Report: the top brands in home theaters and beyond

This ain’t your grandmas home theater set-up. The CE Pro 100 tells you how the other half makes like a pomme de terre de le divan.

Logitech Harmony remotes, Sonos whole–house music, Bose speakers, Vizio TVs and Monster cable may be on your holiday wish list, but the brands barely make a blip among professionals who install the stuff.

Each year, CE Pro magazine lists the CE Pro 100 –– the highest–revenue companies in the business of home technology integration. And each year, these dealers and installers name their favorite brands in more than 30 product categories, from in–wall speakers to central vacuum systems to smart thermostats.

While the 100 integration companies in the list represent just a fraction of the 20,000ish CE Pros in the U.S., their product selections at the very least provide bragging rights for some great niche products that typical TGD readers probably haven’t heard of.

For example, the percentage of CE Pro 100 companies that install these brands are …

Multiroom Audio

Crestron – 66%

Control4 – 39

Niles – 25

Elan – 22

SpeakerCraft – 19

Video Processors/Scalers

Runco – 15%

Key Digital – 14

DVDO – 11

Crestron – 9

Lumagen – 6

Remote Controls

URC – 88%

Crestron – 42

Remote Technologies Inc. – 32

Control4 – 28

Logitech – 8

Media Servers

Kaleidescape – 64%

Apple – 41

ReQuest – 32

Crestron – 23

Control4 – 15

For the complete brand analysis visit CEPro.com.