I have been attending CEDIA Expo since 1991; I think it was the first-ever CEDIA show, in fact. It was in Dallas, Texas, and (if my memory serves me right) it was in the Dallas Market Center.

It’s always been one of my favorite trade shows. It’s like the state fair of trade shows — more fun than work. Mostly because it’s always been filled with home toys — everything from home automation to home theaters. In fact, it inspired me to start a home theater design firm here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1999.

So, why would a home tech show add a UCC pavilion to its 2022 event? The simple answer is that working from home all-of-a-sudden became a thing for more than just outside sales reps. Thanks to the pandemic, we were all forced to work from home (WFH), and we went from using the phone as a primary form of communication, pre-pandemic, to an expectation that we’d all join Zoom and Teams meetings without cameras “on” from noon. Some of us worked from our kitchen, others from living rooms and some were lucky enough to have home offices but, prior to 2020, we would rarely work from home. It just wasn’t practical and it was filled with distractions. I mean, come on, didn’t we all slip out to walk the dog a little more often when working from home — or watch a little extra TV?

By mid-2020, WFH was added to the dictionary, and it became normalized. But, simply blurring the background of our homes isn’t enough. We’re finding products like Logitech’s Logi Dock, AVer’s VB130 and higher-quality webcams are becoming a necessity rather than a luxury. And, now we’re seeing purpose-built WFH products debuting — have you seen the new DTEN ME Pro? But, so far, my favorite work-from-home product is Leon’s LiquidView — watch this video we captured at InfoComm 2022:

So, why not add a UCC pavilion to the industry’s leading HomeAV show? Aren’t we all working from home at least two days a week?