Wellington’s Petrone Technology Group Merges Cutting-Edge Equipment With High-End Design
By Julie Unger
Anthony Petrone knows his technology. He started Petrone Technology Group, specializing in sound, surveillance and security, as well as home theater installations, about a decade ago after spending years working in the security industry.
For Petrone, it all started in high school when he began working for an alarm company and excelled at the installation work.
“I want from a small alarm company to a bigger one, and a bigger one after that. Finally, I got bored with alarm systems, because at the end of the day, it’s a green light you could look at,” he said. “I started working for a company that did home audio and video.”
Throughout his tenure focusing on alarm systems, Petrone worked with companies such as Brinks and ADT. In his new job, Petrone was working at high-end Palm Beach homes. He quickly realized that he had found his niche.
Petrone learned programming after work with equipment he bought for himself before moving to another company. He eventually started his own firm, at first seeing clients in the Indian River/Brevard/Vero Beach area.
“Believe it or not, my first client, I still have to this day,” Petrone said. “We retain most, if not all, of our clients. We have homes all around the country that we support now because our systems are reliable. We built the company on quality instead of quantity.”
Petrone incorporated Petrone Technology Group in 2001 and started full-time, no longer subcontracting out work, a few years later.
Currently, Petrone has six employees working with him. He originally started with just a pickup truck and his own expertise, but has grown Petrone Technology Group to have thousands of clients. He’s been written about in major industry magazines, and has earned many accolades, including being recognized by CE Pro as a rising star in the custom integration industry and receiving the Mark of Excellence award in 2014 for Luxury Home of the Year. They’re also easily recognizable for being featured on Season 6 of the Vanilla Ice Project.
It seems only fitting that Petrone’s showroom is in Wellington, since Petrone and his team worked on the television show renovating nearby homes. Petrone himself was born and raised in Wellington; his parents occupied the 25th house built in the community.
Petrone’s design center is in the Wellington Marketplace at Greenview Shores Blvd. and Wellington Trace. He features speakers, sound systems and new technology such as the Amazon Echo, and tests everything to learn its quirks and how best to utilize the technology in his designs.
One of his favorite advantages is being able to do things for his clients that seem impossible. The Amazon Echo — brand new on the market — is a voice-automated system that is marketed as doing anything from turning on lights to playing music and setting alarms. He is hopeful that the product will bring more reliability to voice automation.
“Voice automation is one of those things that is either extremely expensive and unreliable, or it is cheap and unreliable,” he said.
There are some workarounds, such as putting speakers everywhere, Petrone explained, but then background noise interferes.
“Everything that I do here — every piece of equipment that you see here — I’ve used for months and months and months trying to find any bug I can get, so when I put it in somebody’s house, we’re not learning on their house,” he said. “We know the ins and outs of every piece of equipment.”
With technology constantly evolving, Petrone and his employees need to be on the top of the curve, always knowing the latest programs and devices.
“We like playing with newer technologies and just having fun,” he said. “It’s not the same thing every day. There’s always something different.”
When he is consulting with a potential client, he asks questions to learn about their style, their needs, what sort of music they like to play — different music sounds better on different speaker systems — and their routines. Learning how people use their houses, and what they like and don’t like about different systems, allows him to get a feel for how someone uses technology in their home.
If someone likes using an Apple iPad, then that client is likely to enjoy using the iPad to control the home’s technology. “Once you get that personalization on the system, it’s a system built for you. I don’t offer a blanket system,” he said. “I build it around your needs.”
Design is a key element in the process, Petrone said. The best way to do things is to come in, play with a system and help design it. Within the next three months, there will be a Petrone line of in-ceiling speakers. Petrone will manufacture the company’s most popular speaker size and make it better than what is now available on the market, he said.
Over the course of installing and setting up home systems, Petrone finds he often becomes friends with his clients.
“It’s that personalized feel,” he said. “When you meet with somebody, you go through a whole building project. If you don’t become friends with them after knowing their interests and you just leave the job, it doesn’t feel right.”
Petrone Technology Group is located in the Wellington Marketplace at 13873 Wellington Trace, Suite B3. For more info., call (561) 557-3789 or visit www.petronetechnologygroup.com.
