Mel, Matt and I have just got back from Integrated Systems Europe, ISE. This year's event at Fira, Barcelona was the largest yet. ISE is huge; seven huge halls plus education suites, meeting and conference rooms and demo spaces. Smart home technology only occupies one hall but it's still a huge gathering of the industry.
We've not been for over a decade but as the show has become more global it offers us the best chance to meet some of our key contacts from outside the UK. The huge majority of our lighting comes from the UK but the smart home industry is dominated by players from North America. Not a lot gets the senior people across from the States; ISE does, and that makes it an ideal place to talk to the decision makers at the leading controls firms. We were also keen to have a look at the latest lighting technology and integration developments and understand what, if anything, is driving interest in lighting design in this sector.
This was one of the big draws for us and it lived up to our expectations. Lutron had a new stand. While they were showing a number of new product developments, the treatment was more experiental. One half of the stand was dedicated to an impressive demonstration of Lutron's new tunable Lumaris linear LED product with Red,Green, Blue and tunable White combined with curtains and blinds running a demo of Lutron's Natural Light Optimisation for natural daylight tracking. The judges were impressed as well; Lutron won "Best medium-sized stand" in the show's exhibitor stand awards.
The demo was slick and interesting but we'd like to have more of a play. There are a number of factors that make tunable lighting more difficult to do well outside of a tightly defined demonstration. We're currently planning a proper test bed where we can test the technology in a real-world environment. It's great to hear Lutron talking so passionately about light though.
There were various significant refinements and improvements to their shading and curtain track offerings. They're less spectacular from a consumer point of view but they'll make measuring, specifying and installing better and it's all welcome stuff; they're exciting to us but we should probably get out more.
Much more relatable were the new keypads. Lutron have launched two new ranges of keypads. Vierti which is a wireless keypad which can work with HomeWorks and the new RadioRA 3 and Aviena, an elegant toggle keypad in solid brass which we think will work really well in classical and period interiors. Aviena works with Lutron HomeWorks only. Both keypad ranges come in Lutron's signature metal finishes. There were lots of keypad designs on display across the halls but few were as elegant.
We caught up with some more specialist suppliers. Blindspace and Faradite both had stuff that we'll add to our armoury. Control4 continue to preview version 4 of their software, Savant continue to add to their blinds offering. I talked to a variety of software companies about improved data integration between our systems and those of our suppliers. The showfloor was lively and it was worth the trip.
I'd signed up for a day pass to the CEDIA education programme. There was a dedicated thread of lighting talks, courses and discussion panels. I thought it would help give us a view on the current state of understanding of lighting in the custom installation channel. It didn't because it was so poorly attended. Whether it's the cost of attendance or that the education centre is off the showfloor, the fact is that the sessions we went to had almost no attendees. CEDIA needs to look at what it's trying to do and how it tries to do it. Running sessions to empty rooms is not a good look and I think it's quite damaging to the CEDIA brand as an education provider. CEDIA does some great things, it needs to get this better.
One of the speakers working in these trying circumstances was one of our former team. Adam Kraemer-Dent ran a session on lighting design for the custom installation industry. He wasn't the only Brilliant alumni we saw. Simon Ridley, our first employee, was there with his SRND group stand along with Neil Davidson. It was good to see them both. We've been very lucky to have had some brilliant people over the years and it's great to see them and their new enterprises flourishing.
ISE is about much more than residential technology. Residential tech is one of the smallest elements there. Commercial AV, professional AV & broadcast, lighting & staging, esports all have their own halls and arenas. It's a very different world to the one in which we operate but it's fascinating to see; some of the demos were simply mind-blowing. I don't know what's going on here but it was amazing.
We'll update the site with the new developments that we're planning to use as they become available. We don't offer something that we've not put through our own tests first. We'd rather find the wrinkles in a test environment. That's a wrap for ISE 2025. I'm very glad we went.
