The Role of Power and Energy Automation in Commercial and Residential Technology

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pro AV today. Excited to continue a conversation that I had, with my next guest, Joe Piccker, really, that we had on his show. Thought that we were having such a good conversation that we would bring it over to Pro AV today, but talk a little bit more about the integration side of things. To talk about the electrician and even this new idea of, of what I would call an electrical integrator, an energy integrator, especially when you look at residential and commercial applications. So Joe. We're excited to have you back on. Welcome back to the show, and, looking forward to having a good conversation with you today. Ben, thank you for inviting me on to your show. I, you know, we had such a good conversation last time. I'm really looking forward to see what direction we'll take this one. This is great. Well, look, I I think that's a good place for us to start, right, is is I wanna add you about this idea. So one of the things that you and I had a chance to talk about after the show last time was, kind of the role of the electrician, the integrator, and how they sort of are at times warring against each other, and it's sort of unrealistic to ask the integrator to be a specialist on, solar power or power backups or things like that because their primary role is for av installations. There is some crossover there, obviously. But one of the things you brought up, as part of that conversation was the idea of what I would call energy integration. Right? And I think that's a good place for us to start because a lot of times, especially in the installations we're talking about, we're talking about higher level residential installations, even commercial installations, in many cases, there there is already a decision that's been made to hire an integrator and installer of some sort. Right? The that decision has already been made, but wanted to kinda ask, you know, you you talked to me a little bit about that energy integration world. Wanna ask, what does that look like to you? And, obviously, it's still not a perfect world or even full reality yet, but what what could something like that look like? Well, you know, it's interesting. I wanna go back a bit because remember, three decades ago, All energy came from the utility. And we were all extremely confident that the utility could meet all of our needs, and there was no need to have someone to coordinate energy input. Now fast forward, and we have a number of input sources because you still have the utility. Somewhat less reliable thanks to population gains and the demand for quality power, Then we have renewables, which are kind of interesting. You know, they it's getting power from the sun. It feels good. There are drawbacks that cloud goes by and it's limited in how do you calculate how much solar you can actually get where you are Then, of course, there is the old fashioned generator where you have one at your house. You know, there are people who are very opposed to generators because they use fossil fuels. God forbid. But it is it is an input. Then there's large scale battery backup and a another thing, and then there's power conditioning and all of those disciplines to this day has been siloed. There is the electrician who is on the utility side who sometimes sells a generator. Then there are battery backup people, and then there are renewable energy people, and then there are power conditioning people. And we're all silent. We don't talk to one another. And in many times, we're cross purposes because of self interest. So how does a person building a a facility, either commercial or a luxury residential. How do you get the honest broker? How do you get them to work in synergy so that you're getting optimal performance for any input you use. And that today, I think, is an is a role that needs to be filled. And I I I am partial because of my background, you know, that it will be filled by what we call today, custom integrators in the residential world that are going to have to expand their pallet of knowledge. But that's really what I'm talking about is is there a person today? No. There are. A few of us. I'm one of those people who spend a lot of time doing it, but we need a cadre of people. It's not. You can't have me. I'm not scalable. Well, and and and you see that. Look, I mean, we we were both at CDia. Right? You see conversations happening like that, and it it it is different year over year. Right? I mean, there's there's kind of the conversation to share that happens every year, but one of the things that seems to stick around is the idea of whether it's renewables, whether it's a whole home backup system, whether it's generators, power is the conversation that consistently happens at residential minded shows. Right? And and we talked about this on your show last time too. I'm very partial to this conversation because in Texas where I live, we, it was a couple years ago. We lost power for over a week, where I live. Right? And and, yes, it's inconvenient to have your WiFi and your AV systems go down. Right? But you start talking about power, and then you're losing critical resources. You're talking about home heating, talking about cooling, cooking, things like that. So it it's an important conversation for us to have. But