Dealerscope’s recent Facebook Live Insider Talk, featuring Ascentic Retail Engineering, focused on the technologies the company is providing that feature touch-free sensors which enable customers to experience products in-store in a safe manner– especially apt in these days of COVID-19.
Participants joining Dealerscope Publisher Tony Monteleone and Editor in Chief Nancy Klosek included Tom Lovich, president, and Mitch Thompson, sales manager.
Ascentic Retail Engineering has evolved as a brand of Audio Authority, which was started in 1976 as a retail store but soon transitioned full time into a manufacturer of point-of-sale (POS) retail demonstration equipment, after developing a “comparator” that allowed listeners to easily compare loudspeaker brands’ performance on the showroom floor.
The Ascentic brand now represents a whole palette of touch-free retail solutions that spans beyond audio to video all the way to ultra-customized applications that show off products to their full effect – such as an articulating bed that, when sensors detect a customer’s presence, begins its articulating motion while running a descriptive video at the same time.
The company designs and supports its products in the U.S. – “a point of pride for us,” Lovich said. “We’re the guys behind the scenes when interaction happens between a customer and the equipment,” he said.
Thompson explained that the IR-based technology senses ambient light and judges how close a customer is to a product display. “It also provides feedback, so a customer knows something has happened,” he said. Hover-based proximity sensors are designed to react when a hand is moved toward a control, while gesture-based sensors provide multiple functionalities from a single installed element, greatly minimizing the amount of buttons needed to initiate the various responses.
Lovich said that the devices are compact and simple to retrofit into existing fixtures. “You don’t need a tech expert, and [our solutions] also protect retailers’ investments – they don’t need to rip out all their fixturing to accommodate the technology.
“The mind boggles as to opportunities for integrating these sensors,” Lovich continued. “Their small size lends them to a lot of different applications.”
Thompson observed: “Our world and how we interact with it is changing. Ascentic is there to help with that change – to get people back out into retail and comfortable with engaging with products again,” commented Thompson.
The company’s website is ascenticretail.com, and we invite readers to check out the complete recorded Insider Talk, which offers a wealth of video demos of Ascentic’s technologies in action, here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=373155820727312&ref=search
Nancy is a contributing editor for Dealerscope.
