Residential Tech Talks

This week, Nilo Casimiron Ericsson joins us from Uppsala, Sweden, where he is a co-founder and product manager for Dirac Research. Dirac is the developer of the Dirac Live room correction system that is used by the world’s leading AV receiver and sound processor brands to correct frequency and phase distortion caused by loudspeakers and room acoustics. Around the time that this podcast is dropping...

This week, Scott Sullivan joins us from Novato, California, where he is president of SoundVision, the highly respected Bay Area custom integration firm that he founded back in 1998. Scott and Jeremy have crossed paths many times over the past 20 years when first he was a passionate attendee of the CEDIA Management Conference and in more recent years, a vocal participant in HTSA buying group meetin...

This week, Daryl Friedman joins us from CEDIA headquarters in Fishers, IN, where he is wrapping up his first year as the association’s global president and CEO. On the day of this recording, Daryl, along members of the CEDIA board of directors and staff, hosted the association’s Annual Membership Meeting. The virtual event offered updates on CEDIA’s progress in 2022, the financial status of the or...

This week, Dennis Lister joins us from Philadelphia, PA, where he is president of DEL Motorized Solutions. His career began in the early 90s working in his father’s custom furniture upholstery business. In 1996, that company morphed into his current motorized blinds and automated shades custom fabrication and wholesale company. Today, he is Lutron’s top-selling shades dealer in the world. He was r...

This week Paul Williams joins us from Salt Lake City, UT, where he is chief product officer for Nice North America, the global manufacturer of smart home, security, and building automation solutions. Nice, which was founded in Italy by current owner Lauro Buoro in 1993, acquired Nortek Security & Control from Melrose Industries back in October of 20 21. In September of this year, the company a...

This week, Eric Harper joins us from Charlotte, NC, where he is senior vice president at Snap One, the provider of smart living products, services, and software to professional integrators. Like many on the manufacturing side of this business, Eric started his career as a custom integrator. But his switch from CI to manufacturer, back in 2001, was especially notable in that he helped launch Onkyo’...

This week, Chris Lehnen returns to the podcast from his home in Portland, OR, after his fairly recent hiring as business development manager, AV, for lighting manufacturer Luminii. Chris last joined us about a year ago during his time at iRoom IO, the Apple-certified manufacturer of Premium iPad Docking Solutions. On this episode, we’ll talk about what it was like taking a new role in a completely...

On this week’s podcast, Keith Cottrell joins us from New York City, where he is vice president of operations at Electronic Environments New York. Keith and Jeremy have known each other since the early 2000s when Keith was working as director of operations for Jeff Hoover at Audio Advisors in West Palm Beach, FL. Keith was pivotal in the development of CEDIA University’s Project Management Track an...

On this week’s podcast, two guests join us from Legrand AV to discuss products recently released by their company during a six-city residential roadshow and recently at CEDIA Expo 2022 in Dallas. Charlie Derk (based in Easton, PA) is general manager for Legrand Shading Systems and Vantage lighting control and Alex Weaver (based in Dallas, TX) is VP of residential CI for Legrand’s Chief, Da-Lite, L...

On this week’s podcast, Daniel Craig joins us from San Diego, where he is owner of Absolute AV Design. Jeremy met Daniel (the integrator, not the actor), very recently while in Southern California touring the headquarters of Nice North America. During that manufacturer visit, those in attendance were also treated to a tour of a beautiful private home on San Diego’s Coronado Island and a luxury hig...

This week, Bill Skaer returns to the podcast from his home in Dallas, TX, where he is CEO of Bill Skaer Home Theater and Technology. Bill is one of the pioneers of the custom integration industry, and he currently serves on the CEDIA trade association’s global board of directors. Bill’s dedication to the industry has earned him both a CEDIA Fellow and CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award, and he’s one...

Gordon Isaac joins us from Las Vegas, Nevada, where is chief marketing and strategy officer for Origin Acoustics. Gordon is the third person from his current employer to be interviewed for the podcast, but this is Gordon’s first appearance. Over the years, as he moved from Core Brands to AVAD to ProSource, Gordon and Jeremy connected quite a bit and Gordon wrote several really great articles for t...

On this week’s podcast, Clint Childress joins us from Spiceland, IN, where he was recently appointed to the newly created role of director of residential markets for Draper, the manufacturer of commercial shades, projection screens, AV lifts, and AV mounts and structures. Clint joined Draper in 2000 and has served as a window shade product specialist and green buildings coordinator. A certified LE...

