Home Technology Association co-founder Josh Christian explains how builders and architects can find qualified smart home integrators and set clear rules of engagement with them, in a Housing 2.0 thought leader session introduced by Sam Rashkin.
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Mike Collignon: Or in the midst of summer. For those of you who live along or maybe visit the coast. You might have enjoyed some surfing already, which is great because it's International Surf Music Month. So go ahead and spin Beach Boys or Dick Dale as you spend some time in the waves. But we're here today inside. I know I'm not at the beach to talk about smart home technology.
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Mike Collignon: Now for you builder and architects, it is a must have for all high performance homes in order to meet customer expectations for safety, convenience and entertainment. However, managing the home technology systems entails significant impacts with other related subcontractors, and this webinar is going to share best practices on getting that technology right now. Joining us today is Josh Christian.
00:00:49:24 - 00:01:16:01
Mike Collignon: In 2017, Josh co-founded the Home Technology Association to create the industry's first and only standard of excellence for home technology integrators. This is to help homeowners and design, build professionals, find qualified home technology integrators. Now, the HTA has positioned itself as the bridge between home technology integrators and the design build professions. Now, before we get going. We do have some wonderful sponsors for this webinar.
00:01:16:02 - 00:01:42:19
Mike Collignon: The first is Mitsubishi Electric. Mitsubishi Electric promote sustainable building through the electrification of residential and commercial heating and cooling products. Their mission is to advance technologies that reduce waste output, promote sustainable resource cycles while increasing energy efficiency, and eliminating dependance on fossil fuels. Next we have. They are a leading national residential, solar and energy storage provider with a specialized team dedicated to the home building industry.
00:01:42:20 - 00:02:04:12
Mike Collignon: Their experience in the new home sector means they understand the complexities of home building, and they offer customized solutions to help you build homes that home buyers actually want. All while staying on schedule with over 50 homebuilder partners across the country, was founded to deliver customers a better energy service at a better price through their solar and solar plus energy storage service offerings.
00:02:04:13 - 00:02:32:06
Mike Collignon: They are disrupting the traditional energy landscape and the way the 21st century customer generates and consumes electricity. We also have Schneider Electric, who is driving the digital transformation to modern homes with smart and sustainable energy solutions for ultimate comfort and energy efficiency. Their connected home ecosystem of smart energy management solutions provides digital control of energy use throughout a home from the grid via their smart electrical panel to their connected via devices.
00:02:32:07 - 00:02:59:10
Mike Collignon: This grid to plug solution makes it significantly easier to create smart solar power and backup power ready homes, both now and in the future. Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions is helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and cost effective indoor air quality solutions that provide a safe homebuyers. Genco solar is a leading PV module manufacturer and energy storage system integrator.
00:02:59:11 - 00:03:22:20
Mike Collignon: The company has deployed more than 100GW of their Eagle modules in 160 countries globally, including more than 17GW right here in the United States. Eagle storage brings together the best energy storage technology for turnkey hardware and energy storage services. Eagle is a trusted choice for US solar and storage projects, and we also want to recognize LP building solutions.
00:03:22:21 - 00:03:52:08
Mike Collignon: LP Building Solutions is committed to building a better world by empowering builders to choose resilient, sustainable, inefficient building materials to construct the structures, families and individuals live, work and play in every day. Through a diverse portfolio of resilient structural solutions and beautiful, durable siding products, all made with 100% sustainably sourced wood fiber, LP is able to provide real solutions that address many environmental issues builders and homeowners face today.
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Mike Collignon: For LP, building a better world means manufacturing environmentally responsible solutions so we can all build better together. Now, during the course of today's presentation, you can submit questions for Josh. Simply use that questions box that you see inside the go to Webinar Control panel. I'll review those questions and pose them to Josh after his presentation. Now, before we get to Josh, I wanted to make sure to welcome a special guest, the creator of housing 2.0, Sam Raskin.
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Sam Rashkin: Hey. Welcome everyone. And before each of these thought leader sessions, what I like to do is just give some context for the larger goal of the thought leader program we did. As many of you know, been to the housing 2.0 workshops and in-person events, we do, the goal of housing 2.0 is to give our tools to the high performance housing professionals to help ensure they are, in fact, the leaders in the housing industry.
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Sam Rashkin: And we do that with a framework for consistently delivering homes that meet and and exceed the growing user experience expectations of home buyers. Framework includes five key user experiences with a 160 best practices, and many of you have been through these workshops. Know one of them must have transformative experiences that we believe should be in every new housing.
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Sam Rashkin: 2.0 home is a pretty much a comprehensive approach to smart home, and this is a constantly moving target. It's so important and there's so many, so much uncertainty about what and how to do this. And that's why we brought Josh to this program, to help bring some light to this critical part of getting an ultimate consumer experience. I'm glad Josh is here and I'm going to hand it off to him.
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Josh Christian: Thank you Sam, and it's great meeting you and our our relationship that's built here, which led to this today being invited here. So thank you very much. So it's great to address you all today and I'm excited to do this is one of my favorite parts of what I do is getting the build and design trades. Make this whole technology discussion much easier.
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Josh Christian: And to give actionable information that will you could apply in your careers right away to get in front of this conversation. So good, good introductions aren't even given about who I am and the Home Technology Association. Just go back in time a little bit further, just like, why am I here? Why am I qualified to speak about this topic to to give you some comfort level?
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Josh Christian: In my experience, I've been in this industry since 1995 and from 1998 to about 2014, I worked in the industry. I'm talking about the home technology industry on more on the custom insulation side, working on custom homes and incorporating and implementing this technology to the home. As such, met many builders, saw the pitfalls that happen with kind of the current status quo of how technology is often implemented.
00:07:02:20 - 00:07:22:15
Josh Christian: Often too late, and I know the pain that builders go through if there's architects on here, too. A lot of what I'm talking about works with architects to just how to deal with technology, and it's changing so much. And how do how do I, as a builder or designer, incorporate this and meet my client's needs? That's what this is about today.
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Josh Christian: So understand the pain. Been there, done that. And I think you're really going to like what you're here today. And as Mike said in the introduction, ask some questions. I will stay on as long as needed, so I don't I'm not cutting this off at one hour. I could stay on to answer your questions. So let's get right into it.
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Josh Christian: The Home Technology Association was mentioned earlier by Mike. But just to kind of explain this a little bit more, what this means, this next slide, a lot of these logos are familiar to you. And I put art down there in the lower right to certified but Michelin stars for restaurants, a bias star. Seek rating for a car. If you want a really good diamond, you get a Gia rated one.
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Josh Christian: What this means is there are consumer facing standards out there for other things that we engage with in our lives. That's what the HTA is. Just so you know, to certification, which I'll get into a little more detail later, but it is the Michelin star rating for people that are in the home technology installation industry. So it's a subset of the really good ones.
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Josh Christian: And what that means a little later on. But just want to explain why the HTA is there and why we created it. So here's our agenda today one. Get you a great overview of the umbrella of home technology systems that are out there, both DIY and custom installed, and why and how to determine technology needs this. It's going to be easy and how to find the most qualified integrators.
00:09:07:06 - 00:09:34:10
Josh Christian: Kind of hinted at that already home technology hour to certified ones. But I'm going to give you what the background check information that we do. So if if there are no certified folks near you, you could use what we use to weed out the good ones, find some good integrators, and also talk about best practices for you. Just kind of follow the numbers step by step and then resources to.
