The study is the first of its kind released under Ryan Bardach, CEDIA’s new director of research.

The 2026 Professional US Smart Home Market Analysis draws on 287 completed interviews with custom electronics installers, security/alarm installers, home network/IT professionals, electrical contractors, and remodelers/general contractors, fielded between May 26 and June 30, 2026. To qualify, respondents had to influence purchasing or installation decisions, spend at least half their time on AV, networking, or security work, derive at least 21% of their business from residential projects, and have completed at least three residential technology installations in the past year.

Sizing the Market

CEDIA and The Farnsworth Group built the estimate from respondents’ own reported residential revenue across 13 categories, then weighted the results by firm size (small: 1 to 5 employees, medium: 6 to 20, and large: more than 20) before scaling each tier to its estimated population of U.S. firms. The total firm count started from CE Pro’s directory of core AV integrators, supplemented with Bureau of Labor Statistics establishment data and adjacent trades (electricians, IT companies, security dealers, and remodelers) that do meaningful integration work.

The resulting $33.8 billion splits roughly evenly across firm size tiers in dollar terms: $9.7 billion from small firms, $9.5 billion from medium firms, and $14.6 billion from large firms. But the distribution of firms tells a different story. Large firms represent only about 15% of the roughly 23,000 establishments in the market, yet they account for 43% of total revenue. Small firms make up 65% of establishments but generate just 29% of the dollars.

By category, home networking leads at 15% of the market (about $5.2 billion), followed by distributed audio at 11% ($3.8 billion) and lighting/shading at 11% ($3.7 billion). Integrated control systems, media rooms, dedicated home cinema, security systems, design services, and recurring monthly revenue (RMR) services each capture roughly 7% to 9% of the market.

A Mixed Operating Environment

The research paints a business climate defined by cross-currents. Housing activity has softened and construction material costs are climbing again. The report notes that tariffs have pushed up prices for several key building materials even as broader inflation has moderated. On the labor side, industry unemployment has historically run above the national rate during slow months but tightens considerably during peak season, pointing to a persistently constrained pool of skilled trades workers.

Despite those headwinds, sentiment among integrators remains upbeat. Nearly 78% of firms expect revenue to increase over the next 12 months, while only 4% anticipate a decline. Among those expecting growth, the leading driver by a wide margin is simply more customer demand, followed by more homeowners adding technology and firms expanding their service and product offerings. Non-integrators and medium/large firms are especially likely to cite rising demand and AI as growth drivers. Of the smaller group expecting revenue to fall, the leading culprits are economic conditions, inflation, and tariff-driven material costs, external factors rather than industry-specific ones.

Direct client referrals remain the single biggest source of new business (cited by 76% of firms), followed by general contractors (55%), interior designers (25%), and architects (16%). Referrals directly from clients skew higher among smaller firms and integrators, while general-contractor relationships matter more to medium and large firms.

Asked about their biggest opportunity for the year ahead, integrators pointed most often to lighting, followed closely by AI integration and broader product diversification. On the challenge side, one issue dwarfs all others: staffing skilled workers was named by 27% of respondents as their most significant business challenge, nearly three times the next most common answer (finding new clients or staying current on technology, tied at 8% each).

AI Adoption Accelerates on Both Sides of the Business

For the first time, the study asked firms directly about artificial intelligence, and the results suggest AI has moved from buzzword to daily reality faster on the operations side than on the demand side. Seventy-nine percent of firms report increased use of AI in running their own businesses over the past year, compared with 58% reporting increased customer requests for AI-related products or features. Large firms and non-integrators are more likely to report growth in customer-driven AI demand, while small firms are more likely to say they don’t use AI-related products at all.

What Firms Are Installing

Home networking is not just the largest revenue category. It’s also the most commonly installed system, cited by 88% of firms in the past year, ahead of integrated control systems (77%), media rooms (77%), distributed audio (76%), security systems (72%), outdoor AV (70%), and lighting/shading (70%). Integrators are significantly more likely than non-integrators to have installed the top systems, reflecting the added complexity of those projects.

Within whole-house integration projects specifically, audio, home networking, and video form the consistent core: each is “always” or “frequently” included in the vast majority of projects, regardless of firm type, size, or region. Lighting, security/surveillance, shading, access control, HVAC/climate integration, and voice control show up less universally, and are notably more common among non-integrators and larger firms than among smaller integrator-only shops.

On the business-software side, QuickBooks (45%) and Excel (34%) remain the most widely used tools for customer quoting, well ahead of dedicated design/proposal platforms like D-Tools Cloud (19%), Visio (18%), and ProjX360 (11%), though many firms report stacking multiple tools together.

Brand Leadership Concentrated at the Top

Across most categories, brand preference concentrates around a small set of familiar names, while a handful of categories remain genuinely competitive. In whole-house control, Control4 is the clear leader, named a top-three installed brand by 63% of qualifying respondents, followed by Crestron (43%), Savant (33%), and Josh.ai (32%). Control4’s strength is concentrated among integrators, while Crestron over-indexes with large firms.

Lutron dominates both lighting control systems (76% top-three share, more than double second-place Control4’s 53%) and lighting fixtures, where it leads DMF Lighting 67% to 49%. Lutron also tops motorized shading and window treatments at 77%, with Crestron a distant second at 34%.

The report notes that brand preference splits meaningfully by company type: integrators more often install Control4, Sonance, Ubiquiti, Sony, Epson, and IC Realtime, while non-integrators more frequently reach for JBL, Honeywell, Nest, and Ring, a pattern consistent with non-integrators’ broader focus on more accessible, less custom-configured product lines.

A Snapshot of the Channel

The typical respondent profile underscores how established this research base is: nearly three-quarters of respondents have more than 10 years in the industry, 59% are their firm’s sole decision-maker on product purchasing, and 52% of firms report earning 81-100% of their integration revenue from residential projects (96% earn at least 41%). Geographically, the South accounted for the largest share of respondents (43%), followed by the West (24%), Northeast (17%), and Midwest (15%), roughly tracking regional population distribution with some overrepresentation in the South.

CEDIA and The Farnsworth Group plan to track these metrics over successive waves of research, which should allow the channel to begin watching category share, brand preference, and business sentiment shift over time rather than viewing the market as a single snapshot.

The post CEDIA Research Pegs U.S. Residential Tech Market at $33.8 Billion, With AI and Skilled Labor Defining the Year Ahead appeared first on CEPRO.

“Most homeowners buy the home because of the finish and feel in it,” said Erin Thomas, General Manager of Daisy Denver, who led the walkthrough. That finish — warm, light wood tones throughout — dictated a lot of the technology choices, she said, noting that Daisy typically specs golden-toned woven wood shades in DevX homes because they complement the builder’s signature palette.

The Frame TVs, hidden subwoofers and magnetic keypad trims are the vocabulary here, not the story. The real lesson is how Daisy assembled those pieces into a repeatable, client-centered philosophy that any integration firm can study and adapt.