I I do wanna focus a little bit more kind of on the AV side for a conversation today. And I wanna ask. Right? So set the table just a little bit. So we we've got all these new cool technologies, everything from your your traditional home theater systems, your two wire systems, all that kind of good stuff to whole home automation, HVAC, all kinds all sorts of different things. You know, how has the power consumption evolved? Are we looking at just massive increases of demand, or do we have a little bit more energy efficiency on the technology level? What what does that world look like for us? That's that's a terrific question. I'm gonna start in lighting because lighting was a hot topic for a long time. It still is. And you think about We used to use incandescent bulbs. And a hundred watt bulb, right, was a hundred watts of draw. Today, thank goodness, to when we switched to LED, you can get that same level of brightness with four watts of consumption. So all of a sudden in the world of lighting, which was a huge draw, right, that has become has become significantly less. And I mean, like, eighty percent less. A lot. So there is hope there, but what has happened is now LED bulbs and the because of their very nature, you can actually control color temperature when you put a microprocessor on an LED bulb, you can do lots of cool things. But LED bulbs are very, very sensitive to power Sags. So when all of a sudden in a storm in particular, or in Texas, you're used to this when every air conditioner in the state, in July is on the voltage drops. There is no two ways about it. And LED bulbs are particularly susceptible to those kinds of things. So the longevity is decreased. You were talking about control systems. Now a lot of residences, particularly luxury residential, have full out control systems for everything, lighting, shades, HVAC, everything in the house that's now even plumbing, actually. Everything that can be controlled is being controlled. Well, if that control system backbone goes down, then none of that works. And if even a minor interruption there becomes painful because you have to reboot everything. We were talking offline earlier in the commercial world, it's really easy to monetize those things because if you're down for you know, twelve hours or ten hours or an hour, you know how much revenue you've lost because you take in so much an hour. But in the residential world, it is really it's interesting. It's a loss of loss of time. And I consider time the single most precious commodity that any human has because we don't know how much of it we have. And if you look at it, This is somewhat off topic, but as you're as you grow in financial capability, the first thing you buy is freedom for your time, ability to choose. For instance, if you don't like cutting your lawn, the minute you can afford it, you buy somebody to cut your lawn. Because I'd rather spend my precious time doing something else. Unless you really enjoy cleaning your house, the minute I can afford it, buy somebody to do my house cleaning for me so I can do things I like. And we have many, many people, who have multiple homes, And what they find out is when because they can't, control the power in their house. Can't control outages. They go to their house in Hawaii or house in Montana, and nothing works. Well, now they have to spend a week finding people to make all that stuff work. So, you know, it is that time factor rather than I don't I make so much an hour. It's wait a minute. I have I had seven days off that I can't get back. And now I'm gonna waste them. Making my house work. Well, Joe, I I I I gotta ask though. Right? So, you know, I I I love the point that you made about commercial where, you know, you you are able to actually attribute dollar amounts to uptime. Right? You know, Obviously, time is important in the residential world, but do you see, you know, this is not a conversation about remote work by any stretch of the imagination. But do you see folks saying, hey, I'm I'm gonna put invest x y z dollars into redundancy systems backup systems because now what I'm because of remote work or whatever. Again, not a conversation. Well, I wanna have right this the second. But, you know, do you see folks actually finding ways to assign attributable value to uptime in a system. And is that something where, look, if I'm a if I'm a business owner, I can now expense something this because I'm I'm now improving my my, redundancy, resiliency at home. Is that something that you're seeing or just not even remotely at Oh, no. I you hit on a key point. We see it. I mean, without going into the remote work conversation, what has happened is people are moving towards a hybrid model. So and there are a lot of people who would like the balance to move more towards in home than in office and in order for in home to work, those systems, your network, your communication better be up and running. Otherwise, you don't get to have that home and office balance because everybody will demand that you work. You gotta be in the office. And we we do see a lot a lot more of that happening. Ultimately, I think that the trend will continue. It won't be a work at home trend, but it will be towards that hybrid model where If I need to, I can. Yeah. I work at home. So and and people are But let me be clear. I look at our sales you know, in the in