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Josh Christian: And here's the great thing I've given this slide deck to. So it could be emailed to you. You're going to get a PDF of everything here so you don't have to scribble a lot of notes. Take notes if you want to ask questions, but you don't have to write anything down that you see on the slides, you're going to have it.
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Josh Christian: And so that's great. And again, be sure to ask questions in the Q&A. We'll get to that at the end. So first of all why Sam did a good why for me. Thank you Sam. But why should you care as a builder to deal with technology on your projects? Well, here's why. All of us are reliant on technology to some, to some extent.
00:10:17:22 - 00:10:47:26
Josh Christian: And we've all seen through the Covid pandemic, we all got locked in our homes. No one will shut down just how reliant on technology we all were, by the way, the home technology industry. It exploded and it still really hasn't backed off. The people that are installing technology systems instead of having a downturn in business. It exploded because now people needed better Wi-Fi and networks in their home, and now they want a great entertainment systems at home because they couldn't go down to the theater.
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Josh Christian: So people are investing more in technology on their home than ever before. It's it's not so much a a want. It's kind of a need. And where to help make this easy for you to. And also getting into high performance homes and energy management and listening to the sponsors today, to a lot of them in energy and solar and energy management, this is also something that is in the technology world, right.
00:11:18:03 - 00:11:41:26
Josh Christian: And clients are asking about this. So this is why you want to get in front of this conversation. And again I'm going to keep emphasizing this and make this easy for you. So you don't have to memorize a bunch of technologies. There's little cheat sheets and things for you. So what I like to say is it's not a matter of if a home will have technology as a matter how much, and why they put that there in bold as an exclamation point on it.
00:11:41:28 - 00:12:00:00
Josh Christian: Well, here's why. Because I can tell you from being in the trenches as someone in the home technology industry, I used to, you know, approach many of the builders in my hometown market in Los Angeles when I was an integrator, and they would think of technology. Oh, if my client wants a home theater or a home automation system, I'll call you.
00:12:00:00 - 00:12:22:22
Josh Christian: But these clients are simple, you know, they're not going to want any of that. Well, every client is going to have at least TVs in their house, right? Those have to be wired. They're probably going to have internet, of course. Internet now that needs to be wired. And there's wiring that has to be done. So at the very even if the client doesn't want any of the fancy stuff, they just want the bare basics.
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Josh Christian: Oh, an alarm system. Right. They're going to their wires need to be run or those wires go. What kind are they. So even on the most basic simple home technology has to be at least looked at or considered. So that's why you want to do it. What happens if builders ignore it and just kind of let the homeowner bring it up at some later point if they so choose to?
00:12:50:04 - 00:13:10:13
Josh Christian: And I've seen this happen many times. Unfortunately, in my career it was just an afterthought. And what would happen is to get a call frantically at the last moment. The house is framed, electricals done. They're getting around to wrap the walls into drywall and they're like, oh, my client wants to do some technology stuff. Can you come out here and wire the house wire?
00:13:10:14 - 00:13:33:28
Josh Christian: For what? You know, what are we doing here? And it becomes a fire drill of meeting the client, doing all the budgeting, figuring out what they get afford, getting it approved, and all the all the while, the builders want to close the walls. And so now no one's happy. You got project delays, you got change orders and often change orders.
00:13:34:00 - 00:13:56:22
Josh Christian: And we're going to get into this a little later on. We doing things that the low voltage systems now affect because it wasn't designed and early enough. So and also so the change orders and project delays. You hate that as builders. That's terrible right. But there's also a static compromises to where things could have been hidden and more built into the home and a seamless way which look really nice.
00:13:56:22 - 00:14:22:14
Josh Christian: But now due to the time constraints or the cost of the change order, we're still getting that stuff put in. But it doesn't look as good. And interior designers and the architects don't like that, and the homeowner doesn't like that, or performance compromises that comes up especially. And things like, well, anything really. All the things that we talk about here, get out performance compromises when this is brought up too late, so no one wins.
00:14:22:16 - 00:14:43:15
Josh Christian: Everyone wins when it's brought up or late. Nobody wins when it's brought up too late. So this is why I hope that makes sense. So what this next section here we're going to talk about the umbrella of technology systems here. And there's quite a bit this is not a comprehensive list. I'm going to share with you the cheat sheet comprehensive list in a moment.
00:14:43:16 - 00:15:03:07
Josh Christian: But just to kind of wet Napa tight on things that are going to jump out at you like some of these extremely obvious the internet. Right. That that's the fourth utility. There's been some pulls out there where people rather live without water for 12 hours or the internet. And it's the internet is what wins. Don't want to live without that.
00:15:03:08 - 00:15:37:27
Josh Christian: And we're all kind of addicted to it and the way that our life works. Right? I'm talking you through the internet, so it's become part of our life. So internet can be hard wired. It could be Wi-Fi, and any house that is larger than 1200 square feet is going to need multiple wireless access points. The things that give us Wi-Fi and security systems, this is kind of going back into the basics of alarm systems are quite common almost in any homes today.
00:15:38:00 - 00:16:03:26
Josh Christian: Surveillance cameras, again, like what you think of that. You probably ring doorbell or something like it, right? Having some type of security camera system is quite common. The performance varies dramatically amongst security cameras. So what level of security does your client require? And access controls can be things like gate controls or, you know, pedestrian gates or car gates if they have things like that.
00:16:03:26 - 00:16:26:10
Josh Christian: So these are things that are even for a non-tech client. They might want these things. Of course, we all have a TV in our house sometimes many, many of them, or even a home theater, a media room, getting into the bigger performance systems. By the way, that's where this industry came from, that this home technology installer world kind of came from the audio and the video side, right?
00:16:26:11 - 00:16:36:28
Josh Christian: Putting TVs up home theaters and having speakers throughout the house so you can enjoy music in multiple rooms.
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Josh Christian: And then we used to call home automation back in the 80s, I guess when this started off in residential, the late 80s is now. It's kind of cool and smart home, but you're typically referring to the same thing. I mean, just a little semantics, a little difference, but getting to the gist of we could control the basics of our home the climate, the lighting, the even the pool and the spa, the security system.
00:17:03:07 - 00:17:29:05
Josh Christian: Even look at cameras all through now apps. It used to be touchscreens on walls. It still is. It still can be touchscreens on the walls, or even an embedded iPad on a wall. That could also be our smartphones, right? We could control these things. So. This has been around. It's very popular today, and even products like the Amazon Alexa and Google Play devices, or I think they're called nest.
00:17:29:06 - 00:18:01:10
Josh Christian: Now, it's a really inexpensive things that work okay, but at least it brought that smart home name out to a lot of clients. And now everyone's heard that term and it's becoming more and more popular. Lighting. Now going to the next topic is lighting. And I put smart lighting on here. It's still lighting control or smart lighting. And smart lighting could refer to a centralized, easier way to control lights.
00:18:01:10 - 00:18:17:10
Josh Christian: We don't want to, you know, it's never looks good to have a bank of three, 4 or 5 or more dimmers or switches on a wall. It looks terrible esthetically, but it's just not easy to use. You know, if you want to make the the room look, just so you got to get all the dimmers set to the right level.
00:18:17:15 - 00:18:36:03
Josh Christian: No. Or you could have a smart keypad that takes up single gang and then have presets that bring the house to the perfect preset and then even automate some of those things. Right. So you can have motion sensors in there as as when it gets dark, lights will turn on as as you walk throughout the home and then turn off when you leave.
