Residential Tech Talks

On this week’s podcast Mike Jordan joins us from Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is chief product officer at RTI. With more than 12 years of industry experience, our guest today is known for leading productive, successful product teams. Prior to joining RTI this past December he spent the previous five years as senior VP of products at Snap One, which included leadership of the Control4 product line. Prior to Snap One he held a similar role at Core Brands, where he worked with current RTI CEO Joe Roberts, who was president of Core Brands at that time.

RTI has been busy building a new team with new products on a singular platform designed for success in any channel — resi, office, hospitality, and beyond. As we start looking toward CEDIA Expo in September, we thought it was a great time to catch up with one of the veteran control system brands in the custom integration channel and see how things are going for their new chief product officer so far.

On this week’s podcast Mike Gleason joins us from Austin, TX, where he is director of sales for Skyworth USA, manufacturer of the Clarus S1 outdoor Google TV, Companion P100 Portable LED Display, and Canvas Art Display. Mike’s career in consumer electronics spans a list of companies that reads like a who’s who of the history of AV integration tech. From the early days of Mitsubishi Digital in the late 1990s to the first consumer plasma TV in the U.S. at Fujitsu General to stints with Sharp Elite, the distributor AVAD, and Noel Lee’s Monster. Today we’ll learn more about his recollections of some of the more historical stops in his career and find out how his first year at Skyworth USA has been going so far.

On this week’s podcast, Jennifer Kirkpatrick joins us from Denver, Colorado, where she is director of sales for American Lighting and its custom integrator focused Proluxe division. Jennifer and Jeremy met a few months back at the Lightapalooza conference in Glendale, AZ, where she provided an overview of her company’s linear and tape light offerings. Today, we’ll learn more about Kirkpatrick’s background and career and discuss what the custom integration channel needs to know about Proluxe’s extensive lineup of products for their next lighting design and installation.

Joining us on the podcast from Salt Lake City, UT, is Eric Smith, who most people with a history in the custom integration industry will immediately associate with Control4, the company he co-founded, along with Will West, back in 2003.

After some time away from the smart home industry, Eric and Will have returned with their new company, called OliverIQ. Their goal is to put smart home automation “in reach for everyone” through what they’ve dubbed Smart Home as a Service.

Partnering with national and global service providers, such as ISPs and large home builders for example, OliverIQ aims to scale their platform rapidly, offering comprehensive product support, unlimited online and phone support, in-home assistance, and security system monitoring, all for a low monthly cost.

Our guest today, who serves officially as CTO of this new company, helps explain more about the concept behind OliverIQ, provide some updates since its launch back in January, and share some surprising reactions from custom integrators so far.

Joining us on this week’s podcast are Alex Capecelatro, the CEO of Denver-based Josh.ai, the voice-controlled home automation system, and Amanda Wildman, the co-owner of TruMedia, a respected custom integration firm in Ada, MI. As chairperson and vice chairperson of CEDIA, respectively, Capecelatro and Wildman are two of the best people to fill us in on all things CEDIA.

The professional smart home industry’s global trade association recently completed a record year for new member acquisitions, its first-ever CEDIA Smart Home Day on Capitol Hill to lobby for integrator recognition, and a return to financial and organizational stability with a balanced budget and extension of CEO Daryl Friedman’s contract through 2027. To top it off, the organization just announced the addition of Paul Dolenc and Mitchell Klein to its leadership team to help bolster growth and expansion initiatives. Today’s guests discuss all of that and more on the podcast.

On this week’s podcast, Jason Griffing joins us from Highlands Ranch, CO, where he is director of product for OneVision Resources, the remote support and RMR provider to custom integrators. Jason is responsible for overseeing the development and strategic direction of the company’s service platform, serving as OneVision’s voice of the customer, advancing their product roadmap and R&D initiatives.

Prior to joining OneVision in 2017, Jason spent a decade as a residential integrator doing everything from pulling wire in dusty attics and wiring racks, to project management and operations.

Jason is on the podcast today to tell us about several new initiatives, including OneVision’s Flex Support packages, launched back in August, that were designed to make it easier to get started with remote support and recurring monthly revenue solutions and ProVision Signal, a dedicated on-call management solution designed to make it easier for integrators to build a robust incident response plan that ensures clients get the level of service they need for their technology issues, 24/7/365.

On this week’s podcast, Chris Lehnen joins us from Portland, OR, where he is a business development manager for Luminii, a manufacturer of architectural lighting solutions. Luminii was one of the lighting fixture exhibitors at the third-annual Lightapalooza conference held last month in Glendale, AZ, where the company showcased its specification-grade, low voltage fixtures, including a new LED linear product range and micro-optics solutions ideal for the custom integration channel. Our guest today comes from the CI space, having spent many years with the AV brands iRoom, Origin Acoustics, and SpeakerCraft, but now after a year and half immersed in the lighting fixtures business, he’s just the person to call if you’re looking for a high-end LED linear or low-voltage micro-optics solution for your next project.

On this week’s podcast, Eddie Shapiro joins us from the Washington DC area, where is a chief AV designer and owner of the custom integration firm, SmartTouchUSA. Eddie, who recently completed his three-year term as a CEDIA Board member, just this past week joined a contingent of CEDIA representatives in the nation’s capital to advocate for current and future generations of the smart home industry during the Inaugural CEDIA Day on the Hill. Meetings with political leaders on March 6 addressed two critical matters: The Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow's Workforce Act (S. 722, H.R. 1477) and creating a classification of “integrator” in the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. While this is just the first in several follow-up conversation that we have planned on this topic, we wanted to start with Eddie’s unique perspective. We also chat about the recent Lightapalooza conference in Glendale, AZ, where Jeremy witnessed Eddie taking more notes than any of the industry journalists attending the event!

On this week’s podcast, Charlie Porritt joins us from Portsmith, New Hampshire, where he is CEO of Russound, an internationally respected leader in manufacturer of audio products and technology. While it seems as if those of us who know Charlie today only associate him with his 24 years at Russound, they’re failing to recognize early stops in his career at such other legendary brands, Harman and SpeakerCraft. Today we’ll look back a bit on our guest’s career arc, finding out what wisdom he picked up along the way and developed on the job in his career role, and explore some of Russound’s recent cool product introductions, including the AVA Series mini AVR, which is now shipping.