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31ST MARCH 2022

The Intelligence Behind Our Smart Homes

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A smart home makes your life more convenient and your home more comfortable and secure.

So what makes your home a smart home?

In this article, we look at some of the technology and smart home features that can be enjoyed with one of our luxury new build properties – from lighting and heating to entertainment and security.

Control4 Smart Home Operating System

Many of the features of our smart homes are controlled with a Control4 Smart Home operating system. You will always have control at your fingertips, using touchscreens in the home or a smartphone app wherever you are.

Control4 is a leading automation system for homes and businesses. With its personalised and unified smart home system, you can control and automate a range of features, such as audio, video, security, lighting, and heating.

The Control4 Smart Home OS can be used with tens of thousands of third-party products (from Xbox, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV to Harman, Sonos, and Bose speakers). That means it is easy to run everything from one control unit – with a simple tap, a single voice command, or by just allowing things to happen automatically.

Lutron HomeWorks

Have you noticed how your mood can shift as the light changes? How you can go from feeling lacklustre to feeling energised when a dreary, overcast start to the day is followed by glorious sunshine. How you start to relax as bright afternoon sun softens into evening twilight.

Light does not just change how a day looks; it affects the way we feel.

Lutron HomeWorks gives you the power to adjust the amount of daylight in your home – to complement your mood and even transform it. At the touch of a button, you can create the perfect atmosphere for whatever you are doing.

Beautiful lighting, intelligent blinds, and powerful controls, all working harmoniously to give you light that is just right.

Lutron Automated Blinds

Energise your mornings with natural light, while ensuring privacy where you want it. Lutron’s quiet, automated blinds are easily controlled at the touch of a button or through your own personalised schedule.

All Lutron blinds feature intelligent hembar alignment. This enables you to synchronise your motorised blinds – in a single room or throughout your entire home.

Blinds come in a choice of three different types of fabric opacity:

Sheer has open weaves which preserve views to the outside and filter sunlight;
Light-filtering has tighter weaves which transform harsh daylight into a soft, filtered glow, providing enhanced privacy;
Room-darkening has opaque fabrics which block light from entering. A room darkening-blind is included in our master bedrooms.

Personalisation

HomeWorks lets you craft different scenes that blend multiple lights and blinds together at the touch of a button.

For example, you might create an ‘Entertain’ scene that dims lights and lowers blinds as your guests arrive.

Or you might craft a ‘Goodnight’ scene that turns off all the lights and lowers the blinds before you fall asleep.

Automation and Smart Control

You can set your HomeWorks system so that it automatically knows when you come and go.

Furthermore, with the Lutron app, you can adjust your lights and blinds when you are away – whether you are on your way home or on the other side of the world.

So you always stay in control of your home. And your home remains looking occupied even when you are somewhere else.

Your Lutron HomeWorks lighting and blinds can be controlled with Palladiom keypads, Control4 T4 Touchscreens, or through an app on your smartphone.

Lutron Palladiom Keypads

Have you ever found yourself fumbling around in the dark, grasping for a switch? Not so with a Palladiom keypad.

Large, tactile buttons with backlit, engraved text are easy to use and easy to find in a darkened room. A subtle click confirms user touch and the dynamic backlighting automatically adjusts to ambient light levels in the room.

Palladiom keypads come in a variety of different styles, colours and finishes, including architectural matte, metal, and glass finishes. Faceplates and buttons are flush with one another, while the consistent material creates a clean, minimalist look.

Standard and custom engraving options are available, while you can choose from 11 button configurations across 1- and 2-button keypads.

Control4 T4 Touchscreens

The Control4 Series T4 Touchscreen offers a complete view and convenient control of your entire home, with a high-resolution screen, advanced dual microphones, and high-grade speakers. Control4 T4 Touchscreens put you immediately in control; unlike traditional touchscreens, you do not need to find and launch an app.

T4 Touchscreens are available as 8” and 10” in-wall and tabletop touchscreens.

A T4 Touchscreen is always connected. That means it is easy for you to obtain a complete picture of your property through your Control4 operating system.

The elevated features of the T4 Touchscreen make it the perfect companion for a Control4 Chime doorbell.

Control4 Chime Doorbells

A Chime video doorbell is a convenient way to keep your home safe and secure. It allows you to answer your door from anywhere.

For example, if you are running late, you can answer a guest’s ring, disarm the alarm, turn on the lights or open the garage door for them to enter.

Motion detection allows you to be instantly notified that a package has been delivered, even when your doorbell has not been pressed.

When someone rings Chime, video snapshots are delivered directly to your mobile device or Control4 T4 Touchscreen. So whether you are at home or out and about, you always know when someone is at your door – and you can see who it is.

Chime has five adjustable motion zones that allow you to set motion parameters. That means you can avoid being needlessly notified every time a car drives by.

Customised zones can be configured so that:

A camera snapshot is sent every time someone steps into a particular area;
A recording is triggered whenever there is movement in another area; and
All outside lights are turned on when movement is detected on the porch.

Chime also features a night mode. This provides a clear picture in low-light settings.

You are also able to monitor more than just the porch with Chime’s sprawling 180-degree field view.

Triad One

Enjoy incredible sound in any room with the Triad One.

The Triad One is a single-zone, high-resolution streaming amplifier that lets you add music into any room of your Control4-enabled home without needing to pull wires back to a central location.

It supports high-resolution audio playback and has a built-in amplifier that boasts an impressive 105 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 100 watts per channel.

Ruckus WiFi

Take advantage of the full-speed fibre broadband in your home with Ruckus WiFi.

Ruckus has won numerous awards, including the Wireless Broadband Alliance Best Wireless Network Infrastructure Award. This is why when connectivity really matters, organisations turn to Ruckus.

Araknis Network Switches

Araknis switches have been designed for both form and functionality. Stylish and informative, they support a wide range of networking needs and enable you to know your network.

Every single Araknis switch offers extensive OvrC (oh-ver-see) capability, meaning that network blind spots are a thing of the past.

Detailed information leads to fast remote troubleshooting. You can check your network’s statistics and discover what is going on in real-time, with detailed statistics for each port on switch connection status, link speed, power consumption, and data sent and received.

Heatmiser Smart Thermostat

The zoned underfloor heating in our luxury new build homes is controlled with a Heatmiser neoStat. This is a 230 V Smart Thermostat that can be controlled from anywhere.

Features include:

A Self Learning Preheat function that calculates the amount of time needed to make sure your home is warm when you wake up and when you return home. It is automatically optimised throughout the year, saving you money, and will detect any changes that cause the preheat time to change.
A Temperature Hold Facility that allows you to keep a set temperature for a specific time period – perfect for parties.
A Backlit Display which turns off automatically when not in use.

Available in Glacier White, Sapphire Black and Platinum Silver, the Heatmiser neoStat is only slightly bigger than a standard light switch. Which means you will notice what it does, not where it is located.