Winning an award in the Home Theater category of the CEDIA Smart Home Awards is a huge accomplishment for an integration firm. To help increase your chances of winning, the Global Awards Chairs offer some advice on how to craft your entry. Plus, we present a look at last year’s winning entry from Cantara, along with comments from Cantara president Jason Voorhees.
Insights from the Global Awards Chairs
The Global Awards Chairs present what to consider when entering the Home Cinema category:
- Winning a Home Cinema award isn’t easy. Our biggest piece of advice is a solid engineering approach to managing compromises. There are challenges that all rooms share — geometry, doors, adjoining rooms, isolation, and, of course, audio and video. Working on a home cinema project is a lengthy process of intelligent engineering decisions and choices. Explain this to us, and you stand a chance. We look beyond the pictures and into the data. If there’s a good room in there, we’ll see it.
- Provide the requested documentation for the project, including as many photos as possible of the work performed. The judges love to see behind-the-scenes pictures and detailed documentation. Don’t skimp on this; the more the better. If you did not create the specific documentation that is requested, please try to provide a reason why it was not included. The mandatory documents are there because they should be completed on every project.
- Talk about your client discovery conversations, the project pain points, the challenges you overcame, and the success of the project. The first letter in our association’s name is there for a reason — you do Custom work, so we want to hear about it.
- Showcase projects that are unique, projects that your company is proud of, projects that your team brags about — the ones with unique features, custom work, and quality installation. The judges pick up on those types of projects and the passion in the essay questions.
- We are looking for cinema spaces that have been well-engineered to best convey the artistic intent of content creators, balanced against the apparent comfort of the space and prediction of the overall user experience (as best as we can imagine from photos and descriptions). The latter includes aspects such as seating, climate, and user controls.
Last Year’s Winning Entry from Cantara
Description: An elite Hollywood sound executive crafts a cinema of rare precision, merging professional studio performance with a warm, personal space designed for family connection.
Precede: This U.S.-based private cinema delivers a mix-stage performance in a space that still feels like home. With custom-engineered audio and seamless aesthetics, it’s an experience that’s both powerful and personal.
This was never going to be just a room with a screen. The client — a post-production executive with decades of experience in Hollywood — wanted something far more personal. For him, cinema is not just entertainment. It’s craft. It’s a memory. It’s connection.
From their first meeting, Cantara understood the brief. The goal was to create a private theater that could perform at the level of a professional mix stage, while feeling warm, intimate, and completely detached from the idea of a showroom. The space needed to transport. It needed to envelop. And it needed to let the story breathe.
The theater was planned from the outset as part of a new build, which allowed Cantara to be involved from the ground up. Acoustic isolation was crucial, especially with bedrooms above. The room was constructed as its own cocoon within the home, allowing the client to watch films at full volume late at night without disturbing the rest of the family.
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A deep, dramatic palette grounds the space visually. The starlit ceiling was non-negotiable. The screen, chosen for its clarity and flexibility, adjusts to suit different film formats. There are no visible speakers. Everything is tucked away or built in, allowing the room to speak for itself.
Midway through construction, the client asked for an upgrade to support the latest in immersive audio formats. By that stage, the ceiling had already been acoustically floated. Rather than undo the work, Cantara engineered a discreet solution, carefully integrating the new speakers without altering the acoustic performance.
Other challenges emerged — space for a larger screen had to be carved out, and the technical equipment required clever heat management. But each decision, large or small, was guided by the same question: How will this feel?
The result is a room that mirrors the client’s relationship with cinema. It’s technically refined, yet emotionally resonant. Whether playing back a film mix or sharing a classic with family, the experience is seamless and deeply personal.
Cantara didn’t just build a theater. They built a space where stories come alive in the way the filmmaker intended — and where the people watching can feel part of something bigger.
Advice from Cantara President Jason Voorhees
With deadlines approaching for the 2026 CEDIA Smart Home Awards, Jason Voorhees from Cantara reflects on his journey with the CEDIA Awards, and what makes this program so meaningful, not just for winners but for the entire smart home industry.
“Cantara entered the CEDIA Smart Home Awards for the first time in 2012, when the company was just five years old,” says Voorhees. “Since then, we have participated every other year, earning recognition across a wide range of categories — from Best Home Cinema and Best Integrated Home to Excellence in Documentation and Experience Center Innovation. Our diverse wins showcase the breadth of our expertise and the program’s ability to honor all facets of smart home integration.
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“For our team, winning these awards is more than a trophy; it’s a powerful morale booster. It’s recognition for our designers, engineers, programmers, and project managers whose precision and care elevate every project. I believe that the awards inspire teams to aim higher and take pride in their craftsmanship.”
“The entry process for the CEDIA Smart Home Awards is fantastic,” Voorhees continues. “It’s tough, with a lot of requirements, but that’s a good thing. You want to be judged well to know you’re a worthy winner. The technical rigor ensures that every submission is a true reflection of excellence. Over the years, evolving requirements like calibration documents for audio in integrated homes have pushed us to continually improve our standards and processes.
“I am enthusiastic about the recent category additions. The focus on business allows companies to be recognized for the unique challenges of running an integration company, while the Excellence in Support and Maintenance category shines a light on areas that are critical to long-term client satisfaction.”
Voorhees states: “My advice to newcomers is simple: Go all in! Give equal attention to essay questions, images, and technical documentation. It means something to win a CEDIA Smart Home Award, so do it. The program is designed to honor holistic excellence, and balanced, thoughtful entries stand out.
“Most importantly, the CEDIA Smart Home Awards inspire everyone involved in the creation of smart homes. The recognition validates the hard work and technical precision that often goes unseen and reminds teams that their efforts matter. It gives our teams something to strive for and be proud of.
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“I encourage fellow integrators to join a community that values excellence, celebrates innovation, and inspires the industry to reach new heights. The CEDIA Smart Home Awards aren’t just a marketing exercise; they are a true recognition of the best our industry has to offer.
“We’re grateful for the CEDIA Smart Home Awards, and we’re proud to be part of a community that values excellence in the way this program does.”
For more information, visit www.cedia.org/awards