the commercial world or in the residential world, you read everywhere. Oh, sales are softening, you know, where everything is softening. Yet, we're finding that people are spending more budget on power than ever before. I'm amazed at at at Rosewater. Our sales year over year doubled, and we expect them to double again because it really is people want their hoses to work. And they don't wanna suffer through power outages. So I I think that's a that's a key, contributing to our Yeah. What I I wanted to go back to a point that you've you made a second ago to about the idea of time, especially for a homeowner. We'll just call it a pure homeowner. Time being the most valuable resource. Right? And and I had this conversation with folks all the time who say, Hey, I wanna DIY my own home setup. Or I could buy this on Amazon or I could do this. And I asked them the exact same question that you said is, hey, how much do you value your time? How much do you value the maintenance you're gonna have to do on that system? How much do you you, you know, value that you're gonna have to probably in two years buy a brand new device because it might you know, it's gonna clunk out. Technology's gonna be outdated. How much do you value that versus, hiring somebody that knows what they're talking about. Right? I'm sure that's a conversation probably that you guys have on a very regular basis. But we get folks asking that question, right, especially when you start to have conversations about electricity and running new power lines and new outlets and then backups redundancy, sustainability, things like that. What would you say to somebody who's in that probably probably higher premium residential ward who says, hey, I know a lot of the technology, but, you know, is it really worth my time? Well, I am slightly biased in this direction, but I will answer the question as somebody who knows an awful lot about audio video and as somebody who knows a lot about power, I don't do it myself. And I don't do it myself because of time, my where I place the value of my knowledge, I know when somebody's done it right. And that's where, okay, that takes a few minutes for me to do it myself aside from the amount of anger at the stuff I forgot wherever I went to buy the stuff I need, and then I have to go back to buy more stuff. Your point is extremely well taken. I Don't have the time to do it well enough. I won't be as careful as the person who I'm hiring that I know is doing the job correctly. I would even with as much knowledge as I have, I would never attempt to do it myself. I I don't have the time nor the inclination to do it. So and and I think there there is value to a professional. Think about How do you keep current? The world of electronics and energy? I mean, I'm very, very focused on the energy side, and I'm continually researching because something is changing every day. When the vast array of consumer electronics and control products you put in your house, you could spend forever researching and never catch up. So I that's not how I would spend my time, you know, I would suggest that everybody look for a professional And if you have a lot of knowledge, use it to help you judge that pro. So I I typically agree with, everything that you said there. Right? Especially you know, when you start talking about things like insurance ratings and, damaging homestead, there's there's just so many things that can go wrong. Right? And you know, maybe if you're changing a wall panel or something, you might be able to do it yourself. Right? But especially when power is involved, you need to get a professional involved and You know, they're they're also to your point. They're also gonna be someone who's keeping up with a lot of those trends and someone that you can call when you say, hey, The newest x y z automation device came out. It's just something I need to look at upgrading. And with that in mind, wanted to even ask, and and then we'll kinda land the plane with this, Joe. You know, wanna ask about some of those innovations kinda coming down the pipeline. Right? The the the most head scratching question, I think that you probably get all the time. I definitely here. I'd know a lot less about the space than you do, so you probably have a better answer than I do, is the role of AI and automation in the home, especially when it comes to power, managing devices, things like that. What sorts of things should people be aware of as we step into kind of this next generation of I even hate to say the word smart home technology of just full automation. What are some of the big concerns that folks should have in mind, whether it's power consumption, whether it's device management, what are some of the things that jump out? Well, I mean, I I'm gonna segment it. You know, I I I love AI because it can take you places that you could not have imagined before, and I am not one of those people who thinks that AI is going to eliminate the need for human beings. But but, you know, when when you think about your let's think about from a power consumption point of view, power into the house. If you have, multiple inputs, if you have renewables, if you have batteries, if you have a generator and you have power conditioning, the ability for a an AI system, and it wouldn't take incredibly complicated AI, but an AI system to Since how many people are at