Tech Security
Now that the walls are up, it’s time to select everything I never ever understood I needed however concerned discover I needed to have. Fortunately, having actually dealt with my Control4 Smart House Pro, I was all set for the next action– selecting the fundamentals. Truthfully, in the beginning, I believed I went overboard, but it was necessary for us to buy the future of our house. I worked with the Control4 Smart Home Pro and had everything pre-wired, so I might have taken my time and done one system at a time. However, I chose to get all of my devices at one time, prior to moving in.
It was a bit frustrating in the beginning, but my Control4 Smart Home Pro told me we need to simplify by functionality. We thought about it in five ways:
( 1) facilities
( 2) automation
( 3) audio
( 4) video
( 5) security
While there are five different categories, a great deal of them overlap in performance and the system became a homogenous system that interacts.
Image courtesy of Control4
Infrastructure
Whatever begins with the infrastructure, similar to the structure of a home. We required to have the most robust internet speeds possible with numerous ways to access it. Plus, Jaime works from house, so she needs reputable and fast gain access to.
Our home is one story with a lot of large walls, so we utilized numerous wireless access indicate get the coverage we required. In order to help path the traffic, we bought a Pakedge Wireless Controller and a Pakedge 8-Port poe Handled Change to power the access points. The goal is to have full 1 gbps protection on the entire border of your house. It may look like overkill, but I’m wishing to future-proof for (a minimum of) the next couple years.
We also have a lot– and I imply a lot– of cat6 run in every room. We have two cat6 lines behind every television, in the bed rooms, offices, even outside by the swimming pool devices so we can connect the swimming pool controller into the Control4 system. To manage all of the traffic, we’re utilizing Pakedge Managed Changes and a Pakedge Router. We’re also utilizing a power conditioner that has separately managed outlets and self-governing self-healing, which suggests it can reboot different elements so that we never ever need to do it ourselves. We can even set up the reboots to occur in the middle of the night so that the network is never down.
Our “clever house nerve center”
Automation
To connect everything together, we chose to go with the Control4 EA-5 Entertainment & Automation Controller. My Control4 Smart House Pro recommended me that this controller was robust sufficient to handle all of our automation requires. It’s compatible with my clever locks, video cameras, lighting, thermostats, window tones, garage door, and much more.
We have some Control4 wise light switches and other Control4 lighting controllers that offer us the capability to set scenes. Our Control4 Smart Home Pro has actually been terrific about suggesting various scenes and performance, and we can’t wait to see how we’ll utilize it and edit, change, and add to it in the future all on our own with When >> Then Automation.
Picture courtesy of Control4
We also chose to go with two Control4 10″ In-Wall Touchscreens, mounting one at the entry and the other in our bedroom. These give us the ability to quickly arm/disarm the alarm and to wake or put our house to sleep. We likewise got the Control4 Neeo remote for inside and a Control4 SR-260 for outside.
Neeo remote control
Audio
Our audio is divided into 2 areas: “terrific space” and “everywhere else.” In the fantastic space, which is where our household will mostly watch television and films, we set up 7 Triad speakers in the ceiling– 3 LCRs, 2 mids, and 2 surround speakers. We also have a 12″ subwoofer to complete the bottom end. I got a 9.2 Dolby Atmos AVR to power the great space– it has the power required to press the speakers so that I get the most out of my home theater experience.
For the rest of our home, we installed Triad speakers, so we can utilize the Control4 EA-5 to stream our favorite music to every speaker in your house or any speaker( s) that we pick. We also got a pair of Triad Amplifiers and a Triad 24- Zone Audio Matrix Switch to distribute the sound to every room– consisting of outside. [Side note from Jaime: Jordan went a little crazy with the speakers, but I can’t lie – I don’t hate it. ☺ ]
Video
For video, we got a Control4 6 × 6 HD Video Matrix. With the video matrix, we can stream approximately 6 different 4k video sources to any one of 6 screens. With this devices I can make the sound for the television play from the in-ceiling speakers instead of the stock television speaker. We likewise have an EA-1 controller behind each of our television’s to help communicate with the EA-5 and the video matrix. The EA-1 controllers boost the Zigbee mesh network to make interactions more robust.
Security
The security system integrates a standard alarm and 10 Pakedge turret cams positioned around your house, which feeds into a Lilin NVR to record and upload any suspicious activity.
My Control4 Smart House Pro described that you can program the electronic cameras to have an undetectable boundary. Implying that if anything trips a video camera it can interact with the rest of the system to turn on a light, lock a door, or equip your alarm. Pretty sweet. We likewise got Control4 DS2 Mini door station so we can see who is at the door and communicate with– and even unlock the door– for them via the in-wall screens and our cellphones.
It was a lot of fun designing our system, from the conceptual stage and pre-wire to final decisions and getting. We’re actually looking forward to finally moving in and experiencing what it resembles to cope with all of the functionality of the Control4 smart home.
Control4 provided us with some of the above-mentioned products for review. All viewpoints are our own.
