CEDIA Smart Home Awards 2026 reward design and long-term support

CEDIA’s Smart Home Awards EMEA 2026 recognised Easing, MCBEE and Beyond Alliance among its leading winners at London’s Natural History Museum on 23 October. Marking the awards’ 20th anniversary, the ceremony gave Easing three wins, including Global Integrated Home, while MCBEE secured four and Peter Lyngdorf received the Lifetime Achievement Award.

What happened

The strongest result for a single project came from MCBEE’s F-40A in India. It won Best Integrated Home Level VI alongside Easing’s Belgian project, The Hidden Grove, and also took Excellence in Innovation, Excellence in Support & Maintenance and Technology Meets Design. A lighting commendation added a fifth recognition, distinct from its four wins.

Easing’s The Hidden Grove combined its Level VI and Global Integrated Home awards with Excellence in Networking. That combination is particularly relevant to owners commissioning extensive connected homes: the same project was recognised both as a complete residence and for the infrastructure supporting its technology. This was Easing’s first year among the winners.

Beyond Alliance’s three victories spanned residential delivery and business development. The Indian company won Best Integrated Home Level I for Roots & Rise, Excellence in Business – Integrator, and the integrator experience-centre award for The Beyond Atelier. Its other residential entry, The High Rise Retreat, received a Level I commendation.

British integrated-home winners included High Tech Homes, whose Townhouse Between the Commons took Level II, and Inspired Dwellings, which won Level IV with Hotel at Home. TechVault’s Ozone City in India secured Level III, while Smart Business won Level V for Casa ALMA in Spain. The results place projects from markedly different residential markets within the same awards programme.

Home cinema honours were similarly international. Cinemaworks and Louise Tarling won Level I for Going Underground in the UK; Blackroom took Level II for Emerald Cinema in the United Arab Emirates. Dellicompagni’s British project Deep House won Level III, and Germany’s ARLED Solutions secured Level IV with Portofino Cinema. Blackroom also received a Level II commendation for Eternal Classics.

Elsewhere, Cyberhomes won Best Single Room Solution for Deep Purple Media in the UK. Qube Integration’s The Glasshouse in Jersey received Excellence in Lighting, while Future Automation Solutions won Technology Beyond the Home for Hrisha Lighting Studio in India. These categories recognised work at room, lighting-system and non-residential scales rather than only complete houses.

The background

CEDIA framed its anniversary programme around the work concealed behind the finished interior. That emphasis gives the results a useful reading beyond the visual appeal of individual rooms: networking, documentation and maintenance each had their own recognition, making otherwise unobtrusive engineering disciplines visible to prospective clients.

Blackroom’s Excellence in Documentation award went to Cavalli Estates Cinema, a different project from its cinema-category winner. For an owner, that distinction matters because a persuasive demonstration and an intelligible technical record answer different questions. Drawings, configuration records and operating information can determine how readily another engineer diagnoses a fault or plans a later alteration.

MCBEE’s maintenance award also addresses a practical procurement issue. A residential system remains a service responsibility after installation, especially when it brings multiple technologies together. Owners comparing integrators should therefore ask about the proposed support arrangement separately from the design proposal; an award for one project does not establish the contractual provision for another.

The experience-centre categories recognised how technology is presented before a commission. Monitor Audio Group won the trade-supplier award for its Monitor Audio Experience Centre, with Moss Technical Services commended for Small Footprint, Big Innovation! Agrima Solutions’ Ahmedabad Luxury Experience Centre and Blackroom’s BLACKROOM 2.O received commendations in the integrator category.

These results sit alongside the wider recognition of specialist residential installation seen in the ERT Awards’ custom-install honours. The useful distinction for a client is between an award recognising a business and one attached to a specific completed project: each provides evidence about a different part of the appointment decision.

Lighting’s dedicated place in the programme is also significant for design teams. It requires coordination with architecture, finishes and daily routines rather than simply equipment selection. The daylight-led lighting approach presented by Lutron and Homeplay at Decorex illustrates the related importance of demonstrating the intended experience before specifying the installation.

What people are saying

Matt Nimmons, CEDIA’s managing director for EMEA, presented the anniversary as evidence of a change in design capability as much as technological progress. He said the winning teams were undertaking more ambitious work and approaching technology differently, with the anniversary offering an opportunity to recognise ideas and people that could influence the industry’s next two decades.

For owners, the results are likely to be most useful when read by discipline rather than as a single ranking. Easing’s networking recognition, Blackroom’s documentation award and MCBEE’s support award identify different strengths. None should be treated as a substitute for checking whether a proposed team has experience relevant to a particular property, scope and service expectation.

The individual awards broadened that picture beyond installation companies. Tom Dellicompagni received the Standards Volunteer of the Year award, Andy Bull the education honour and Gabi Hughes the certification honour. Their recognition underlines the programme’s inclusion of the training, standards and professional participation that sit behind project delivery, rather than only the finished installation.

What happens next

For developers and owners assembling a shortlist, the immediate opportunity is to request more detailed evidence from the recognised firms. A useful project discussion would separate the client brief, the integrator’s responsibilities and the ongoing service scope. The published results identify winning projects but do not supply their budgets, complete technical specifications or measured performance data.

Cinema commissions warrant an additional distinction between room design and equipment selection. Seating positions, circulation and interior coordination should be established alongside the AV brief, not left until hardware is chosen. The international expansion of specialist cinema-seating manufacturer Fortress Seating provides related context on the specialist suppliers involved in completing these rooms.

The global product categories produced 11 Best New Hardware winners, three Best New Software winners and five Product Hall of Fame inductees. Those honours form a separate strand from the project awards. The results do not establish that any particular product winner was installed in a recognised home, so readers should avoid assuming connections between the two lists.

Further scrutiny should also distinguish recognition from a current commercial offer. An experience-centre award does not specify appointment availability, and an integrated-home award does not establish pricing for a comparable residence. The practical next step is a project-specific conversation, supported by references and a written scope rather than an expectation that an award-winning installation can simply be replicated.

Why this matters

For luxury-home clients, the most useful message from CEDIA’s 2026 results is that procurement should examine the less visible deliverables as closely as the finished rooms. Making network design, documentation and maintenance explicit tender requirements gives owners something concrete to assess—and helps turn an impressive installation into a property that remains understandable and supportable after handover.