Invisible Technology as the Default, Not the Upsell

The clearest through-line across every room was a commitment to making technology disappear. Samsung Frame TVs appear throughout the house, several set in custom Leon frames with Leon soundbars powered by hidden Sonos amps so the audio hardware visually matches the screen — right down to a custom wood-frame TV in one bedroom, chosen to echo the home’s natural finishes.

That obsession with clean walls goes deeper than screens. Daisy specified screwless, magnetized Lux by Control4 keypads and outlet plates in light almond rather than snow white, blending them into the interior palette. Visible screws, Thomas said, are simply “an eyesore” in a home at this level. When a data and TV drop landed in an awkward spot because the buyer’s furniture layout wasn’t finalized, Daisy’s installers turned the problem into a feature, mounting a Séura lighted mirror over the outlet to conceal the wiring entirely.

Concealment isn’t reserved for clients who ask for it; these days, it’s the baseline. But invisible isn’t the only mode. The same magnetic Lux trim kits let a homeowner snap on a new look in seconds as a room evolves, and Thomas said the decision to hide or show technology really comes down to the client. “It’s really going to be a one-off conversation with the homeowner to decide how they want to be featured in the home,” she said, noting that some clients want technology to disappear into millwork, while others “want a big freaking floor-standing speaker” as a focal point rather than something to conceal — Daisy points to KEF floor-standing towers on other projects as exactly that kind of deliberate statement piece. Invisible by default, visible by choice.

Whole-Home Thinking Beats a Pile of Subsystems

What makes the house a useful case study is that it’s real — not just a showroom. Control4 sits at the center of a single ecosystem orchestrating Sonos audio, Hunter Douglas shading, Clare Controls security, Luma surveillance, Origin Acoustics and Episode speakers, Samsung displays and Episode Radiance landscape audio. A centralized rack downstairs houses eight Sonos amplifiers, Control4 processors, an Integra receiver, a WattBox and Apple TVs; a dedicated panel powers every automated Hunter Douglas shade in the house.

That unified backbone is what makes the experience feel effortless. Guests are greeted with an automated welcome scene; homeowners trigger presets that shift lighting, audio and shades together with a single command; control lives across Lux keypads, dedicated touchscreens, Halo remotes and the Sonos app, so the interface fits whatever moment calls for it. Clients don’t buy shading, audio and security as separate line items — they buy a home that responds as one, and integrators designing at the ecosystem level are the ones earning the referrals that follow.

Lifestyle-First Design Drives the Spec

Every system decision traced back to how this particular family lives. One bedroom doubles as an art studio for a homeowner who paints, so Daisy specified tunable, art-calibrated lighting that shifts color temperature to make her paintings — and the home’s growing art collection throughout the main living space — pop, a demo the team ran repeatedly for the tour group. Downstairs, a separate lighting scene can throw team colors across the room for the household’s sports fan. The backyard is built as a genuine outdoor living space, with landscape audio, combined light-and-speaker fixtures and a subwoofer buried in the yard. Even the home gym gets its own Sonos-powered ceiling audio and automated Hunter Douglas shades.

None of it started with a product sheet. It started with a conversation about routines, hobbies and comfort.

The Pre-Wire Strategy That Protects the Project

Much of Daisy’s advantage here traces back to timing. Thomas traced Daisy’s relationship with DevX back several years to a lunch meeting with a realtor who was separately building his own home — a project done with another AV company that went well enough that the realtor recommended Daisy to his builder. Roughly three months later, DevX began sending Daisy completed projects and introducing the integrator to new homeowners. The house is roughly the tenth DevX home Daisy has worked on, and the firm now sometimes locks in pre-wire infrastructure a year or more before a buyer ever signs.

The arrangement has scaled considerably since. Daisy pre-wires every speaker location in DevX homes with covers only so that homeowners can decide later whether to activate full audio coverage. “[We have] a very good relationship with this builder,” Thomas said. On a current custom project with the same builder, a roughly 8,000-square-foot home, Daisy’s scope has grown to include around $300,000 in Lutron lighting alone, on top of a $30,000 pre-wire. A separate 10,000-square-foot project underway in Breckenridge will include full blackout shading throughout.

Owning the wire early means owning the infrastructure knowledge later. By the time it’s time to design, Daisy already understands the house better than anyone else at the table and can present options without opening a single wall.

Making the Sale Simple With Good, Better, Best

Once the wire is in, Daisy simplifies the buying decision with tiered proposals. A prime example is a “good, better, best” speaker lineup built around Origin Acoustics Director models (the D63, D83 and D109) that lets clients mix performance levels room by room. Because infrastructure is already in place, Daisy can hand a client a clean preliminary proposal matched to budget and performance expectations before any construction begins.

“It’s fun because once my team installs a product and we see the client’s reaction to it, it’s so easy to sell again,” Thomas said. “I can sell this Lux lighting to any house I walk into now because it looks so good, and I really stand by it.”

Introduce a buyer to even a single smart switch inside a Control4 ecosystem, and that small taste of automation and design often becomes the catalyst for a whole-home upgrade — experience sells better than any spec sheet.

Collaboration and Care as Differentiators

The house also illustrates how these projects get built and stay built. Daisy Denver’s Director of Engineering Dustin Hutton and his team worked onsite for roughly three weeks alongside manufacturer partners’ own engineers to handle programming and commissioning — building scenes that trigger automatically as visitors move through the house, alongside everyday automations like a “goodnight” scene that shuts everything down at once. The firm worked closely with DevX and Studio Shelter to weave technology into finishes and wallpaper from the start, and it built a close enough relationship with the homeowners that Thomas ended up with a house key.

That relationship doesn’t end at handoff. Daisy Care, the firm’s service arm, returns quarterly to clean, service and adjust shading and curtains so that the system keeps performing as installed. That’s often the part that clients remember most.

The Home as a Teaching Tool

Complementing a buzzing show floor, ADI put editors and guests in an Uber and sent them to an actual residence during CEDIA Expo to get a real-world picture of the technologies on display. Visitors got to pull off and snap on Lux trim kits themselves and watch a room’s look change in real time.

Unsurprisingly, the house would see more traffic in the days that followed. Indeed, Daisy and ADI said roughly 15 to 20 people would tour the home informally once the show floor opened, with sales and engineering reps stationed on each level to field questions. The property was also slated as a stop on a larger, curated circuit for architects, builders and interior designers tied to the show. Daisy expected 34 builders, designers and architects, along with roughly 25 of its own staff split across four vans, to move through several Denver-area locations before the group reconvened for dinner.

For ADI, which runs an ongoing customer-install content program through its marketing team — documenting completed integrator projects from a Scottsdale residence to a Miami nightclub build-out — the Denver home fit a familiar mold.

