SMART HOME INSTALLATION - RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW!
A smart home installation can totally transform the way you enjoy and experience your home!
Finally, the smart home has arrived! And there is no going back now!
Ever since the Jetson’s was screened on US TV in the early 1960’s, we have been teased with the prospect of having intelligent homes that genuinely make our life easier. Until recently the preserve of the mega-rich, standalone smart home products are now mainstream but does that mean that a professional smart home installation is a thing of the past? On the contrary, the role of a smart home installation company has just become much more important!
20 years ago, our coffee tables were filled with multiple remote controls for TV’s, Video Recorders, DVD Players, Sky Boxes… fast forward to 2020 and the growth of smart home products has created a situation where our smart phones are filled with Apps. We have an App for smart heating, an App for smart lighting, an App for our TV, an App for our music…. it goes on and on and on!
Investing in a professional smart home installation can deliver a sublime experience! Our team of experts are trained to work with industry leading smart home solutions like Savant, KNX, Lutron, RTI, Rako and Loxone – you can be sure that Acoustic Pixel have a solution for you! Find out from our experts how much a smart home costs.
a Wired vs wireless Smart home installation - NEW BUILD HOUSE
Choosing the right solution for your smart home installation is absolutely critical. The first big decision is whether you will have a wired infrastructure or a wireless solution. Choosing wired or wireless is often determined by your particular project. When recommending a Smart Home option in a new build property we would almost always advise to put in a wired system where possible. It is no secret that wires work better than wireless signals and as we are professional smart home installers, we always do what we can to ensure the smart home system is as reliable as possible.
While being more robust and reliable, a hard wired smart home installation has other advantages too. The wired network will encounter less interference, handle faster transmission speeds if needed, and can be better managed to solve problems introduced by consumer devices on the system (wireless audio systems, some video/TV products for instance). In addition, the wired network cabling can be re-purposed as well to serve other requirements, HDBT video transmission over spare data cabling in video zones, control signals for IR and RS232 transmission, etc.
Acoustic Pixel can work with you to design and install the right network to ensure your smart home automation system operates exactly how you want it too!
USING A WIRELESS SMART HOME SOLUTION - Retrofit
There can be very little argument that a wired smart home infrastructure will be more reliable and capable than a wireless smart home solution. However, that doesn’t mean that wireless solutions are without merit. Our view is that if you can get a cable to the device (light switch, speaker, manifold, CCTV camera, TV etc) then a wired smart home system is the best solution. Certainly, if you are building a new house or significantly re-furbing/extending an existing property we would advise you to focus on getting a rock solid network infrastructure installed.
In other circumstances when you cant’t justify installing new cables everywhere, we would explore a wireless solution. Wireless smart home solutions can be the preferred solution when it is impossible to install new cables. For example, a wireless smart lighting control system can often be installed very quickly and with little disruption! Similarly, wireless smart heating and smart door access systems are straightforward too. Our smart home designers can advise you on the most effective solution for your property.
BENEFITS OF A PROFESSIONAL SMART HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEM
Lighting, heating and security are the most popular aspects of the home for automation, followed by blind control, AV and energy management. The market offers consumers a broad spectrum of solutions for the advanced control of these different areas; however, their functionality and scope varies widely. At one end of the spectrum sit several off-the-shelf, cloud-based solutions that typically serve a single function. These products offer an affordable route into home automation and therefore have been instrumental in opening up the smart home market to a much wider audience. BUT…. the disadvantage of these products is that they often lack integration and compatibility with each other and have limited functionality, causing increasing frustration for consumers.
DIY solutions (such as Philips Hue, Alexa etc) have been great for our industry, they make our clients aware of some of the things that can be done, and can open conversations with clients about what they want to achieve. However, these off the shelf solutions can suffer from incompatibility with each other and a lack of genuine integration. In can lead to a very frustrating smart home experience! If they are all separate devices, not working together in a “smart” way, then they form part of a connected home, not a smart home. Today most of the smart comes from the installer, programming the automation, but with advances in AI and machine learning, compatible devices will soon be able to do some of this learning themselves.
USING A PROFESSIONAL SMART HOME INSTALLER
Smart home professionals should be viewed just like a qualified electricians, architects or plumbers. In the same way you wouldn’t want someone to build your house who had just watched a couple of Youtube videos and completed a week long course, you need to make sure that the company you are asking to deliver your smart home installation is an expert! Professional smart home installers have gone through years of training to develop their skills and product knowledge. They use this knowledge to select the right products, design a robust infrastructure and integrate many systems together into a seamless smart home.
Our team at Acoustic Pixel are proud to be smart home professionals and members of CEDIA – our industry body. Our smart home installation team are trained and accredited to deliver a wide range of solutions and we will always find the right one for your smart home installation!
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