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On this week’s podcast, Blake Richetta joins us from Santa Monica, CA, where he is chairman and CEO of sonnen, the global energy storage company. Sonnen was founded in 2010, in a small town in Southern Germany, its founders driven by the desire to create a clean and affordable energy future for everyone through their sonnenBatterie. At a time when solar energy was only fed into the grid, they created a system that allows households to store and consume their self-generated energy, day and night. Today, the company, which has been a subsidiary of Shell since 2019, is a global leader in energy storage solutions with offices in Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Australia, and the US. Our guest today, whose career includes stints at Lutron and Tesla, joined sonnen six years ago as VP of sales, quickly moving up the ranks to senior vice president and now chairman and CEO. He’s here today to discuss his career, the latest energy storage developments, and the business opportunities that are available to custom integrators interested in working with sonnen (and other innovators) toward the energy transition. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, Keith Esterly joins us from his home office in Bucks County, PA, where he serves as chief learning architect for the Home Technology Specialists of America (HTSA), a leading North American trade consortium. Keith has a unique role within HTSA in that he was brought on board to help members learn fresh ideas, but specifically become better at selling and relationship science. It’s a craft that Keith honed during many years at AV giant Tweeter and then during his nine years as director of talent development at Wal-Mart (yes, Wal-Mart). His artful training techniques have become legendary within the HTSA community, so it’s a unique opportunity to learn how he got so good at what he does and what exactly he teaches to help managers and salespeople to improve in their roles. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

This week, our contributing editor Michael Heiss joins us from his home in Los Angeles to talk about the recent Consumer Electronics Show, and some of the latest TV technology developments and other smart home products that he thinks are worth knowing about. After attending CES virtually last year, Mike made it back in person to Las Vegas this year. He talks about broader TV technology trends, breaking it down brand by brand, as well as sharing observations about some the gadgets and goofiness that always makes an in-person trip to CES so unique. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

This week, Nilo Casimiron Ericsson joins us from Uppsala, Sweden, where he is a co-founder and product manager for Dirac Research. Dirac is the developer of the Dirac Live room correction system that is used by the world’s leading AV receiver and sound processor brands to correct frequency and phase distortion caused by loudspeakers and room acoustics. Around the time that this podcast is dropping, Dirac will be at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, officially unveiling Dirac Live Active Room Treatment, which is designed to address bass resonance and room decay time in home theaters and home entertainment rooms. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

This week, Scott Sullivan joins us from Novato, California, where he is president of SoundVision, the highly respected Bay Area custom integration firm that he founded back in 1998. Scott and Jeremy have crossed paths many times over the past 20 years when first he was a passionate attendee of the CEDIA Management Conference and in more recent years, a vocal participant in HTSA buying group meetings. Yet, until now, they had never really sat down and chatted about Scott’s career path, approach to running a business, or tech insights. What better way to make up for lost time than to share that conversation here on the podcast? And, you will be blown away by the revelations that Scott has about the industry and what it takes to succeed. For him, it all starts with improving the lives of clients, his employees, and all of the tradespeople and laborers they work with every day. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!  

This week, Daryl Friedman joins us from CEDIA headquarters in Fishers, IN, where he is wrapping up his first year as the association’s global president and CEO. On the day of this recording, Daryl, along members of the CEDIA board of directors and staff, hosted the association’s Annual Membership Meeting. The virtual event offered updates on CEDIA’s progress in 2022, the financial status of the organization, and goals for next year. Today, we dive into some of those same topics, find out more about Daryl’s first year at CEDIA, and the association’s proactive agenda for 2023. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

This week, Dennis Lister joins us from Philadelphia, PA, where he is president of DEL Motorized Solutions. His career began in the early 90s working in his father’s custom furniture upholstery business. In 1996, that company morphed into his current motorized blinds and automated shades custom fabrication and wholesale company. Today, he is Lutron’s top-selling shades dealer in the world. He was recently invited by Lutron president Ed Blair to serve as the featured speaker during a groundbreaking ceremony of Lutron’s recently announced 145,000 square foot shades manufacturing addition in Ashland, Virginia. Dennis’ business is a fairly unique one, as he serves as both a window shades subcontractor to custom integrators in the New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey markets, and also a manufacturer of extremely custom shade solutions to integrators throughout the U.S. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!  