00:18:36:03 - 00:19:11:24
Josh Christian: So lighting is much smarter and also gets into things like circadian rhythm lighting, which is kind of later on the slide. But it's related to what we're talking about here in smart lighting. Maybe you've heard of this. It's getting more and more popular. And that is that if if you think about natural sunlight outside, it changes its color temperature from a more warm like the golden hour, warm sunrise, sunset, kind of reddish tone, and then midday this the sun is at its peak and it's more whitish blue.
00:19:11:27 - 00:19:35:00
Josh Christian: And you go out and buy light bulbs. The hardware store, you see, you know, daylight bulbs and soft light bulbs. That's kind of almost two extremes, but that's different types of color temperature throughout the day. We're not really thinking about this consciously when we're outdoors, but this is happening all the time. The sun is changing its color temperature that can be mimicked now in the home with the right lighting system.
00:19:35:01 - 00:19:55:00
Josh Christian: Of course, the fixtures have to be capable of doing that, but this is becoming a more popular trend. It's still fairly pricey to do that right now, but it's really neat, and some research is showing that that helps with this whole wellness concept to to help us with our sleep cycles and be more alert during peak work hours in the day.
00:19:55:01 - 00:20:25:01
Josh Christian: I have that in my office. I actually have one of these circadian rhythm lighting systems, and I have my color temp set at really bright white. But later in the day it's going to be much warmer. So it mimics what's going on outside today. So this is pretty neat. Technology. Motorized shades and drapery. This is another you probably already know about these things, but you maybe did not know that this is something that the home technology installer is typically bringing under their wing.
00:20:25:06 - 00:20:57:22
Josh Christian: Almost all of them, all the good ones do these days. And if they don't do it internally, they're managing that with some other contractor very closely. And then again, going to what we're talking about with some of our sponsors today. Thank you, sponsors for making this happen. Energy management and backup power. This has become a big deal. And I'm sure it's no news to you that you hear it in the news to that if everyone went out and got an electric car, which this country is moving that way, that the electric grid is basically a fail.
00:20:57:22 - 00:21:17:13
Josh Christian: I can't do it right now. And due to extreme weather cycles, that's happened. Remember what happened a couple of years ago in Texas? I think it was in Houston area. People died when the energy went out. The power grid went down in a very harsh winter and people froze to death or covered monoxide poisoning. And I mean, this is killing people.
00:21:17:14 - 00:21:48:01
Josh Christian: I mean, it's terrible that this is happening. People know about this. They want to have energy backup. Solar is great. And if you're on the grid, either way, what happens when the power goes out? Is there a way to manage that power that you have in those batteries, or manage your generator so you can extend if the power is out for extended periods of time, can you smart, smartly manage those loads in the house and do what was called load shedding to keep the vital circuit still going?
00:21:48:02 - 00:22:19:15
Josh Christian: And maybe some of the lesser circuits can turn off to save the battery power? That that's all reality today. So that and another trend for at least this industry is the topic of wellness. And wellness kind of encompasses a lot. But the circadian rhythm lighting, which I already told you about, but also clean air there are and this is the integrators.
00:22:19:16 - 00:22:47:04
Josh Christian: The home technology integrators are getting into this business a lot too, because they're often controlling. They're not HVAC people. You still have your HVAC contractor, but there are technologies that the integrator will often kind of coordinate with their HVAC person. And maybe we'll be putting in more advanced air filtration systems. And then we could, through automation cycle the air in the house several times a day to clean the air of pollutants, to get fresh air in.
00:22:47:04 - 00:23:12:06
Josh Christian: So the air quality in the house is is as good as it can be. Covid made this a big thing, right? We all got instantly aware of air quality and germs and bacteria and viruses and and particles in the air. And this is your clients may be interested in this. Maybe not, but it's something to be aware of and it's something that you could get in front of that, that conversation.
00:23:12:07 - 00:23:38:09
Josh Christian: So things don't come up later in the process when it gets too expensive or impossible to to bring it in clean water. Before I go any further on that, I want to. Mike, if you can launch a poll, there's a poll question that I want to just kind of take the temperature of those that are here tuned in.
00:23:38:09 - 00:24:04:09
Josh Christian: And this is a please describe your current situation in handling your projects technology needs. Just want to be really helpful for me to get a handle on your experience and what you found. We're going to do just two polls, this one here at the beginning and then later on in the end.
00:24:04:11 - 00:24:15:29
Josh Christian: So for all of you, those that are doing that, thank you very much. Just a couple ones. This is a multi select so you can select more of them than one.
00:24:16:01 - 00:24:45:25
Josh Christian: And let me give you 10s to do that please. And then we'll we'll move on and I'll go back to the slides. Let's call it. All right. Thank you. So I listed some of these different technologies but there's more. So here's how to make this easy. There's a one page. You don't have to scan this right now unless you're really Ansi because you're going to get this email to you.
00:24:45:25 - 00:25:02:00
Josh Christian: This is a PDF. And I think you can see big enough. I was going to go to our website and show you, but I think it's coming through pretty well on the full screen here. And what this is, this is a one page PDF. You could, you know, email it to a client, you could put it in your iPad and fill it out.
00:25:02:00 - 00:25:24:09
Josh Christian: But here's what this is for. And this by the way, I wish I could say we are geniuses and came up with this because we're so smart. No. I also work with the NB National Association Home Builders on their custom builder work group, and they requested such a document because they said, Josh, you talk about all these things integrators do, but we get in front of a client, we forget it all.
00:25:24:11 - 00:25:47:12
Josh Christian: Here's a cheat sheet that you could hand to your client, and you do this early on in the project. And this really is kind of covering your butt, so to speak, because now what you do is you hand this form to your client, say, hey, it's my job as your builder. Again, if you're an architect, use this to or interior designer, any of you on the on the call as well.
00:25:47:14 - 00:26:06:03
Josh Christian: You're doing your due diligence with your client. You're looking out for their best interest to say, you know, as your builder or your architect, the technology systems that you, mayor, you may want your home could affect very much the design and layout of the home and how the home is built. So I need to look out for your needs.
00:26:06:03 - 00:26:23:02
Josh Christian: I need to know what things are interested in. You don't have to be an expert at any of this. You just have to have them check off those boxes and then you hand it to a professional. We'll get into what type professional that is and let them come back to you with the needs of that client and help out.
00:26:23:02 - 00:26:51:29
Josh Christian: But this is really going to save tons and tons and tons of time change orders. Frustration. This is a massive solution. Is this one page document that thanks builders you asked for and we listened and created this for you. So a huge thing. You'll love it. So we talked about technology talking about what technology there are who should put this in.
00:26:52:02 - 00:27:24:17
Josh Christian: So you've heard me use the term technology integrator or technology installer. I'm using those two synonymously. And who is this. You might have referred to them as the AV guys or the low voltage guys. But from what you've already heard you can see the term integrator makes more sense. They're integrating different technologies. It's not just audio video, audio, video is a portion of only what they do the security, the wellness, the access control, that kind of stuff.
00:27:24:22 - 00:28:03:03
Josh Christian: Home automation. Right. So they are specialists in all things low voltage. And it's a full time job for them to keep up on top of all those different things on that checklist. But that's what the good integrators do. They focus on those things. And what's in it for you to work with a person like this is because you saw from all those services, you've got one point of contact for all of that technology now, not to call the security company and the shade company and the lighting company and the audio video company, they're all these different contractors that might not evolve in communicating.
