Spanning all eight halls of Fira de Barcelona Gran Via, ISE 2026 delivered four days of record-breaking energy, creativity, and global engagement, reinforcing its position as the world’s largest gathering for the audiovisual and systems integration community. According to show organizers, the 2026 edition welcomed more than 92,000 attendees from around the world, featured 1,751 exhibitors across 101,000 square meters of show floor space, and achieved the highest attendance figures in the event’s history.
By any metric, ISE 2026 was a milestone year. Attendance climbed steadily throughout the week, with the show recording its largest single day ever and more than 120,000 total registrations across four days. But beyond the numbers and spectacle, the most telling story of ISE 2026 emerged in the conversations CE Pro had across the show floor. Meetings with control, audio, display, networking, lighting, and infrastructure vendors revealed an industry that has moved into a more mature phase and one less focused on proving what’s possible and more concentrated on refining how systems are designed, deployed, powered, and supported over time.
ISE 2026 felt less like a show about what’s new and more like a statement about where the industry is now. The focus has shifted from innovation for its own sake to delivering stable, scalable, and design-conscious systems that align with real-world integration challenges and evolving homeowner expectations.
Here are some of our initial thoughts as we unpack from a week in Barcelona.
Luxury Home Technology Market Levels Up Design
The new T5 touchpad from ADI feature new magnetic trims and a sleek design.
The notion that smart home devices and technology detract from the aesthetic value of a luxury home is quickly becoming ridiculous. If you have interior designer, architect or builder partners who complain about “wall acne,” bring them to shows like ISE and CEDIA Expo/CIX. It seems like every major manufacturer is upping their game and releasing new premium finishes that meet that demand from interior designers and other trades.
You cannot talk about luxury experiences and the emotional impact of technology without talking about lighting, specifically Lutron’s Intelligent Lighting, which is now officially launched in EMEA. The company’s in-booth demos are so illustrative of the powerful effects of lighting (and shading) that you’ll hear some audible gasps. Lutron brought that experience to ISE yet again. The company is launching Intelligent Lighting with the help of U.K.-based Orluna, which it acquired last year. Be on the lookout for some more news about the premium Orluna line, I’m told.
Control companies such as Crestron and ADI both released new touchpads featuring a more refined design, a more intuitive user experience, and premium everything. This tracks along with both vendors releasing new designer keypads within the last year. Crestron’s new Cevo Mini remote also just feels premium when you hold it. It’s the same idea with the company’s new 80 Series touchscreens.
The touchpad from ADI, the T5, includes new magnetic trims that are designed to complement the company’s existing Lux control line for luxury lighting. Additionally, the new features being added include proximity sensing, dynamic screen savers and a Dark Mode to make the interfaces a little easier on the eyes.
Moorgen’s products like this dimmer knob feature premium materials that include some precious metals. Image/Zachary Comeau
CE Pro also discovered Moorgen, a Germany-based company that partners with renowned luxury designers to style its products, which absolutely look the part. The company makes lights, lamps, control interfaces, panels, remotes, light controls, and more. Representatives at the company’s booth tell me they’re looking to increase North American presence and are actively working on integrating with control platforms you all know based on feedback from their limited presence at CEDIA Expo/CIX last year. Materials used in products include gemstone, crystal, brass, wood, diamonds, gold (literally), and other precious metals.
Generally, my findings are that if it’s made in Europe, it looks incredible. Other companies you all know like Basalte, Bang & Olufsen, Focal Naim, Waterfall Audio, Architettura Sonora, and even some of the access control players like 2N and Doorbird. Keep bringing the heat, Europe.
We also need to shoutout Stealth Acoustics, which continues to up the game with completely hidden speakers that just keep getting better with an upgraded LineaRadiance series.
Just When You Thought Audio Vendors Couldn’t be More Innovative
There will be quite a bit of overlap here from the last section in this article, but audio companies continue to make products that look as good as they sound. Many of the same ones I mentioned there centered their booth appearances around large tower speakers and impressively sized equipment.
However, audio companies might be some of the most receptive-to-feedback vendors out there. Companies like BlueSound and NAD Electronics were showing off new designer-friendly soundbars as well as the new BluOS configuration utility designed to simplify the setup, monitoring and maintenance of BluOS systems in both residential and commercial environments.
