Ok gentlemen, I'm back. Sorry it took me three months to get back. I'm glad to see all the interest in this thread. Time for more clarification. I do work for ADI (pretty obvious I thought). I am the Business Development Manager for Residential AV. I've been with the company for 12 years and have been in the CI business since 1984. My email address is
[email protected]. You can find me on LinkedIn if you want my full resume.
Now to the TVs. We know the TVs shortcomings and will be working adding more to them in the coming years. This isn't a one shot deal. When we decided to get into this business we looked at where we could be most impactful and compete. If we tried to create a full featured TV that would have changed its entry level price points we have lost to the big boys. The only way to create something of value (not for everyone obviously) was to help dealers when their customer is shopping strictly on price.
While these TVs are targeted at the light commercial market they are not commercial grade TVs. Go into many bars and restaurants and what do you see? Dynex, Vizio, etc. No integrator makes money on those. With WBox the integrator can make a few bucks. At least with WBox he can put a couple of bucks in his or hers pocket. Our philosophy is simple, if you can sell a branded product you should but if you need to hit a price point, buy Wbox. Also the two year, over the counter exchange, warranty is pretty damn good.
As far as no retail goes, we don't sell to Costco, HH Gregg, BB or any other national or regional brick and mortar. That's what I meant by "we sell to integrators".
Lastly, and I apologize for long winded reply, we are introducing a new line of 4K models and discontinuing the 1080 models. 4K panels have come down in price so far that we are only anticipating a small price increase if any at all. The bad news is they still do not have discrete IR. Sorry, its on my wishlist too.
Long story short, always sell a branded product when possible (hopefully you get it from ADI). When you customer says I'm going to Costco or Sam's Club, or Amazon to get my TVs, sell him WBox and put some money in your pocket.
Thanks,
Randy Blanchard
Thanks for chiming in on this Randy. I can tell you that if I had to build a proposal for a client in which the budget only allowed for TVs without discrete commands, I would have to have the conversation on why we need to add enough to cover TVs with discrete commands. If not, I would likely walk away, especially if we already are working on putting a control system in. Even if not, the future upgrades would be limited with working with TVs that cannot be controlled properly. I appreciate the attempt to get into some markets with an affordable set, but this is the one and only feature that is a MUST on all sets.
