Tech predictions: Mike Blackman, ISE
In the December edition of Connected Home+Business, several members of the industry outline what they think will be the big movers in 2017 as far as technology is concerned. Here, ISE managing director offers his thoughts on the five biggest trends for 2017.
- Voice Command/Control
With recent developments in voice command, the days of temperamental sound-activated control systems are a relic of the not so distant past. This is an area of the AV systems integration industry that has successfully progressed from quirky gadget to a serious contender for the technology hot spot in 2017. You only need to look at the moves that big players like Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are making in this area to understand the level of impact that is possible in commercial and residential smart building solutions. I expect this to be a really vibrant category over the next 12 months.
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- Gesture
Leading on from developments in voice command, is another exciting technology: gesture recognition. This is another area that I believe will impact the AV market, particularly smart building solutions, during 2017. The gesture technology market will undoubtedly grow significantly over the next five years. This growth will be driven by its prevalence in the gaming industry but I expect there to be healthy increments in the smart building sector too. Whether or not 2017 will be the breakthrough year for gesture recognition remains to be seen, but I, and lots of other people in our industry, have a keen eye on its development.
- Intelligent Interactive Displays
Intelligent interactive displays are already changing retail environments, as retailers seize the opportunity to foster engagement and build relationships with customers in a way that wasn’t possible until recently. We’ve found that the levels of interest and investment in these sorts of AV technologies varies widely from retailer to retailer but the decision to invest or not invest in AV has little to do with the nature of the retail business and more to do with the retailer’s beliefs about technology. One thing is for sure; consumers are gravitating towards tech-savvy brands that can put forth a greater degree of personality and familiarity via intelligent interactive displays.
- Augmented and Virtual Reality
Augmented and virtual reality is an interesting one for integrators. Being able to build virtual environments has clear benefits when it comes to aligning ideas with clients, resulting in solutions that are meticulously designed. This is already having an effect within an architecture context, where virtual reality, when adopted, is helping to simulate life-like experiences and shorten approval processes. It is, perhaps, augmented reality that will give audiovisual integrators the biggest opportunities. Being able to show clients how, for example, a work or education environment will look and operate, has significant advantages. I’m interested in how this will develop during 2017 and beyond.
- Robotics
Robotics is my wildcard entry. The big IT companies, like Google and Apple, are investing heavily in robotics. We’re already seeing robots being used in education environments as learning tools. One example of that is in teaching coding to younger students, who program the actions of a robotic ball or figure using code. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg and the aforementioned actions of the IT companies would seem to support this. It’s hard to say exactly where robotics and AI will go in the future and how that will impact the AV and systems integration industry but the subject, generally, has been fascinating humans for many decades.
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