We invited our trusted technology partner, Sonitus Home, to talk to us about why including smart technology is an important part of any home project. Here is what their Director, Stuart, had to say…
As Smart Home specialists, we are often asked “What is a smart home?” Quite simply, it is a property that employs technology to simplify and enhance the lives of those living there.
Technology plays an increasingly important role in our everyday lives. However, retrofitting new technologies into your home – such as connected TVs and smart speakers – often leads to messy cables trailing around the house, congested WiFi networks, and “systems” of equipment that don’t always work together as they should – or could. At the same time, you find an increasing number of apps being installed on your tablets and smartphones to control it all.
The beauty of building, renovating, or extending your home is that, with good planning, much of the technology we use today can be hidden away or given its own place to “do its thing”. And with some forethought, many of the technologies which are likely to be developed in the coming years can also be accommodated without regressing to trailing cables around your beautiful new or updated property.
The role of smart home specialists, like Sonitus, is to work with homeowners, architects, and interior designers, to incorporate technologies into your project. We then combine control of them into a single system that can be operated through a simple app and/or keypads and touchscreens around the home.
The second question we are inevitably asked is “What technology do I need in a smart home?” The answer to this is much more nuanced and depends on your lifestyle and that of your family.
Any part of a house can be controlled using smart home technologies. So, when we first speak with prospective clients, we do not really focus too much on technology. Instead, our starting point is to find out how you use your current home; what frustrates you most about it, what your interests are, and what your hopes and dreams are for your new home. This allows us to think more laterally about your needs when we start to consider which tech to incorporate into your project.
Some popular areas for consideration are:
- Home WiFi – wherever possible we use cables to connect hardware within the home because they are always going to be more reliable than wireless solutions which can suffer interference. However, because wireless devices such as smartphones, laptops, and tablet PCs require robust WiFi networks to stream content and make the best use of the internet, we place a number of WiFi access points around a property to ensure the best coverage in all areas. We then give you control over who can use the internet and when.
- Distributed AV – music and video can be served from a central location to any TV, projector, or set of speakers in any area of the house or garden. These can be “zoned” to allow different areas to be controlled individually or grouped together as desired at the click of a button.
- Lighting design and control – we can create lighting setups with “scenes” allowing space to transform from being ideally lit for reading to ideally lit for watching a movie at the touch of a button. Some areas can also benefit from automated sensors that “read” natural lighting levels and combine that with information about the time of day and time of year to allow the lighting system to provide exactly the right lighting level – reducing the need for switches or light pulls.
- Home security – So much more than just an alarm. We can also incorporate CCTV, gate control, door entry, and electric garage doors – all accessible and controlled from your smartphone or tablet if you are out an about, or in the garden. Lighting use can also be “recorded” over time and set to playback when you are away – giving the impression that the house is occupied.
- Heating and ventilation – sensors can be placed around the property to read room temperatures and trigger central heating or air conditioning as required. As with lighting, schedules can be created to account for the time of day and time of year to ensure you use the least amount of energy necessary to keep your home at the right temperature.
- Other possibilities: electric curtains and blinds, fireplaces, velux windows/rooflights, exterior or feature lighting, swimming pool control, fountain or water feature control… the list is endless.
As with any part of your project, early planning is key. Once choices start to be made about what tech will be incorporated into your project, decisions need to be made about where to house the equipment which will run it. Some equipment can be temperature sensitive, and the amount of equipment necessary will be dictated by the size of the project. Once we have an idea of what is necessary, we will work with your architect to incorporate a suitably sized, ventilated space (or spaces) into the plans. If construction has already started, we will work with the site trades to identify the best space(s) for your equipment.
Finally, to future-proof your installation as much as possible, we will work with you to consider how your home might be used in the years to come. If a room could benefit from speakers in the future, or if you are planning a home office or pool room in the garden at some point, it is far more cost-effective and efficient to incorporate as much cabling as possible during the initial building phase.
Once the build is underway, we liaise with the project manager and trades on-site to ensure the cabling and equipment we install for you is secure and protected. However, we do not install delicate things like touchscreens, TV’s, cinema screens, or projectors until the decorating and floor-laying is complete – you really don’t want paint on your new equipment! We can carry out much of the programming in advance but you can expect us to still be around for a number of weeks after the main contractors have completed their works as we fine-tune the system to your needs and train you in how to operate it.
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Sonitus Home Limited (Sonitus) is a smart home company based in Hildenborough, Kent. Launched in 2019, we draw on more than 35 years of smart home, AV, construction, and project management experience to provide the very best bespoke technology installations and control systems for homes in Kent, London, Essex, and Hertfordshire.
You can find more information, or contact Stuart at info@sonitus.uk | www.sonitus.uk | 0203 488 6110