00:28:03:03 - 00:28:26:07
Josh Christian: Well, you have one person that kind of handles and manages all that and make sure all the products operate with each other and compatible with each other. So it makes your job easier for aftercare services as well. And importantly, we're going to get into this little more detail later, but I'm just making a bullet point here. Importantly, they also coordinate with the related trades.
00:28:26:13 - 00:28:55:07
Josh Christian: So kind of takes a little burden off you that they will work with and share their needs back with the framer, the electrician and the HVAC contractor. They'll share it back. There needs to be on. So make sure there's coordination and all the there's if getting that done early leads to no change orders later on with those trades, because you've talked early enough and you know each other's needs.
00:28:55:10 - 00:29:17:01
Josh Christian: So this is what a technology integrator is. And as I describe this to you, you might hopefully you know, Mike, I don't know if you can bring that pull up. If there is I don't know if there's a way to show it. If not, no big deal. Oh, here we go. Hey. Wow. I'm shocked to see 86% already work with a great technology installer.
00:29:17:02 - 00:29:46:00
Josh Christian: That's pretty high. That's good. But 14% have found the technology systems cause change orders and unreliable and professional. So that this is. Of all the polls I've seen, this is the highest audience that has a good technology installer. So good for you. Maybe as we go through this today and we still hopefully learn some things that will help with your projects or as we go through what the best technology integrators do.
00:29:46:00 - 00:30:21:11
Josh Christian: If you see a lack in any of that, of what we're going to get into, know that there are some amazing integrators out there that live up to this promise, and even more so, this is the recommended choice for you that your single point of contact, the handle the technology needs there. Your wingman. They with a good relationship that you have with them takes the stress and the burden off of you, of having to feel like you need to keep up with all this technology as it's ever evolving.
00:30:21:11 - 00:30:41:11
Josh Christian: You've got too much on your plate to build a home. There's so many things as the builder you need to to know about, right? And technology is just one little slice of that big pie. And why I say this when I joined that technology group a few years ago, these are custom home builders, which is the wheelhouse that we're talking about here.
00:30:41:14 - 00:31:02:22
Josh Christian: Our first group phone call with them. They're asking very minutia questions like run Cat six or run fiber wires. Is it okay to use Wi-Fi cameras or wired cameras? And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are you so in the weeds with this? And that's that's minutia. Now, that's what your technology integrator would be, that person that you're leaning on for that you don't have to know all of that.
00:31:02:23 - 00:31:28:05
Josh Christian: Let your integrator be your wingman and they will make you look good. They'll explain these technologies to your client and to you in the easy way, so you don't have to feel like you need to know it all. So it's part of this and make it easy for you. So what are the other options out there? You got this professional special technology talking about.
00:31:28:05 - 00:31:49:17
Josh Christian: But what are the options. Well, some of the technology companies out there, especially in the DIY market, are are telling you, the builders, that you don't even need to bring an integrator. You could do this with some of your own staff that you could put in some basic systems on your own. Well, maybe you can, depending on the type of homes you build.
00:31:49:17 - 00:32:18:11
Josh Christian: If you're doing custom luxury homes, definitely you don't want to do this. But even if you're doing more basic homes, you know, smaller homes with lower tech needs. Think about this. The brochure, the marketing hype on a lot of the products out there don't live up. The reality doesn't live up to the hype of what this product does, and who it talks to, and how easy it is to configure and how reliable it is.
00:32:18:11 - 00:32:37:18
Josh Christian: And the people in this industry are industry are used to getting phone calls at all crazy hours about things not working. Do you want to be that person when the lights don't come on at 9:00 at night? Because I'll be out there tomorrow is often an answer they don't want to hear, so just be careful because I want to.
00:32:37:20 - 00:33:01:24
Josh Christian: I've been at the International Builder show as an instructor the last two years, and have seen how some of these more entry level, DIY based companies are, I think, doing a disservice to you because they're making it seem so simple that anybody can do it. And if you're really into the DIY stuff and you're really into tech yourself, yeah, you might be able to, but do you want to be the one servicing your client?
00:33:01:25 - 00:33:24:19
Josh Christian: Just something to think about. Alarm companies now are increasingly getting into this smart home space. So their key core business is all ARM systems. But now they're getting into some basic lighting and some basic climate control and things like that. So if you're doing track homes, low rent, smaller homes, smaller price point, maybe some of that stuff might be okay.
00:33:24:20 - 00:33:51:06
Josh Christian: But if you're doing custom luxury homes, which is, again, what we're kind of mainly talking about today, high performance homes, both systems are quite limited and their ecosystems very small. They play with a very, very small group of components not best in class lighting, best in class, HVAC, best in class. And that's a very, very small thing. Electricians, most of them are electricians.
00:33:51:06 - 00:34:17:00
Josh Christian: They're high voltage. Some of them dabble in low voltage. And that's dangerous because it's a different specialty. But if you're working with electrician that has a separate low voltage dedicated team, that's that could be okay. And it's usually separate staff. It's not the jack of all trades electrician, the voltage guy. It is a division of that electrical company.
00:34:17:03 - 00:34:47:06
Josh Christian: You electricians over the years of starting bringing in low voltage companies and now the low voltage in this space to bring electrical in because it's just starting to happen, especially lighting is kind of bringing the two together because now home technology integrators are are often the front line for the more advanced lighting fixtures in the ceiling. And low voltage guys, obviously, because low voltage are not licensed to put in high voltage lighting fixtures.
00:34:47:06 - 00:35:15:19
Josh Christian: So some of them are just bringing in the high voltage into their companies. And they're doing this by usually acquiring an electrical firm or bringing in a licensed electrician. So just the point of this is most electricians or not this much of a specialist in the low voltage industry, that they're the best choice. But your mileage may vary depending on the skill set of your particular company.
00:35:15:19 - 00:35:39:25
Josh Christian: And we'll get into some of the skill set things to check. You got Geek Squad, things like that we hear about right at big stores like Best Buy or even Amazon has these these texts you can hire to do basic, really basic DIY stuff. You buy a ring doorbell or you get a basic Wi-Fi kind of entry level Wi-Fi system, and they have some text that could come out.
00:35:40:00 - 00:36:04:02
Josh Christian: That's okay for DIY level stuff, but that you as a builder building custom owns not the right choice. And then lastly, there's a million of these folks that seems this. This is a real picture on the screen running around Los Angeles. This is a snapshot that one of our dealers took on the back of a man SUV, Mike, around the House services.
00:36:04:02 - 00:36:28:23
Josh Christian: He's an audio video installation and handyman and a window washer. Really great to maybe hang a TV on a wall, but to design and install the breadth of what we talked about. No. So, we'll get into some of the checks and that you want to do when you're doing a background check on a company that's coming up on the next slide.
00:36:28:23 - 00:36:50:17
Josh Christian: So this is this is what we do. This is partially our list of things that we check at the Home Technology Association work. This is publicly on our website. We're getting more details. But if you do this type of background check on on a company, if someone's coming to you once your business for low voltage, great. If they're reaching out to you, great.
00:36:50:18 - 00:37:10:00
Josh Christian: Not on folks in our industry do, but make sure that they know that you're dealing with a professional. So again, you don't have to write all these down. You're going to get this in your handout. But this is this is something to know because unlike a lot of the trades like plumbers, electricians that have to have licenses for this, most states do not require a license to do this work.
