A Room with a View: The Rise of Exterior AV and Automation
Integrators should be looking at their customer’s exterior spaces as an additional canvas on which to create automation and entertainment experiences. An expanded portfolio from Invision and Pulse Cinemas means you have the resources, products, and support to expand your offering.
Exterior automation and audio-visual systems have of course been around for some time. Much of the security real estate attached to a home will be on the outside and automation has been possible in areas such as gate access and garden lighting for some time. Entertainment options have also been around for a good while with speaker systems and more latterly exterior viewing options becoming more widespread.
However, as this aspect of the market has matured, there is a definite advantage to seeing your customers exterior spaces in a new light and planning and pitching just as thoroughly and imaginatively as you would for the inside.
Gardens are big business. According to a recent report in Horticulture Magazine, the amount spent on gardening products in the UK per year is expected to reach over £6.5 billion by 2025.
Away from the spend on traditional gardening equipment and products, much of the technology has evolved to match your ambition to deliver high-quality experiences for your customers, and installers can move forward safe in the knowledge that the systems they provide for the exterior of the home, will match the performance provided inside. The potential for growth here was also underlined in the 2023 Professional Smart Home Market Analysis report by CEDIA, with integrators indicating they expected this segment to be one of the biggest growth areas over the next 12 months.
Speakers Corner
Speaker systems are a great example of growth in this sector. Perhaps first developed without an eye or ear cast towards northern Europe, the UK and much of northern Europe has proved a happy hunting ground for exterior audio systems.
The Pulse Cinemas and Invision line-ups offer a wide array of choices for audio systems including design support services to ensure each project is the best it can be - a real asset for those experienced in this area or for dealers just starting out. Products from Origin Acoustics, Paradigm, and Lithe Audio provide solutions for spaces of all sizes and demands, from gentle background music all the way up to party time volume and power. Ask your sales manager for more information on any of these brands.
It’s important to note just how much money and resources are poured into improving the exterior experiences of your customers. Swimming pools and Jacuzzis are still popular but joining them more recently have been high performance exterior kitchen/BBQ spaces, heating systems as well as general spend on better landscaping and more imaginative garden layouts. It’s a trend that our sector should be taking very seriously.
The phenomenon of people spending more time at home and in particular more time in their exterior spaces began during COVID, however it is a trend that has caught on and has continued to develop in the minds of homeowners discovering new ways to enjoy their property, and different ways of spending time with the family and entertaining friends.
Because of these developments, our industry stands in a unique space able to offer customers (those who are already familiar with our services and those who are yet to discover them) something they will not have experienced before.
The good news is the teams you are already dealing with at Invision and Pulse Cinemas stand ready to support, supply, and help you create the exterior systems your customers will love. The result is of course more happy customers, more repeat business and extra ‘rooms’ to populate with life affirming experiences.