The resi buzz at ISC West

At this year's ISC West, the big theme on the residential side was the connected home, and all of the possibilities now available to dealers who are looking to provide interactive services, including some DIY options, to the homeowner.

The DMP Owners Forum, a daylong training event for dealers, included the introduction of new products and services tailored to help dealers take advantage of the connected home and DIY.

The smart-home theme continued on the ISC West show floor, as I visited residential smart home providers including Icontrol One, Alarm.com, Qolsys, 2GIG and Honeywell Security & Fire—the biggest booth at ISC West 2016 this year.

As you will see in my ISC West Roundup, many of these companies unveiled new technology, and outlined the increased support and options now available for dealers looking to provide these options to their customers.
 
After the show, I caught up with David Paja, president, Honeywell Security & Fire, to see if he was hearing the same kind of buzz at this year's show.

“For us it was probably one of the busiest shows in the past few years,” Paja said. “ISC West was very exciting for us this year as there is a lot going on in the industry right now, and I had a lot of discussions about connected homes, connected buildings, and new technology and software development in those areas.”

At the booth, Paja said the company was excited to launch its Lyric Security offering, which he said he has been talking about for over a year, but is now officially in production. “We are bringing together with Lyric our connected home offering across Honeywell, which is a family of products that cover security, safety and comfort (energy management and thermostats, for example), and the response from the marketplace has been phenomenal and the orders that we are booking are more than we anticipated.”

Paja also noted that two recent company acquisitions—RSI and Xtralis—are helping to expand Honeywell's offerings and position in 2016.

“Everything is going visual—that is what we believe in the industry,” said Paja. “Historically, alarm notifications were enough, but with visual video verification we are seeing a strong demand from end users, as well as law enforcement in an effort to manage and reduce the cost of false alarms, as well as for central monitoring stations. This big push toward visualizing the alarms and the events is a long-term trend in our view, and RSI has a unique and leading position in terms of video verification solutions, one that we did not have in the U.S.”

As these residential-focused companies reposition themselves to stay at the forefront of trends in the industry, dealers will be able to change with the times as well, and not let new technology pass them by.