“We’re really trying to bridge design and technology in all of the work that we do,” said ADI Global PR Manager Colette Gelman. “When we see homes like this, we’re like, ‘We have to showcase this.'”

Pre-wire aggressively. Design for the whole ecosystem. Lead with lifestyle. Sell through experience. Collaborate deeply with builder, designer and manufacturer partners. Service for life. That’s the roadmap Daisy’s Denver showcase home lays out — and it demonstrated it in the rooms where a family actually lives.

The post Inside Daisy’s CEDIA Expo Showcase Home appeared first on CEPRO.

• Connected bath solutions are steadily gaining popularity and interest in the custom integration (CI) channel.
• Newer connected bath solutions now integrate with popular control platforms like Control4, with more integrations planned.
• Consumer interest in wellness solutions still stands strong, provided they are connected and can be made to fit in with the flow of their lifestyle.

Dollar per square foot, the kitchen and bath are the two areas of the home where the most money is often spent for renovations, however, for integrators looking to break into these areas, they aren’t always the most technologically profuse spaces, which has, historically, made them a difficult segment for integrators to really own. That could all be changing, however, and quickly, as connected bath solutions made plenty of rumblings, both grand and quiet, during the recently concluded 2026 CEDIA Expo.

Where the Connected Bath Shone at CEDIA Expo 2026

For attendees at this year’s CEDIA Expo, there is a non-zero chance you heard about the literal and metaphorical splash made by Kohler at this year’s show, and that was despite the company’s exhibit showcasing only a single solution: the Anthem+ smart shower system.

Kohler was not the only connected bath brand at the show, however, as part of my presence at the show involved a chat with the U.S. President of Thermasol, a spa and wellness brand who was also at the show, not exhibiting, but meeting with integrators to gauge sentiment their own connected bath and spa solutions. And based on initial feedback, it seems that they, too, have been receiving a lot of interest.

Why Connected Bath Solutions Are Garnering Renewed Interest from Integrators

One thing to note with Kohler’s Anthem+ solution is its scalability, being able to incorporate multiple water sources based on the desired design of the shower itself. Photo by Nick Boever

Some may not know that this was not the first time Kohler made an appearance in the channel, with the company exhibiting at the 2023 CEDIA Expo held in Dallas, Tex., though the company’s reception then caused nary a ripple aside from the novelty of a kitchen and bath brand exhibiting at an integration tradeshow. So, what changed since then?

In my talks with representatives at the show this year: a lot. In fact, the 2023 outing gave Kohler the insight it needed to break into the channel, that being that if it was going to bring technologically advanced bath and shower components into the channel, it needed to be able to connect with many of the popular control systems.

And therein lies the secret sauce that has caused integrators throughout the channel to perk up at the prospect of these solutions. Rather than keeping these as standalone systems, companies like Kohler and Thermasol (the latter of which is being guided by a former Lutron representative) have finally made it so smart spa and bath solutions can be controlled just like everything else in an integrator’s portfolio.

The revelation was so profound for one dealer at Kohler’s booth that they even asked how feasible it would be to set up an Anthem+ shower in their showroom for clients.

Consumer Interest in Wellness Never Left the Channel

Something else worth noting here is that consumer interest in wellness never really left the channel. If you look at lighting, that’s basically the selling point of the product nowadays. The limit of wellness for integration, however, has largely been what is capable of being controlled by today’s platforms. Lighting and shading: easy! HVAC: challenging, but not impossible. And–until recently–shower…what?

The fact that the bathroom, a hub for wellness rituals, is one of the most profitable segments of design should highlight how much homeowners are willing to spend on this type of wellbeing boost. Again, though, until recently, the only component integrators primarily sold that contributes to this narrative, has been lighting.

Now picture this: a client likes to take a nice, relaxing shower after their workout. Through some technological magic, an integrator makes it so when they shut off the lights in the workout room, an automation gets trigged that starts prepping the shower so that, by the time they’re ready to hop in, the integrated music is playing, the steam is ready; all they need to do is turn the shower on.

That’s not hypothetical; it was an example given to me at the show of something that’s already been done using the Anthem+ system on Control4. Homeowners have always wanted this capability, that’s the rub (or I guess scrub in this case). Imagine being able to draw a nice, steaming bath before you even walk in the door after work so you have instant comfort waiting for you. It’s that same idea, and Kohler has already hinted at expanding this control capability to some of their other bath products, like, say, the Stillness tub.

Could This Be the Push That Gets Integrators to ‘Own the Bath’?

Photo by Nick Boever

I feel as though every time a segment opens in CI, there’s a push in marketing language to get integrators to “own the ‘x,’” though, in this case, I feel as though it may be more warranted. With the shower and bathtub being such central figures within the bathroom, the fact that integrators can own this specific fixture, along with lighting, has the potential to give them far greater ownership of this space when it comes to specifying product.

And the fact that brands like Kohler and Thermasol have seemingly struck gold with these products and are looking to expand these capabilities into other water fixtures means that we could have a whole suite of connected water products for the professional smart home around the corner. Baby steps, though.

One thing integrators will need to be wary of here is that, as with lighting and energy management before, operating in this new segment will require certain partnerships. Make nice with the local plumber: they could become your new best friend if you want to start selling smart showers and smart saunas.

The good news that, in the case with Kohler, they’re already partnered with the CEDIA channel in providing opportunities to integrators. In the case with Thermasol, they’re being headed by a former CEDIA channel employee who’s no stranger to the challenges and needs of integrators, making both brands well positioned to help guide the more adventurous into this emerging product segment.

Where Integrators Will Want to Keep Tabs

For the editors at CE Pro, our keen interest will be in how this initial interest pans out over the next few years. In the case of lighting and energy management, plenty of integrators have leveraged both as a means of getting an early in on projects with builders and designers. Could connected bath solutions such as the Anthem+ facilitate similar plays? Only time will tell.

We’ll also be interested in seeing how designers react to these products, as, lighting control has been widely embraced as a net positive for how it has the potential to impact enjoyment of design. There’s a chance that same level of enjoyment can be had with an exceptional shower experience.

The post The Dream of a Professional Connected Bath Solution May Finally Be Here appeared first on CEPRO.

The challenge is that many projects are no longer that simple.

Smart homes now carry more access points, cameras, control processors, touch panels, AV over IP endpoints and PoE-powered devices. Home offices increasingly need business-grade reliability. Plus, light-commercial work such as offices, restaurants or retail environments often require cable routes that are longer, denser and harder to revisit.

For integrators, the risk is not just choosing the wrong cable, it is finding out after handover that a run has no remaining margin once the client has added devices, upgraded access points or started using the network like business infrastructure.

That is why Cat6A is fast becoming the safer specification.

The decision between Cat6 and Cat6A is less about headline speed and more about performance margin under real installed conditions. Kordz has published a practical Cat6 vs Cat6A guide that breaks the decision down by distance, PoE, pathway density and long-term serviceability. We consider some of its key ideas here.

