By Katye McGregor Bennett, Founder, CEO and Brand Strategist, KMB Communications
CEDIA Expo 2026 has officially left Denver, and after several days of walking, talking, moderating, interviewing, demo-watching, booth-hopping, and reconnecting with people we don’t see nearly often enough, one thing feels pretty clear:
The footprint may have felt more concentrated than the CEDIA Expo‘s longtime attendees remember, but CEDIA Expo 2026 certainly didn’t feel small.
Quite the opposite.
More than 300 brands filled the exhibit hall alongside the CEDIA Education Conference, manufacturer training, Smart Stage programming, Sound Rooms, High-Performance Audio Rooms, Destination Outdoors, awards, and plenty of opportunities to connect.
More important than square footage, though, was what was happening inside it.
AI was moving from “interesting idea” to useful business tool. Power management was increasingly being discussed as infrastructure. Networks and connectivity remained fundamental. Home cinema continued to push performance and scale. Lighting and shading became more deeply integrated into the connected-home experience. And technology companies continued getting better at thinking about how their products fit within architecture, interiors and the way people actually live.
That is why CEDIA Expo still matters.
Longtime Residential Systems contributor John Sciacca, who has attended nearly every CEDIA Expo since 1998, offered a similar perspective after this year’s show: Expo has experienced its share of changes over nearly three decades, but the sense of community remains its constant.
Plenty to Talk About on the CEDIA Expo Show Floor
For KMB, the show was also a pretty good snapshot of the work we get to do every day.
D-Tools demonstrated how AI can remove friction from actual integration-business workflows through tools including Quote Assist and Ask D-Tools.
Blustream arrived with 14 new and updated products, including the U.S. preview of its next-generation PROSync 4K/120 AV-over-IP platform and the introduction of BLUNet.
Kordz reinforced the importance of connectivity with its R.4 48Gbps Rack and Marine Passive HDMI Cable—and once again demonstrated that sometimes suspending 44 pounds from an HDMI cable while it carries a live signal explains engineering better than another spec sheet ever could.
Power continued gaining ground as a larger industry conversation. Apex Technologies expanded the capabilities of its Apex Power Hub, Powered by Control Envy, and showcased the GUDE Systems intelligent power portfolio, while Torus Power continued educating integrators about power isolation, protection, and performance.
Meanwhile, Quantum Media Systems made sure nobody forgot that CEDIA Expo can still deliver a proper showstopper. Its fifth-generation XDR5-8K Video Wall System combined native 8K content, multi-source capabilities and immersive TPI Aerospace Movement audio in one of the show’s standout demonstrations.
Design integration had an equally strong presence.
Leon Speakers brought its “Awaken the Senses” concept to life through products, materials, finishes and a refreshed Material Library designed to make technology feel resolved within the room rather than added afterward. WALL-SMART continued finding new ways to make smart-home technology disappear cleanly into architecture. Somfy demonstrated how intelligent shading can support daylight, privacy and comfort while simplifying integration. And Sonos, led by Amp Multi, showed just how broad its professional whole-home audio ecosystem has become.
The Conversations Mattered, Too
I also spent a good part of CEDIA Expo in classrooms and on stages talking about where many of these ideas intersect.
“The Sound of Wellness” brought together KBB’s 2025 Person of the Year Sharon Sherman, Leon’s Caitlin Stewart and Sonos’ Frank DeFillipis to discuss how sound, design and technology contribute to comfort and well-being.
“Selling the Outcome” reunited Sharon with NKBA’s 2025 Educator of the Year Elizabeth Lord-Levitt for a conversation about aligning design, construction and technology around what the homeowner ultimately experiences.
Power got additional attention in sessions with RoseWater Energy founder and CEO Joe Piccirilli, whose decades of education on power management long predate the category’s current momentum, along with Jim Sanfemio of Wicked Smart Homes and Nels Tate of SAV Inc.
Those discussions reinforced something we heard repeatedly throughout the week: increasingly, the story is not about an individual product. It is about the experience that product helps create.
A Very Good Awards Week
KMB clients also earned an impressive collection of recognition.
Residential Systems Best of Show honors went to technologies from Apex Technologies, Blustream, D-Tools, Leon Speakers, and Somfy, along with Sony’s Leon Studio Frame for BRAVIA 9 II and 7 II. CE Pro BEST recognized Somfy’s Top-down Bottom-up 45 WireFree Zigbee Motor and GUDE Systems’ Expert Power Control 8290-1. Nerve’s Pinnacle Residence earned three CE Pro Home of the Year honors, while Technology Designer recognized solutions from WALL-SMART, Quantum Media Systems, and Sonos.
Leon also won CEDIA Expo’s inaugural Best Medium Booth Award, a particularly fitting honor for an exhibit built around materials, experience, and design.
The now-published 2026 CEDIA Smart Home Awards Americas added another important layer. KMB clients Nerve Inc. and Elliston Systems & Design were named project finalists, while WALL-SMART’s Universal Access Point Mount was inducted into the CEDIA Product Hall of Fame, joining a select group of products CEDIA recognizes for lasting influence and value to the smart home industry. The broader awards celebrated achievement across projects, products, businesses, and people throughout the CEDIA community.
Why CEDIA Expo Still Matters
The best technology is not necessarily the technology with the longest spec sheet. It is technology that performs as intended, fits the project, supports design intent, and ultimately makes life better for the people using it.
CEDIA Expo remains one of the few places where the people responsible for making all of that happen can learn, debate, experiment, reconnect, and see what is coming next.
And there is every reason to expect that conversation to continue. Forge CEO Paul Miller addressed questions about the event’s future directly during CEDIA Expo, confirming the show will return and that Forge intends to continue investing in it.
We’re glad to hear it.
Next year, the CEDIA Education Conference begins September 7, 2027, followed by the CEDIA Expo exhibit hall September 8–10 in Las Vegas.
We’ll see you there!
For a deeper dive, read KMB‘s Home Tech Talk Substack Channel article here