HomeTech.fm - Episode 350 - Brands Buying Brands

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

This week on HomeTech: New products are actually being announced, SnapAV buys more things, Onkyo is now owned by someone else as well, ISE cancels fun in 2021, and more... All this and of course, the pick of the week.

This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, May 7th from Sarasota, Florida. I'm Seth Johnson, and welcome to the Home Tech Podcast, a podcast all about home automation and home automation news this week. Some crazy stuff has gone on. So we have a bunch of home tech headlines this week, and then a couple of actually product launches, which is kind of cool. Kind of cool to see that happening again. A bunch of other stuff.

But first, of course, on the top of the show, I want to remind everyone we're doing our Home Tech Talks. We've had a bunch of them over the past couple weeks, and I'm guilty of not actually posting them on our patron feed. And that's really on my bad. I've got three of them to post up. So patrons, please be patient. I've got three of them to post up. So patrons, please be patient when you get a bunch of emails, uh,

saying that this is, uh, these are all going to post. It's all going to happen, uh, shortly, right after the show here, I'm probably going to go in and,

and post them up and make sure everything has, uh, has, has started, uh, to be posted. We've got, uh,

the dashboard discussion from way back in mid-April, RGB lighting, which we talked quite a bit about, about who's using RGB lighting and what are you using it for? Everybody's a little confused on that. And then the last one, we were starting a home automation business, which was actually a really good conversation about forcing one of our members to quit his job and start a business. So if you want to check those out, head on over to hometech.fm support. Learn how you can support the show. That'll bring you to the patron page. And all of those videos will be posted there for patrons only.

So if you're a patron of the show at any level, $1, $5 a month, doesn't matter. You'll have access to all of those videos. And it goes way back. We've got, let's see, how many movies have we done? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And this week it looks like we're going to talk about whole house, what do we call this? Whole home audio I think is what I settled on. And I still wrote it wrong on the description. So it's either whole house audio or whole home audio. And basically I guess we're going to talk about what everybody is using for Sonos these days because that's pretty much all I – I'm a Sonos house here.

And I'm curious to what everyone else is doing. But let's go ahead and jump in the show this week and jump into some home tech headlines. Big news today. SnapAV has agreed to acquire Access Networks. In a blog post over on their website, SnapAV announced the acquisition of the network solutions provider for professional installers in the Cedia channel. Access Networks is probably best known for their networking system design services

that dealers leverage to install enterprise-grade networking products into larger homes and commercial properties. Bigger homes that I've worked in have almost always had some type of ruckus or access network developed or design system in them. These guys were and are, I guess, at the peak of their game when it comes to installing these types of systems and getting these types of enterprise-grade networking gear into dealers' hands who may not be enterprise grade experts at at this type

of these types of systems so um pretty interesting pretty interesting acquisition here snap ev says access network products will coexist alongside arachnids and pack edge and that in time access access networks products really hard to say will be integrated with the Oversea ecosystem. Kind of cool there. Access networks products should be available on the SnapAV online portals and through their local portals, basically local stores, in the near future. So SnapAV is still being really aggressive with mergers and acquisitions. And they've certainly got a lot of VC money that they can throw around to do this. And I wonder, I wonder if it's one of those things where like, yeah, we've got money sitting

here. We, we got to buy something. Uh, so let's go after, uh, access networks. It seems like this one I'm scratching my head on. I really am. Honestly, I'm trying to figure out what to say about this one because I'm not sure why Access Networks was purchased. Because it's not like SnapAV, like they've got some really smart people working over there on Arachnus. So why do they need, I don't think they need people to come in and tell them how to design a network.

So it's really strange. It's really strange. I don't, I'm not too sure about this one. The flip side of the coin is I'm beginning to start to wonder about all the damage that's going to be done from all these consolidations and to our industry over time. And it's, you know, don't get me wrong. I like Snappy V. I think it's, they've been a great provider to the CI industry over the years and certainly a good company. But what does this place start to look like when everybody has access to the same products and they all sell the same thing all sold from the same place? It's kind of like, did we learn

nothing from Walmart and Amazon? Because it's heading this way. In full disclosure, I do work for BlackWire. A, I'm going to put in quotes, competitor. You can't see the quotes today, but I'm putting up quotes. To both maybe SnapAV and Access Networks to some extent, we do sell Ruckus, which is one of the main lines that Access Networks was selling. They actually would take Ruckus,

and they rebranded it for Access Networks. And they definitely, as Greg is pointing out, Access provided a service, not a product. So that's kind of the point. That's a good point. They really do provide a great design service for the industry. And it's interesting to see where these guys are going to, what are these guys are going to do on the, on the FAQ that I saw. It didn't say that everybody at SnapAV, every customer was going to have access to, to, to this, that service.

