ISE 2025 - Highlights & Interviews From The Worlds Largest AV Show
So I was lucky enough to be invited to the Integrated Systems Europe 2024 show in Barcelona, Spain. It's the largest AV & systems integration show on the planet. So of course I hit up the opening Keynote.
And listen when you hear the phrase. You compete with Ai. Where does your mind go? Are you thinking like John Connor in that movie The Terminator, fighting against the machines? Or do you automatically think Ai could give you a competitive edge like Iron Man's Jarvis Ai. Well…I am happy so tell later what a lot of the exhibits were all about .
So as well as tons of commercial display tech there were some consumer brands that I'm more familiar with like Sonos. Who just launched a new speaker…with a catch.
NEW PRO ERA FROM SONOS
“ Hello, welcome to Sonos. Today we're launching the Sonos ERA 100 Pro, a unique product for installers commercial installations. Pro Plus Switch connects to your Era 100 pros use our new zoning to make it perfect for commercial light commercial installations. This week it's 850 pounds, €950. It has a wall bracket that's an optional extra, which is 169 pounds €199.
It makes a perfect product for light commercial installations. It's going to be exclusively for our installers via our selected distribution in Europe. ”
STEPHEN RHEAD, SONOS ACCOUNT MANAGER
The Sonos Era 100 Pro is brilliant because the power of ethernet means only one cable is needed, and you have a fast and stable wired internet connection. The problem is most people won't have the wiring in their walls to support it. Anyway, moving on.
Launching the Sonos ERA 100 Pro! Designed for commercial installations, it connects via POE Plus Switch and features new zoning for optimized performance.
Price: £850 / €950
Optional Wall Bracket: £169 / €199
Exclusive for installers through selected European distributors.
Sony at ISE 2025 – New Headphones & Mics!
After this, I headed over to the Sony booth and they had all their pro camera gear on display. As well as some of their newer studio monitors and pro mics. Now I can explain to you why these are so good. But I'm no expert but here is someone who is.
MDR-MV1 – Open-back, lightweight (under 230g), perfect for immersive audio mastering & studio work. Features Alcantara leather for comfort.
MDR-M1 – Closed-back, metal housing, detachable 4-pin cable, ideal for post-production & recording control.
Sony Studio Mics:
C100 – Double capsule, records up to 50kHz, ideal for high-res audio & classical music.
CAD Mic – Up to 20kHz, perfect for standard setups (48kHz conversion), priced at €499.
“ My name is Marcos. I am the product specialist for Braulio here in Europe and Sony and we are in es e25. The first thing I'd like to show you are the new headphones we have. The first one is our main professional headphone. It's the MDR-MV1. So it's an open back headphone which is made for mastering immersive audio and controlling what you're doing in your studio.
It's also a fantastic headphone for simply listening to music. It has some Alcantara leather, so you never get sweaty. No weather areas. If you do this. Very nice headband. Very, very light under 230g, a fantastic headphone. Where's the new design guys? Second headphone is the MDR m one. It's a closed headphone. Looks very similar to the 75 or 6.
You all know the headphone from 993. It's a metal housing. It has a completely different pouch here. It has a new driver, and it has the same headband and the M1. It's a closed headphone. It has, of course, a detachable cable like the M1, and has a four pin cable. You can use symmetric cables if you like.
And it's my favorite headphone for controlling what I'm doing. So if I control my video cuts in post-production, if I control on the desk, listen to a channel, then this is my headphones. It's not as good as the M1 for spatial audio, but your source is always in front of you. It's in front of your face. They should do something on your cue on your dynamics.
You directly can hear what has changed. So that is the best headphone for controlling your recording. Okay, now let's go up here and have a look on the two mics we have here. That's the studio microphone Sony you all know the famous C8 and the G. The cube mic which we can't sell in Europe, but we have the CAD and the C100, C100 double capsule microphone for high res audio.
It can record up to 50kHz. So whenever you're doing classic music, whatever your studio is doing, 96kHz HD conversion this is your model. If you're doing standard setups with for the kilohertz conversion, then you can use the C++ because that's the microphone goes up to 20kHz. It's for €99. It's a very good mic and it has the typical Sony sound.