The speed comparison only goes so far

Both Cat6 and Cat6A are often discussed in relation to 10Gbps and that is where many comparisons stop, but this is where integrators need to look more closely.

Cat6A is specified to support 10GBASE-T across a full 300ft channel while Cat6 can support 10GBASE-T only over shorter, condition-dependent channels. The usable distance depends on installation quality, termination, bundling, alien crosstalk, pathway conditions, and how many connections through the complete channel.

That distinction is crucial, as a marginal cable run does not always fail in an obvious way. More often, it passes at handover, then becomes unstable later when the system is fully loaded, more devices are added, PoE demand increases or the client starts using the network harder than expected.

Cat6A reduces that risk by giving the channel more headroom where the project conditions call for it.

Smart homes are asking more of the wired layer

Gone are the days when a connected home involved a router, a few data points and a couple of access points. Higher-end residential projects now commonly include multiple wireless access points, CCTV, lighting control, distributed audio, video distribution, control systems, remote management and networked AV endpoints.

Each of those systems depends on the wired layer, even when the user experience feels wireless.

Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 are good examples. The wireless standard does not change the cable in the wall, but it changes what the cable is expected to support. Access points increasingly rely on 2.5G, 5G or 10G uplinks, along with higher PoE budgets. A wireless upgrade fed by a weak wired backbone simply moves the bottleneck to a less visible part of the system.

This is where Cat6A becomes a design decision, not just a cable upgrade.

Home offices and light-commercial AV raise the stakes

Home offices can no longer be treated as secondary network zones with “good enough” connectivity.  Video conferencing, cloud workflows, large file transfers, remote access and hybrid work have raised expectations. The network may be installed in a house, but the performance expectation needs toca look much closer to a professional commercial environment.

Light-commercial AV brings the same pressure in a different form. Small offices, hospitality spaces, restaurants, gyms, studios, private medical and dental practices, retail environments and multi-use rooms often include longer runs, denser pathways, more PoE devices, and higher consequences if the system becomes unreliable.

That does not mean every run must be Cat6A. However, it does mean the default thinking changes.

In these environments, the cost of re-pulling cable through finished spaces, ceiling voids or occupied premises can quickly outweigh the initial saving made by selecting Cat6. The cable itself is rarely the expensive part of the job. Labor, access, troubleshooting, disruption and reputation are where the true costs appear.

This often makes Cat6A the safer specification on backbone runs, access point drops, media areas, dense rack routes, PoE-heavy zones and any pathway that will be difficult to revisit.

PoE and bundling are part of the decision

PoE does not automatically decide Cat6 vs Cat6A, as both categories can carry PoE. The real determinants are thermal and electrical margin.

Temperature rise in a cable bundle depends on conductor size, copper quality, DC resistance, cable construction, bundle size, ambient temperature and installation practice. In dense, high-power PoE applications, Cat6A often gives more margin because its construction commonly uses larger conductors and lower resistance.

This becomes important when homes and light-commercial projects add more powered endpoints. A pathway that looked tidy at rough-in can become thermally constrained once more cables are energized and tightly bundled.

Cat6 still has its place

A higher category isn’t always “better”. Cat6 is still the right choice for many shorter, lighter-duty drops where the load, pathway and service expectation are well understood. It’s simpler to install and more economical.

The mistake is treating Cat6 as the default everywhere because it worked on previous projects. The network behind the AV system is rapidly being asked to do more, and as it does, that once-comfortable margin steadily disappears.

Specify by run, not by habit

The better approach is to assess your projects run by run.

Use Cat6 where the distance is short, the load is modest and the pathway is easy to understand. Use Cat6A where the run is long, loaded, dense, hard to access, expected to support multi-gig performance or likely to serve the building for many years to come.

For integrators moving between smart homes, home offices and light-commercial AV, that decision habit is becoming increasingly important. Cat6A is not the solution to every cabling dilemma, but it is becoming the safer specification for the runs where performance margin, future access and client expectation matter most.

For a deeper look at distance, PoE, pathway density and how to make real-world specification decisions, read the full Kordz guide to Cat6 vs Cat6A.

The post Why Cat6A Is Becoming the Safer Spec, Even When Cat6 Still Works appeared first on CEPRO.

Miller, who took the stage at the Smart Stage before a panel featuring executives from ADI, Crestron, Lutron, Origin Acoustics, and Sony, opened by sharing his background in semiconductors and componentry, calling it a pleasure to see a show “where all of those ingredients actually go” into finished solutions. He described the residential integration space as a “technology disrupted and technology enabled industry” and praised the energy he found walking the show floor in Denver.

“It is also clear that this is the largest dedicated residential AV systems integration show in the US,” Miller said, adding that nowhere else does the community gather “at this scale or with this level of focus” on the professionals and technologies shaping the connected home.

Addressing the Acquisition Head-On

Miller acknowledged that the formation of Forge — created through Apollo’s acquisition of Emerald and Questex, the two companies that previously owned CEDIA Expo and its related media properties — has prompted questions from the industry about what the change means going forward.

Rather than sidestep the topic, Miller addressed it directly, telling attendees that Forge understands the show’s role in helping integrators grow their businesses by connecting buyers and sellers, and that the company is committed to continued investment in the event, its audience, and the opportunities it creates.

He also suggested the show itself will need to evolve alongside the industry. Miller noted that while AV remains fundamental to the business, integrators are increasingly expanding into whole-home categories — lighting, energy management, security, and outdoor technology — often working alongside architects, designers, and builders to deliver a complete home experience.

Despite that broader lens, Miller emphasized that the show’s foundation isn’t changing. “We are the place where the professional integrator remains at the heart of CEDIA Expo,” he said, adding that expanding the conversation to the total home “isn’t about moving away from the core,” but about creating more opportunity around it.

Putting Rumors to Rest

Miller used part of his remarks to directly confront speculation he said has been circulating about the show’s future.

“This is not the last CEDIA Expo,” Miller told the audience. “We’re going to see you in Vegas next year, and we’re going to continue to invest in this product.”

He said he wanted to put any rumors about the show’s direction to rest, stating plainly that Forge cares about the industry and the event and believes in its future.

A Call for Feedback

Miller closed by inviting direct feedback from exhibitors and attendees, saying he had already spent the previous day listening to input on what’s working and what isn’t.

“I want to hear from you, exhibitors, attendees,” Miller said. “I heard a lot yesterday. What’s working? What’s not working? What can we do better? And I know there are things we can be doing better. And what can we do to help this become the place that you want to be in the years ahead?”

He encouraged attendees to approach him in person throughout the show to share what Forge could be doing better.

“We’re all in on this event,” Miller said, before handing the stage back to Dan Ferrisi, Forge’s Group Director of Content and Editorial for Industrial and Tech, to introduce the executive roundtable.

Forge has confirmed that CEDIA Expo will return next year in Las Vegas.