00:37:10:05 - 00:37:32:09
Josh Christian: And as such, and even in states like California where I'm at, there are people that a lot of people that are doing this work without a license, and you would assume they would have that, but they don't. So make sure you're dealing with a real legit company. And these are some of those things. So running the Home Technology Association that last slide is a lot of what we do.
00:37:32:10 - 00:38:01:27
Josh Christian: This is a lot of those checks that we do. We created the first and only standard of excellence for the integration industry. Why. Because less than about 10% shouldn't say less, but it's about 10% of this industry is really performing at the level that you should expect, but ones that know how to work with you that actively, that have great project management, that are looking out for the client, the interests of your client, and not trying to sell as much stuff in the house as they can.
00:38:01:29 - 00:38:26:13
Josh Christian: So we built a standard around it. And thank you to the website. Right now there's a link to it, but this is what our home page of our website looks like. And right on the home screen is the is the definition of the standard right here. And here's something important to know as well. Not all integrators are are the same, just like all home builders aren't the same.
00:38:26:13 - 00:38:51:28
Josh Christian: You got track home builders. You've got custom home builders that are building 20, 30, 40, 50,000. In bigger square foot homes. Those builders look very different. Well, you've got technology integrators that are servicing those different markets. So that's why we have what we call foundation luxury in estate tier certified companies basically saying what type of home and complexity of project does this company specializing?
00:38:51:29 - 00:39:18:02
Josh Christian: So this is a a good thing for you to know that you have the right size company, the right qualifications of the company, the integrator you're talking to. We also should come back here. We also so we have this. If you see this logo here HTA certified, that means that the company has applied for certification by us. We've been through an extensive background check check a lot of different references.
00:39:18:02 - 00:39:40:20
Josh Christian: And if they need it, they get to wear that badge on their website. And we have a finder here at the website. So it's kind of a shortcut here. Let me show you this page. I could just put in a zip code here for Beverly Hills, and then you got all the different companies that are certified in this area.
00:39:40:22 - 00:40:08:03
Josh Christian: If you click into a profile, you'll learn a lot more details about them. The science projects they do, what their service policies are, what size projects they do, who's endorsed them, typical size of homes. They do a lot of Intel. We explore more Intel about a company than the company does on their own website, because they're trying to give you and your clients a great snapshot of who this company is and what their strong suits are.
00:40:08:04 - 00:40:31:13
Josh Christian: So this is a really great tool for you to be able to find qualified pros in your market, especially for the 14% of you that have had bad experiences so far. This is a godsend. If you're looking for someone that maybe is a little more on top of their game, if you're integrators letting you down a little bit, then this is the place you go to find some really, really good ones.
00:40:31:15 - 00:41:05:12
Josh Christian: Best and the best. So there is another logo here, and this is something we launched this year. This is something that's really this is a project and working on for years. And that is to get to create the rules of engagement between the integrator and you. You have your needs as a builder and for architects, designers on here, you have your own needs of a project and technology is part of it as we learn.
00:41:05:14 - 00:41:32:21
Josh Christian: But we want to make sure that there are integrators out there that understand how you work, that are pledging to be proactive with you, collaborative with you, respond to a phone call quickly that promise not to push product on your clients, but to be more consultative. We listened how we came up with this design partner. Thing is interview builders, architects, designers.
00:41:32:21 - 00:41:55:27
Josh Christian: Find out what are the pain points of dealing with technology people have you run into that? We build code of conduct around it and then we ask our dealers, we're not forcing you to do this, but here's the code of conduct, the rules of engagement that you should follow to be the best partner to the builders, architects, designers, would you opt in?
00:41:55:27 - 00:42:18:18
Josh Christian: And those folks that do get to wear this to design partner logo. If I go back to my website for a second and I clicked on M2 multimedia last, I'll click on this guy and next Future Home you'll see they have that logo here. These folks have opted in, which is great because that means not only are they a good integrator, but they know how to work with you in the most productive way possible.
00:42:18:18 - 00:42:38:25
Josh Christian: You'll love what that is. We're not going to get into that here. But if you want to learn more about this and how they serve your needs, then you'll see my contact information later and even a little form in this little box to to learn more about this. You'll love it. But I'm not here to do a commercial about the to here to teach you.
00:42:38:25 - 00:43:11:07
Josh Christian: So I just want to let you know though, that this exists. Here's a really big point that I want to share here, because there might be a little disconnect as I'm talking about this, maybe in the back of your mind you're saying, wait a minute. And these technology people are contractors. But you're talking about early design work. Well, it's interesting to know, maybe a new point to learn that folks in this industry, the best of them, actually, their business is a three phase business.
00:43:11:07 - 00:43:38:03
Josh Christian: They have a design and consulting phase that they do early in the project. But here's what you already know them for the installation side, that's the contracting bit. But the good ones also have a service department or at least a service policy, ongoing customer support for that client or with that client in that house for as long as they live in it, and they will update that technology, handle any glitches that will never really come up.
00:43:38:04 - 00:43:57:21
Josh Christian: Those are the folks who really want to deal with because they're not just there for the beginning. They're there for your clients serving their needs for a long, long time. So interesting to know that. So now we talk about who now how how how do you get involved? I mean, how what's the next step. So here's the best practices.
00:43:57:21 - 00:44:21:20
Josh Christian: This is a very important slide. And that that your friend is that project technology assessment form that we showed at the beginning that one page PDF use that cover yourself. Because why we have that little funky picture there. These funny looking people be thanked not blamed. If the client if you don't bring up the technology, you don't get in front of this.
00:44:21:20 - 00:44:39:07
Josh Christian: And we're back to that situation that too many people are in, the walls are getting wrapped, they want to put drywall in. And now the client goes to the friend's house and they want to do this. I want to do this. Put a home theater in. I want whatever it is. They might come back to you and go, why didn't you bring this up early?
00:44:39:08 - 00:45:03:27
Josh Christian: You know we're going to be delayed. How much it's going to cost me, how much to reframe this and get new electrical. Now put here. And it's just not a good conversation. This one form could save that. These are not in any particular order, by the way, but partnering with the qualified home technology integrator. If you haven't done that yet, do that right away and then get in.
00:45:03:29 - 00:45:32:20
Josh Christian: Here's a big point. Engage your integrator early. How early before getting framing electrical HVAC beds that might be probably is a new thought. Next slide is coming up and explain why. But this is important. This helps eliminate the change orders and delays. Now if you like to do budgeting as well and you want to budget technology, we built a really amazing technology calculator.
00:45:32:20 - 00:45:55:27
Josh Christian: I'm not going to run through it, but it's only 17 high level basic questions on our site. The or your integrator can do it, but if you want to do it, this is a screenshot on the right of what it looks like. It does not get in the weeds, does not. It's a simple just get a rough budget from really good, good stuff up to the best stuff.
00:45:56:00 - 00:46:31:19
Josh Christian: It's not accurate if the client wants to just use stuff you buy on Amazon, like ring doorbells and, you know, basic, basic stuff, this will be too high. But if you're using professionally installed, better equipment that especially custom homes are going to have, than this thing is spot on and the range will be high. Because what I like to liken it to a car, this budget calculator covers the gamut from an entry level luxury car up to the best cars out there, the most fancy ones.
00:46:31:21 - 00:46:57:00
Josh Christian: It doesn't do Toyota Corollas, you know, it doesn't do the most basic ones. It's a good car. Yes, it is, but it's not an entry level luxury car like maybe an entry level Audi, Mercedes or something like that is. So just know what its limits are. But it's a realistic installed cost budget calculator. So again you don't have to scan all of this.
