The residential electronics industry has traveled a considerable distance in a relatively short time. The trip has been an exciting one for both custom home pros and their clients. And the journey is just beginning. To get some perspective on where home electronics has come from and where it might be headed, I recently chatted with two installers who literally have grown up with the industry.
Scott Ranney, the president of Progressive Audio in Columbus, Ohio, started out 25 years ago assembling speaker kits. From there he moved into handling stereo systems, then home theater systems, and now home integration. “I learned by figuring it out,” he says. Kevin Mikelonis is similarly self-taught. Now general manager of Advanced Visual Environments in Greensboro, N.C., Mikelonis took a part-time job helping a friend install security alarm systems in 1983 while pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in business management. That led to a full-time job after graduation and eventually to his own A/V, lighting, and home integration business. “It’s all I’ve ever done,” Mikelonis says.
One of the biggest changes Ranney’s seen is that home electronic systems have become much more reliable. “They’re like an appliance now,” he says. That at least in part accounts for a change he’s seen in his clientele: They’re no longer the hobbyists he catered to when he was starting out. His clients today are high-end homeowners who want, say, the convenience of a lighting control system or the enjoyment of a whole-house A/V system, but have no desire to know how it works. The most frequent request Ranney gets from clients is, “Make it simple.” Mikelonis agrees. “My clients expect their equipment to work all the time.”
Keeping up with new products and technology is a constant job in the home electronics business. Like most CEDIA members, both pros take advantage of manufacturer training and support and CEDIA’s educational programs. Mikelonis even closes his business for five days each year so he can take his entire staff to the CEDIA Expo. Both Ranney and Mikelonis find first-hand knowledge important as well. They use their own homes as laboratories where they can see what it’s like to live with new technology before offering it to their customers.
As home electronics evolves, there will be more technical challenges to master. Ranney believes that the future of the business belongs to installers who are capable, committed to quality control, in command of their businesses, and who never stop learning. “It’s a lot like home building,” he says. “It looks easy to get into, but it’s not easy to stay in.”
Leslie Ensor
Editor, The Wired House