The post Forge CEO Paul Miller Commits to CEDIA Expo’s Future, Addresses Industry Speculation appeared first on CEPRO.

Held September 2–4, CEDIA Expo 2026 leaned heavily into its dual identity as both trade show and training ground. The event packed in 215 educational and training sessions, split between 101 manufacturer product trainings, 97 CEDIA-run education sessions, and 17 thought-leadership panels tackling everything from AI and lighting to aging-in-place design and business planning.

Show Floor Energy, By the Numbers

Image/Jack Goras

Perhaps the most notable stat for an industry always hungry for fresh blood: 26 percent of attendees were first-timers. That’s a meaningful chunk of new faces for a trade show that’s been around long enough to have institutional gravity, and it’s the figure Jason McGraw, Group Vice President and Show Director for CEDIA Expo, chose to highlight.

“What stood out in Denver was the quality of the audience and the business happening across the show floor,” McGraw said. “Exhibitors told us they were meeting high-quality prospects, strengthening relationships with existing customers and generating real business opportunities. With 26% of attendees experiencing CEDIA Expo for the first time, we’re continuing to bring new people into the show and connecting them with this industry. That, combined with the business, discovery, and connection, is exactly why CEDIA Expo continues to be the premier event for the residential integration community.”

The experiential side of the floor pulled real crowds, too. More than 20 dedicated audio and sound demo rooms reportedly had lines forming throughout the week, a good sign for an industry segment that lives and dies by in-person listening experiences no spec sheet can replicate. Destination Outdoors, sponsored by Coastal Source and Lutron, gave the expanding outdoor living and entertainment category its own dedicated showcase, reflecting how far “smart home” has stretched beyond four walls.

On the programming side, the Day of Discovery™ track (produced by Technology Designer) continued its push to get architects, interior designers, and builders talking directly to integrators and manufacturers, a relationship CEDIA has clearly decided is worth institutionalizing rather than leaving to chance. The Women in Consumer Technology (WiCT) Luncheon added a networking and recognition component to the week’s agenda.

Exhibitors Sound Off

Image/Jack Goras

The exhibitor commentary released alongside the attendance figures reads like a fairly consistent chorus: strong leads, real conversations, worth the investment.

“CEDIA Expo 2026 delivered unmatched momentum for the custom integration industry,” said Ben Bard, Vice-President, Luxury Residential Business, Lutron. “Lutron was proud to showcase significant expansions to our intelligent lighting and shading portfolio, connect with thousands of integrators, and celebrate the innovation that defines this extraordinary community. But the true highlight was the people — the integrators who show up, invest in their teams, and continually push the boundaries of what technology can deliver for their clients. We left inspired, energized, and deeply grateful for the trust this community places in us. CEDIA Expo remains the premier destination for meaningful partnerships, hands-on learning, and breakthrough product discovery.”

Sony’s Kathleen Thomas, Head of Custom Integration Sales, kept it simpler: “Any opportunity to bring vendors and dealers together sparks innovation and exciting conversations. CEDIA 2026 was no exception. It has always been the best opportunity to come together as a community.”

Perhaps the most detailed exhibitor readout came from PML Sound, the parent business behind Paradigm, Anthem, and MartinLogan.

“CEDIA Expo 2026 was a highly productive show for Paradigm, Anthem and MartinLogan,” said Zoltan Balla, Vice President, Marketing & Development Operations, Paradigm Electronics Inc. & MartinLogan Ltd. (PML Sound). “The event provided an essential platform to launch our latest product innovations and connect directly with high-quality leads from across the custom installation industry. Exhibiting allows us to meet face-to-face with new and existing dealers, share our newest updates, and strengthen our relationships within the integration community. The strong foot traffic and valuable business leads generated throughout the week highlighted the importance of the show for our brands, and we look forward to returning next year.”

Next Stop: Las Vegas

With Denver wrapped, CEDIA Expo is already looking ahead to its return to the Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall, scheduled for September 7–10, 2027. McGraw framed the planning process around doubling down on the fundamentals: product discovery, hands-on technology experience, direct manufacturer access, and education.

“CEDIA Expo is where the residential integration industry comes together, and Forge is fully committed to its future,” McGraw said. “We’re already building toward Las Vegas with a clear focus: deliver a strong experience for exhibitors and attendees, create meaningful business opportunities, and continue to bring the residential integration community together.”

For an industry that has weathered its share of supply chain disruption and business model shifts in recent years, a nearly 10,000-person show with a chunk of the room made up of newcomers is an encouraging sign.

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“In a world where products and prices are increasingly competitive, memorable experiences remain the most powerful way the independent channel can differentiate itself,” said Nationwide Marketing Group (NMG) CEO Tom Hickman, during his mainstage welcome to attendees.

A Summary of Events from Nationwide’s Summer PrimeTime Show

Throughout the four-day event, this message was reinforced in various sessions, trainings and discussions, starting with the keynote given by New York Times best-selling author of Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara.

Leaning into his experience in the restaurant industry, Guidara inspired attendees to think differently about service, hospitality and creating experiences that customers will never forget.

PrimeTime’s other mainstages focused on qualitative analysis to approach decision-making with the consumer in mind.

During the digital mainstage, analytics practitioner Tim Wilson discussed effective ways to measure feedback and campaign performance, while Martha Hill Harvey, senior vice president of platform strategy and network operations for Synchrony Financial, led the economic mainstage with key insights on consumer behavior and market conditions.

Other Nashville highlights included a graduation to celebrate the culmination of a three-part Mattress University series, the continuation of Nationwide Learning Academy’s “Member Voices” sessions and an expanded Innovation Labs on the expo floor to showcase the latest in home technology.

Responses to This Year’s Show

“In addition to the popular programming members have come to expect, this show emphasized the value of building meaningful connection points with customers,” said Melissa Stenson, vice president of member experience for NMG.

“And that goes for our team as well,” Stenson added. “Collectively, our goal is to create an unforgettable experience every time we bring our entire network together.”

Where to Find the Next PrimeTime Event

Nationwide Marketing Group’s next PrimeTime will be held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, TX, from February 20-23, 2027.

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Another prominent aspect of Bunker, however, is its device-agnostic architecture, which IC Realtime says works across compatible third-party cameras and other connected property devices, as well as dedicated IC Realtime hardware.

More Details on IC Realtime’s Bunker Security Platform

Because Bunker is built around a dedicated edge gateway, IC Realtime says the platform processes core AI function closer to where video is captured. The benefits of having processing occur closer to the source includes low latency contextual detection, plain-language notifications, natural-language video search and unified multi-camera awareness, while reducing reliance on cloud processing and routine human review.

At launch, Bunker will be offered through Standard and Premium prepaid subscription plans supporting up to 10 camera streams per system. Both plans include the complete AI platform, contextual alerts, natural-language video search, mobile and web access, Video Vault clip storage and automatic over-the-air platform updates.

