
28:50
The world is falling apart and we're blowing.
28:53
Up the world at 8:00 PM tonight or something.
28:55
That's why is that. What?
28:56
What time zone? Oh shit, yeah, see.
28:59
There you go. It's not.
29:00
It's the end of the world, but who knows when you know?
29:03
Is that central? Is that eastern?
29:04
I was thinking I. Was thinking maybe that's Taran
29:06
time. I don't know, just the fun.
29:08
Shit, I don't know. That's probably tomorrow then.
29:11
We're already late. Great.
29:14
No matter what, it's going to be after sundown and you can take
29:17
that however you want to take it.
29:19
Yeah, fair enough. Fair.
29:22
Enough. There we go.
29:23
Put a put a nice little time stamp on our episode with that
29:26
comment. It's like a little like.
29:27
A little time capsule, or it could be a pipe bomb.
29:29
I don't know. Little Chef's.
29:30
Kiss right? Chef's kiss.
29:32
But. Yeah, I think that's, I think
29:35
that's enough Doomin and gloomin.
29:37
Yeah. So, yeah, if you're, if you're
29:39
so inclined, subscribe to to get more of this whatever you want
29:46
to call riveting, that's one take commentary on.
29:51
Our industry. Yeah, I mean, you know, we'll
29:54
give it a straight though as much as we can without losing
29:56
our jobs. But yeah.
29:57
So hit us up, you know, subscribe to us, you know, steal
30:01
your friend's phone and subscribe on their phone as
30:02
well. Help.
30:03
Our grandmas, nans, pop pops, everybody, they're all victims.
30:07
They're all they're all targets for subscribing on Spotify.
30:11
They don't even have a have to have a Spotify account.
30:13
Just download the app and just subscribe.
30:16
We are. Completely mema friendly for
30:18
sure. Oh my.
30:19
God, but. All the memas and yeah, you
30:22
know, hit us up inside integration at at gmail.com if
30:25
you want to drop us a line and tell us we suck or hit us up on
30:29
the Instagram inside under score integration.
30:31
And thank you so much for joining us.
30:35
Take care everybody. Bye bye.