Tech Talks with Jeff: Outdoor Opportunities from the Home Show

Welcome to Tech Talks with Jeff! A blog where our Business Development Manager, Jeff Barret, sits down with our Marketing Coordinator, Aly, to discuss his latest findings and his opinions on recent news and developments. Like what you see? Want to know Jeff's opinion on something specific? Let us know! 

The Toronto Home Show is a fantastic place to find inspiration and check out the latest trends in all things home-related. That's why Jeff decided to take a gander back in March and take a look around. Here are his thoughts:

You went to the Toronto Home Show - What did you see?

I really saw a little bit of everything, but you know what caught my eye above anything else? The amount of high-end landscaping, pools, spas, decks and pergolas—things of that nature caught my attention. I guess I was expecting a little bit more of a kind of do-it-yourself space or an indoor focus, so from a spending perspective, that got my attention for sure.

So, with that in mind, where does that fit in with Aartech, and what opportunity does this present our installers?

Well, I have to admit, I went to the show with more of a perspective of just getting a better idea of what's going on in the industry. So, I looked at thermostats and automation protocols - all the different back ends. That's what gives me the advantage when I talk to our customers. 

About halfway through the show, when I noticed this [outdoor] trend, I started getting my sales brain wrapped around it and what our installers could do. 

So, how does this help our installers? The number one thing that popped into my brain was exterior lighting. With a lot of this stuff, I'll pick the Pergolas, for example - they're around $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, and many do come with some basic automation and LEDs and stuff built into them, but that's only one piece of a huge landscape project. We equate this to our multi-resident projects - if somebody is spending $100,000, a couple extra $100 to add accent lighting, safety lighting and things like that isn't a big deal. That's where my head went first.

In the larger scope of things, I think it's all about energy management and protection. Does the hot tub shut off in the middle of the winter and send an alert to the homeowner? That's where my head went. 

If that last example - power management - caught someone's eye, what specific products or brands would you suggest for that kind of project?

 I think it would depend on your experience and what your target audience is. If you're doing landscape work or you're part of a team coordinating a project like this, then I think it needs to be done on a larger scale. In that case, I think power metering, lighting, and safety control would all be part of it, but then you're also probably incorporating audio, WiFi boosters and other things. If you're an electrician and you're installing the hot tub and that's a standalone piece in the yard, for example, I'm definitely thinking lighting at the very least. 

So, in terms of brands, I would use that information to break it down. If I'm an electrician and I'm trying to get somebody, for lack of a better term, "addicted" to automation and lighting control, I might give away a simple outdoor plug—plug it into the wall receptacle, plug a striplight or patio light into it, and in 5 minutes, you're connected to Alex or Google.

From the simple side of things, that's where the addiction starts, but again, for a higher-end landscape project or somebody designing the yard, the automation would kick in with the lighting, the WiFi and things like that. So, it really does depend on what the final goal is.

To name a few other brands, TP-Link would be one that I would throw out as a simple, easy add-on. They have an exterior outdoor dimmer that's plug-and-play. Lutron is also a favourite and would lead into a higher-end system. Insteon is another one.

That's a little bit more simple lighting control, I guess you would say, and then you can get into the full automation stuff, where you're adding a hub. So you're adding a Smartsthings, a Hubitat, an Ezlo Hub or something of that kind of nature.

So, what I'm hearing is that there is a huge opportunity for installers to take advantage of more outdoor spaces.

Now, I think the low-hanging fruit is somebody like an electrician, an integrator, or somebody who's doing something and happens to be there and has an opportunity to expand their revenue.

I think for me, if I'm the sales guy here, I'm looking not so much about what I could make now - it's just about what opportunities it opens up.

One of the things you told me a little while ago about the home show is that there is quite a bit of solar energy there. Can you touch on that? 

Yeah, that caught me off guard. 

I know in Ontario, in particular, for a long time, there were a lot of rebates, and there was a lot of push and promotion to get people going on solar, and then that was all retracted, so there wasn't a huge push on solar for a while. Lately, that's been growing back, and there are a lot of electricians and solar installers that we're now offering rebates and other things. I haven't researched it a lot yet, but it does appear that some of these things are coming back, at least in the majority of the provinces in Canada. I think solar was key, and it's nice to see, to be honest, a renewable energy source. 

We [Aartech] don't play directly in the solar field. We don't sell panels or batteries or anything like that, but where we do play in the solar field is with the electricians and integration players who are installing power metering devices, high-low temperature sensors, manual shut-offs and whatnot. So if you do get a trigger, if you're concerned about being able to log in and actually shut something off, turn it back on, etc.

So, I think the solar side really caught my attention, and it was nice to see because I know the world kind of got away from it. The price was really expensive, but batteries and panels have come down in price, and hopefully, some of the government rebates are coming back as well.

What are the opportunities for installers then in the solar space?

With that in mind, looking at something like Shelly would be a good starting point. So, if you play in the solar world, Give me a call, and we can talk. You know your world better than I do, and based on that, who you're targeting, etc., I could give you some opportunities. 

But I would say, as a starting point, I would look at Leviton, specifically the Smart Load centers. If you're an electrician, the Smart Load Center is a fuse panel that gives you the ability to put a fuse that is triggered to reset and notify you when it trips with an alert, so if you've got a hot tub that shuts down in the middle of the winter, etc., users will be notified.

On the solar side, Leviton also has power metering capabilities. There's also Shelley, which is a slightly simpler solution. Rather than being a fuse panel and a fuse, Shelley is more controllers, relays, and sensors, so it gives you the ability to power meter one load line as opposed to automating the entire fuse line.

There are a few different ways there, but Shelley and Leviton would defintely be my two starting points for sure.

 Is there anything else you'd like to add to your home show experience?

I would say it was a little surprising that there weren't as many new product lines out there as maybe I was expecting. I think there are a lot of rehashes of protocols and thermostats and things like that, you know? Yes, there's matter, in theory, and a few other things coming down the pipe, but they really haven't been implemented to a high enough level to play a huge role in our world, yet.