On November 29, 2018 at 01:53, Richie Rich said...
IMO, the days of big, involved home automation systems in all but ultra high end residential are drawing to a close.
Many people are happy with a big box store tv, Sonos soundbar, Appletv (or other streaming box), and small directv or cable box stuck behind the display.
Sat box remote handles 90% of their needs, grab the ATV remote (or app) for when you want to use that.
That same job years ago was a plasma, 5.1 speaker system, AVR, Cable/sat box, DVD player, CD Changer or hdd based music player, programmable remote, gateway, pull out rack, power management, quality cabling and a fan system. Maybe throw in an XM tuner if they wanted a bit more audio diversity. I did probably hundreds of this setup in tract houses, condos etc.
We are left with a bunch of products we make little to no margin on coupled with 100% network dependence, odd intermittent HDMI issues, logins and firmware.
Yes, there is still work to be done as most clients won't want to tackle the 2018 version of a living room system but we are left with very little meat on the bone and a lot more annoying phone calls.
Ha ha so true.