00:46:57:00 - 00:47:06:01
Josh Christian: Now it's you assess it from the home page of our our website and that code will get you there to.
00:47:06:04 - 00:47:32:20
Josh Christian: So I made this. We're going to get through it in the minutia on this because I want to open up this to Q&A pretty soon. But I'm just going to share through a couple slides. And this is not exhaustive here of why it's in your best interest to engage that integrator before your electrical framing and HVAC, because these are the different things that an integrator can help design.
00:47:32:21 - 00:47:53:02
Josh Christian: And when I say design, this actually becomes like a layer, one of the sheets of drawing documents that they will be able to provide back to you, where the wires need to go, where and what, what kinds they'll find out ahead of time. Where are we going to put the equipment? And we're going to need a space to to hide this.
00:47:53:08 - 00:48:14:12
Josh Christian: Well, if we get this, if this discussion happens early on enough between the integrator and you find a great spot to make the head end for the wiring and framing, two little things that make a house look so much better. You know, a lot of people are putting in ceiling speakers in what's the shape and size of the light fixtures that are in there?
00:48:14:13 - 00:48:35:22
Josh Christian: Well, speakers now are designed to match the shape and size of those light fixtures, and they should line up so it looks like it's designed and not an afterthought. Once the speakers are placed on the plans and framer will know where those go. So it'll put framing members right where a speaker should be. The framer will also know if there's going to be motorized screens or blocking for bigger TVs to hold the weight.
00:48:35:25 - 00:49:08:24
Josh Christian: All this kind of stuff is easy to figure out early on, expensive to do later on, and also cooling requirements. You think about homes that you worked on. You probably have had the experience, which isn't too fun of what was the architect called out as just a closet, you know, general purpose closets. Now got a rack or 2 or 3 of a gear in their electronic gear, putting out heat, and you open it up and it's like a blast furnace comes out and there's no adequate cooling in there.
00:49:08:24 - 00:49:30:22
Josh Christian: And the components are sometimes unreliable because they're not designed to be run in a hot room. Little things like this that could have been figured out earlier, where the integrator tells the HVAC person. This is the cooling needs of this room. Maybe you could put an exhaust fan in here or a little mini split or something. So the components last and don't overheat.
00:49:30:24 - 00:49:57:20
Josh Christian: Electrical requirements. I get to details, conduit requirements, Wi-Fi, internet stuff. People are putting Wi-Fi out in their backyard. And just one point I'm going to make about wiring pre wiring. We're all we have Wi-Fi and wireless now and it's something that we love. But keep this in mind. Wi-Fi is there for convenience. It's not there for performance nor security.
00:49:57:22 - 00:50:23:18
Josh Christian: Any Wi-Fi system can be hacked. I mean it can be harder to hack the good ones than the bad ones, but if your client wants speed, security, reliability, especially streaming, a high resolution, high definition TV throughout the house, you're going to have wires, still can't escape wires. And even on, once you get over a 1200 square foot home, you need to have wired multiple wireless access points.
00:50:23:20 - 00:50:42:04
Josh Christian: Now, you might have heard of these things called mesh networks. You could buy them on Amazon. You probably heard that term. And that means you only have to have one of these devices wired. And then you have these other ones that kind of repeat the signal. They're like a fancy repeater. But if you look at the instructions for those, they'd still rather you hardwire those repeaters.
00:50:42:04 - 00:51:07:06
Josh Christian: So wires aren't going away. And the more advanced Wi-Fi systems coming out like Wi-Fi seven, which is due out now, they don't cover as wide of an area as the older ones do. So you might even be putting more access points in, not less, as the technology progresses because of the frequencies they're using now for Wi-Fi. Again, don't get logged in the minutia.
00:51:07:06 - 00:51:22:08
Josh Christian: What I'm talking about, I want you to just be aware of that. Your integrator is going to help you with the details. They figure this stuff out for you. Other things we already talked about is security, music, and smart home and home control. But there's a lot of things that they are going to help the project out with.
00:51:22:08 - 00:51:50:27
Josh Christian: Where does this stuff go? What's it going to look like? Where are your options for a mile to wild? This is what they are good at doing. Home theater's big thing home theater. If someone's going to have a dedicated home theater room, that is a very specialized space. That's like a whole hour discussion on that. But, you know, when it comes to acoustics, sound isolation, framing techniques, the air handlers, depending on how your client wants to get a lot of thought, needs to go into your integrator.
00:51:50:29 - 00:52:26:20
Josh Christian: The good integrator is going to help you immensely with this. Why didn't control we talked about that intercom access. And this isn't an exhaustive list, but this is what they help you with. So here's some technology fails. The picture on that right is unfortunately not doctored. You know, probably seen something like this where you've got to learn keypad, a thermostat and a light switch all sitting there where all could have been unified into a really nice, pretty looking interface for the thermostat, could even be hidden from view.
00:52:26:23 - 00:52:46:15
Josh Christian: There's there's ways to make the walls look nice. No wall acne talked about speakers that don't match up. And I've seen this on very, very, very high end custom homes in LA where I just shaking my head going. How did this happen? You know this is a multi multi-million dollar house and people were not communicating and the esthetics were a fail.
00:52:46:17 - 00:53:14:26
Josh Christian: So these are things that are happening when technology is brought up too late. So let's avoid that. So let's talk about the DIY versus hiring a pro. Of course clients have a fixed budget right. Most of them. And the client might come to let's say are you use our our technology budget calculator. It's brand agnostic. But again I told you it's it's from really good to great.
00:53:15:03 - 00:53:37:17
Josh Christian: And that might the low end of that price calculator might be just way out of reach of your client. But they want some tech. Still have them talk to your integrator and just figure out a plan, because you just want to make sure your client gets the experience they're hoping for. Maybe they can preorder the house for putting the better stuff in later on.
00:53:37:17 - 00:54:03:11
Josh Christian: That's fine, but if it's good to know the limitations of the DIY product versus the professional stuff because as I was saying, it's it's a known thing to people in this industry that the spec sheet that comes with a lot of this DIY product in the real world doesn't perform as expected. And your integrator is good at knowing what's real and what's not.
00:54:03:11 - 00:54:26:13
Josh Christian: So your client's not ultimately disappointed in the end. Or maybe they come back at you if you steer them into that that conversation. Let the integrator handle that brunt of that conversation for you. They're your friend on this, so but you can mix it not. I'm not saying all DIY level stuff is bad. So for example, you know, I've been in this industry since 1995.
00:54:26:13 - 00:54:46:16
Josh Christian: I have a Sonos music system. It's super simple to put in, and that Sonos system does integrate with the fancier stuff. And by the way, Sonos is available through the integrators directly to bring doorbell. It's a nice product. It also integrates too, because ring makes them better product to. They make some higher end stuff that integrates and plays well with the professionally installed stuff.
00:54:46:16 - 00:55:12:03
Josh Christian: So you can kind of hybrid a little DIY, basic, more entry level stuff, more with the custom installed product out there. But again, I keep referring to your integrators, your friend, because they are. They will help guide through their consultant phase and educate your client on what's out there, what it costs, and is this going to be the right need for you to meet your particular needs?
00:55:12:03 - 00:55:40:14
Josh Christian: So something good to know about. So now this is the second to almost the last slide here. We're going to open up to Q&A. Just a moment. But my goal at this point is that this is now you understand what integrators do. You understand the benefit of bringing them in early. And you understand that this doesn't have to be a burden to you, that you build a relationship.
