Welcome to The Week in Five here on the Connected Design Podcast. I’m Rob Stott, editor-in-chief of Connected Design.
This week, five stories about the people who make connected spaces work.
Let’s start at Design Edge Midwest, where the Technology Design Collective brought CEDIA, KMB Communications, Leon Speakers, Mills Technologies, and Sonos into a room with interior designers. One of the simplest ideas on the program was a demonstration wall. It showed how a display, a recessed equipment box, an articulating mount, and speakers that look like sconces can all fit into the same design.
There’s a project lesson in that wall. Say the client wants the screen to sit flush, but the integrator needs it to swing out for service. The cabinetmaker, designer, and integrator all have something to decide while the drawings can still change. Bringing that conversation to a furnishings show puts it in front of the people who make those calls.
One of the things those teams have to find room for is the lighting panel. This week Crestron introduced an eight-channel universal switch and a four-channel universal dimmer. Crestron says the new modules can cut enclosure requirements in half compared with the older devices they replace. Installers can also commission them from the front panel without a laptop.
If you’re working on a renovation with limited utility space, a smaller enclosure can change where centralized lighting is practical. It also gives the electrician and integrator a reason to compare notes early on which circuits need switching, which need dimming, and how somebody will get to the panel when it needs service.
Finding space for the hardware is one piece. Getting the equipment to talk is another. Josh dot A I announced a Nimble DevSuite Plus update that brings in wider device support through Home Assistant and lets advanced integrators write custom drivers. That could help when a client wants to keep a device or when the design calls for a product the platform doesn’t already support.
Josh says those custom drivers run on additional hardware and are outside its certification and support. If you’re proposing a custom connection, spell out who tests it, where the documentation lives, and who gets the call if an update breaks it. That’s part of what the client is buying.
Now take that coordination problem up to the scale of a resort. Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore and Honeywell announced plans to use predictive controls in the resort’s district cooling system. One central plant supplies chilled water, and the idea is to forecast how much cooling the campus will need and decide which equipment should run and when. The project builds on connected building systems the resort deployed in twenty twenty-three.
Think of the different demands from a hotel, a busy attraction, and the public spaces between them. For a facilities team, the test is whether the plant can respond to those changes while keeping guests comfortable and using less energy. That makes the data, the controls, and the people operating the plant part of the same design brief. We’ll be looking for results as the work rolls out.
For our fifth story, AVIXA has named Marco Pardi its next CEO. He takes over from David Labuskes on January first. On the Connected Design Podcast this week, David compared succession to passing a relay baton. Timing matters as much as the handoff itself.
He also talked about putting RESIDE and Lightapalooza alongside InfoComm. He sees the shows as neighbors. Each has its own audience, and putting them next to one another gives a commercial integrator a chance to walk over and meet a residential peer they might never cross paths with otherwise. That’s one thing to watch in the first year of the shows together. Can each serve its own community well and still make those introductions happen? You can hear David’s full take in this week’s interview.
That’s our five for this week. You’ll find the source links in the episode notes and more coverage at Connected Design dot Tech. Thanks for listening to The Week in Five here on the Connected Design Podcast.
Episode Notes
1. Technology Design Collective at Design Edge Midwest — https://connecteddesign.tech/technology-design-collective-puts-collaboration-at-the-center-of-connected-spaces/
2. Crestron’s compact lighting modules — https://castercomm.com/client-newsroom/crestron-launches-two-next-generation-din-rail-lighting-modules-engineered-for-the-led-era
3. Custom drivers for Josh.ai — https://next.josh.ai/stories/joshai-expands-installer-flexibility-with-nimble-devsuite-update
4. Predictive cooling at Resorts World Sentosa — https://www.honeywell.com/us/en/news/press-releases/2026/11/resorts-world-sentosa-launches-ai-powered-sustainability-initiatives-in-partnership-with-honeywell-technologies
5. AVIXA names its next CEO — https://www.avixa.org/resources/press-releases/avixa-announces-marco-pardi-as-new-chief-executive-officer