Standard includes 60 days of cloud video history, while Premium includes 365 days and priority access to new features.

Like other continuous software platforms, IC Realtime says Bunker will receive new capabilities, performance improvements and software enhancements wirelessly over time. Dealer early access is expected to begin shortly following Bunker’s September debut.

Why Integrators Should Take Note

The need for more intelligent property security remains significant. Although national burglary rates have declined, the FBI estimated that more than 5.2 million property crimes occurred in the United States in 2025. The challenge, however, isn’t simply capturing more footage, it’s turning the growing volume of data into timely, useful intelligence.

“On a large property, there is activity throughout the day, and a traditional system can treat all of it as equally important,” said Matt Sailor, CEO of IC Realtime. “Homeowners do not need more notifications or hours of footage to review. They need intelligence that understands the difference between normal activity and something that deserves their attention.”

According to IC Realtime, Bunker is being designed to change the industry’s operating model to continuously learning property intelligence, developing context around the people, movement, timing and recurring patterns that define a specific property.

On the side of integration and installation, Bunker’s device agnostic architecture aims to change up integrator’s device portfolio by operating more as an easily, introducible intelligence layer that can be applied across an existing device ecosystem. Additionally, its continuously updated software and subscription model gives integrators an opportunity to provide ongoing intelligence and service beyond the initial hardware installation.

Additional Context: IC Realtime’s Ongoing Security Expansion

Bunker arrives during a broader period of investment and product expansion for IC Realtime, with the company investing more into intelligence-led platform enhancements in a shift from its longstanding hardware development focus.

The company announced a $2 million Series A funding round earlier this year to accelerate its software and AI capabilities and has since expanded its portfolio with IC Realtime TV for Apple TV, a smart video doorbell and other AI-enabled surveillance products.

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• The LG MAGNIT Gen 2 MicroLED LMPD display is the latest display in the LG MAGNIT LED LMPx Series.
• The LMPD display pairs LG Micro LED technology with NovaStar’s COEX 5G Solution, improving screen configuration, advanced color processing and system management
• The display will be available for public viewing during an exclusive event September 15 at Starpower’s flagship showroom in Dallas, Texas.

LG Electronics has introduced the LG MAGNIT Gen 2 microLED display. The LMPD display combines LG microLEDs with NovaStar’s COEX 5G Solution to support high-resolution, large-scale installations with advanced image processing and system management, providing a flexible microLED platform for commercial and luxury residential usage.

The LMPD display’s high-bandwidth architecture is designed to reduce cabling requirements while supporting more efficient system configuration. With SFP+, signal transmission between the display and the controller can extend up to 6.2 miles using a fiber-optic link, compared with the approximately 328-foot distance previously supported.

This added range, LG notes, gives integrators more flexibility when designing systems for large-scale environments.

A Closer Look at the MAGNIT Gen 2 Features

At the center of the MAGNIT Gen 2 is NovaStar’s COEX 5G Solution. NovaStar’s Vision Management Platform (VMP) software brings real-time monitoring and diagnostics, advanced color processing and flexible system management into a single platform, helping integrators configure and operate Micro LED installations more efficiently.

Outside of that, LG says the new MAGNIT displays sport a wide viewing angle of 160 degrees horizontally and vertically with a proprietary tiling technology that aligns LED module seams to minimize surface gaps and black-level variations. This is further supported by improved calibration at low grayscale levels to help reduce color shift and noise.

The MAGNIT Gen 2 also offer HDR10 and HLG compatibility support for enhanced brightness, contrast and color expression for more vivid color across content.

Why Integrators Should Take Note

MicroLED technology, alongside RGB technology, has quickly overtaken discussions on luxury home entertainment within the custom integration (CI) channel, with video walls becoming an incredibly popular solution among integrators dealing in luxury residential home theaters and media spaces.

“Premium spaces demand technology that enhances the environment without compromising the design vision,” said David Pidgeon, CEO of Starpower Entertainment Systems.

At the recently concluded 2026 CEDIA Expo, video wall brands like Lunar Walls, Just Video Walls, DreamWall, AWALL and Quantum Media Systems alongside varied media brands like Sony, staked their claim in the category with massive displays of prowess and capability, showcasing the level of competition that has sprung up in the channel.

Availability

The MAGNIT Gen 2 will make its first U.S. public appearance on Sept. 15 at a VIP customer event hosted at Starpower’s Dallas-Fort Worth showroom.

At the Starpower event, attendees will get a first look at the LMPD and learn about LG’s LMPx Series MAGNIT LED lineup, including LMPA and LMPB displays.

“By showcasing LG’s new MAGNIT Gen 2 Micro LED display, we’re giving customers a first-hand look at how premium display technology can deliver a powerful visual experience while fitting into sophisticated and high-impact settings,” Pidgeon added.

For more information on the LG MAGNIT Gen 2 Micro LED LMPD, readers are instructed to click here. For more information on the LG MAGNIT Gen 2 Micro LED LMPB, click here.

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Several threads ran through our time on the show floor, on panels and elsewhere: AI is quietly becoming installation infrastructure rather than a gimmick; audio, lighting, and shading are merging into single physical products instead of separate trades; design and materiality have become as important as performance specs; the outdoor room is now a full-blown technology category; wellness and hydrotherapy are finally speaking the smart home’s native control protocols; retrofit has stopped being a secondary product line and started driving manufacturer roadmaps outright; networking, power, and cybersecurity are being treated as premium products in their own right; projection is holding its ground against the LED wave on the strength of a genuinely different viewing experience; and the industry’s business model is leaning harder on builder relationships and reference-quality media. Here’s what integrators need to know.

AI Stops Being a Feature and Starts Being Infrastructure

A year ago, “AI” at CEDIA mostly meant a marketing slide. In 2026, nearly every major platform demoed AI doing real integrator and homeowner work, and, notably, almost none of it was consumer-facing chatbot fluff.

Crestron previewed an AI-assisted mode inside Configure Pro, arriving in early 2027, that lets integrators build out a project using natural language, including uploading an Excel file of project details to auto-populate rooms and technology placeholders. Crestron was explicit that the tool is being trained on “decades of data and beta user feedback,” and just as explicit about who it’s for: dealers and integrators, not end users. The team’s reasoning was blunt: natural-language programming for homeowners is being explored, but the near-term priority is protecting integrators from the liability of customers reprogramming systems badly. Crestron is also killing the historical VPN-tunnel dance for local configuration, letting dealers manage local and cloud systems from a single button.

Savant went further on the design side. CEO Bob Madonna demoed a rewritten Blueprint configuration tool that uses an AI layer, paired with the company’s new Savvy personal assistant, to read an uploaded architectural floor plan and automatically identify and place recessed lights, pendants, and keypads, suggesting best-practice configurations without an integrator manually counting fixtures. One attendee suggested, on the spot, extending the tool to auto-calculate cable-run lengths and generate a cabling estimate, an idea well received enough that Savant flagged it as a same-week action item. Savvy itself is in beta now, targeting full production by year-end, supports 56 languages, and lets users tune its personality; it controls lighting, HVAC, entertainment, and music through natural language.