So you'd still need to be an access network, dealer to access that service. I'm not sure. I'm still scratching my head on this. Honestly, I'm not sure what this actually brings to Snap that service. I'm not sure. I'm still scratching my head on this. Honestly, I'm not sure what this actually brings to SnapAV. It can't be that the talent because they already had the talent. I'm just not sure. Really, I'm kind of scratching my head. Greg is saying Arachnus Pro, I guess. But did they need that? I don't know. I don't know. They've got two networking brands now. And man, if I'm working at Pack Edge, I've got to be like hiding under my desk when the bosses walk by.

Jeez, that company. If anybody is actually still working on Pack Edge, it's not me. All right, next up. Next up, Vox International Corporation, a manufacturer and distributor of automotive and consumer technologies for the global markets, has signed a letter of intent to acquire the home AV business of Onkyo. And Sharp Corporation will act as the partner in the business venture. As it stands, Vox and Sharp would acquire Integra, Pioneer, Pioneer Elite, and Onkyo USA Brands from the parent company Onkyo Home Entertainment.

And according to the press release, all the companies involved have a strong working relationship and are moving towards reaching a definitive agreement on May 20th, 2021. If the agreement is reached, it will be presented over to Ankiyo shareholders at the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders scheduled on June 25th, 2021. So a little bit to go on that. A couple more months to see what happens on that as we head towards the end of June. But it looks like from everything that the press release was saying, it seems like these companies are just marching along and, you know, Onkyo will be sold off. These brands, it's actually not just Onkyo. Like I said, it was Integra, Pioneer, Pioneer Elite and Onkyo. Those will all be under this Vox company with Sharp managing everything. So it will be interesting to see what comes of that in the future.

Oh, man, this one. This one is very interesting. Vivint Home has agreed to pay the largest fine ever levied, stemming from a FTC Fair Credit Reporting Act violation. The number two company of the CE Pro Top 100 will pay $20 million to settle a white paging complaint that it allegedly misused credit card information to reportedly help unqualified customers obtain financing for their smart home systems and security systems. Under the settlement, Vivint will pay $15 million in civil penalties and an additional $5 million to compensate injured consumers. The complaint said that Vivint improperly obtained credit reports in order to qualify

potential customers for financing for its smart home monitoring and security products. So this white paging that they're talking about, that they're alleging that they did, it said it's kind of this, some Vivint, some, not all, but some of the Vivint sales representative used a process known as white paging, which involved finding another consumer with the same or similar name in the white pages and using that consumer's credit history to qualify a prospective unqualified customer. This is just shady as all get out. I can't believe this is something that is even possible in the year 2021 or 2020. But here we are. Quote from the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Dan Kaufman, Vivint's sales staff stole people's personal information to approve

others for loans. For misusing consumer credit reports and other sensitive data and harming people's credit. This company will pay $20 million. Just crazy. I think $20 million is probably a drop in the bucket for them. But wow, that is just not cool. It's kind of disgusting when I see stuff like that happen in my industry. That's the kind of thing that you would expect to happen over like shady, uh, uh, mortgage companies and that kind of thing. I don't know. It's just, just gross. It's kind of the gross side of the alarm system, the alarm business that I, I never, never liked, uh, seeing, uh, never liked dealing with, you know, like the part where you were just out to get contracts so you could sell them off to a bank or something one day. It's gross. If you want to do something well by your customers, you treat them right and treat them with respect and don't look at them as a dollar

on, you know, an asset on your dollar sheet. And that's something I never liked about the security industry in general. And that's how the whole industry is actually set up these days. So anyway, moving on. I'll get off my soapbox there. All right. Roku has made good on its threat to remove YouTube TV from its channel store amid a contract dispute with Google. And following up a little bit from some of the news we talked about last week, Roku said it would yank the app unless Google backtracked on alleged demands for YouTube to get priority placement in search results and have results from other providers like music streaming services blocked while the app is in use. Roku also claimed that Google wanted the company to use certain memory cards and chipsets on this device that would push up the price of the hardware. And speculation is there that maybe it would make Roku a little bit less competitive against Chromecast.

So the contract ended. The original contract ended. YouTube TV is out of the Roku store. Existing customers still have access to the app as long as they don't delete it. So if you have Roku with YouTube TV still installed on it, don't delete it. You may want to watch TV on there.