This week Paul Williams joins us from Salt Lake City, UT, where he is chief product officer for Nice North America, the global manufacturer of smart home, security, and building automation solutions. Nice, which was founded in Italy by current owner Lauro Buoro in 1993, acquired Nortek Security & Control from Melrose Industries back in October of 20 21. In September of this year, the company announced that it would be sunsetting Nortek Control as a company name and absorbing several of its custom integration brands into the Nice brand. By integrating ELAN, SpeakerCraft, and Panamax into the Nice brand, the company says, they will progressively leverage their full portfolio of solutions for home and building management. Williams, who spent a lot of his career at Control4 and more recent years at Savant’s GE Lighting brand, explains the changes and talks about new products that were introduced at CEDIA Expo this fall. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

This week, Eric Harper joins us from Charlotte, NC, where he is senior vice president at Snap One, the provider of smart living products, services, and software to professional integrators. Like many on the manufacturing side of this business, Eric started his career as a custom integrator. But his switch from CI to manufacturer, back in 2001, was especially notable in that he helped launch Onkyo’s high-end Integra and Integra Research audio brands into the specialty retail and CI channels. Prior to his current 12-year-run at Snap, Eric also held marketing and product development roles at Sunfire and ELAN. In this week’s conversation, Eric reviews new product introductions from CEDIA Expo 2022, including Control4 Halo Remotes, Control4 Vibrant Lighting, the Episode Radiance Audio & Lighting System, Luma x20 Surveillance, and the Araknis AN-820 Wireless Access Point. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

This week, Chris Lehnen returns to the podcast from his home in Portland, OR, after his fairly recent hiring as business development manager, AV, for lighting manufacturer Luminii. Chris last joined us about a year ago during his time at iRoom IO, the Apple-certified manufacturer of Premium iPad Docking Solutions. On this episode, we’ll talk about what it was like taking a new role in a completely different technology category, get his take on the exciting opportunities in architectural LED lighting for the custom integration channel, and how he’s helping his company transition from commercial to residential lighting. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, Keith Cottrell joins us from New York City, where he is vice president of operations at Electronic Environments New York. Keith and Jeremy have known each other since the early 2000s when Keith was working as director of operations for Jeff Hoover at Audio Advisors in West Palm Beach, FL. Keith was pivotal in the development of CEDIA University’s Project Management Track and has worked on the commercial integration side of the business and for a security software company. Now he’s back, working as a residential integrator again, helping industry veteran Kim Michaels grow his already-successful NYC operation. Jeremy and Keith crossed paths recently at the HTSA buying group, and Jeremy suggested that they use the podcast to fill in the missing details from Keith’s career path and find out what pulled him back into the custom integration channel. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, two guests join us from Legrand AV to discuss products recently released by their company during a six-city residential roadshow and recently at CEDIA Expo 2022 in Dallas. Charlie Derk (based in Easton, PA) is general manager for Legrand Shading Systems and Vantage lighting control and Alex Weaver (based in Dallas, TX) is VP of residential CI for Legrand’s Chief, Da-Lite, Luxul, Middle Atlantic, On-Q, and Sanus brands. Jeremy was fortunate to receive a personal tour of Legrand’s CEDIA Expo booth by Alex and some of the company’s product managers last week, so a lot of this is fresh in my memory. Before it fades, we thought it would be great to have today’s two guests on to share more about their brand. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, Daniel Craig joins us from San Diego, where he is owner of Absolute AV Design. Jeremy met Daniel (the integrator, not the actor), very recently while in Southern California touring the headquarters of Nice North America. During that manufacturer visit, those in attendance were also treated to a tour of a beautiful private home on San Diego’s Coronado Island and a luxury high-rise condominium building called Pacific Gate. Both the private home and nearly all of the 215 condominium residence units feature technology that was installed and maintained by Absolute AV Design, a company that has only been in business for five years. During the tours, led by Daniel and members of the Nice team, Jeremy was impressed with Daniel’s professionalism and quality of work, and clearly his clients were as well. We thought what better way to learn more about Daniel’s story than to have him on the podcast to discuss his career, his company, and some of insights about residential and resimercial technology. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