Savant was joined on the Smart Stage by Josh.ai’s Alex Capecelatro and two dealers, during which the two control manufacturers, the only two on the show floor saying anything about user-facing AI control tools, discussed what is currently possible with AI home control, and what will shortly become reality thanks to natural language programming and predictive analytics.

WAC/Modern Forms rounded out the AI story from the design side with Inspire, a tool that lets integrators and designers upload a photo of a home’s interior or exterior and virtually place decorative fixtures into the image using text prompts, swap a chandelier tier, change a room type, then send the generated concept directly to WAC for quoting. It’s less about automation and more about collapsing the sales cycle between “what if we tried this fixture here” and an actual quote.

The common thread: this generation of AI tools is aimed at compressing integrator labor (floor-plan takeoffs, room programming, quoting) rather than replacing the integrator, and every vendor who addressed end-user-facing AI directly (Crestron, Sonos) was careful to frame it as still early and non-default.

Manufacturers Think More Holistically About Lighting, Shading, Audio

Lutron’s intelligent lighting demo showed how light can change the appearance of art.

The most literal expression of ‘invisible technology’ at the show wasn’t a smaller speaker — it was something that stopped needing to exist on its own at all.

Many of you caught a glimpse of what Origin Acoustics was showing behind closed doors. In short, the concept rethinks what is happening in the ceiling and how much space it should take to deliver great audio and lighting. Origin isn’t ready to detail the product publicly yet, but this is worth watching. This is exciting but we have to be careful not to reveal too much, so we’ll end with this: Origin is trying to solve a scheduling problem as much as an acoustic and ambiance one. We only expect this kind of innovation from Origin, to be honest.

Lutron’s Native by Design program is the ecosystem-level version of the same idea: rather than simply certifying third-party fixtures to talk to Lutron over software, Lutron is co-engineering hardware from scratch with partners so components like wireless antennas are built into the fixture ring itself. Partners on display included Coastal Source (whose VIA platform, developed jointly with Lutron, brings native Ketra light engines to outdoor-rated architectural fixtures), Niche (a founding partner co-designing decorative fixture lines), Merlin (a framing projector for precise, spill-free art lighting), Cerno (tape lighting and trim), and, in a genuinely unusual crossover, Swarovski, which produced a first-of-its-kind smoke-toned crystal specifically for Lutron’s Palladiom drapery hardware. Lutron also announced a Sonos Voice Control launch partnership, letting Caséta and HomeWorks lighting and shades respond to Sonos voice commands.

Speaking of Lutron, the company’s Intelligent Lighting demo is always a crowd favorite, and it didn’t disappoint in Denver.

Design and Materiality Are Now Load-Bearing Product Features

Several briefings made clear that “does it disappear” has been replaced by “does it match the room” as the design bar.

Leon detailed a seasonal refresh built almost entirely around materiality: new Italian hardwood veneers so a Studio Frame TV surround, a soundbar, and a subwoofer can all match finishes; new proprietary grill fabrics developed with a local fabricator; and a redesigned Studio Frame/Flex Frame mounting system that swaps thumbscrews for an “alligator clip” pressure-fit onto displays like the Sony Bravia 7, Bravia 9, and Mark Two, holding to a quarter-inch reveal for ventilation. On the audio side, Leon partnered with pro-audio manufacturer PowerSoft for amplification, producing a redesigned powered subwoofer with a PowerSoft plate amp and companion app, plus the flagship Framebar Ultima and Framebar MM Force Ultimate (twin 8-inch PowerSoft drivers embedded in the soundbar itself, up to 3,000 watts). Leon is also leaning into retrofit revenue: its Heritage Collection and Edge media frame can be built around existing third-party gear, including framing a competitor’s soundbar, with two-week turnarounds once engineering signs off on a design, and the company will source custom or hand-stretched fabric to match specific environments (their Muscle Shoals Sound Studio project was cited as the extreme case).

Lenbrook’s Dali brand told a similar story for loudspeakers: a new all-in-one Dali Vega soundbar in “tonal weave” fabric built on BluOS, positioned explicitly as a design object first, plus expanded IQ-series finishes (premium paint, walnut veneer) aimed at design-conscious buyers who want to choose a color and fabric the way they’d choose furniture.

WAC’s sauna-rated Balta series and Schonbek’s European crystal lighting line reinforce the same pattern from the fixtures side: category expansion is happening at the intersection of technology and interior design, not technology alone.

The Outdoor Room Has Become Its Own Full-Stack Category

Outdoor living wasn’t a subplot this year, it was close to its own trade show. Coastal Source showed a genuinely deep outdoor audio and lighting refresh: new EB 2650 speakers with sealed-woofer design and ribbon tweeters for better dispersion, a modular B1100 system that can stack, flip, and daisy-chain (via an 8-conductor connector) to cover up to 400 feet of zone on a single amp channel, and a flagship 12.0 speaker with a variable waveguide designed to hold tonal balance at long throw distances, directly targeting the common complaint of “muddy” sound far from the amp. Just as notably, Coastal Source demonstrated low-frequency steering, using DSP to keep bass energy inside a client’s property line and off a neighbor’s patio, addressing what the design manager called one of the most frequent client complaints in outdoor installs. On the lighting side, the new VIA intelligent outdoor lighting platform, developed jointly with Lutron through the Native by Design program, and the upcoming PowerSource® system (shipping October 15), the industry’s first UL-certified, plug-and-play line-voltage system, tackle voltage drop over long landscape runs by letting transformers sit closer to fixtures without requiring an electrician, a pitch aimed squarely at expanding who can sell and install outdoor lighting.

WAC echoed the theme with a new outdoor X Track line built for spaces like outdoor kitchens, plus expanding bollards, path lights, and a landscape “colorscaping” configurator. Somfy and the broader shading category are along for the ride too: the Glydea Ultra 50 drapery motor and top-down/bottom-up shade motor both got USB-C fast-charging upgrades this cycle, cutting charge time from roughly eight hours to 80% in two hours, which matters as much for outdoor/hard-to-access installs as indoor ones.

Wellness Enters the Smart Home, and This Time It’s Actually Integrated

Hydrotherapy and wellness technology have circled the edges of the industry for years without ever quite landing inside it, and this year’s floor suggested that’s changing. Kohler, a familiar CEDIA presence going back to when the show was still held in Dallas, showed how far its Anthem+ smart shower platform has come. What integrators once treated as a compelling idea stuck waiting on real control-system integration has arrived: Anthem+ now connects directly into platforms like Control4 and Crestron, closing the gap that had kept many dealers on the sidelines. The response was described as unambiguous, and strong enough that Kohler is reportedly exploring extending the same connected approach to other bathroom products, including its Stillness smart bath. Kohler wasn’t alone: several other hydrotherapy and sauna manufacturers were on the floor gauging integrator interest in similar platform connections. For a channel that has historically struggled to gain real ground in kitchen-and-bath work, wellness may be the wedge: a category compelling enough on its own merits that, now that it finally speaks the smart home’s native protocols, it could pull integrators into rooms they’ve rarely owned.