And this doesn't actually impact the main YouTube app that everybody's familiar with, just the YouTube TV app. But it does suck that everyone's missing and not able to get that installed onto their Roku devices these days. It would be nice if these companies can resolve this dispute. It goes back and forth, left and right. I don't know. Hopefully, they'll be able to work this out and move forward. All right. I see due to citywide COVID-19 regulations in Amsterdam and

Munich, ISE Europe, I guess it's Integrated Systems Europe, has decided to cancel events in these locations for 2021. Mike Blackman, ISE's general director, says, while these events have gotten plenty of support from integrators, the new regulations make hosting an in-person event nearly impossible. And while the two planned in-person events are no longer an option, ISE team plans to go ahead with hosting virtual events, including daily thought leadership

and market intelligence sessions curated by TNW, VIXA, Cedia, and IC Partners, along with insights on digital signage, live events, and audio, workspace evolution, digital learning, smart building, and XR in today's reality. Which brings the question, what the heck is XR? I've never heard of that. I didn't bother looking it up,

but it's kind of a weird thing to put in there. I really wish these event companies would lean into the virtual a little bit more. Cedia and CES were not great examples of what could be done with that modern technology, with remote learning and all that good stuff. And I would really like to see these event companies put some of their, some little bit more effort into it and just kind of right now they're just kind of like, well, we'll just hold off on until when stuff comes back without realizing that a lot of people may not want the stuff to come back. I really have to think about how big these, you know, how big these shows are, how, how small these shows are going to be in the future

compared to where they were in the past. You know, this pandemic is surely ending soon, hopefully, rather than later. We have our vaccines rolling out here in the States. It's a little bit harder in other countries to get them. But as soon as everybody can get on the vaccine bandwagon, we start getting these numbers down. Borders may open up and may be able to try easier to travel around the world. And that may open up some of these shows.

But then again, like, will it? The question is still, will it? We took a straw poll at our office and none of us want to go to the Cedia this year. So we're going to we're going to punt on it again. Not that we I guess we did punt on it last year, the virtual event. But, you know, I really think I really think if you look at something like what Apple has done for keynotes, framed.io, framed.io, it's kind of not a company that we talk about in this space very much, but it's really taken off in the filming space and like commercial shoots and that kind

of thing where they can remotely manage all the video and, and bring in video and audio into one centrally managed systems. And you could have the director in a completely different, uh, you know, venue or area anywhere in the world and instantly start seeing the dailies come in and, and, and picking and choosing what scenes they want to send off to the editors. The editors can see what the director, I mean, it's just a completely different mindset when in the past, you'd have like a lot of these people on site. Now you can have the best talent in the world, wherever they are in the world and bring them into one spot. And I really think that we're missing out on stuff like that when it comes to these shows that insist that we have live events. So, again, on the soapbox, I'll get off of it this time.

We'll move on. All right. Clare Controls has launched ClareVision, a new line of high-value surveillance cameras and NVRs that support standalone deployment or integration with Clare 1 systems. The line's two app-controlled ETL-listed series cameras, both NDAA and ONVIF compliant, meaning they hook up to quite a bit. Additionally, these products will allow SnapAV Pros to compete in the value price security segment. I was seeing that some of these cameras cost below $100.

They feature edge-based storage, so the systems can be deployed without NVRs. I really think that's a cool setup that I haven't seen very many camera manufacturers taking advantage of, and I hope to see, this may be in the future, where you have like three or four cameras you need to install. You can install them with these edge systems. And basically, it's a piece of memory card that you can stick in the camera. And then that memory card may deploy video or events when an event happens or it detects that video needs to be sent up to a centralized cloud system. It can send that video up there.

You can have an NVR up in the cloud. It does require that you have, I know, I guess, an internet connection to see that kind of things. But that's fairly common these days. And in most cases, if you need to look at them locally, you can still go in and run like a computer or an app locally. And I'm not sure about this system here, but I'm just talking in general. You could see the system with the app locally. So it's kind of like the best of both worlds without having to have this clunky NVR hanging off systems. And I'm just curious, I'm curious why that hasn't really taken off it. Maybe the software is just not there, or maybe the cameras aren't there, or

maybe since Hikvision came around, we're all racing towards the bottom when it comes to cameras and camera pricing. So it says here, larger systems can be deployed with an NVR for up to 32 cameras. And all Clear Vision products offer integration with Clear One Control 4 systems, compatibility with Luma cameras and NVRs. They support OnVIF and HikVision protocols and add-ons for takeovers.

So kind of cool that they put all that together for like a complete ecosystem. Another kind of like disclaimer here, I used to work for Claire like way back, maybe over 10 years ago. Jeez, it's been a long time. But we were not the Claire Vision they were, the Claire controls they were today. We were very much a startup and, you know, only a handful of employees, handful of developers.

