Lifeware Pulls out of AVAD, Sells Direct to Dealer

I think Control4 would be surprised to know that they’re distributed by AVAD…

Don’t see it here: http://us.avad.com/Profile/Brands.aspx

ooooooops. I have no idea where that came from. Sorry.

Like this announcement is any great surprise.

One thing is for certain… If you CAN’T make of go of things when your product line is available for sale to almost the entire AVAD customer base some serious soul searching must be in order.

That’s the internet for you, always ready to jump on the smallest of mistakes.

Thanks, Julie.

Well, at least we can rest easy knowing that AVAD probably won’t get pregnant.

AVAD blows, this was a good opportunity for AVAD to offer value with a decent product(not great), instead they treated it like a TV.  The only reason crestron is there is because a competitor was, always chasing the market in fear of lost crumbs.

I appreciate what lifeware is trying to do.  We (OpenRemote) are trying to achieve the same degree of integration across hardware and protocols and it is no small feat.  They are trying to do it with infinite resources, we at OR are doing it through community sourcing.  Again what they have achieved is nothing to snicker at.

When I heard about them (at a AVAD launch btw) I couldn’t wrap my head around the licensing though, seemed very complicated. I bet that is part of their problem.  Open Source sort of simplifies it,  but let’s face it, if AVAD can’t popularize your offering, there is some soul searching to be done on the sales front.

Are their resources still infinite?

My relatively uninformed opinion is that Life|ware had a great initial marketing push but never offered products at a price that consumers wanted to spend. 

I know Julie loves MCE; but it has little/no impact on most integration projects.  People that want MCE are typically DIY or do not understand control systems and only call when they want something calibrated.

yeah, MCE is just what it is

however their integration of 3rd party was pretty impressive, they really threw 100 people at the semi-intractable problem of supporting open ended hardware.

I do believe that there is something there for integrators, choose the hardware independently of the panels.  This is standard in europe through open standards like KNX but close to impossible to achieve in the US. When I say “I want a panel with temperature and light control integrated in every room” almost everyone babbles something about crestron…

That is what I mean when I say I was impressed with their coverage.  However another thing I forgot to mention that took me aback was the PC panel front… huh? why a PC? tssssk…

Nah, never “loved” MCE but have always thought (still do) it had a lot to offer—especially back in the day when Msoft cared about the channel and before other streaming platforms became ubiquitous. Even so, worth looking at for the EPG and DVR.

Over the past 30 years PCA has helped launch early industry pioneers such as Niles, Xantech, DirecTV, SoundStream, Elan, Faroudja, Bryston, Sim2 and SpeakerCraft.

We also experienced failures such as Unity Motion, RCA/ProScan/Scenium, Princeton, HP and Life|ware.

Marc identified a considerable problem for integrators with Life|ware - licensing.  Confusing and expensive.

Our virtual “straw” was with a very committed dealer who despite his companies efforts, my companies efforts, and Life|wares’ L.A. based technical support person [who spent hours trouble shooting on site], could not get their demo system running properly.

A Life|ware executive instructed me to purchase a 3rd party component to solve the problem.  I ordered the component (PCA paid over $1000), delivered it to the dealer and it still didn’t work.

The dealer bailed on Life|ware and the component could not be returned for a refund.  A second executive at Life|ware told me to return the part to Life|ware and they would issue me a check.

After a patient wait of over 6 months, Seale Moorer refused to sign off on the payment. 

I am not surprised that Control4 ate your breakfast, lunch and dinner, however not many folks like leftovers.

Paul Collins
Paul Collins Group (formerly PCA)

Yessssss!  I hate AVAD.  They take most of my margin, and offer little to no customer service in the mean time.  Their market is to small dealers that they can stick it to.  I was very disappointed when Life|ware went that route.  When I ordered Life|ware from my local AVAD branch I had to tell them how it was done (every single time).  They even went to the effort of disconnecting the the display model for whatever their stupid reasons were. (money well spent for Life|ware, hmmmm).  I know everybody loves to rag on Life|ware, but I’ve been a dealer from the beginning, and I love their product and the premise of their product.  (I do agree with others that their licensing is what has killed their success so far).  I love being able to pick my favorite lighting, audio, thermostats, etc. and then easily make it work with the system.  Paul Collins has taken a nice jab with his post above, but I’ve installed many of their systems without incident.  I’ve found that a product is only as good as the install.  Their tech support has been second to none for me, if I’ve had an issue they have someone who answers always, in which they just remotely log in and take care of it.  Media Center was a flop simply because Microsoft can’t make it work reliably, and they haven’t made it easy for third parties to integrate software.  I don’t blame them for moving away from it, it’s a tech support nightmare.  Don’t count them out, I know Life|ware still has a few tricks up their sleeves, though I’m interested to see what the licensing looks like…..........

I don’t know what planet you’re on but if you are saying that you’ve installed any of these systems without incident then you must have had magic dust…...........because every system we were involved with had problems (Even our showroom never ever work properly…..this with several Lifeware techs coming out to fix the issues we constantly were having) As far as Lifeware still having a few tricks up their sleeve .....here’s one they should exercise: leave qiuietly !

@ kerrytheirish

If you can’t get your showroom working, maybe you should just stick with hometheaters

You must have been talking to the wrong guy at AVAD .  If its pixie dust your after, they kept it in the back room, but I hate to be the one to tell you your too late, they just stopped selling it.  But if your interested, lately I’ve made a decent living fixing installs.

@mce integrator

Facts are stubborn things. 

The company kerrytheirish was associated for 17 years, was the largest Life|ware dealer in the U.S.A.  They were one of the early companies to adopt the technology and stayed with it longer than most.

They were a direct account with Exceptional Innovation and in my rep territory.  Kerry speaks the truth, EI techs could not keep that demo system running.

“A winner is big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them”. ~ John Maxwell

Paul Collins
Paul Collins Group