Unique Homes Blog

New technology is changing the way we buy, sell and live

The best technology is almost invisible. Here, at the Esquire House in Hollywood, hidden speakers throughout the yard bring the music outside, and a wireless remote controls lighting (inside and out), the pool and spa, and audio, and keeps tabs on who might be at the front door. The house won Electronic House Magazine’s 2009 home of the year honors.

Green might garner the most headlines, but under the green haze another quiet revolution is underway.
A hundred years ago, the newest tech-nology for homes was electricity; the latest today enables all the systems in the home to work together. Still, the objective remains the same: aligning the living environment with desires of the occupants.

“It wasn’t that long ago that a home with an intercom and lights on a timer was considered pretty high-tech,” observes Dave Pedigo, senior director of technology for the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA).

High-tech homes today include an assortment of electronic devices, either stand-alone or interconnected, that can manage lighting, entertainment, security, climate, even shades from literally anywhere using intuitive touch screens, computers or mobile phones. With prices becoming palatable to many budgets and a rapidly growing array of cost-saving practical applications, technology is no longer just a nice-to-have amenity; rather, it is becoming central to the way homes operate now and, most especially, in the future.

“It is the next best thing that people won’t be able to live without that they don’t know about now,” says Eric Smith, chief technology officer at Control 4, a Utah-based technology manufacturer.

Luxury homes at the highest price points always have had their share of intelligent features. In properties priced above $20 million, some type of home automation is almost standard, according to Shari Chase, president and CEO of Chase International Distinctive Properties in Lake Tahoe, Nev. Especially, she says, in homes that have been built recently.

Nothing could be a better match for luxury’s new paradigm than smart home technology, as increasingly upscale homeowners seek ways to streamline their lives and reduce the cost of operating one or multiple homes. Enhanced security and automated systems can alert owners to any changes in their property, whether it is an unusual temperature change or an open door. Additionally, a system can prepare a home for the owner’s return, changing temperature settings and turning on lights. Even snow-melt systems can be configured to be activated remotely.

Like many professionals who specialize in planning and installing electronic systems, Dan Merrill sees a continued, strong demand from upscale owners. “I’ve actually had more interest in automation than a year ago. Higher-end buyers are still looking for smart home technology but they are more value conscious,” he says. Adding to growing interest from upscale owners are new products, both wired and wireless, that bring the prices down.

“Home management systems are not just for the Bill Gateses in this world and not just for the computer nerd. They make everything one-touch simple,” says Chip Johnson, owner of Vision Integrated Systems in Raleigh, N.C.  When he started in the business 17 years ago, Johnson says he had a good idea of the way products would evolve, but he couldn’t have envisioned that it would be this affordable.  “It’s not set up for the starter house, but certainly it is for the next house,” he says.

As is the case with energy efficiency, there is no one feature that turns an ordinary house into a smart home, and, in fact, the term high-tech or smart home applies to a whole menu of features and functions, ranging from something as basic as a sensor that turns off the lights in an unoccupied room to an installation that essentially transforms a home into what Utz Baldwin, CEO of CEDIA, describes as a “giant networked computer with walls and a roof.”

A good example is entertainment. A home theater might be a stand-alone room with surround sound, a projection screen, Blu-ray, DVR and cable or satellite, or it can be only one facet of a system that stores music, DVRs, video and Blu-ray on a central server and distributes this media to designated locations throughout the house with each playing something different.

A good example is the Esquire House in Hollywood that won Electronic House Magazine’s home of the year for 2009. This property incorporates a fully integrated Crestron control system that manages: 20 zones of audio, pool and spa control, a Vantage lighting system, 12 zones of HVAC, waterfalls, fountains, 2 motorized TV lifts, 12 zones of distributed video, CCTV systems, access control, and a full security system. Another innovation was an iPod base in the kitchen that could be accessed from any room in the house, says Josh Christian, vice president of marketing for DSI Entertainment Systems, the electronic systems contractor (ESC) for the Esquire House.

Entertainment might be the initial draw for homeowners, but once they investigate smart home technology, they understand the synergies of all the systems working together. Benefits can be as trivial as waking up to a room with the lights turned up and your favorite wake-up music or television show playing, or as critical as the response to a fire or smoke alarm. In this instance, in addition to alerting fire departments, the system could turn on enough interior lighting to guide occupants to exits while flashing exterior lights to alert rescue personnel. Most importantly, the HVAC would be turned off so the blower doesn’t distribute smoke throughout the house.

The adaptability of technology today allows for a huge range of options, both practical and fanciful. One owner had a motion sensor connected to a camera and DVR posted along the perimeter of his property to capture the movements of coyote and deer, a setup most often used for security. The most complex system can attend to details as specific as the humidity and temperature in a wine cellar and as comprehensive as powering down the entire house for the night, a day or an extended absence.

“Guys want the WOW factor, while female buyers tend to like safety functions,” such as having the system send a text message letting them know their child has opened a door or turned off the security system and is safely home from school, says Merrill. Additionally, according to Control4, a system can be set so kids can’t turn on televisions when they come home from school or to send an alert if a medicine or liquor cabinet is opened while a parent is away. Parents can even receive a text if a teenager (or anyone) leaves the home during the night. Similar functions are being developed to facilitate aging in place, which many see as another driver for innovation. Family members can be alerted if an aging relative is not up and around each morning. IP cameras also can provide even closer monitoring.

The old persona of having to fire up a PC to turn off the lights still hovers over consumers, and the mention of controls often still evokes images of the bridge on Star Trek. “The biggest misconception,” Christian explains, “is that it is going to be too difficult to use or they won’t use the features.”
But, he says, that all changes once they see the touch screens and remotes. “Once they have it, they can’t live without it,” he says.

MANAGE YOUR ENERGY

One of the hottest new applications for technology is energy management. A number of companies, including Control4, are working with utility companies to develop smart meters that track and report energy usage in real time to both consumers and power companies. Google is also building a platform for collecting, managing and analyzing home energy information and is testing an Internet application that allows homeowners to monitor energy usage online.

Energy and water management have become a major focus for ONteriors, an award-winning ESC in San Diego. “We’ve shifted our platform to feature sets that help people live a green life,” says owner Eric Clifton. One new offering from ONteriors is a utility dashboard pioneered by GE that looks like a tachometer and shows energy usage in real time. Studies show, according to Clifton, that once people are aware of how much electricity they use, they change their behavior and reduce consumption.

Another new offering is a tool to be used with automatic sprinkler systems that determines on a daily basis if and how much irrigation should occur. Based on data and satellite information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, and using data such as topography and slope for that specific site, the system is designed to water at the most effective time and sequence each day. Clifton, who is a former board member of the U.S. Green Building Council, also has formed Barnabas Development Group, which acts as an aggregator of energy solutions—including technology—and will be working on new, affordable net energy homes to be installed in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward next month.

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