New Videos Are Ready for Viewing

Have you visited our YouTube channel? Metra Home Theater Group uses the channel to educate our customers (current and potential) on the products we provide.  YouTube is another great way to feature our best asset – our dedicated staff.  

We just wrapped our latest installment of videos and they are uploaded and ready to view at your leisure.  Go here  to check out the latest videos featuring our own Brent McCall and Miranda Grantham.   If this is your first visit to our channel, surf around make sure to view older videos and see why we are #MoreThanProducts.

Please feel free to leave a comment suggesting a topic for our next round of videos we plan on doing to kick off our countdown to CEDIA 2015 in Dallas.  

Welcome Changes to Metra Home Theater Group

Metra Home Theater Group has made some changes to continue providing our award winning customer services.

•                     Please welcome our new Northeast US Territory Manager, Bob Pancari.  Bob brings with him 15 years of sales experience. 

•                     We also have a new Regional West Coast Sales Representative, Zak Yarnell.  Zak has worked in the manufacturing industry for last 5 years and brings with him extensive sales and supply chain knowledge.

•                     Miranda Grantham has been promoted to National Sales Manager. 

•                     Jason Lundell has also been promoted to Southern U.S. Territory Manager and Product Specialist.

•                     Erika Baily has been transferred to the Southeast Region with Jason Lundell from the West Coast.

To stay informed on all the exciting things that Metra Home Theater Group does, follow us on social media.

WHAT IS THE INTERNET OF THINGS?

The term "Internet of Things" (or IOT for short) is everywhere.  Do you know what this means?  Do you know how this effects you?  I took some time to read up on the Internet of Things to educate myself because frankly, the phrase annoys me.  It sounds pompous.  This phrase reminds me of rich people saying “money does not solve everything.”  Really?  Money does not solve everything?  I am pretty sure money would have solved my problem of trying to figure out how to pay for books for college.  With that being said, the IOT sounds like it might solve everything.  The IOT is being thrown around in articles about everything from kitchen appliances to smartwatches. Yet no one has explained exactly what the Internet of Things means.  There is a hashtag to following and everything – yet no explanation.

Until last Friday.

I found Dan Sung’s article at Wearable.com and he explained what the internet of things means:

“It's an all-compassing term that refers to the internet changing from a giant network of connected PCs to a mega-network including everything around you. From your kitchen to your car and everything in between, the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the world”

Read the fully article here. 

It is a wonderful explanation of how this Internet of Things revolution is important, how it could change our lives as we know it and the downside.

Read the article and see if it reassures you on the Internet of Things and how it is set to change everyday life. 

Personally, I have gone from annoyed to a little scared.

CES 2015 Wrap Up

Whew!  CES 2015 was a whirlwind of excitement and it set the tone for 2015.  The booth was the best one yet.  Professional booth builders were shocked to learn we build our own booth. Some booths built by professional booth builders did not look as great.  Our booth got some attention at CES which lead to a great way to kick off 2015. 

In addition to a fantastic looking booth, our product 4K Ready HDMI Cables won an award from TWICE.  It is always exciting to win an award during a show.  We would like to give a big thank you to the judges for the TWICE Picks Award for bestowing this honor on our new cables.  

CES is held in Las Vegas every year and every year the staff suffers because of the environment change. Going from gorgeous Daytona Beach, Florida to dessert-dry Nevada is a blow to the sinuses.  If the staff does not get sick at the show, we get sick upon return.  This year most of the staff stayed healthy while in Las Vegas and got to do some of the wacky, tourist attractions in their down time.  Here is a picture of staffers at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.

Currently, everyone is back in the office after an annual post-show visit to the physician for medicine.  This is a step in the right direction!  Next year’s goal is to stay healthy during and after CES.

It is now back to work!

Customer Service: Our Edge Over the Competition

Have you ever purchased a product and got home or to the job site and found that you have issues but can’t get support? Then you call the help line only to get a computer or even worse some foreign help center? 

This is one example of how Metra Home Theater Group stands out from the pack when it comes to customer support.  We have (GASP!) live people in our office that answer the phones, one of which is our head tech and product guy Brent McCall.  Brent has been in the electronics industry for 40+ years playing every role from sales and support, to product design and installation.  He is an important part of the exemplary customer service that Metra Home Theater Group provides to its customers.

Brent provides extended hours tech support for Metra Home Theater Group’s customers.  In addition to seven day a week tech support, he follows several online forums to offer help for all brands.  At this year’s CEDIA Show in Denver, one of our customers had wonderful things to say about our products and Brent.  See her video here.  Brent was recently featured in December CEPro’s Magazine article recognizing the unsung heroes of the custom electronics industry.  Brent is just one part of the sales and support team that makes us different.

If you are attending CES 2015 in Vegas January 6 – 9^th, put booth #12434 on your agenda.

Come see for yourself why people call Metra Home Theater Group for custom integration and retail electronic needs.

Ten Products That Will Not Be Re-Gifted

If you have some tech people on your gift list that you never know what to give them for Christmas, here is a list of Metra Home Theater Group’s products that they will love and never re-gift:

•  HDM-SP2 – a compact product to protect your component investment. This little guy will sacrifice itself to save your system. 
  

•  HDM-JR - Are you experiencing audio or video drop outs? Metra Home Theater Group's HDM JR can fix that.
  
•  VELOX - VELOX UHD cables OPERATE WITH THE ENTIRE 18Gbps envelope.  These cables also include Metra Home Theater Group’s unique interchangeable color-coding scheme for cable identification and management.

•  LEDS - Our LED lighting line adds visual pizzazz to any custom installation

•  SOUND BAR MOUNT - This 3.1 Sound Bar one can mount the larger TVs and improve the sound quality.  This product provides the solution to multiple needs of the consumer.

• AUDIO MOUNTS – Improve the sound quality on smaller TVs.

•  TABLET STAND (ASM-iSTAND) – Fits the IPad 2.  360 degrees of ration.  Portable and easy to use.

•  IPHONE 6 ACCESSORIES - wide variety of phone and tablet chargers, connectors and data transfer cables that support international and domestic mobile technology including Apple Lightning cables for the new iPhone 6.

• PORTABLE USB CHARGER (ASM-USBBAT) – Portable USB power bank. 1A to support all popular phones. Easy and convenient to recharge.

For more information on our all of our products, click here.