This week, Bill Skaer returns to the podcast from his home in Dallas, TX, where he is CEO of Bill Skaer Home Theater and Technology. Bill is one of the pioneers of the custom integration industry, and he currently serves on the CEDIA trade association’s global board of directors. Bill’s dedication to the industry has earned him both a CEDIA Fellow and CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award, and he’s one of Jeremy’s favorite people in the business. We’ve asked Bill back on the podcast at a very important time of year, as we prepare for the annual CEDIA Expo convention and trade show, which, this year, is held in Bill’s home city. There’s a bit of nostalgia related to CEDIA Expo in Dallas, which we let Bill remind us about, but we also wanted to ask Bill to tell us about fun neighborhoods, restaurants, and bars in Dallas that were covered in an article published by RTT. Link to Article: https://restechtoday.com/cedia-expo-2022-guide-to-dallas-from-a-lifetime-local-and-industry-legend/ Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

Gordon Isaac joins us from Las Vegas, Nevada, where is chief marketing and strategy officer for Origin Acoustics. Gordon is the third person from his current employer to be interviewed for the podcast, but this is Gordon’s first appearance. Over the years, as he moved from Core Brands to AVAD to ProSource, Gordon and Jeremy connected quite a bit and Gordon wrote several really great articles for the magazine. The last thing he wrote for RTT was about the outdoor audio and lighting system that he’d installed in his Arizona backyard. That system, coincidentally, was from Origin Acoustics. Not too long after that, he was hired by the company. Origin has been in the trade press a lot recently, in the lead up to CEDIA Expo in Dallas. Most recently, for example, the company was named the U.S. brand manager for Bang & Olufsen in the custom channel, expanding on an architectural loudspeaker co-design partnership that began in 2016. With CEDIA Expo coming up at the end of September, we thought now would be a great time to chat with one of Origin’s newer faces to find out what brought him to his current role and what all his company has in the works. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, Clint Childress joins us from Spiceland, IN, where he was recently appointed to the newly created role of director of residential markets for Draper, the manufacturer of commercial shades, projection screens, AV lifts, and AV mounts and structures. Clint joined Draper in 2000 and has served as a window shade product specialist and green buildings coordinator. A certified LEED AP, he was most recently solar control solutions manager, where his task was to design solutions for exterior, interior, and custom shading needs. He also helped develop and coordinate shade integration controls.

On this week’s podcast, Jim Garrett joins us from Los Angeles, CA, where he is senior director of product strategy and planning for Harman Luxury Audio Group, the home of five prestigious brands — JBL Synthesis, Mark Levinson, Revel, Lexicon, and Arcam. It’s almost time for CEDIA Expo time in Dallas, where Harman Luxury Audio Group typically makes quite a splash. Many of their brand announcements are already public, but it still seemed like a great time to check in with Jim and learn more about the brand’s latest AV offerings. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, John Sciacca joins us from Myrtle Beach, SC, where he co-owner of Custom Theater and Audio. John is a very good friend and one of the most entertaining writers in the AV integration trade press. Looking back on when we last had John on the podcast, Jeremy was stunned to realize that it was almost exactly one year ago to the day that we are recording this. During that chat, more than 50 episodes ago, Jeremy not only celebrated John’s entry into the second-time guest club, but also chatted all about their plans for CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis last year. Well, one of them actually attended CEDIA Expo. For the other guy, it was all pure lies. He stayed home when the Covid Delta variant scared everyone away. This year, no matter what happens between now and then, Jeremy and John agreed to just mask up and go to Dallas anyway. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, Lee Travis joins us from Bellevue, WA, where he is owner of Wipliance, one of the nation’s top custom integration companies. Since 2006, Wipliance has been creating easy-to-use and enjoyable smart spaces in Washington, Arizona, and surrounding areas. This past July, the company acquired Huppin’s, a 114-year-old family-owned residential and commercial technology solutions provider covering Eastern Washington and North Idaho. Travis shares insights into his company, his career path, and the story of his recent corporate expansion. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

On this week’s podcast, Matt Bernath joins us from Anaheim Hills, CA, where he is owner and president of VITAL, the custom integration-centric business coaching and software company. Founded by industry veterans Paul Starkey and Steven Firzst, VITAL collaborates and guides CI business owners by using business metrics, benchmarking, best practice sharing, and business coaching to grow profitably. Although VITAL has coached more than 300 companies, it is perhaps best known for pulling together a cooperative of 15 custom integration companies, naming them the Bravas Group, helping them centralize business operations, and then negotiating their purchase to a private equity investment company. Almost exactly a year ago, our guest today moved from his role as a VITAL coach to owner and president, laying out several goals for the company. Today, we’ll get a report on year one from Matt and learn more about how he got to where he is today. Today’s episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs.  Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!