Retrofit Stops Being the Fallback and Starts Driving the Roadmap

New construction hasn’t disappeared as a category, but enough manufacturers described it as cooling that product roadmaps are visibly shifting in response. DMF Lighting used its CEDIA presence to foreground new retrofit-specific fixtures, framing the move explicitly as a response to a slower new-build pipeline. That framing came up in conversation after conversation on the floor: several manufacturers said their biggest operational challenge right now isn’t generating demand, it’s keeping pace with dealers’ rising retrofit workload. The logical next step for the category, wireless-first hardware that avoids opening up finished walls and ceilings, went mostly unstated on the floor, but it’s the clear implication. It also reframes products covered elsewhere on the show floor: Leon’s ability to build custom frames around a client’s existing gear, and Coastal Source’s plug-and-play landscape lighting built to skip an electrician, are both effectively retrofit products wearing other categories’ names. Taken together, the floor suggested an industry recalibrating its roadmaps around remodels and add-ons rather than treating retrofit as a secondary use case for new-construction hardware.

Networking, Power, and Cybersecurity Are Being Sold as Premium Products, Not Afterthoughts

A few separate CE Pro briefings treated the “boring” back-of-rack infrastructure as the actual product being launched.

Apex Cinema, built in partnership with Control Envy, centered its entire pitch on power reliability and secure remote access rather than the cinema experience itself. The company’s UPS/PDU line now supports third-party hardware broadly (Panamax, WattBox, SurgeX, Middle Atlantic, Furman) rather than locking dealers into a single ecosystem, and stores a full year of power, temperature, and humidity telemetry per device so techs can diagnose intermittent job-site issues remotely instead of guessing on a truck roll. The headline feature, though, was tunnel technology for remote access, a locally-resident device that creates a direct encrypted connection to a site rather than routing through a cloud relay, which the team said kept their customers’ systems running during a global internet/cloud outage the day before this recording. They contrasted this directly with cloud-dependent tools like TeamViewer and AnyDesk, calling that approach “inherently not very cyber secure,” and are close to shipping a full WireGuard VPN option on the same tunnel infrastructure. Dealer cost: a one-time $1,200, no subscription, a notable pricing stance in an industry increasingly moving toward recurring software fees.

Blustream made the case that the underlying network itself has become the product. The company described flipping from a 90/10 residential-to-commercial mix five years ago to roughly 50/50 today, with a projected 60/40 commercial tilt by next year, driven largely by investment in Dante audio networking, which it’s actively trying to “demystify” for residential-trained dealers through a partnership with Sonance. New Dante Matrix hardware (high-Z/low-Z, bridgeable) is due early next year, alongside network switches purpose-built to make video-over-IP configuration approachable without deep networking expertise, and new 4K120/8K60 distribution aimed at large-format displays with lighter infrastructure requirements than before. Somfy showed its own version of network convergence with a Power-over-Ethernet ecosystem combining PoE lighting, Sonos PoE speakers, and Somfy PoE shade motors on one network fabric, controllable through simple scene keypads.

Savant extended the infrastructure story into energy: a battery-backup line using “double online conversion” (AC-to-DC-to-AC) for clean sine-wave output, positioned as a direct alternative to Tesla’s home battery products, plus a new partnership with heat-pump manufacturer Daikin and an indoor air-quality monitor in development, signs that whole-home platforms are pushing further into energy management as a growth category, not just lighting and AV.

Projection Holds Its Ground Against the LED Wave

With microLED video walls proliferating across the show floor and newly released micro-RGB display technology and first-time CEDIA Expo players drawing crowds, it would be easy to assume LED is simply outgrowing projection. Conversations with projection-side manufacturers, including Screen Innovations and Sony, which sells seriously into both categories, suggested a more settled coexistence than a horse race. The comparison that came up repeatedly was to vinyl records: a projector-and-screen combination delivers a viewing experience distinct enough from an LED wall that framing the two as direct competitors somewhat misses the point. For integrators chasing the specific, cinematic quality a dedicated home-theater client wants, the view from the floor was that projection remains the closest thing to the real thing, and, like a turntable or a tube amp, that’s likely to keep it relevant even as newer display technology continues to take share elsewhere in the home.

That said, the video wall manufacturers at this year’s show like Just Video Walls, AWALL and more showed exactly why they are giving projector manufacturers a run for their money.

Media Playback Keeps Chasing Reference Quality, and the Business Model Is Leaning on Builders and Retrofits

Kaleidescape reinforced its position as the reference standard for premium home cinema, detailing its 4K cinematic format (full chroma 4:4:4 at bit rates well above standard 4K Blu-ray, run through an 8K processor) and showing off restorations of scanned film sources like the 70mm-shot 2001: A Space Odyssey and a 1959 print of The Parent Trap. The company is dealing with a genuine demand problem: product that shipped June 18 is on a roughly two-month backorder, and a new server announced this week (translating roughly to multiple petabytes of storage across large-capacity drives, holding on the order of 4,000 films) is aimed at both easing that bottleneck and future-proofing for 8K content as studios slowly retool.

Meanwhile, Stealth Acoustics is trying to bring reference-caliber visuals down-market with a new indoor LED display line: an all-in-one panel with an integrated soundbar, custom sizing, and pixel pitch selected by viewing distance rather than a one-size-fits-all spec sheet, alongside a coming outdoor version and a new line of Dante-equipped digital amplifiers due by year-end.

CE Pro Takeaways

Put together, the show’s message was less “here’s a flashy new gadget” and more “here’s how we’re making the complicated parts of this industry more scalable.” AI tools are aimed at integrator throughput, not homeowner novelty. Lighting and audio are being engineered as single components instead of coordinated separately. Design finishes are treated as core specs. Outdoor spaces are getting the same systems rigor that indoor theaters got a decade ago. Wellness and hydrotherapy are finally arriving with the control-platform compatibility that had kept integrators on the sidelines. Retrofit has quietly gone from a fallback line item to the assumption baked into new product roadmaps. Infrastructure (power, network, remote access, storage) is finally being sold, and priced, like the premium product category it’s always functionally been. And even amid an LED-driven display boom, projection is holding its own as a genuinely different, still-desirable format rather than a technology on its way out.

For integrators, the practical takeaway is that the next competitive edge is less about which single box you sell and more about which platform’s tools, and which categories, save you the most labor while opening doors into rooms of the home the channel hasn’t fully claimed yet.

Stay tuned as CE Pro dives deeper into these trends as we continue to unpack from Denver.

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