Savant, Casualty of Crestron-HTSA Agreement, Says It's Open to New Partnerships

High-end control company Savant was a casualty of the Home Technology Specialists of America’s decision to sign Crestron as a vendor partner (see 1803050019) this week. “Unfortunately, HTSA leadership decided not to renew their program with Savant,” Savant Executive Vice President J.C. Murphy emailed us. Savant will continue to support all Savant customers inside HTSA “and throughout the custom integration channel,” Murphy said. HTSA President Jon Robbins emailed us: “The HTSA Board reviews all Vendor programs annually and opted to not renew the Savant program.” On the decision to go with Crestron at a time when lower cost smart home systems are seeing strong growth, Robbins agreed the entry level of the category is gaining traction, “which our members are also experiencing,” but HTSA members are “still enjoying tremendous success in the high performance segment as well,” he said. “Additionally, like with a few of our other control vendor partners, we believe we are in synergy with Crestron in many initiatives, adding very strong options to our members’ assortments,” Robbins said. Savant, meanwhile, is still a vendor member of Azione Unlimited. On whether it would revisit a relationship with ProSource, after the two broke off a relationship a number of years ago, Murphy said, “We are always looking for great industry and trade associations to build our brand and support our customers." Meanwhile, responding to the HTSA-Crestron news at the ProSource Summit this week, ProSource CEO David Workman told us Crestron had walked away from groups a while ago and said, “it’s promising that they’re maybe keeping a more open mind on buying groups.” Crestron didn’t respond to questions.