Rebecca Day

Savant announced Monday the first builder deal for its Linux-based mid-market Smart series home control system. Lennar tapped Savant for Landmark, an 1,800-unit community in Doral, Fla., with homes ranging from $750,000 to $1.5 million, said J.C. Murphy, Savant executive vice president-global sales. Home sizes in the development are 2,800-3,500 square feet, Murphy told us.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Specialty audio company Lenbrook America is well into phase two of its “calculated rollout” of the Bluesound wireless multi-room audio system, but expectations are measured, particularly compared with the success of Sonos, CEO Dean Miller told us at the HTSA spring conference.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Comcast stuck out as an atypical attendee at the Home Technology Specialists of America spring conference, which attracted some 210 vendors, dealers, press and industry association members. It’s the second appearance at a custom electronics event for Comcast, which attended CEDIA Expo last fall.

The Hi-Res Audio Experience initiative, backed by CEA, audio hardware companies and labels such as Sony Music and Universal Music, hopes in the next few weeks to release the first draft “Hi-Res Audio” definition, Robert Heiblim, vice chairman of the CEA audio division, told Consumer Electronics Daily.

LAS VEGAS -- Azione Unlimited plans to have a private-label program in place in the second half of 2014, President Richard Glikes told us last week at the buying group’s spring conference. Products targeted for the program have to be the “velocity type or it wouldn’t make sense,” Glikes said.

LAS VEGAS -- Mixed messages on the high-end audio front at the Azione Unlimited spring meeting point to the challenges custom integrators face as they try to embrace a luxury hardware category. The effort is part of an Azione goal to “elevate the customer experience” and generate more profit.

LAS VEGAS -- Amid ever-dropping hardware prices and a growing number of home control competitors, Azione Unlimited is focusing on raising labor rates, said President Richard Glikes during opening comments at the buying group’s spring meeting Wednesday. Glikes called members’ labor their “most precious resource” and urged dealer members to raise rates from their current levels of 25-35 percent of total project costs. Glikes compared custom installation dealers with other trades and said, “Do you know any plumbers who don’t make money? We're going to learn how to charge for labor because the market’s going to move us there,” he said.

Q4 revenue at DTS grew 25 percent to $37.1 million, below expectations, said CEO Jon Kirchner on an earnings call Monday. Kirchner cited as drivers later-than-expected production starts on products in the mobile and gaming console categories and deeper-than-expected declines in the home-theater-in-a-box and DVD categories. He said that in 2014 the declining DVD-based category is forecast to account for less than 2 percent of business, as the connected market gains steam. Kirchner said DTS is focusing on four key growth drivers in 2014: Headphone:X, Play-Fi, streaming and Ultra HD. DTS shares closed 6.9 percent lower Tuesday at $19.75.

A 10-year-old Montpellier, France-based company with roots in 3Com Palm Computing Europe and Smartcode Technologies joined the field of hopefuls aiming for a slice of multi-room audio pie owned by Sonos in the U.S. AwoX recently launched audio products aimed at doing the same thing, but its entry-level approach combines two unlikely categories: LED lighting and audio.

The notion of using a flat panel TV as an electronic display for art masterpieces in the home goes back to the 1980s when Bill Gates wanted the functionality in his own whiz-bang home of the future. Gates founded Interactive Home Systems (now Corbis) which was going to sell that functionality to others. While Gates received patent rights for an art distribution system that would enable users to create playlists of images and play them back on electronic displays, without HDTV and broadband into the home, the pieces weren’t in place for the concept to go mainstream.