The Adventures at ISE 2024
After a harried kick-off to the week, Day 2 provided even more connections. We were able to chat with Biamp, Snap One, QSYS, Legrand, and more. We went from Hall 7 to Hall 2 and everywhere in between. This show is massive, but with 800 media partners around the world, hopefully, you’re getting a good sense of the scale.
Midwich VC
Midwich announced on Tuesday the creation of a VC arm called Midwich Ignite. What makes this interesting is the levels of consolidation happening in the AV industry. Midwich being a part of those, just acquiring The Farm in the US.
The distributor is looking to invest in, and help grow, innovative audiovisual firms. When the term “VC” is associated with an AV company, it’s usually to announce that some private equity has purchased another AV mainstay. This announcement will be one to watch as now we have AV firms investing in AV firms.
Biamp Meetings
I’ve known Joe Andrulis since his days at AMX. He’s always good for a chat and industry insights. At ISE 2024 this year, the company is showing off the inclusion of Evoko. See above for mergers and acquisitions. This one makes sense to me. Much like Midwich’s VC, Biamp buying Evoko keeps it in the AV family. Biamp is leaning in hard on the hybrid work discussion. Room scheduling, hot desking, and the ability to collaborate with your team are areas where Biamp and Evoko have deep history. Andrulis indicated they had interviewed and talked with clients around the world about their needs, wants, and desires and came up with a way that IT, facilities, and employees can all get something that makes their work better.
Legrand at ISE 2024
Legrand | AV has the best coffee on the show floor at ISE. It’s been that way since I started covering the show. Not sure how they continue to find these baristas, but this coffee lover is forever grateful.
Of course, Legrand is a massive company that carries a number of brands. Here are the
highlights. Tempo mount by Chief is something we have seen at CEDIA. It’s now shipping and taking a prominent place in the stand. Sightline was Da-Lite’s answer to “can we get rid of the black drop”. Yup, you can. And now they are introducing Myriad with Sightline. Myriad is a wider screen with longer cable drops and the ability to mount either in-ceiling or wall-mounted. Middle Atlantic continues their furniture innovations with Forum Podium. As you’d expect with a Middle Atlantic product, this podium comes with rack spaces for mounting as well as useful features like power and USB charging.
Finally, Vaddio comes away from ISE 2024 with an award for their AV Bridge Nano. This little device is a half rack with a single HDMI but the inside allows you to do virtually everything a full-size AV Bridge is capable of.
Atlona serves education
Atlona has developed a new offering in their Omega line just for education. This AT-OME-CS31-SA gives classrooms a complete system in one box. The source audio can be ducked (volume lowered) if the instructor is speaking, you can feed a signal from the PA system to mute the classroom audio in case of an announcement, and it has some built-in automation.
@tdulane
NEAT
We ended our day at Neat with a couple of their new products. First, the Neat Board 50 shows off versatility and the ability to raise and lower the display depending on the needs of the meeting. Plus the new Neat Hub allows users to download apps to enhance the Neat devices. The new Neat Center is an add-on camera that gives remote participants the ability to see everyone’s bright and shining face in the meeting. Now, it’s an add-on and not a stand-alone camera. You can’t just plug this into your laptop. It needs to be attached to an existing Neat product.
One of the taglines of ISE 2024 is “Your Destination for Innovation”. While I will need to write another piece soon on that phrase, there are certainly examples of innovative AV technology around the show floor. LG showed off its Times Square 3D block display, there are several examples of transparent displays, and hybrid work is everywhere on the show floor. Check out our ISE 2024 coverage for videos and more.
