You guys, how is Day Two over already? I was just talking to someone about how I feel like InfoComm was two weeks ago, so for CEDIA Expo/CIX to be mostly over? Crazy. Nuts even. But anyway. I’m sure if you’re reading this you’re interested in what I’ve been doing at this show and if I’ve seen any groundbreaking products.

So let’s get into it.

I think I mentioned this yesterday, but I haven’t seen a ton of Earth-shattering, industry-disrupting new products while I’ve been here. However, there are things that I love, so I’m going to spend a little bit of time talking about those things and you guys can decide if I’m crazy or whether these things are of interest to you too.

First of all, I’ve made it no secret that I am obsessed with Leon. The company first caught my eye when it announced its Ente Sound Tile, a wall-mounted speaker that has art printed on the grilles so that the speaker looks like a framed piece of art on your wall. Ever since then, I’ve made it no secret how much I love this company and how I think their method of tackling AV is cool and different. The company thinks out of the box and creates quite elegant and beautiful solutions. What’s cool about them at this show is that they are showcasing how they can frame any TV you want. BRAVIA? No problem. OLED? Sure thing. Want a frame for your speaker bar that matches your Samsung Frame? You’ve got it. You all know how obsessed I am with my Samsung Frame. And how I am a tinkerer who loves messing around with my tower speakers, but I cannot and will not get over the fact that my tower speakers don’t go with my house. Everything that Leon makes is for people like me who want everything to match and who would rather eat glass than mount their plain, black-bezel TV on a wall and call it a day. And if your customer is quite sure what piece of art they want on the wall to conceal the look of their TV, Leon offers its Moving Art Screen.

(This product is not new for this show. But it is so cool! I just wanted to note this because I think it’s different and cool.)

Another booth I spent time at today was ADI/Snap One. You might remember but ADI and Snap One became one company a couple months ago (I think? What is time.). At this show, employees were really working on telling the story of the two brands and how they are now leveraging each other’s strengths. Whatever they were doing appeared to be working because here’s what the booth looked like basically all day. I had to fight for my life to get to the Control4 section.

At the beginning of this year, Snap One announced it would be moving forward with a subscription-based model for its Control4 Assist and Control4 Connect solutions. The company was reiterating a lot about this in its booth — and they said feedback had been mostly positive for customers who are switching over to this new model. Like it or not, I basically only saw subscription-based service offerings at this show. It’s the future, so if you don’t like it, you soon will not have many other options in my opinion.

I was also impressed by Nice at this show. Smart home automation is definitely not new in the CEDIA Expo market, but it is something that’s interesting to check out every time I’m at the show. What’s new? What are we able to automate now? Can a solution be integrated with AI so that we don’t have to program what it does but it just gets to know what we tend to do over time? I.E. Can my control system learn that I typically walk into my kitchen at 6 p.m. and turn the hall light, then kitchen light on and begin cooking dinner? And maybe I turn on my tablet in that room and listen to The Cars while I cook? So then it just does that for me one day. I think Nice is working on developing just that. But you didn’t hear it from me.

Finally, I was very impressed with VIVIDSTORM’s Motorized Tension Floor Rising UST ALR Perforated Projector Screen. Remember the C SEED TV from a few years ago that comes out of the ground? This seems to be the projector version of that for your home. There are tons of ways to conceal projectors if you’re not interested in having them out when you’re not using them, but I quite liked this one. I also want to say it falls in the $2000 range, so it’s going to be less expensive than quite a few of the options out there as well.

That’s it from me for today! Here’s a video of the VIVIDSTORM product for your troubles.