When the Cloud Goes Down, the Lights Should Stay On: Virginia Navy Veteran Builds Offline-First Lighting Control for Small Venues
A year after a major cloud outage left smart home devices unresponsive, DMX Smart Link founder Roman Khomitch makes the case for offline-first live event technology built for small venues and volunteer crews
Stafford, Virginia - October 6 2026 - On October 20, 2025, a failure in Amazon Web Services' Northern Virginia data center region took down Alexa and a long list of popular apps and connected devices for hours, according to reporting by Engadget. For many households, it was a reminder that smart lights and speakers often stop responding when the cloud behind them does.
For Roman Khomitch, a U.S. Navy veteran based less than an hour south of that data center region, the lesson applies well beyond the living room. His company, White Crow Security LLC, develops DMX Smart Link, lighting control software designed to run entirely on a local network with no internet connection required.
"A live event has no pause button," said Khomitch, founder of DMX Smart Link. "If the lights depend on a server somewhere else, the people in the room are one outage away from standing in the dark. Our company's roots are in security, and in security you design for the day things fail. Lighting for a live audience deserves the same thinking."
The issue is increasingly relevant for small venues, mobile DJs, community theaters and event spaces, many of which now mix professional DMX stage fixtures with the consumer smart lights they already own. Those two worlds have traditionally been controlled separately, with smart bulbs often relying on cloud apps. DMX Smart Link brings both under one controller running on local hardware, from a Windows or Mac laptop to a Raspberry Pi, and recalls a full lighting scene with a single press.
The software includes more than 13,000 built-in fixture profiles, allowing crews to add equipment without programming it from scratch. It is in weekly production use at a venue where it is operated by volunteers rather than trained lighting engineers, which Khomitch says has shaped its design.
"The person running the lights at a small venue is often a volunteer who learned the job last month," he said. "They need something that works every time, whether the Wi-Fi is strong, weak or completely gone."
More information is available at dmxsmartlink.com.
About DMX Smart Link
DMX Smart Link is lighting control software developed by White Crow Security LLC, a veteran-owned company in Stafford, Virginia, founded by U.S. Navy veteran Roman Khomitch. The software allows small venues, mobile DJs and live event teams to control professional DMX fixtures and consumer smart lights together from one local, offline-capable system. Its mission is to make dependable lighting control accessible to operators of every skill level.
Media Contact
Company: White Crow Security LLC
Website: https://dmxsmartlink.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8FrhBa6-197QOvKQVQOTBw
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