Exactly. I never said those projects didn't exist. We don't all need to drive Hyundais and I wasn't advocating that. The market is changing and there are fewer large projects and more and more 'AV guys' bidding on them. THAT is going to hurt you faster than anything.

It's not really meaningful to compare anything to 1998. That period was an anomaly (for reasons well documented by now.) Spending on most everything is considerably less than 1998, when everyone was rolling in stock options (even if only imaginary and never to materialize) and you could get an IPO in a cereal box.

And, I think it's not unimportant that automation is more in people's faces these days than ever before. People don't want something unless they know it exists and roughly what it is. Automation is vastly more widely known about today, which can't be a bad thing, and a very big difference from times not long past. It seems to me that's something that can be leveraged by you guys.

Even if there were a lot more upper-middle class and above folks out there in 1998, it would seem to me that there are probably more of them now that actually have an idea what automation is and what some of the possibilities are, and why it would maybe be cool to have such a thing.

A bigger piece of a smaller pie or some such?

Also, due to rapidly improving economy of scale, little details that we would sweat over and spend endless hours implementing in 1998 (and prior), are now available using off the shelf hardware and Apps -- at very low real cost. This makes automation available to additional market segments, further enhancing the economy of scale.

There are still the one-percenters who will want big bucks custom, but this market segment is not expanding as rapidly as the lower segments. But, is serving this expanding commodity level market segment the business that you want to be in? It's a different business that requires more capital and involves less personal interaction with customers. In the mid to late 1980's the mom and pop personal computer stores were facing this reality.

C4 did 42.9 million in the 4th quarter of 2015, Crestron only did about 10 times that, how the mighty have fallen.

Residential is about 1/5th of Crestrons' business right now and they still have them beat by a huge amount.

At least even with RTi you can customize the user interface for a better customer experience, how's C4 with that?

Guys, that's my point. Everything is easier and cheaper today. Couple that with there is no longer a strong need for $10-100k control systems and fewer potential customers with that "post 1998" spending power and we're all fighting over a larger, but less profitable piece of a shrinking pool. How much margin do you make on Apple? Sonos? Logitec (just had a customer do his whole house with their light modules), TV's? Fewer people are even doing distributed audio anymore. And while the "Boomers" are aging out, the gen x is half their #s and less than half their spending power. Everyone is trying to survive until Gen Y (larger#s than the Boomers) gets to prime spending age (40+), but if anything in current retail trends has taught us, is that they don't care!.. Happy to stream everything on the laptop or the ONE tv, and the phone with earpods or maybe a portable Bluetooth speaker is great. It's having huge impact on many sectors; Traditional retail giants are loosing big percents as the new Gen don't buy purses. Sounds stupid, but that is a large profit center and the newbies don't care. Everything they need is on the phone. They also don't put high value on trinkets (the jewelry sector is declining - high and low end), label clothing?, Shoes? same thing.. CARS?? Young people just don't buy. Many here don't even get their license until 21 or later.
The market is changing, better be flexible enough to move with the wind on this one.
But to try to back on point, which was partnering with which control system; Iv'e been in the trenches since AMX ruled, Crestron was a close #2 and URC made cable box remotes only. Dealt with intelicontrols, Pronto (& Pro), NAD "ball".... and went through the growing pains with every one of them.... Even when PHAST (pre Control4) sold their system to AMX.....Step forward a decade and now AMX is owned by Logitech and is almost invisible in the consumer space, Cestron and C4 are fighting out for the top end and URC and RTI and the rest are filling the gaps... and EVERONE is trying to integrate with an ubiquitous consumer driven company that NO-ONE makes direct money off of! Sure is great to attempt to sell the add on amps, speakers and hopefully robust network (with STP!), but ultimately we're all collectively chasing the tail end of our industry.
Soon we're all going to be plumbers. I don't mean to downplay the plumber, in fact, they are our model in the future. In days past, when you built or re-modeled a house, you went to your plumber, they recommended product and installed it, along with the infrastructure. Now days, you go to the home improvement store or show house, or even on line and then the plumber, sans showroom or even many manufacturer accounts, comes and installs your products for $150+ an hour! Gets back into his office on wheels and goes to the next one, or just home... like us, they all fight over the spec houses hoping for the steady check/contract windfall, but there's always someone willing to do it cheaper on the next phase... the rest have stuck to higher end and repairs (get that "emergency" $$). Since CEDIA is toothless and invisible to the consumer, we have no real bargaining power or even oversight body (other than local license board) and no one to say "enough!!!! you should be charging $$$$ to do this!".
And so we all sit here, wondering which way the wind is going to blow and watching to see which "partner/supplier" has already set sail in that direction. Just remember this: The winds change often, and so do loyalties. Pick what works for you and your market and let the rest work it'self out. Ultimately you don't have any control anyway.

