Visitors couldn’t miss the return of show sponsor, HDANYWHERE’s ‘floating palace,’ which this year housed an enthusiastic team who were demonstrating the uControl App, including Alexa integration functionality.

HDANYWHERE also used the show to launch its ‘Beyond The Box’ initiative, inviting installers to become a HDA Pro and profit from its new business support tools, which include tech tools that save time and money and sales and marketing support to help find more customers.

The company was also focusing on the MHUB 4K Pro, which is optimised to do more, with less hardware with a strong choice of models and functionalities.

“This year’s EI Live! was another win-win for exhibitors and attendees,” notes HDANYWHERE’s MD, Chris Pinder.

“It’s a great advert for an industry clearly in its ascendency. We were proud to be the primary show sponsor at EI Live! this year and were impressed with the number of visitors who came to see us during the two-day show. I hope our technical showcase, our hands-on-demos and our van wrap giveaway impressed attendees as much as we think it did.

“Unarguably, the numbers suggest that this has been the best year yet in our four years of attendance as we recorded the highest interest in our products and services. As an ambitious company and a challenger brand, we must seize every opportunity to show installers, new and old, exactly what HDA has to offer and I think EI Live! is the best place to do just that.”

Distributor Alltrade took its largest ever stand and was rewarded with a constant stream of new and existing customers looking for info on brands like HDL, Ubiquiti, MaxxOne, Niles Audio and Sonos. Blustream, distributed by Alltrade, took the stand opposite and matched the stand-design to show off its range of HDbaseT solutions.

Alltrade’s managing director, Steve Simper, comments: “We had a great turnout of existing customers visiting the stand and plenty of potential new customers looking into our growing portfolio of CI products.”

Alltrade highlighted products such as HDL’s smart home platform controlling lighting, heating and  AV, networking solutions from Ubiquiti and a new range of CCTV equipment from MaxxOne. Blustream demonstrated its full range of HDbaseT components and system possibilities.

Connected Distribution in partnership with Pulse-Eight took a larger space than in previous year to highlight the brands it offers and also show some cool voice activated integration between Alexa and Pulse-Eight.

Phil Hansen, marketing director for the company, notes: “I can safely say this was our best experience yet at EI Live! Moving from a shell scheme to the dedicated Connected Distribution and Pulse-Eight Lounge was a really good move for us, allowing us to showcase more products, in more space and entertain more visitors at any one time. If the quality of the show visitor is the measure of a show, then we’ll certainly be back next year.”

Integrated security expert Lilin was showing a selection of its range and in particular the abilities of its IP-based cameras to deliver not just security, but also automation via event based reaction and recognition.

As well as creating tagged events, which can be checked later or in real-time, security tech is now delivering on its promise to become another link in the chain of automation.

Features such as number plate recognition and in the future facial recognition, are allowing connected cameras to trigger automation macros right across the property. The company also reports that it is currently working on Amazon Alexa integration.

Distributor Habitech was highlighting several key innovations including voice control via Simple Control and Amazon Alexa.

“With the team busy most of the time, Habitech had a good show,” says Jonathan Pengilley, managing director.

“We received a great response to Simple Control, it seems there’s a real appetite for IP based control solutions with enormous flexibility, but without the big costs associated with traditional control solutions. And of course, the growing popularity of App-based IoT control platforms boosted visitor interest in ancillary products like iPort’s SurfaceMount with Buttons iPad mounting system.”

Simple Control is new to the Habitech line up and takes advantage of the growing number of products with an IP address to deliver simple Wi-Fi based control.

Habitech visitors were also able to experience Trufig’s flush-installed treatment of iPort’s Surface Mount and Surface Mount with Buttons.

Alternative Sonos control was available from iPort’s Xpress Wi-Fi keypad, designed to work from the box to control key Sonos music functions like play/pause, track forward, volume control and to toggle favourites.

WyreStorm’s new HDBaseT H2X matrix line offering up to 16×16 video and integrated 48×16 Audio Matrix Switching.

“The excitement at the show has all been about this product. It’s the same video platform as the current video matrix range,” says Dave Schorah, product development manager at Wyrestorm.

“It can push HDR content to 70m. These are our first HDBaseT 4K UltraHD matrix switchers to include dedicated audio matrix switching. This is the big product launch for us this year as it has features unlike anything we’ve ever had before and in some cases, unlike any other manufacturer.”

The MX-1616-HDBT-H2X is a 16-way 4K HDR video and integrated 16×48 audio matrix, with its smaller sibling MX-1010-HDBT-H2X reducing that figure to 10-way 4K HDR video and 10×30 audio matrix.

Also on show was the brand new H2A series 4K HDR HDBaseT 4×4 Matrix + 4x PoH Receiver Kit, featuring enhanced audio connectivity for residential installations.

“We’ve had a really good reaction to it,” concludes Dave. “We’ve taken lots of orders here at the show. It appeals to integrators of high end residential or commercial projects because it removes the need for a separate audio system.”

Sun-Light Solutions gave a debut to a new range of bespoke hand blown glass chandeliers.

“The show was a great success, the new approach worked well,” exclaims Kevin Martin, managing director, Sun-Light Solutions.

“Social media worked too as new clients were looking out for us, which was great news. The reaction to the new chandeliers was absolutely perfect, and in many ways made the potential sale of the amBX controller just an enabler for the chandeliers.”

Each piece can be controlled together so that the whole chandelier is the same colour or SLS can enable a amBX experience, where things can become more expressive and colourful as well as react to music or film.