Top 10 tips for successful home technology
Nowadays, people take home technology for granted, and expect to have it in their homes. If you require some elements of home technology, but are not totally au fait with it, then you may find these tips that Kensington Home Technology provided us with highly useful for your own project:
Identify your requirements
Home technology is a term used to describe electronic systems in the modern home, including home automation, multi-room hi-fi, audio visual (including home cinema), lighting control, communications, networking, security and HVAC (heating, ventilation & air conditioning).
The first step is to identify how far you want to go with your technology. All modern homes have lots of technology in them, from data networks to surround sound TVs, music, lighting control, alarm systems, CCTV and so on.
Home technology budgets rise very steeply when the aim is to integrate lots of the technologies at the touch of a button – this is known as home automation and the best known product for this is Crestron. Crestron will allow the user to access their movie server, control the home cinema, control the lighting, listen to music, watch the CCTV, control the heating/AC, answer the door, intercom another room, water the garden and virtually anything else all at the touch of a button on one wireless tablet….The Crestron Home! (www.crestron.co.uk)
A less expensive way of living in a high tech home is to have all of the above technologies, but no centralised way of controlling them. It is important to ascertain your requirements early on, not only what technology, i.e. music, lighting, etc. that you want in the rooms but also how you plan to control it. This will give your custom installer the information that he or she needs to prepare a sensible quote.
Invest in your property
Spend money on the infrastructure – such as plenty of good quality cabling - even if it means having to save on the hardware. This infrastructure will help provide you with a future ready home. It will therefore add value to your property and make living in it all the more enjoyable.
Flexibility
Give yourself as much flexibility as possible by installing lots of cables at the time of refurbishment. For example, run plenty of speaker wires, even if you do not plan to use them in the near future. Cables are relatively cheap to install and will give you the flexibility in the future of having music in rooms where there may not be an existing requirement.
Also, try to have all your cables run back to a central distribution point, whenever possible. This will ease management and allow greater flexibility for upgrades and changes of use in the future.
Planning
In order to know where to run the cables to, the furnished layout of each room needs to be established. This means that before the electrician starts the first fix electrics, all of the positions must be known for furniture and home technology.
Don’t forget that this includes security (alarm sensors, etc) and also remember that home technology has specific power requirements too, i.e. 12V in the bathroom for aqua TV, or 13A in the ceiling for the projector that you want (not forgetting 13A in the ceiling for the screen - if you want it to come down at the touch of a remote control!)
Prioritise
As you have already identified the technology or functionality you would like in each room of your home, it is then necessary to prioritise each item. This will help your custom installer work with you to create a solution that is within your budget.
Simplify
Keep it simple! The more complicated it gets, the more expensive it will become. If you want a fully automated home with the ability to control everything from one screen, you will need a big budget. A good compromise is to have full automation in the principal rooms only.
Wired vs wireless
Where possible use a hard-wired connection for your home technology needs: it is faster, more secure and more reliable than a wireless connection, plus there are no health risks. Use standard cables that will work with all manufacturers’ equipment and avoid systems that require specialist wires as they can be incompatible with other makes of equipment.
Purchasing hardware
When choosing hardware do plenty of research in quality magazines such as “What Hi-Fi”, which offer an unbiased opinion on products in the marketplace. Beware of buying hardware for the cheapest price on the internet as this can lead to problems ranging from fraud, to grey imports and discontinued stock.
The easiest solution is to get your custom installer to supply and install the hardware, which will be less work for you, plus you know that they will specify the correct brackets and leads, etc. It is always a good idea to compare your installer’s prices with high street retailers to ensure they are competitive. Beware that a lot of custom installers will charge you extra installation costs if you provide your own hardware – just like a restaurant charges corkage if you bring your own wine!
Management
Work with a quality custom installation company (often referred to as an AV Specialist) that will design, project manage, supply and install all aspects of your required technology solution within budget. By centralising the management of several specialist trades you will save time and money by avoiding costly mistakes, breakdowns in communication and duplication of infrastructure.
A good way to find a custom installer in your area is to look on the CEDIA website. CEDIA: Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association is the trade association for the industry; and membership to CEDIA is restricted to good companies with insurance, professional indemnity, training programmes, and a professional work ethic. (www.cedia.co.uk)
Good aesthetics
To protect the interior design of your home, ensure that all technical implementations recommended by your custom installer are sympathetic to the property’s furnishings. Beautiful, hand-crafted cabinets can be custom-built to ‘hide’ unsightly techy boxes and cables, for example, without impacting the technology’s performance. Also ensure that recommended installations are as future ready as practical, i.e. that a change of mind will not require costly replastering or refurbishment.
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