December 18, 2009 | by Lisa Montgomery

2009 is coming to a close, so I thought it would be appropriate to look back at the homes I’ve featured during the year.

Surprisingly, I remembered at least one interesting tidbit about each and every one, and we’re talking dozens of homes—including many winners and finalists from our annual Home of the Year Awards program.

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by John Sciacca

Without a doubt, the latest technologies are amazingly cool. With an iPhone, you can carry around more computing power in your pocket than what fueled the moon launches. With Blu-ray, you have access to studio-master quality audio and video in your very home. And every time I walk past one of the new LED backlit LCD TVs, I marvel at their razor-thin side profile. It’s an inch thick. An inch! You could practically shave with it. I mean, how do they possible cram all the magical techno-guts inside that thing? (If you really want to know what is inside, check this video I shot at CES last year. You’ll need Quick Time to watch. http://bitstream.soundandvisionmag.com/blog/2009/01/ces-2009-day-three-inside-hitachi-ultra-thin-lcd.html)
So, with all this great tech at our disposal, it is easy to overlook things that are low tech by nature. Like vacuum cleaners. Not very sexy, right? I mean, this is strictly a must have item, not something that people get excited about. I have a Dyson, probably one of the coolest vacuum cleaners around. And yet, it’s never one of the things I pull out to show people when they come to my house. In fact, it is sequestered away in a closet, where we hope no one will see it. (Which is kind of odd, right? Like, the people coming over know we have a vacuum. It isn’t a secret.)
Well, I recently saw a vacuum system that did excite me. In fact, of all the cool tech in this person’s home – and we’re talking about automation, full lighting and HVAC control, Kaleidescape movie servers, etc. – this was the thing that most excited them as well. A central vac system with an in-wall, retractable hose.
Now, I’m not saying that these things haven’t been around for a while, but this was the first working example I saw, and it seems like one of those things that no one knows about or that have been forgotten. But this completely addressed the giant negative that everyone hates about central vac: dragging that damned hose around all over the house. We used to have a central vac system. Never used it. First time I had to fight that 25-foot house up and down the stairs and back into the closet, was the time I decided to use the regular vac from then on.
But the Hide-A-Hose and Vroom systems from Vacuflo (www.vacuflo.com) were so cool and so easy to use and put away that you would truly give your old vac – even a Dyson – the heave-ho. The Hide-A-Hose stores up to 50 feet of hose in the wall, meaning you never have to see it or fight with it. And, because it is 50-feet long, you can get away with fewer ports around the home. When you’re finished, simply put your hand over the nozzle and it sucks itself back into the wall. The Vroom is great for spot cleaning, like quick spills in the kitchen.
Check out my video for a demonstration.

by John Sciacca

Being green is all the rage right now. In fact, you can barely attend any event or read about any product without hearing about some benefit that’s designed to keep the globe spinning a bit longer. The problem is, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what Green is and many companies seem to be just jumping on the hype wagon to make some green…or whatever color Chinese money is.

Many companies profess to being Green, but what does this mean? Are they Green because their products are packed in a smaller carton with less material? Are they more Green if that carton is recycled from other cartons? Are they Green if their device draws less “Vampire power” when it’s turned off? (The Department of Energy claims that stand-by power can account for up to 20% of a home’s electrical use, and a 1998 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study estimated that this totals more than $3 billion in annual costs. Yikes!)

While all of these issues are sorted out and a real definition of what makes a product Green is defined, I think most people are really looking to make a smart buying decision that fulfills their needs while being as environmentally friendly as possible.

As I write this, I am staying in an absolutely amazing home on St. John in the US Virgin Islands, helping the homeowner install some audio and a couple of surround sound systems. As much as I’d love to center this blog on how amazing this place is, something the homeowner asked about was too perfect a topic to pass up.

She mentioned that electricity costs on the island were staggeringly expensive, and that some of her friends had monthly bills exceeding $7000! Because of this she asked if I would be sure to turn off my room’s thermostat whenever leaving.

This immediately gave me an idea. Why not tie occupancy/motion sensors into the HVAC system? If the person leaving the room presses a handy off button it can automatically turn the A/C off. But if they forgot to press the button, the system can turn it off after a set number of minutes of non-movement. Easy-breezy!

“But what about at night, when people are sleeping and not moving?” she asked. Since nearly all automation controllers feature an astronomic time clock, that’s easily overcome by programming the system to leave the cooling system running from say 9 PM to 8 AM whether there is movement or not.

This is the perfect example of real-world automation coming to the rescue. Helping the client to be Green by using less energy and actually save some real green (US dollars on St. John) at the same time. It also offered the perfect opportunity for me to secure a second visit to the home. But I only thought of that later, promise.

by Lisa Montgomery Electronic House

Home control is all about simplicity. You press a button and a million things happen. If you can’t find that button, though, it’s pointless to even have a system in your house. That’s why it’s so important to make sure the interface (i.e. remote control, touchpanel or keypad) you use to command the lights, thermostats, A/V gear and other devices is well designed by your custom electronics professional.