00:55:40:16 - 00:56:05:10
Josh Christian: You got that time and effort in with a good integrator. And now you've got your friend, your your wingman or wing woman, because there's integrators that are women to, of course, that become your great design partner. They will help you with your projects. And I'm hoping that that came through and make a launch that second pull down. Mike, I would love to kind of take the temperature to see what you think now.
00:56:05:11 - 00:56:28:01
Josh Christian: Oh, before I do, hold that one second. Mike. So, I jumped ahead of myself. Let's go back. I'm going to if I meant to explain something first. If you do, if you like. This is great. I feel better about this. I'm going to get in front of the technology discussion. It's not a big deal for me. I just got to look out there for any of that sheet.
00:56:28:06 - 00:56:57:24
Josh Christian: If that's you and you're at that, we we've created something just this year. We're just kind of soft launching it now. But it's called HTA Technology Partner. This is a free designation that our association and kind of invented for you. And it's available to builders, reminders, architects and tier designers. And all it's basically saying is that, hey, I understand that technology is important and I'm going to get in front of that and I'm going to I'm going to get in front of that conversation with my client.
00:56:57:24 - 00:57:22:15
Josh Christian: I'm going to guide them and let them know that there's this menu of choices available. And I'll guide them to an integrator. And that integrator is going to coordinate with me and make my job easier. If you like that and you want to. We have this thing called HTA Technology Partner. There's coming up in the slide. There's a little on the form that you can fill out if you want more information about it.
00:57:22:15 - 00:57:42:01
Josh Christian: That form goes to me. I'll email you more about it. Again, it doesn't cost anything but why we came up with this for the builders that are proactive became a thought logo called to technology partner. If you want you can put it on your website. It links to a page on our site that explains to your prospective client.
00:57:42:04 - 00:58:04:20
Josh Christian: I understand that you that that technology is important to your home. I will help be your guide to get you to the right technology people. That's all it's saying, but it's a way to differentiate yourself because too many builders out there today and architects and designers are really ignoring the topic or not bringing it up, and there's problems that come from that.
00:58:04:22 - 00:58:26:07
Josh Christian: And pretty soon, two later this year, we're going to launch a free listing service for builders or modelers, architects, designers that are that want to put a free listing in our site that are kind of tech forward, if you're interested in that. Also, on that form, you can take a box and we'll let you know when we get ready to launch that.
00:58:26:10 - 00:58:43:01
Josh Christian: Now, Mike, I'm sorry if you could launch that poll now. Just love to see if you have a little better grasp after our discussion. That's far on what we're talking about today.
00:58:43:03 - 00:59:03:07
Josh Christian: Select one or more the multi select. So I'd love to know how you feel about this and that standard we brought up. It's kind of created for you and your clients. Some of the words got truncated there. Sorry but I think you could figure out what it was trying to say and give you a few more seconds to do that.
00:59:03:07 - 00:59:24:11
Josh Christian: And then our the next slide I'm going to bring up. It's just my contact information. Again, you don't have to do anything with it now because you're going to get the email the PDF of the slides. And then you could ask me all the questions that you want. So now let's open up to Q&A. Mike. Let's and I'm willing to stay on as long as it needs.
00:59:24:11 - 00:59:28:27
Josh Christian: So I love to hear some questions.
00:59:28:29 - 00:59:52:29
Mike Collignon: All right. Thank you sir. And I do have a couple questions of the audience. Feel free to send in your questions. Now I already put that in the chat box. One of the questions I had, Josh, was does the to get involved with either the National Electrical Code or any other kind of code development?
00:59:53:01 - 01:00:19:07
Josh Christian: No, we don't get involved with codes. There are two other associations that are in this home technology space ones, the CTA Consumer Technology Association were the ones that put on the show. That happens in Vegas in January. They and another organization called city, which is another trade association that deals. That's a trade association for the low voltage industry.
01:00:19:13 - 01:00:27:11
Josh Christian: Those two often work together, even on a state by state basis, to to deal with code issues and things like that.
01:00:27:11 - 01:00:46:01
Mike Collignon: But okay, well then and that may be the same answer or not. On this next question I had to, which was has the HTA formed any kind of partnerships or collaborations with any trade or vocational schools?
01:00:46:03 - 01:01:22:10
Josh Christian: Not on the schools on the school side yet, but there are that there's something emerging from that CD Association CDs belt. See a it stands for Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association. They are getting into workforce development. They're still kind of think in the early days of that. But the plan with that is to reach out to the vocational schools and really let them know that this industry exists and to recruit more people into it, because this industry is exploding and there is a shortage of technicians in it.
01:01:22:11 - 01:01:35:01
Josh Christian: And there's also a couple of companies. One is called Prep Tech that's going out there, and they are going to the vocational schools and kind of actively recruiting people into this industry.
01:01:35:04 - 01:01:53:21
Mike Collignon: Okay. So I guess I mean, you mentioned ring doorbell earlier. It was kind of funny because I see some popping up in the neighborhood I live in here in the Midwest. And I often wonder, you know, okay, there's people trying to do it themselves or are they reaching out to a local electrician, you know, what are they doing?
01:01:53:22 - 01:02:01:26
Mike Collignon: So what advice do you have for something is basic as hey, I just want to install this. What would you advise people on that?
01:02:01:28 - 01:02:32:08
Josh Christian: Depending on how handy you are as an individual doing something like standalone ring doorbell, that's that's really, really simple to do. I mean, I put one on my own house. It's not a contractor by any means. So if it's something that can standalone system like that, that's fine. But if you're wanting to, if you want kind of one app to run everything and you want that ring doorbell to maybe trigger other things to happen in the house to like when the doorbell rings, sound.
01:02:32:11 - 01:02:56:09
Josh Christian: You know, they make their own times, but they want another sound, come on. Or a light to flash or a light to turn on a certain color. If you want some other actions to happen that might be in the purview of of you. If you do enough research, or maybe you want to start asking your integrator for help there because they'll know what products work well with others and not so ring.
01:02:56:11 - 01:03:28:08
Josh Christian: Ring is basically a DIY product, but they came out with a line that is sold through professional integrators where they can actually hardwire the video in so ring. Right now run relies on Wi-Fi, and that's kind of a semi. You know, it's great for ease of use. Remember I said earlier Wi-Fi is there for convenience, not performance. So on the fancier ring camera, what you don't see at Best Buy, they could send the video in a hard wired way so the resolution is better, quicker and snappier.
01:03:28:09 - 01:03:52:12
Josh Christian: So it just depends. If you just want for a basic doorbell camera, they're great. The same brand works on on a little more integrated system too. And it just depends on what the scope of of what you want. Like. And I play with some of this DIY level stuff in my own home. And like I said, I see the limitations and frustrations with it because my wife is my test subject.
01:03:52:12 - 01:04:12:10
Josh Christian: I might be a little more techie tolerant than my wife is, but learning to say the commands the certain way, and why do I have to use the Google for this? But Alexa doesn't work for this. And why do I confused which one I use for which? Because they're not all compatible with each other. Not yet. That's something integrators going to know.
01:04:12:11 - 01:04:35:07
Josh Christian: They're going to know who plays well with others. And that's important to know, because there's a lot of this promises from some of the brands that they talk to everybody. But the reality is sometimes it might, but it does so in such a clunky manner, you're not in a clunky manner that the client is just going to give up and not use it, and that that's something that's going to come through.