On this week’s podcast, Jim Garrett joins us from Los Angeles, CA, where he is senior director of product strategy and planning for Harman Luxury Audio Group, the home of five prestigious brands — JBL Synthesis, Mark Levinson, Revel, Lexicon, and Arcam. It’s almost time for CEDIA Expo time in Dallas, where Harman Luxury Audio Group typically makes quite a splash. Many of their brand announcements...

On this week’s podcast, John Sciacca joins us from Myrtle Beach, SC, where he co-owner of Custom Theater and Audio. John is a very good friend and one of the most entertaining writers in the AV integration trade press. Looking back on when we last had John on the podcast, Jeremy was stunned to realize that it was almost exactly one year ago to the day that we are recording this. During that chat,...

On this week’s podcast, Lee Travis joins us from Bellevue, WA, where he is owner of Wipliance, one of the nation’s top custom integration companies. Since 2006, Wipliance has been creating easy-to-use and enjoyable smart spaces in Washington, Arizona, and surrounding areas. This past July, the company acquired Huppin’s, a 114-year-old family-owned residential and commercial technology solutions pr...

On this week’s podcast, Matt Bernath joins us from Anaheim Hills, CA, where he is owner and president of VITAL, the custom integration-centric business coaching and software company. Founded by industry veterans Paul Starkey and Steven Firzst, VITAL collaborates and guides CI business owners by using business metrics, benchmarking, best practice sharing, and business coaching to grow profitably. A...

On this week’s podcast, Amit Ravat joins us from the UK, where is co-founder and director of Lithe Audio, an audio products manufacturer specializing in wireless audio technologies for the residential and hospitality sectors. Lithe has developed an expertise in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, integrating those two technologies into a range of in-ceiling, surface-mounted, and outdoor speakers, using an “all-i...

On this week’s podcast, Becca Tobin joins us to talk about her acting career and recent experience adding smart home tech to her Austin, TX, residence. Tobin has starred in the hit TV show Glee, written a New York Times bestseller, and hosted the popular LadyGang podcast. When the talented actress and influencer and her husband, real estate developer Zach Martin, moved from Los Angeles to Austin,...

On this week’s podcast, we’re joined by two distinguished members of the CEDIA trade association leadership team, Global President and CEO Daryl Friedman (ceo@cedia.org) and Director of Government Affairs, Darren Reaman (dreaman@cedia.org). Friedman is relatively new to CEDIA, joining the association at the start of 2022, after a long tenure overseeing membership, advocacy, industry relations, and...

On this week’s podcast, Kim Parker joins from Austin, TX, where he was recently hired to serve as chief operating officer of Screen Innovations. Screen Innovations launched in 2003 by Ryan Gustafson as a garage start-up in Austin to provide projection screens for home theater and commercial video projector installations. As the industry evolved over the years, SI expanded its product mix to includ...

On this week’s podcast, Jimmy Paschke joins us from Gastonia, NC, where he is settling into his new role as VP of sales and marketing for Apex Technologies US, the distributor of high-performance European AV brands. Jimmy is a hugely popular figure in the custom integration business, joining Apex from SurgeX, where he was director of sales for many years. His expertise in the custom AV channel run...

On this week’s podcast, Patrick Hartman joins us from Reno, NV, where he is general manager for Technology Design Associates (TDA). TDA, which is owned by Ron Wanless, serves clients in Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona. Patrick and Jeremy discuss how they worked together to help launch the CEDIA Business Xchange conference back in 2014 and have kept up over the years, talking te...

On this week’s podcast, Eric Crawford joins us from Boise, ID, where he is owner of The Loop, a custom integration firm serving The Treasure Valley area of Idaho. Jeremy connected with Eric years ago to discuss his CEDIA class on the importance of having a great process for designing, building, installing, and servicing integrated home systems. Since then he’s always there for ResTech when they ne...

On this week’s podcast, Heather Sidorowicz joins us from Hamburg, NY, where she is owner of Southtown Audio Video, Western New York’s premier audio-visual company. Heather is a Residential Tech Today contributing writer and former CEDIA board member. Today, during her third Residential Tech Talks appearance, Heather shares her favorite discoveries from last week’s InfoComm trade show, a convention...