One of the best parts of the AV and automation channel is how technology turns dreams into reality. I still recall situations in years past where I looked at a site survey and thought “Damn, I wish I had an easy way to do this,” — only for those solutions to be commonplace a few years later. Wireless transmission of AV and control is one such solution. Another is IP based remote hardware and system monitoring.

I still recall the first APC power centers we specified into systems at my old job that were network-enabled and allowed us, even on basic installations, to do power cycle locked up  control processors and HD-PVRs at a client’s house without leaving our desk.

This is not to mention the ability even years ago on our larger Crestron systems to log in to our clients system to make and test changes without rolling a truck. One time, my colleague was on the phone to a client, playing with her lighting control, unaware that while she was in her place in Victoria BC he was logged into the system for her Calgary home. He realized his error, but not before he scared the client’s Calgary housekeeper half to death: with the lights going on and off on their own she thought the house was haunted!

And today integrators can do so much more. But where it gets hairy is that as IP connectivity continues to increase, the performance potential of integrated AV and control systems, it increases the complexity and the potential for service issues. Fortunately, the technology that increases system complexity also provides an avenue to monitor and maintain those systems. The major hurdle for integrators is scalability, especially if they have a large number of active systems installed in the community. That’s why there are companies bringing that scaling to market: third party remote monitoring of integrated systems, and the promise of decreased service costs and potential recurring revenue for integrators.

It’s practically a whole new sub-channel to integration, and in several cases is the baby of integrators who began devising solutions to monitoring their own systems, and then turned their solution into a product. Hagai Feiner, CEO of Access Networks, took his fist foray into monitoring when a commercial integration client of his asked him to install “the exact same” IT network in his residence that Feiner installed in his office. The concepts his team developed on that project led to a new business.

Talk to other principals at integration monitoring companies, and they all tell the same story. Companies I’ve come to know include ihiji, Varan Monitor and Nuage Nine. All of them started as integrators.

The cardinal advantage of third party monitoring is repeatability and outsourcing the hard stuff. As Michael Maniscalco, president of ihiji explained to me, the value of a solution provider like ihiji is that the integrator
doesn’t have to have an IT genius on staff, but just needs to understand standard networking. The monitoring vendor does the rest.

For integrators, there are two primary motivations for adopting remote monitoring: decreased expenses through increased service efficiency and increased revenue through monitoring contracts. The bottom line with service efficiency is that remote monitoring and control pre-empts the truck rolls that integrators have to make for issues both major and minor. Time is money, and the productivity lost to rolling a truck is money that can be better spent elsewhere.

At the same time, getting in depth analytics and troubleshooting from the monitoring system means that when a truck does roll, the technician knows what to load up on for the job, further increasing efficiency.

Considering that hardware margins seem to evaporate, and what’s profitable to sell and install one year may not be the next “recurring revenue,” has appeal. With monitoring comes the need to sell service contracts. This is old hat to commercial AV and security integrators, but relatively new to the residential channel. Whereas service contracts are commonplace in industry for everything from security systems to elevator repair, HomeAV clients often have a very retail-centric view of service. As a result, some may also that the service is included free, forever, because “that’s the integrator’s job.” Education and a little bit of salesmanship is required to get past that and promote the benefits of a monitoring contract.

As with anything, dealers need to do their homework, and pick a monitoring vendor partner that’s right for them. Make a solid choice and integrate it into your business, and you and your clients will benefit.

Lee Distad is a rAVe columnist and freelance writer covering topics from CE to global business and finance in both print and online. Reach him at lee@ravepubs.com

Image via ihiji