It's a very modern sound, but it has the smoothness and the brightness of a typical Sony mic. We all love. So have a look on it, go to your dealer, find out, test it. It's not the C 800 G, but it's very close to zero G for affordable price. “ Markus Warlich, Sony Pro Audio Specialist
Now, after this, I did get to check out maybe the most professional eSports setup I've ever seen. And the guide for this tour told me that they have to compete against the bedroom streamers…that's why this setup is so advanced. So, I did get to play some FC25 and honest to god I have not played FIFA since the 90’s…but somehow still managed to win 9-1. The game hasn't changed that much…but the eSports game certainly has. Alight now check out this hidden gem. This is something straight out of an Ironman movie.
Voxon Photonics: 3D Volumetric Displays!
Voxon VX2
7,500 slices/sec, full volume at 30 FPS
Runs on Unity & standard desktop PCs
Supports OBJ, FBX, STL, GLB files
Fully interactive – adjust lighting, view models from any angle
VX2 Price: $6,800 USD
VX2 XL: Twice the diameter (52cm), 4x the volume
Use Cases: Advertising, entertainment, defence & more!
Interested? Visit: www.voxon.co
“ Hi, I'm Gavin, I'm one of the co-founders of Vox on Photonics. This is our company. We're a South Australian tech startup, and we make 3D volumetric displays.
Volumetric display is one where the data is not displayed on a screen, but it's actually physically rendered inside a volume. And as you move the camera around, you'll see that as you move around the display, what you see changes this particular product. Here is the box on the X2. It's a display that renders images at around 7500 slices per second, but it draws a complete volume 30 times a second.
The content you're seeing is made within a unity application running on a standard desktop PC. We have the option of displaying everything inside a model such as this, where you can actually go inside and look at the insides of a model, or we can turn on a lighting model, turn off that lighting model and render just the surface of the model.
So we have complete flexible control. We can also move the light around. So if we turn on a light source here, you can see as I move the light we can illuminate different sides of the object. We support many file formats including obj, fbx, stl. These ones are GLB files which are commonly used on the internet.
You downloaded these off. Sketchfab use cases range from experiential advertising, entertainment, communication, defense there. There's really no limit to the number of use cases currently the v x2 as you see here, these ship all we make these in Australia. These are 6,800 USD. We also have a bigger version of this the V, x2 XL creatively named, which is twice the diameter of the v x2.
It's about 52cm in diameter and it's the same height. So it's four times the volume but twice the diameter. If you're interested in those, get in touch via our website Vox on that's V00 and Dot CEO. Yeah. Check us out. “ Gavin Smith, VOXON Co-Founder
SOLUM Smart Signage & ESL Solutions
Interactive AI Signage – Goes beyond ads, used in hotels, hospitals, drive-thrus for automated customer interactions
Customizable Signage – 1 to 100 inches, available in square, bar-type, touchscreen formats
Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) – Enhancing personalized shopping experiences
Retail Use Case – Smart Wine Shopping!
Customers select wine preferences on a 29” touchscreen
ESLs blink to highlight the chosen product’s location
Solum is one of the few manufacturers integrating both ESL & signage for seamless solutions!
“ Hello, my name is James, I'm a product manager from solo and today we're at IC Barcelona.
I'm here to introduce solo as a company and the solutions that we brought at this exhibition. Solo Aim has been a part of Samsung Electro mechanics, before. So we are Samsung spin off. Back in 2015 we went independent and in 2021 we went public. And now solo is the 200th most valuable company, around 200 most relevant company in Korea and making about $1.5 billion revenue since 2023.
At IAC, solo has brought the entire lineup of our signage and also electronic shelf label. We call it ESL. The first station, as you see right there is the interactive AI solution. We wanted to provide different use cases of our Signages, because we want to evolve from only using the signage as an advertisement. Wall signage could also be interactive, for serving different purposes or different needs of our customers in different industries and areas.
