Warranties are not exactly the topic that makes a room full of custom integrators sit up a little straighter. You know that. I know that. And, frankly, I said as much during a recent Connected Design Podcast conversation with Keith Kranepool, vice president of strategic partnerships at SureBright. But the more we got into the it, the more obvious it became that this is one of those topics that gets a lot more interesting once you get underneath the surface.
Because the real opportunity here is not just the warranty itself, which, themselves are really innovative. It’s actually more about the conversation these new programs make possible.
For years, integrators have had to sell highly customized systems while also trying to explain what happens after the install. While your client sees one experience—music in every room, a display that disappears into the architecture, lighting scenes that set the tone, a network that quietly supports the whole home, and a control system that makes it all feel simple—you, of course, see the dozens of individual products, software layers, programming decisions, labor hours, and manufacturer relationships that went into the project behind that experience.
That gap is where the conversation can get messy. And it’s also why there’s long been this pipe dream around being able to sell whole-system coverage. With the logistics sorted out and these programs now a reality, the conversation with your client and with your design and build partners just got a heck of a lot easier.
Let’s start with the homeowner. Instead of asking your client to think through protection one box at a time, you can talk about the project as one connected solution. That sounds simple, but in this business simple is often the hard part.
Instead of asking your client to think through protection one box at a time, you can talk about the project as one connected solution.
Kranepool made the point well during our conversation. If a project includes dozens of devices, asking the client to consider a warranty on each individual product becomes tedious quickly. It also misses the larger story. The client did not buy 50 unrelated products. They bought a system, and they bought the expertise of you, the integrator, who knew how to make those pieces work together.
“It is dozens and dozens of products,” Kranepool said. “It is a lot different discussion than saying, here’s one single coverage that takes care of it all.”
That’s the heart of it. A whole-system warranty gives the integrator a cleaner, more confident way to say, “We’ve thought about what happens next,” or “in the event of something going sideways.”
That assurance is impactful to the homeowner, but it may matter just as much with the builder, designer, architect, or project manager who brought you into the job in the first place. Those partners don’t want technology to become the thing that creates friction after move-in. They want the finished home to feel complete, polished, and easy to live with. They want the client to remember the experience, not the service confusion.
The last thing these partners want to have to deal with is a client calling them because something you installed stopped working how they expect it to. That reflects poorly on your work, whether it’s deserved or not, which then impacts potential future opportunities to get in with those partners. By stepping forward with whole-system coverage, you now have another way to show that you’re not simply installing equipment. Rather, you’re protecting the integrity of the experience that the entire project team helped create.
That is a much stronger conversation than telling them, “If something breaks, go find the paperwork and call the manufacturer.”
Kranepool put a sharper point on that scenario when he talked about a client with a $150,000 entertainment system. If something goes wrong, is the right answer really to send that homeowner into a manufacturer-support maze? Or is the better answer, “Let me take care of that for you,” with the integrator remaining the trusted point of contact?
The practical side of this is important, too. Kranepool described SureBright’s model as covering the hardware as well as the installer’s labor, including re-installation and even the programming time needed to get a system back to where it was before a covered issue occurred. If a display repair requires a specialist, fine. But if that repair triggers control-system work, programming updates, or a return visit from the integrator, that labor has value, and it should be treated that way.
This is one of the reasons the whole-system approach can help integrators have healthier expectation-setting conversations from the start. Service is not free just because it happens after the invoice. Truck rolls cost money. Technicians cost money. Programming time costs money. The client does not need to be buried in the operational math, but they do need to understand that the technology in their home is a living system that deserves a support plan.
Whole-system protection gives you a professional way to say that without sounding defensive, transactional, or like you’re trying to tack on a handful of random extended warranties at the end of the sale.
Speaking of “the sale.” That’s often the most difficult part, right? Nobody wants to become warranty salespeople. These new programs change the narrative in a way that you’re not having to single out, maybe, the most expensive product to try to sell a service plan. Rather, the opportunity exists now to make protection part of the total solution. In that sense, it fits naturally alongside the service, support, monitoring, and client-care programs you may already offer. Kranepool said hardware protection can “marry beautifully” with those models because the support team can help troubleshoot while the warranty covers the equipment side of the equation.
The result is a more complete story for the client and a more complete offering for the integrator.
The same logic applies to trade partners. When an integrator can walk into a builder or designer conversation and explain that the technology scope includes a clear path for long-term protection, that is a differentiator. It shows you’re thinking about the client experience well beyond the install date.
That kind of confidence travels well. The details from Nationwide Marketing Group’s Guardsman Pro AV All-In-One Protection Plan reinforce the broader point. That program, available to members of Oasys and Azione, covers residential AV projects valued up to $1 million, protects powered mechanical and electrical components for up to five years, includes parts and labor, and carries no deductibles or service fees for the customer. For integrators, the materials position the plan as a high-margin revenue stream, citing a minimum 40 percent margin on plan sales with no upfront cost to the dealer.
Those details are useful because they show how this category is being packaged for the channel: as a single proposal-friendly protection plan that supports the full project conversation rather than complicating it.
One of the reasons whole-system warranty coverage has felt like a pipe dream for the channel is that every custom project is, by definition, different. That makes it incredibly hard to package manually, and if a program creates too much extra work for the integrator, it’ll become one more good idea that never becomes habit.
But the tools are catching up. Kranepool said SureBright uses generative AI to parse an invoice or bill of materials, identify individual items, understand relative costs, and determine eligibility for coverage. The company is also working inside tools integrators already use, including Specifi, D-Tools, and Portal.io.
Reducing that friction has proven to be key for the development of the SureBright offering. If whole-system protection can live as a single line item in the proposal and flow naturally into the closeout process, then it becomes easier to explain, easier to sell, and easier to operationalize.
And that’s where the client-conversation piece really lands for me.
Custom integration, as we’ve discussed, is already a complex industry that’s difficult to explain. The homeowner doesn’t need to understand every device-level warranty, every manufacturer process, or every behind-the-scenes service variable. And same goes for your builder and designer partners. Chances are, they could care less about the process you go through once a claim comes in. They just want to know and have the peace of mind that you’re going to take care of it.
So, no, warranties may never be the sexiest topic in custom integration. But if whole-system protection makes the client conversation easier, gives design and build partners more confidence, and helps you stand behind the full experience you’re delivering, then maybe it does not need to be sexy. It just needs to make sense.