And it was a really interesting and fun job to have. And I got to see quite a bit, travel quite a bit and, you know, go on the road, talk to dealers. It's a lot of fun. So interesting company. I'm glad to see that they're continuing improving their product and moving along. All right. One more here. One more product. Luxon has debuted a new intercom doorbell with HD camera, hidden speaker, protected microphone, and built-in proximity sensor that lights up an interactive door button when you get close. Luxon says the device doesn't require a cloud connection, so all event data and visitor history is stored locally on an internal memory card. And if a call is required between the intercom

and Luxon app, full end-to-end encryption is used. So they're really going for that privacy angle here. It's a cool looking product. Looking at it right now, it's very European in design, of course, made in Germany, all glass front panel there. Doesn't look like anything we have in the States,

but if you're going for that look, man, this is the product to get. It's kind of squared. It also has an NFC keypad that can be added onto the bottom. Doesn't mount in the back box, so it can be retrofitted fairly easily, I suppose. I didn't quite see. I saw that you could get a PoE. You can power it PoE, and maybe it does have a standard two-wire connection on it. I'm not sure. I didn't, didn't look that up, but I know you can power it POE, um, and you can mount it without a back box, which is kind of nice, uh, for installs. So, um, interesting product from Luxon and they keep rolling out some really nice looking stuff. Uh, not too much penetration here in the States. I know they're more popular overseas, uh, where, where they compete a lot with KNX systems. So

good on them. Glad to see them continually improving their product. There we go. All the links and topics we discussed tonight can be found on our show notes at hometech.fm slash 350. Wow, 350. Don't forget, you can join us live in the chat room like Greg and Greg and Greg. How many Gregs do we have in the chat room tonight? Jeez Louise. Uh, live Wednesday, starting sometime between seven and 7 30 PM Eastern. A little bit later tonight. Uh, you can find out more about that over at home tech.fm slash live.

Got a, uh, pick of the week this week. Hey, Greg, Greg, and Gavin. There we go. Welcome. It's all G's all the way down. All right. Pick of the week this week. This is one of my favorites. Ran across this on Reddit the other day. Go ahead and describe the scene, if you will. This guy's walking in. He's got his son next to him, hand on his shoulder. He's looking proudly into this room. It's got his son next to him, hand on his shoulder. They're looking, he's looking proudly into this room of, of, it's got a bookshelf and a table covered in a bunch of boxes on the floor, just full. And the table, every square inch of this room is covered with wall warts. You know, those things you, you plug in and, and at the bottom, here's the, here's the

caption. He said, one day, son, all of these perfectly good AC adapters, which have long outlived the products they were originally designed for, will be yours. And yeah, that's me. I feel seen. I'm saving a box of them over there for my daughter so she can take those and, I don't know, sell them and go to college.

I have no idea what I'm gonna use them for, but I saw this and felt a little called out there. I'm not sure, but yeah, good pick of the week. I like it. A good comic there. All right. If you have any feedback comments, picks of the week, or any great ideas for the show or home tech talks, give us a shout. Email address is feedback at home tech.fm, or you can visit hometech.fm slash feedback and fill out the online form. I want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those who are able to financially support the show through our Patreon page. If you don't know about our

Patreon page, head on over to hometech.fm slash support to learn how you can support Home Tech for as little as a dollar a month. And any pledge over five bucks a month gets you a big shout out on the show. But every pledge gets you an invite to our private Slack chat, the hub, where you and other supporters of the show can gather every day. Talk about what we talk about today. We talked about a lot about Aragnas, right? We talked about all the things that have gone on with that acquisition. And, you know, I think if you go in there

and you might find out if TJ has quit his job yet, that's the big news, right? Well, that's going to make a Home Tech headline when we get there. So that's part of our Home Tech talks. And if you're on the in crowd, you'll know what that means. All right.

And this week, let's see, if you want to help out the show, but can't support the show financially, totally appreciate a five-star review in itunes or positive rating in the podcast app of your choice and with that that wraps up another week in home technology news quite a bit this week i kind of started off slow but that acquisition today threw us at work for a loop being both access networks and snap av we kind of had to put feelers out we got wind of it fairly early on in the morning and uh it it was kind of a shocker so kind of kind of interesting to see um happened i guess but uh yeah there we go they They have acquired another competitor of ours

and we'll see what happens but it made for a long workday, I suppose and that's why I am recording podcast at 10 o'clock at night on a Wednesday. So with that said, thanks everybody. Thanks for the three Gs over there in the chat room for joining us tonight live. And we'll talk to you guys next week.

Have a good one.