HiddenWires talk to Sawan Nichani, founder and CEO of MACBEE, based in New Delhi, India.
Sawan Nichani
Founder & CEO
MACBEE
CEDIA Member
New Delhi, India
Specialises in: Home Theatre, Home Automation, Video and Audio Calibration
When was MACBEE founded?
MACBEE was founded in February 2011.
What was the driving force behind starting the firm?
MACBEE started as an Audio & IT Solutions company, providing solutions for networking, software, etc. I then started getting a lot of enquires from high-end homeowners, who had spent some serious amounts of money automating their homes and having media servers which failed, due to poor integration. I took on the first one as a challenge. The Client, Mr. Raaja Kanwar gave me a free hand to revamp the technology in his house and since then, over the last few years, it’s only been about custom design and integration.
What were some of your early challenges as a company starting out in India? How did you face and overcome those challenges?
Having worked as a music producer for around 10 years, I thought that I knew a lot about music reproduction. But, I soon realised that this wasn’t the case. Reproduction was a different ball game. The major problem I faced was lack of knowledge. I had easy access and great support for the equipment, but no answers to the technical questions that I had, in both audio and video. So, right after the first project, I spent a great amount of time attending CEDIA training sessions in different continents. I feel that this provided me with a lot of professionalism and knowledge, which now sets us (MACBEE) apart.
Have you had any new challenges arise as residential AV technology becomes more globally recognised?
I feel that people are more aware now than ever before, which actually helps us stand out from the competition. As a company, we are future proofed, as we have all the right certifications from CEDIA, ISF, HAA, etc., which give us the credibility, which is incredibly important. We continue to invest in education and promoting standards.
You created your own home automation software, BeeMote. Tell us a little bit about how it works and what the vision was behind creating that.
BeeMote is a GUI that we created. It combines a chic interface which an intuitive layout. We worked closely with a few clients and got in all the input as to how we could make it easy to use and to the point. It’s a simple remote app, which talks to IP, IR and RS-232. Currently BeeMote is exclusive only to MACBEE customers.
What kind of requests do you receive the most in your residential AV business?
The most requested feature from client is certainly multi-room audio. Everyone wants their system to be user friendly and to have music in every zone, at a touch of a button.
What do you anticipate will be the next big AV integration trend within your market?
The next big AV Integration trend in the high-end market will be DCI compliance at home. People want the luxury of being able to invite their friends over for an intimate experience by premiering movies the same day as the cinema release. Currently, it’s not as easy to get DCI Content, but it’s getting better as the demand is increasing.
www.macbee.in