For example, our interactive AI solution could be used in, hospitality in hotels, or even drive through or even hospitals where there should be a human interactions between customers to automate the human interaction using AI. We're one of the few players in the world where we can customize, signages. In different and a very abnormal size. It could be square, it could be a bar type, it could be even touch screen.
Those type of different variations that could be from one inch to all the way up to 100 inch. We can customize the size, and the shape of it. So Lam is one of the rare manufacturer that produces ESL and signage at the same time. And so we wanted to provide integrated solution here where we could provide a more personalized shopping experience.
And for the end, the customers in the in the retail environment. So today we brought this use case for the wine shop. You walk into the wine shop and you find so many wines that overwhelms you, you don't know what to pick. Here is the 29 inch touch signage. Let's say I choose the red wine and, I would like to get one from maybe all of us, all of them.
And then, something semi dry and something forward to full body. And then what he does is that every ESL is integrated in the system where the location of that product is. Now it's going to blink like this to show, the location of the, the wine that I specifically selected. We wanted to bring this new type of customer experience to the market, using our both signage and ESL at the same time as an integrated solution. “ James Choi, Solum Sales Manager ” James Choi, Solum Solutions Sales Manager
The LogiTech MX Ink is a stylus for virtual reality.
“ We developed it in collaboration with meta. It allows you to draw in space so you can freely create things in 3D. It's pressure sensitive, so it reacts to how hard you press on the pressure sensitive button. And if it's in VR, you can manipulate freely, different objects. And it works also as a normal stylus because it also has a pressure sensitive tip.
So you can draw or write on any, any surface. And it enables you to do handwriting or more detailed sketching and so we think it opens different possibilities for education, for artistic creation, for simulation. So artists and educators are really finding it very useful for virtual whiteboards. Digital creation, 3D manipulation, 3D modelling and animation.” Mario Gutierrez, Lead Software Engineer
Logitech MX Ink – VR Stylus for 3D Creativity! 🚀
Co-developed with Meta for VR drawing & 3D creation
Pressure-sensitive – Reacts to touch for precise control
Dual Functionality – Works in VR & as a regular stylus on surfaces
Education – Virtual whiteboards & handwriting
Art & Design – Sketching, animation, 3D modelling
Simulation & Training – Interactive learning & prototyping
A game-changer for digital artists, educators & creators!
BRAINSTORM - Augmented & Extended, Blended Reality
“to use two technologies, which this one is our Mented reality. What you can see down there, and the other one is the extended reality that is behind me panel. So I can pass the slides of my presentation to you. And as you can see, I can explain things, traditionally in a traditional way, like normal slide or this one, which is, now mented reality one.
And also I can, simulate, for example, with an unwanted reality objects, the whole process of Edison, which is that I can, record a presentation in, server on the cloud, and then I can download it to have a preview and then I kind of schedule a demo or a presentation in a conference room. The software is very easy to use is two single steps.
First, select the environment that you are going to use and then upload the content. And the content could be, PDFs, PowerPoint, 3D objects, movies, different types of of files that you can use for your presentation. For example, we have here a 3D object which is this formula one that you can see here, which includes publicity of all our products.
So, no mented reality object that we can put whatever we want in the scenario. This is an interactive chart. You can see here a virtual table where we insert a person, a video, what can be a signal coming from teams on zoom. And you can interact with here. And also, for example, we can put the data on the top of the table and interact to interact and command these graphics for example.” Pablo Caram, Sales Manager EdTech
So the bit of tech I'm about to show you caught my eye. It's designed for presentations and education. But I couldn't help thinking this would be great for making YouTube content. Check this out.
Augmented Reality (AR) – Interactive 3D objects in real-world settings
Extended Reality (XR) – Virtual presentation panels for immersive experiences
Dual Presentation Modes – Traditional slides + AR-enhanced visuals
Cloud-Based Recording – Save, preview, & schedule presentations
Supports Multiple File Types – PDFs, PowerPoints, 3D models, videos
Interactive Elements – Virtual tables, real-time video integration (Teams/Zoom), dynamic data visualization
✨ Perfect for conferences, demos, & engaging presentations!