home, what's the weather? And then say, you know, based on conditions at this moment, Most of your power should be taken from your solar. Use some excess power to keep your batteries charged because we expect clouds coming later. Maybe it can become predictive, and you wanna talk about efficient power use become predictive. And that, I think, that will be great, and I don't think that's far off. You know, it will take the role of, you know, when when a rose a rosewater product has the ability to use renewable battery and power conditioning in in our little, in our little world, we do a significant amount of control. But imagine if you could do that even broader beyond just what a rosewater does, where you become predictive, and then you add another layer. How many people are in the house at this moment? How much air conditioning or heating do I need based on the number of people or rooms they're in? All of that is perfectly predictable or the sensors are there to use AI properly on the input side. Now, they already talk about and you can already program your house for shades. That's it based on the time of day, this is the position for your shades. I think that's really where we're going to go. I think it's gonna happen much sooner and what's gonna be necessary to be prepared it's gonna be very, very robust networking. You are gonna need robust networking, and you're going to need devices. This is the big stumbling block that can communicate. Interoperability is going to be the biggest issue. You know, how do we do I have a control that says we're throttling back solar? Or do I have a control that says I'm going to give batteries priority over solar at this point, and we'll talk to your battery backup system. I need to make sure that my power conditioning is functioning because there's a storm coming. There are gonna be voltage spikes happening constantly. You know, things are gonna or it's a really hot day and the utility is just gonna sag all day. But that's where I think it's gonna go. And I think that's not just in the residential world. And we're talking a little bit about test labs, you know, medical test labs where their equipment takes twenty four hours to recalibrate. You can't afford that. And then I I think we talked about it last time. The next big residential push is going to be in home diagnostics because the only way to bend the cost curve is to get rid of test labs. To not have that interface. So if you could do a blood test at home, EKGs, you can already do at home. You know, there's lots of things you could do at home. But without a robust network and some predictability of how the network works, none of that happens. Because then televideo makes sense. So this problem's only gonna get worse, and I think AI will play a huge role in what I would describe as hardening your house against power anomalies against potential disruption of your microprocessor controlled home. That's my stand. Oh, I love it, and and it sounds like proactivity really is is the answer. Right? And even even something as simple as, you know, if I've got an energy provider down here in Dallas, you know, encore that says, hey, you get nights and weekends free. And if I have Tesla, guess what time I want my Tesla to charge. Right? So being able to have those inputs and and those, you know, those those things being able to inform, our intelligence to form our power systems, whether it's weather systems pretty pro, you know, proactive maintenance, things like that. I I I I agree with you. I I love to see how the evolution is happening, especially in home automation, and especially in power automation. I think it's gonna continue to to serve our communities for a long, long time. But I'll tell you what, Joe. I feel like we we've gotten pretty deep. What is this about an hour is where the conversation now in, everything from renewables to to battery backups to solar, to I don't know. We we talked about micro grids. I think a little bit last time too. I I I think our audience is sick and tired of hearing us. Well, you know, it's always the problem with both of us is since we both love this topic. If you get us going twenty minutes goes by, like, nothing. And then I'm worried that we get too deep in the weeds at times for people. But You know, it is an exciting topic, and I really enjoy talking about it. Well, Joe, I I'll give you the chance to kind of plug real quick. You know, obviously, people have questions, maybe wanna learn more about Rosewater. How can people get in contact with you? Please, anytime you have any questions at all, my email address is is Joe Pic, JOE, PIC, and I people yell at me for having that as mine, but I've had it since the internet was invented. And it's joe pig at rosewaterenergy dot com. I always love answering questions. So just drop me an email, and I'm one of those people who will actually answer them. So I would look forward to doing it. Well, love it, Joe. I appreciate you for coming on the show. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Pickarilly, the, the, the sage of renewables and power and all sorts of things happening in, in energy these days. Joe, we appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Ben. Look forward to seeing you again. Absolutely. And thank you all for tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe and check us out next time on ProAV today.