The whole customizing the interface is a bullshit argument. I like the consistency of a well designed prebuilt interface across all devices. I've never had a customer complain about it.

I understand for your basic cookie cutter jobs and agree. I have great template designed for those jobs. But it's the larger jobs it becomes needed. One of my current jobs has 300 lighting loads, 40 zones of hvac, 80 motorized shades, 40 zones of audio, 208 zones of security and occupancy. You're not doing a cookie cutter interface for this and making it usable.

Fixed it for you. :)

I would though, once again, caution against judging the norm by the exception. So much of why today's crop of young adults are the way they are is because they grew up in the Great Recession. They couldn't buy a house or a car and a huge percentage of them lived with their parents or rented, not because they are fundamentally different from anyone else, but because it just wasn't an economic reality. But that economic reality was just as anomalous as the massive peak of the late 1990's was. It was effectively the result of the late 1990s, and it passed just like (sadly) the years of milk and honey did.

As we finally come up out of the depths and move beyond just being happy to not be going backwards, it seems to me that lots of those folks will finally move out of mom and dad's house and join the rat race. And they'd need cars and houses and fridges and all that stuff.

You put too much value in the customizable interface.

I think it's a huge advantage, particularly in the commercial world, which is a potential source of a lot of bucks. It seems to me like it would be very difficult to get anywhere in the commercial world without extensive customization ability. One of our guys does Pluckers sports bars in the Dallas/FW area. CQC's ability to not just customize screens but to create touch screen applications (all point and click as well, no programming) is a necessity for those types of installations.

I just listened to a podcast, Hometech.fm. These guys said that the released API will cut back on what is available for Control4 and that Crestron is getting basically a full Sonos app within their touch panel.
One of the hosts is a Control4 dealer and did not seem happy about it.

If what was said earlier on this thread is true, that wouldn't really be a fair comparison. Crestron in that case would just literally be hosting the Sonos app, and hence not really using an API, while C4 is using the API. The downside would be that they would not really be 'integrating' Sonos at all.

If that's not accurate then this post is meaningless and will self-destruct upon receiving a signal from our new Charmed Quark Anti-Embarrassment Service.

I've heard similar. 'Full' integration (playlist navigation etc) will only be achievable through the implementation of a Sonos app. API access is limited to transports and favorites. What this means for existing 'hacks' will be interesting to see, particularly in the context of previous statements that they won't break things intentionally.

The newer Crestron TSW's are on an Android platform, but not sure they have the horsepower for such a feature.

My interest has waned significantly. Dreams of Connect's as cheap streamers and a couple of Sonos Play:x units as cheap/floating audio zones in addition to a normal SWAMP system are largely dead.

The host said in the past Crestron would do a "page flip" to the Sonos app and then come back into Crestron app.

He said now it looks like Crestron is getting a 100% Sonos app within the Crestron touch panel.

Again, he's a Control4 dealer, speaks about how Control4 Gui is limited and slow. Says Crestron implementation isn't like a "list view" that you get in Control4 app, it's made and taylored for what Sonos wants their user experience to be. Says he wants to see it come to Control4.