First AMXhome Dealer Breaks the Mold

Less Customization Means More Profits

There is definitely an opportunity for dealers to sell more control and make more money on the control they sell with AMXhome, Gershon says.

He adds, however, that the less tweaks dealers make to the standard program the more profitable it will be. He recommends that dealers "stay within the box as much as possible" but acknowledges that it's not in custom dealers' nature to do so.

"The best way to stay profitable is to stay within the parameters. It's a pretty wide box, but there are limitations to it," Gershon says, and "there are opportunities to step outside the box."

That's why AMX requires that AMXhome dealers have a level one AMX programmer on board (or access to a third-party one).

The tweaks that Elite requested are a good example. Gibson explains that Elite has been "wildly successful" selling and installing Niles' ICS audio systems.

"There weren't any modules to the best of my knowledge written to control that particular product," he says.

"So we were kind of separating it. If we were doing a home with a whole-house audio system with Niles, we weren't really putting a control system on top of that other than basic RF remotes and what have you that come from Niles."

Elite asked AMX to help them overcome this issue with a slightly customized version of AMXhome.

"They've written a module for us that's going to allow us to do a full Niles whole-house audio system and control it with AMXhome on top of it -- and get two-way feedback, metadata, album art and all the things that were missing," Gibson says.

Mable adds that Elite asked for some other additions, too. Having a large-scale show house probably led it to push the envelope in terms of how it hopes to demonstrate AMXhome.

For instance, it wants to include music control, video control, Lutron lighting scenes and motorized window treatments into the demonstrations. "That takes some extra time," Mable says.

Normally, Gershon says, "the goal is only to take up a day."

He adds that "this is a unique experience because we are doing the showroom. We want to make sure it's set up in the manner that these guys need to be able to showcase what it is that they do."