01:04:35:07 - 01:04:50:11
Josh Christian: And a consultative phase of talking to an integrators. Like what? What's your tolerance for voice control? And, you know, what are you looking to get? Do you mind using multiple apps if you want one app to run the whole house, all that kind of stuff?
01:04:50:14 - 01:05:17:12
Mike Collignon: Well, I'm going to put the final call for questions out to our audience. But it's interesting the way your answer moved into an area that I was curious about as well, talking about it from like a big picture standpoint, if you look into your crystal ball, Josh, do you see at some point there being some sort of standardization or common language being used?
01:05:17:14 - 01:05:42:29
Mike Collignon: You know, because I think about this and I go, okay, you got a smart thermostat. Cool. You've got a ring doorbell. Great. You've got a, you know, leak detection system like a Finn or something in your house that's giving you data on your water. You get solar panels on your roof. Now you're understanding what the usage of that it is.
01:05:42:29 - 01:06:02:17
Mike Collignon: There going to be some sort of common API or something that will allow all this to talk and work together? Or is it going to be like you just described? Well, it's this for that and it's this other thing for this, and you get this list of apps or whatever. Talk, talk to me about what you see the future being there.
01:06:02:22 - 01:06:41:08
Josh Christian: Sure. So two ways to answer that on the there I kept brands out of this. But name some brands that some might be familiar with on the call. There's strong savant control for Elon. Those are four of the larger control system home smart home control systems available now in the been available for some years. Those are designed, generally speaking, to be open to all those different brands we've talked about with some exceptions, but mostly they are designed to work with best in class lighting and best in class detection.
01:06:41:08 - 01:07:15:00
Josh Christian: And their engineers and those engineers talk and they make what's called an API. So this stuff talks to the other. So that's been happening for a long time. But to to answer the second part of the question about something to be universal, there is something that's put forth. It's called matter. And like the word matter matter. And there's some big companies behind it Apple Google, Amazon I don't know them all, but you know, names that you know and they have agreed to.
01:07:15:01 - 01:07:37:17
Josh Christian: Yeah. To do this, let's let's make a protocol, a common language that our stuff will be at least basically interoperable with each other and a basic way that they all talk to each other. And some products like that are starting to hit the market now. So you might see, you know, matter enabled maybe on some spec sheet. And that's what this is referring to.
01:07:37:19 - 01:07:57:13
Josh Christian: But not every company is so but the pitfalls with that. And I think there's three pitfalls with that shouldn't say pitfalls. There's no pitfalls. It's a great idea. But three let's see what happens with it. One not everyone's throwing the name of the hat and say yay! We're all in. Like all those other companies I mentioned are kind of wait and see, because why?
01:07:57:16 - 01:08:16:18
Josh Christian: Because this has been tried before, and it's like, what? What it seems to happen like it happened here is, you know what? Let's not pay. Here's what's kind of funny. There are standards out there for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and radio frequencies that are around for years. But instead of adopting one of those, they come up with yet another one.
01:08:16:19 - 01:08:32:25
Josh Christian: So it's like, okay, we're going to invent this new format, or we should follow that. And they go, well, no, we should follow this new format and let's follow that. So matters so far seems to be one that more than, more than in the past. They're getting together and say, yeah, we're going to follow this. So that's progress.
01:08:32:29 - 01:08:57:27
Josh Christian: The skeptic in me says, this has been tried before, so let's see if that really takes on. So that can happen. But even if that does so let's say it does become a thing. If you think about this from you're a manufacturer now right. Let's say your ring or your it doesn't matter who you are, some manufacturer making some smart home product and you make multiple smart home products.
01:08:57:29 - 01:09:21:08
Josh Christian: It's in their best interest. Capitalism here to make they want all your money. They don't want to cede the. They might make security cameras around the house and they might make a doorbell camera, but they also make a Wi-Fi thing and, you know, some other smart home products they want you to buy all in their ecosystem. So from what I understand with the matter, they'll be basic interoperability.
01:09:21:08 - 01:09:46:00
Josh Christian: And I see you on the networks. This stuff starts to talk together. But if you stay with their ecosystem, then you might get these other bells and whistles that you won't get. If you make my camera talk to their other device. So it sounds like there'll be a little bit of not 100% compatibility like it. You don't have to think it through at all.
01:09:46:01 - 01:10:15:00
Josh Christian: That's my understanding of it. But we'll see how it plays out. And this is kind of like let's, you know, watch this space. But it will. The good news is the trend. And if we go back in time to 1998, when I got onto the custom side of things to now things have become more generally. Yeah, I do talk and play well with others and the prices have come down, so that's good.
01:10:15:03 - 01:10:17:12
Josh Christian: Does that answer the question for you?
01:10:17:15 - 01:10:27:25
Mike Collignon: No, I think so, I think so. And you know, it reminds me of other spaces, other industries where it's like nobody wants to go first, but everybody will go second.
01:10:27:27 - 01:10:50:20
Josh Christian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's I guess something I want to stress in into the builders on there too. It's like my home is a very modest size. It's under 2000ft². Some of the smaller DIY level stuff works fine in the home like mine, but it's not scaled. It's not meant to scaling back home at all. They're just not.
01:10:50:23 - 01:11:14:16
Josh Christian: And that. And that's why we're in integrators getting to know what works in the real world and what doesn't. And and that's what they're good at. On the consultant phase is to really get to how does the client want to live in the home. And that little one page cheat sheet is designed to do that. Okay. These are the different things available to you and that might like well what is that and how is that.
01:11:14:18 - 01:11:35:16
Josh Christian: Help me out. Don't need that. But you know, finding out and asking the questions, you really find out how the client lives and what what they expect out of their technology and how simple do they want it to use. And you know, who are the different age groups using this? You know, are you going to have guests that are going to come in and use it?
01:11:35:16 - 01:11:54:19
Josh Christian: So it has to be the super simple to use. These are all the kind of things that your integrator can help with, and then make the product recommendations based on those needs and what plays well together. So the problem is that puts in it's going to work together. That's that's the promise of a good integrator.
01:11:54:21 - 01:12:11:25
Mike Collignon: Gotcha. Well I don't see any other questions Josh. So I want to thank you very much for sharing your time and your insight with us today. And also not just that, but the slides post the webinar and the helpful information that it's going to follow to. Thank you very much, sir.
01:12:11:27 - 01:12:16:23
Josh Christian: All right. My pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time, everyone today.
01:12:16:25 - 01:12:45:20
Mike Collignon: All right. I also want to thank our audience for attending today and checking this out. Both those who are live and those who will watch this on the recording. And thank you once again to Mitsubishi Electric, Schneider Electric, Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions, Genco Solar and LP Building Solutions for their sponsorships. Now, if you like what you heard today, and this is the kind of insight and knowledge that you can expect to get in the housing 2.0 program, the series two workshops, the workshops, they're online.
01:12:45:21 - 01:12:56:17
Mike Collignon: They start on Thursday, October 19th. For more information and to register, please go to Builder Media.
01:12:56:19 - 01:12:59:09
Mike Collignon: Two.
01:12:59:11 - 01:13:20:17
Mike Collignon: And we'll also do an in-person workshop at the upcoming IBA event in Salt Lake City. Now our next webinar will be on Wednesday, July 19th oh, three weeks from now, at our usual start time of 2 p.m. eastern, we're going to be talking about utility programs that reward builders and homeowners for using clean energy. Thanks again for attending today.
01:13:20:17 - 01:13:25:03
Mike Collignon: And until next time, have a great 4th of July while staying safe and healthy. Take care.