The Inside Scoop on 3 Emerging Technologies

Custom electronics technologies have evolved rapidly over the last few years. The emergence of new markets has created money-making opportunities, as well as uncertainty.

How can I get involved? Is this merely a fad? Should I just stick with what I already know?

“Technology is advancing at an accelerating pace, a pace that is counter-intuitive to human understanding, so we tend to get overwhelmed and fall back on the tried and true,” says Rich Green of Rich Green, Ink. “This approach will simply vaporize many existing home integration businesses. We've already seen this happen to a lot of our friends since the 2008 melt-down. Now what do we do?”

Green will be presenting the class, “Future Technologies - The Inside Scoop from Silicon Valley,” at EHX: The CE Pro Event in Orlando. He takes a look at three (and there are many more) technologies that will have an impact on the custom electronics industry.

Smart Management
Green believes networks will play a large role in the future of the industry.

“There are fantastic new tools for delivering labor services for what I call ‘Post Occupancy Managed Services,’” says Green. “These would include various forms of off-site system monitoring, trouble-ticket tracking, and instant, automatic invoicing.

“Most of our clients will pay any price to get our attention because they are terrified of the electronics we install for them and know darn well that those products will fail. Hey, it's consumer electronics, they all eventually break or become hopelessly outdated. The twist is to acknowledge the pace of technological change, with its built-in obsolesce, and bank on it.

“The new responsibility we have to our clients is to be there when things fail or need to be updated. Paying attention at a distance is the trick you need to scale the business. There are fantastic products from companies like ihiji, Nuage Nine, and Certified Cyber Solutions that enable our channel to look deep into a client's network and monitor its health in real time. That's a start. The real challenge is to make lots of money by providing these monitoring services.

“Networks are essential to everything we do. Therefore, they must work - every time and under all conditions. Do all of us deliver this kind of network reliability? No, not even close. We need to take networks much more seriously than we have in the past.”

Digital Home Health
Green stresses the importance of Recurring Monthly Revenue (RMR) in the digital home health market.

“The biggest opportunity facing us now, large and potentially more profitable than even energy monitoring and management, is digital home health,” said Green. “It's huge, but it's early. Now is a good time to pay attention to how this industry unfolds.

“What most people misunderstand is the pricing structure of digital home health. It's not about the gadgets at all. It's all about RMR. Many digital home health products will be commoditized for mass adoption simply to enable monthly monitoring service packages.

“It's too early to jump in right now, but there are products we can sell to get things started. GrandCare has a great suite of products that lead to RMR profits. Another is CloseBy. More are coming. The key here is to find a distributor who can aggregate the wireless health widgets that monitor blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, weight, use of medications, and so on.

“Another aspect of digital home health is PERS: personal emergency response systems. They're coming into our space too. Watch for products from companies like Visonic.”

The Cloud
Green says the cloud poses challenges for the CE industry, but there are ways to overcome them.

“Nobody really knows what the cloud is anymore,” said Green. “It's a term that is grossly overused, just like sustainability, but it's important. Bringing the cloud into the home is where the rubber hits our road.

“I was very impressed at CES with products from Iomega and D-Link, for example, which announced private cloud technologies. These are simply hard drives that automatically set up and manage VPN links to other hard drives, whether they are in the local network or somewhere out on the Internet.

“The larger challenge is managing the myriad cloud services that seem to replicate faster than bunnies. There are already too many to choose from, and it's just getting started! Cloud to Consumer (C2C) means we're gone. Bye-bye. The technical term is ‘disintermediation,’ which is the removal of the traditional middle-man, the retailer or integrator, from the buying cycle. Huge corporations are investing massive resources to get rid of us so home automation and media services stream seamlessly and without friction from their giant clouds to individual people.

“Can we somehow leverage these cloud technologies and still make money? Let's just say that our value comes from personal, trusted relationships with clients and our ability to help them sort out the options. The key service we can provide them, the heart of design, is to simplify choices. The challenge is to charge appropriately for those design services.

“The future is in your hands. Think big, act with humility, and charge for clever services like a true professional.”