Focal’s Mu-so Hekla is a single-unit immersive audio system designed to deliver a full 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos experience. Image/Zachary Comeau
Then there’s Focal’s Mu-so Hekla, an all-in-one immersive home-cinema and music system that combines Dolby Atmos processing, advanced acoustic engineering, and a refined industrial design. It essentially looks like a large soundbar, but it is absolutely not a soundbar, Focal representatives quickly point out. According to the company, Mu-so Hekla is designed to replace multi-component setups with a single unit capable of delivering a full 7.1.2 experience in rooms up to 430 square feet.
HARMAN’s luxury residential division also brought new innovations across the pond to ISE, including 24 new products, highlighted by some truly new products like the SCL-9 and SCL-9 lines of on-wall speakers designed for design-driven spaces where cutting into walls for in-wall speakers isn’t quite possible. The company’s ARCAM brand also made its return to loudspeakers, launching the Radia Series that includes bookshelf models, a center channel, subwoofer, and two floorstanding speakers. The speakers are designed with the ARCAM line’s signature “yellow accent down the side of them, and then, of course, the Darth Vader black esthetic,” which were the words of Jim Garrett, the company’s senior director of product strategy and planning.
AV-over-IP and Dante applications were widely on display, with companies such as SoundTube, HARMAN, and AVPro highlighting how these technologies can save integrators time and resources when deploying audio systems. While some research suggests traditional distribution systems are losing favor, Tom Devine of AVPro says demand is shifting rather than disappearing, pointing to the company’s growing success with single-room solutions. He explains that integrators can still elevate performance by adding hidden, high-power amplifiers behind the TV that pull surround sound from built-in streaming apps via eARC, eliminating the need for a traditional AVR while allowing homeowners to keep using their TV remote.
We can’t talk about AVPro without mentioning the brand-new Hyperion home theater lineup, including the APR-16 16-Channel Immersive Surround Processor. Also new in the company’s booth was the Hyperion Axis 10, a PoE-powered multi-channel eArc Dante encoder designed to decode and transmit multi-channel audio from a TV to any Dante enabled amplifier in any zone.
We can’t talk about the CI channel and audio without talking about Sonance, the architectural audio giant highlighted expanded use of its updated quad tweeter technology across architectural and outdoor speakers, improving off-axis performance and coverage with AI-assisted tuning. The company introduced the new QX in-wall speaker line, updated Wedge and outdoor models with configurable placement tuning, and debuted a new subwoofer lineup using PowerPipe technology for discreet, high-output bass.
New Video Companies Coming to the U.S.
Loewe’s Stellar OLED TVs are coming to the U.S. Image/Zachary Comeau
The U.S. market is flooded with TV manufacturers, with LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL, Hisense, and so many others jockeying for market share that it would seem futile for any new company to step in. However, some European manufacturers aren’t just any old TV companies.
Take Loewe, for example, which some of you saw at CEDIA Expo last year. The German company is officially launching in the U.S., bringing the brand’s premium OLED panels and even more premium finish options. On the design side, the TVs are framed in brushed aluminum, giving them a uniquely industrial feel, unlike some of the other luxury framing options. Additionally, the stellar 65-, 55- and 42-inch models feature a unique concrete back panel available in two finishes.
Another European display maker, ZION, is bringing its microLED solutions to the U.S. via distributor Selective Design. Designed and manufactured in Spain, ZION’s lineup includes modular indoor micro-LED displays and high-brightness outdoor LED televisions, ranging from 115 inches to 162 inches, with features such as 4K resolution, HDR support, high refresh rates, integrated audio options, and IP65-rated outdoor reliability. The company’s booth was a highlight in its area on the show floor by a rotating microLED screen that was retracted back into an enclosure that also includes audio. It’s a similar idea to Stealth Acoustics’ Extreme and Megalith outdoor displays that retract back into an enclosure, or the C-SEED TVs that fold away. These solutions bring the “wow” factor to trade show floors – or your client’s backyard.
Stay With Us for More Insights from ISE 2026
The technologies on display were no longer trying to justify their place in the home. Instead, they assumed it. What mattered at the Fira de Barcelona, instead was how well those technologies could scale, integrate, and disappear into thoughtfully designed spaces while delivering reliable, repeatable performance. For integrators, the takeaway from Barcelona was not a single breakout product, but a broader signal that the market is aligning around execution, refinement, and long-term value.
