On Thursday, April 21, Sight & Sound Systems, featured on the August 2015 SDM cover story about working with builders, held its fourth annual event called “A Taste of Technology.” Sight & Sound President Kris Kaymanesh started the event as a way to educate builders and other customers about security, home entertainment and other home automation solutions.

The popular event — held once again at the Brazilian Steakhouse, Chima, in Tysons Corner, Va. — was attended by more than 45 builders, plus interior designers, architects, potential partners, and others. It featured booths from vendors such as Resolution Products, Nortek, Control 4, Legrand, Bose, Universal Remote Control, Schlage and many others, demonstrating everything from sound systems, to whole house vacuums, water valve sensors and connected home solutions. SDM was invited as a guest of Sight & Sound.

“Our marketing campaign has been extremely successful,” Kaymanesh wrote in an email to vendors leading up to the event. “I am sure you all know how difficult it is to get just two builders in a room let alone over 40! We strongly believe this year's event will be even better than last year.”

Attendees at the event seemed to agree that it was. Builder Shawn Foley of Foley Development Group, admitted he didn’t know much about home automation, but was definitely interested in starting to offer it and was there specifically to learn more about it.

Todd Lewis of Van Metre Homes said his company has been offering home automation as a feature in new homes for about a year. “We started with home automation mid-last year in one of our brand new developments. It seemed to do well. A lot of the market hasn’t caught up with the automation yet but we have customers who want this, who want more technology.”

What started as one development has increased to three and Lewis said the demand is “definitely there” for more. He, like is fellow builders (including K Hovnanian, Toll Brothers, regional builders such as CraftMark Homes and a number of local builders) were actively perusing all the tables around the room to learn all they could.

In addition to the food and informational booths, the event featured raffles for prizes such as 32-inch TV’s, outdoor speakers, door locks and more, as well as an off-site presentation of Atmos by Dolby, a 3D sound system for home entertainment.