CEDIA Expo Makes It Easy

At this year’s CEDIA Expo in Denver, there were no new blockbuster technologies or totally new products poised to take the specialty retail and custom markets in new directions. Instead, there was something just as good taking its place on the show floor, in meeting rooms and in the minds of dealers: a focus on improved product design; easier-to-use interfaces; a greater acceptance of networked, digital and converged products; and a greater drive toward selling and installing full solutions. This translated into more products that more people could actually use, which Terry vonSeggern said his customers would appreciate.

During the 23 years he’s been running TVS Electronics in Fremont, Neb., vonSeggern has never had a customer complain that the controls were too simple. As technology has opened more complex possibilities for the retailer’s customers, from distributed video to remote-access climate control, vonSeggern has been surprised at their insistence on an interface that looks more like the controls of a old cassette player.

“My older customers, the ones with more expendable income, say, ‘You better be keeping all this simple!’” vonSeggern said from the show flor. “And my younger ones, as long as they can plug their

iPods in, they’re happy.”