Integrated Systems Europe 2025
Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) is a world-renowned annual technology showcase for the audio-visual and systems integration industries.
Attending the show this year were myself (Lucas Morris, AV Systems Developer with Learning Spaces Technology), Matthew James (AV/IT Service Team Technician with Learning Spaces Technology), and David Pammenter (Audio-visual & Multimedia Officer with the University of Edinburgh Business School).
We, alongside AV colleagues from other higher education institutions, attended ISE with the AV User Group, which is a group whose aim is to promote the effective use of AV communication technology within user organizations and help managers, AV technicians, and engineers maintain the skills and knowledge they need to implement AV projects and manage service provision.
This year’s ISE saw the largest attendance of visitors to date, with 85,351 unique visitors from 168 countries and 1,605 exhibitors spread over a 92,000 sqm space.
Our trip kicked off with speed pitches hosted and organized by the AV User Group. The speed pitches allow exhibitors to present what’s new and interesting on their stand in only four minutes. This year saw the largest number of exhibitors giving pitches, with 47 companies presenting. The day concluded with a dinner hosted by the AV User Group where we networked with sector colleagues.
AVUG Speed Pitch
Tuesday was the first day of the main show, where we got to see some of our existing suppliers whose equipment we currently use. We started the day at the Sennheiser stand, where they had built a custom demo space for their newest ceiling beam-forming microphone, the TCCM, and a feature called True Voice Lift. The TCCM is a smaller, round version of the TCC2, which we currently have deployed in various teaching and meeting spaces across the university. The TCCM is tailored towards small to medium meeting rooms. True Voice Lift amplifies a set zone where people can present and boosts their voices through ceiling speakers as if they were wearing microphones. The demo was excellent, and it was great to see Sennheiser’s continued development of their product lines.
Next, we caught up with OneLAN, which currently provides the university with hardware and software used to display room booking information outside our teaching and meeting spaces across the estate. This was a great opportunity to catch up with our sales representative from OneMedia about current university business and how our relationship with them continues to be of great value to us.
NEC Epaper Displays
Our next stop was SHARP/NEC, where they were displaying their new range of video walls and ePaper displays. ePaper displays offer a cost-effective and energy-efficient alternative to traditional digital screens. Unlike conventional LCD or LED screens, ePaper technology consumes power only when updating content, significantly reducing electricity costs. Additionally, their low-maintenance design eliminates the need for constant backlighting and cooling, further lowering operational expenses. With excellent readability in bright environments and minimal environmental impact, SHARP/NEC ePaper displays provide a sustainable solution for businesses looking to cut energy consumption and long-term costs. We are currently exploring ways to incorporate this technology into our estate and determine how it can best be utilized by the university.
X2O Media Demo
Our last stop of the day was X20 Media. X20 offers an advanced video conferencing platform designed to enhance remote collaboration with immersive and interactive experiences. Their solution integrates real-time video, data visualization, and content sharing, creating dynamic virtual meeting spaces for businesses and education. While at their stand, we were shown their platform and how it has been used in other educational spaces. They are planning to install a new demo space in Scotland, to which we will be invited once complete, to evaluate whether their platform could be of use to the university.
We ended Tuesday with LTSMG, a group for higher education AV, IT, Media, and Learning Spaces managers that provides a forum to share knowledge and ideas. This was a social networking event held in the evening, where we caught up with other higher education colleagues across the UK to discuss developments on their campuses, how they are tackling their day-to-day AV/IT challenges, and how we are all adapting to the fast-paced changes in technology to keep our teaching spaces up to date.
Wednesday was a quieter day, during which we met up with Huddly. Huddly is a leading innovator in AI-powered conference cameras designed for modern hybrid workspaces. Their compact yet powerful cameras offer smart features like automatic framing, intelligent zoom, and real-time analytics to enhance video conferencing experiences. With ultra-wide-angle lenses, high-quality imaging, and seamless integration with major collaboration platforms, Huddly cameras are featured mostly in our Microsoft Teams Rooms installations in both teaching and meeting spaces across central areas. Huddly updated us on their new product developments and firmware releases, including fixes for the cameras we already have installed in our spaces. We were able to be shown their new product which will be released very soon to market but cant quite say anymore about it yet….
Panasonic Stand
We finished of Wednesday with Panasonic. Panasonic currently supply all the projectors and some LCD displays in our central teaching spaces. We again were show a couple of their new projectors and various lenses which they have brought out to market to create more dynamic designs and installations using projection such as the photographed curved room display.
Thursday was our final day at the show were we had lots of back to back meetings with various vendors including Kramer, Peerless AV, Avocor and Biamp. Again everyone had lots of new products and software to show off to us and keep us up to date with their product development.
In some down time we had we managed to get out and about Barcelona as well to see the sights of the city.
And lastly we managed to find a really interesting Ice Cream Shop, which we did have to visit twice… (If you know anyone in LST, you know we enjoy chatting about food!)
In summary, it was brilliant being able to get out to ISE this year and always a pleasure to meet up with our suppliers and vendors. Seeing the advancements in technology always brings up new and innovative ideas to bring back to UoE and taking those and looking to see how we can implement these into our current technology estate across both teaching and meeting spaces will be the next challenge for the next few weeks whilst we digest everything we got to see at this years show.
