Savant’s Madonna at Dealer Confab: Embrace the iPad

By Nancy Klosek

Savant CEO Bob Madonna, in a keynote speech at the company’s fourth annual dealer conference last week in New York City, declared that the company would fully embrace the iPad as the device to “increase our market footprint across the whole industry,” announcing that it would transition from Savant’s five-, seven-, nine- and 12-inch in-wall touch panels to iPad over the span of the next few months.

Savant’s underlying platform since its inception in 2005 has been the Apple OS, and Madonna said that “being 100 percent Apple-based is a huge asset for everyone in this room.

“The iPad is revolutionizing home automation and control,” he said. “What’s critical is that it’s technically superior, but also accepted by end users. It is redefining what users find acceptable for a user interface, and what they expect from a portable device.  It’s teaching hundreds of millions of people to use touch interfaces – and they are all potential customers.”

While the iPad is a less expensive user interface than legacy touchpanels, Madonna argued that it helps move home automation into the mainstream.  “It creates home automation opportunities in multiple locations in a home.  I don’t believe legacy panels of the past can compete – even our own. In our industry, total touch devices sold over the past 40 years were around one million. Apple has sold three million iPads in 80 days – and will have sold 51 million iPhones and a total 100 million iOS devices in four years. This industry could grow by orders of magnitude. It’s a huge opportunity, and we need to do it together. Your customers are standing in line and understand the value of the Apple brand. Take advantage of it; build this market and expand it. One hundred million devices equal one hundred million opportunities.”

Between 800 and 900 downloads for the company’s $9.99 iPad application have already occurred, he said, and since the Savant is “100 percent native on the iPad, we can take advantage of all its functionality. The speed of the system and user interactivity with it is extremely fast. We’ve created the highest performance in the industry – the fastest control system on the market.” While the app makes the iPad usable out of the box, he added, 'buttons' are configurable and other customization is possible by the integrator without having to write code – “a huge differentiator for us.”

The Conference served as a venue for the introduction of several new Savant products including HDMI and fiber extenders, new video processing modules, 18.5-inch and 24-inch ROSIE Touch TV screens; an iPod Touch in-wall dock and an in-wall dock for iPad with wired connectivity.

At the event, dealers were also given the opportunity to attend educational seminars on troubleshooting, customer satisfaction, customizing Savant’s OSD, iPad basics, and working with Savant’s TrueImage technology, which gives the client the ability for manipulation of lighting by touching lights in a “virtual” room on the screen.

After Madonna’s keynote, dealers also heard from Apple presenters, who outlined features of the company’s newly introduced Mac Mini, which plays a pivotal part in Savant installations.

For a true hands-on experience, in-wall and in-dock iPads running Savant’s application were deployed in the company’s 3,000-square-foot Residential Experience Center, which opened late last year in Lower Manhattan, and throughout the company’s newly opened 5,000-square-foot Commercial Experience Center in the same building, which dealers attending the conference toured.

The Commercial Center features a classroom, an executive boardroom, a sports bar with digital signage and a hotel suite – all outfitted with Savant systems and iPads. The commercial and residential centers share a home theater demo room that connects the two facilities.


For the full article and video from Dealerscope, click here.

Savant Systems LLC News Home