Our team had a busy week hosting a booth at SEMA and also scoping out the latest and greatest in new ADAS technology. It was also great to catch up with customers and give away some swag while we were at it.

We wanted to summarize what we felt like were major themes for the industry as well as for ADAS Depot. In addition, we wanted to highlight some new, interesting products.

Doing More With Less

Since our company is based in Silicon Valley, we hear chatter about AI non-stop. The collision repair industry has been slower to embrace AI-enabled workflows, in part because so much of our work is done by hand. Yet we heard more and more about AI tools that could help shops and technicians. There were instances of collision repair-specific ChatGPT-like interfaces. 

In terms of AI, there were also scan tools that have voice-enabled AI capabilities. These include the TEXA Nemo Voice, as well as the Autel MS Ultra. This feature doesn’t seem to be utilized that much by technicians. Ostensibly, these capabilities are for when you are far away from the tablet – and of course only also the tablet can pick you up over the shop noise!

There were other tools that we even featured, that helped technicians do more with less investment. We were proud to showcase the SightLock product in the SEMA New Product feature. 

Another example of doing more with less, physically, was the TEXA RCC3 with the digital targets. We were able to watch it cycle through the main manufacturer’s targets. 

The Innovation Continues

We saw demos of new products and, excitingly, products that are still in development. Launch Tech is coming out with their first frame which actually repositions itself for you.

Check out the Launch Tech X-939 on our YouTube channel!

We received demos of recently-launched products as well, including the Launch X613 Mobile Aligner. Tom demonstrated how simple and effective the product was – it’s a very neat system and one we would want to test out.

Meanwhile, Autel came out with their new HVAC diagnostic tool at SEMA which we were able to get a glimpse of. 

We Learn From Our Customers, The Technicians

We got to meet many of our customers face to face at SEMA. We spoke with many of you who talked about your challenges as technicians or operators of this equipment. We heard about which tools we should carry, that we currently don’t at the moment.

As always, please let us know if you have any feedback on products we should be carrying, or if there’s any solution out there that you’d like to see.

We’re In This Together

Meeting not just customers at SEMA, but also key opinion leaders such as Brunno, President of Ascential Technologies (Burke Porter), and Joel from Revv ADAS, was a source of inspiration. Everyone was incredibly willing to share tips on what they were seeing from their individual perspectives. 

For example, Bruno had some interesting things to say about the state of regulation in our industry, as well as how the dialogue with insurance companies is progressing, worth watching below.

Prepping A Booth Is Hard Work But Worth It!

This was our first year setting up a booth, and we only were allotted a 10x10 space. A lot of our planning was spearheaded by Kirk, who had a wealth of experience with trade shows. There was definitely more planning and set up for SEMA than we had initially expected, but we are glad we were able to exhibit at SEMA. 

Our learnings included dialing in the logistics to get the equipment and products to the show. Planning this out in advance was crucial so that everything showed up on time and in one place. 

We also found that people wanted to be able to touch and pick up our tools, so we ended up moving tools and equipment closer to passers-by. This involved physically moving our booth table to be as close to the aisle as possible, to provide better access.

Lastly, we under-estimated how much people like swag. Our lip balm went first, then our handtowels, then our mirror hangers! 

Check out our 2025 SEMA Booth Tour!

Overall, we are very happy to have been at SEMA as an exhibitor. It was great to meet so many great partners, customers, and vendors – old and new. We’re hoping to be back at SEMA next year!