ESS Home Theater

YouTube

jpcoords — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:46:26 +0000

Check out our new youtube channel! Let us know what you think.

Staying Cool

jpcoords — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:13:09 +0000

With the temperatures outside being as hot as they are, I’m reminded of how fortunate most of us are to have air conditioning in our homes and offices. My wife is at the beach today and I was thinking how practical and amazing it is that she can get on her iPhone, as she’s leaving, to turn the temperature down to something a little cooler. This will get the house nice and cool by the time she gets home. The best part is that I didn’t have to pay to cool the house while no one was home and she doesn’t have to walk into a hot house when she gets home. This is done through our Savant System, with TrueCommand, which not only has the coolest interface on the planet but also allows me to control any subsystem in my house that is controllable. All of my audio, video, security, HVAC, etc…. Give a me a call at 908-904-0040 and I can tell you more.

Stay Cool!!

CEDIA?

jpcoords — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:17:01 +0000

So I’m getting ready for CEDIA again this year. I’m sitting here pondering what my industry is all about. Obviously, you think product first. Right? High end speakers that make you melt. That make you feel like the artist is standing right in front of you. Pristine audio and video that makes you feel like you are literally part of the action. Is that what it’s all about? I actually think not. We have tried to do things different here at ESS for a very long time. It’s not so much about the product. It’s all about the service! We are a SERVICE industry. We haven’t always gotten it right but we have ALWAYS strived to give our customers the best possible service. We train our installers to treat our customers like they are family and we take that seriously. After all, we are a family business started by my dad 30+ years ago. Products are products. We sell Triad Speakers, Speakercraft, Savant Systems, Integra…. These are all great lines that we have chosen for specific reasons. Would a customer be happy with B&W or Crestron instead of Triad and Savant? Yeah, I think so. However, we have chosen our lines because they reflect our core beliefs. They have amazing support for their dealers. They stand by their products 100%. Savant will advance replace a system processor 11 months after the installation. Who does that? In our experience, you have to fight, scratch and claw to get service from other brands who take the dealer is guilty until proven innocent approach.

I don’t know that I have ever really separated the product from the service before. We’ve always stressed service but it always been more of an all in approach. Product and service. Technically, it still is but, as we all navigate this tough economy, it’s becoming more and more apparent just how important service is. I am routinely walking into new customer’s homes, who have just been utterly taken advantage of by other local installers. I listen to the heartache over how the other guy simply didn’t listen and didn’t respond. Simple stuff really. Things like coming back to the house to swap a glass break sensor on a security system or troubleshoot a TV issue. I walked into a client’s home once where the TV had a problem. The installer thought it might be the HDMI cable so he draped a long HDMI cable across the floor from the closet head end to the TV to test. It worked but he wanted to verify and test for a few days before running the cable through the walls. No problem so far right? 11 months later, when I got the call, he still hadn’t come back or even returned a phone call. What? Crazy! It actually upsets me in some ways because I have had to work extra hard at times to gain the trust of clients because of previous experiences. It gives my industry a bad name.

So, as you contemplate your new electronic systems, pay very close attention to the guy selling you. Observe how well they listen. Look closely at the proposal. Is it actually what you talked about or is it what the guy wanted to sell you? Does he take the time to explain, in as much detail as YOU need, all of the options, or is he too busy throwing out lingo and the next pitch? Again, we are not perfect. We are all human but you can tell if the guy is sincere and has a true heart for service.

Seeing is Believing!

forgeRyan — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:07:29 +0000

Something that’s been doing pretty well for us this year are Stealth Acoustics speakers. I have seen this scenario played out numerous times over the years, where the husband and wife can’t seem to agree on what they want. Typically, although becoming more and more less true, the man wants the audio and the wife…not so much. Eventually, his persistence gets her into the showroom to at least see what’s out there. He really wants speakers throughout the home and she doesn’t want to see anything(No offense to him, but it’s usually she that designs and decorates the home). Big, white ugly speakers just don’t seem to go with her chosen decor. Then I demo the Stealth Acoustics speakers and a lightbulb goes off. It’s the perfect compromise. The speakers literally look like a sheet rocked wall. You can’t see them! Better still, he not only gets his speakers but he gets great sounding speakers to boot. The irony is that, at the end of the day, she tends to enjoy them more than him because she can relax and enjoy music without the visual disruption to her home. Just a thought for all of you out there who have been in this situation before.

The Benefit of Automation Systems

forgeRyan — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:12:45 +0000

Check out the link to Savant’s commercial use page. Most people don’t realize how automation systems can benefit their business.

Savant Systems

forgeRyan — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:13:35 +0000

Here at ESS Home Theater, we’ve been dealers for Savant Systems for a little while now. Until now, I haven’t had much of an outlet to share how awesome this product actually is. It’s all been bottled up inside. Check out this scenario below. Has this ever happened or something like it(Coffee maker perhaps)?

Imagine you’ve just begun your family vacation, your in the passenger seat of the family car about 3 hours from home and your reading the new book you’ve been waiting to read on your totally awesome new iPad 3G(which you’re still trying to figure out if it was REALLY worth the money). Everyone’s smiling and settled in for the long haul when you realize that you left all the lights on, security disarmed and the AC on full blast. All on top of the fact that you will be gone for 2 weeks. What do you do? Most people have to now make a series of phone calls to, hopefully, find someone to let themselves in to get everything set. Not you! All you do is open the Savant Rosie App and press your vacation button and the system does the rest. One button push and the security is armed, lights are set, AC goes up…and you have peace of mind. Worth the money? Yeah! It just clicked how amazing this technology is.

This little story just scratches the surface of what Savant can do but it illustrates what “home automation” is all about. Home automation is all about peace of mind. It says that you can focus on the things in life that really matter without getting bogged down in all of the details. Simple button pushes can cause a host of events to occur. Heck, you don’t even have to push buttons. The time of day or changing temps can do that for you.

Make sense? Let me know your thoughts. Better yet, come on in for a demo of these concepts and ask about the OSD UI. More on that to come.