Friday’s winners, Justin Spiniolas of Spinstallation in Woodstock, IL (left) and Steven Richardson of NOLA AV in Gretna, LA.
During CEDIA 2015, URC offered cash prizes of $1,500, $1,000, and $5,000 per day to programmers who had to program an eight-zone Total Control home automation system without aid or assistance, and under the pressure of a live, noisy tradeshow audience.
“The nine separate winners, working alone without any aids or assistance, each comprehensively programmed an eight-zone system in an average time of just 6 minutes, 51 seconds,” said Cat Toomey, director of marketing at URC. “We knew it could be done, but seeing our dealers do it live and so successfully was astounding.”
Winners were chosen for fastest time to create full and comprehensive program (no corner-cutting allowed). Three winners were selected per day, and a total of $9,000 in cash prizes was paid. The shortest time was 5:43; the longest was just 7:25.
“I was really impressed with the [Accelerator] interface and how quickly it programmed the eight-zone Total Control home automation system,” said Dustin O’Berry, LA Tech Support, Baton Rouge, LA. “The first day I tried it at the show in URC’s booth, I had never seen the software before and was able to program the system in just over 11 minutes. Then today, I took it a second time, a different challenge, was able to shave off four minutes!”
O’Berry said that he is considering implementing URC into his company’s offerings after experiencing how fast it was to program.
The other winners of the challenge were:
Thursday
Winner of $1500
Jack Thompson (6:48)
Revampit AV
Scottsdale, AZ
Winner of $1000
Ryan Yeackley (7:05)
Schaeffer’s
Lincoln, NE
Winner of $500
Kevin Qualtrough (7:21)
Premier AV Integration
Langley, BC
Friday
Winner of $1500
Justin Spiniolas (5:43)
Spinstallation
Woodstock, IL
Winner of $1000
Steven Richardson (6:06)
NOLA AV
Gretna, LA
Winner of $500
James Dean (6:54)
Alamo Electronics
Cincinnati, OH
Saturday
Winner of $1500
Jonathan Spoer (6:22)
KAJON
Agoura Hills, CA
Winner of $1000
Dustin O’Berry (7:21)
LA Tech Support
Baton rouge, LA
Winner of $500
Christopher Speer (7:25)
Suntronics
Colorado Springs, CO