It’s a difficult endeavor, both for manufacturers who build the interfaces and for the pros who design them. There are a lot of elements to consider: the layout of the buttons; the size, shape and color of those buttons; and the sequence of actions required to launch commands to electronic devices around the house. It would be easy if everyone marched to the same drum, and in many ways, we do. There are certain human factors that apply to everyone: we read from left to right, view lists from top to bottom and associate danger with the color red, for example.

Beyond these reference points, however, there’s little commonality between users, and this is where the design of a user interface gets tricky. Should your collection of music titles be listed on the right side of the screen or the left?  Would you like all of your home control commands presented on a floorplan rather than on separate “room” pages? Would you like access to your entire channel guide or just your favorite stations?

User preferences are bound to be all over the board. What you like will undoubtedly be different than your custom electronics (CE) pro’s previous customers. In fact, your preferences may be drastically different even from those of your spouse and kids.
Obviously, the more your CE pro knows about you and your family, the better prepared he’ll be to design an interface that’s intuitive and suits the needs of everyone who uses it. Think beyond those who live at your house, like the babysitter, your mother and guests who stay at your house occasionally. They’ll need to know how to work the remote, touchpanel or keypad, too.

Here are a few key factors that can help your CE pro determine the best design for your home control interface.

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by Bob Gullo

Due Diligence

What you need know BEFORE selecting your Electronic Systems Integrator

Most would agree that there are salient elements to look for when selecting a firm. What are the most important elements to you in the selection process?

While there is a litany of questions to ask, the following questions represent the key points to consider when selecting a firm.

Visit the Facility

Getting to know the company you are considering.  There are several things one should consider during the introductory “getting to know you” phase.  One way to get a good read on a prospective firm is to visit their operation.  The mission of this trip is to learn about their business processes; how they manage their projects from start to completion to servicing their clients afterward.  Here are a few fact finding questions to ask.

1. Ask to see and review technical drawings and schematics of a project of similar size and scope. They should include wiring schematics, rack elevations and connection diagrams.
2. Ask to see the production facility. What you want to see is Equipment Racks under construction and being tested. Is the wiring neat and organized?
3. Ask if they have programmers on staff, not outsourced. Ask to see their certifications from the vendors. Ask to meet with a programmer to review a current project of similar size and scope of yours.
4. Who Manages the Project?  Do they have a business Process to manage projects?  Ask to see it.
5. Who services the Project? Meet the Service Manager; he will be one of the most important people you know after the project is complete.

Financial Stability & Longevity

1. Run a D&B report. Make sure the firm has no law suits, liens, and IRS or State Tax problems. Do they pay their bills on time?  Do they have high credit limits?  Larger projects require larger credit lines.
2. Ask permission to contact their Banker.  Does the firm have financial strength?  I would ask to see their balances across all accounts, loans payable and lines of credit.  In this economy you can’t be too careful.
3. Ask for a reference of similar size and scope for a Project that was installed MORE THAN 5 YEARS AGO.   Of course, get recent references too, but older references are a good source to evaluate the company’s service.

Technical Prowess

1. Ask to see MORE THAN ONE PROJECT, of similar size and scope. Everyone gets lucky with a Home Run in their career, I’ve made my living focused on Larger, Complex projects.
2. Inspect the racks, the wiring closets and “head-ends”.  Are they neat and serviceable?
3. Review the Touchpanel pages; can you operate them without asking for instruction? Are they intuitive?
4. Has the firm won any nationally accredited technical awards for their work?
5. Has the firm been recognized for their technical prowess from the vendors they’re representing?

by John Sciacca

Remote controls are such a great idea, that we have decided that virtually everything needs one. Lights, ceiling fans, car starters, dog training collars, and of course every piece of consumer electronics known to man. There are even remote devices to help you find your other remotes. Surely, when the alien overlords come to enslave us all, they will take a look at the heaps of these discarded remotes littering coffee tables across the land and know that we are one lazy bunch. Actually, this might ultimately save us, since our obvious laziness will show that we probably aren’t going to be much good as slaves anyhow, but…

With that in mind, the idea of purchasing another remote might smack of Caligula-level excess, but many times that is exactly what is needed. To paraphrase my favorite bit of Middle-earth poetry, what many people need is “One remote to rule them all.”

Modern systems are so complex that they need one remote that can play quarterback to everything. Even something “simple” like watching TV can require five or more button presses on three different remotes. The good news is that there are many great remotes under $500 that can tame even the unruliest of systems.

But if you want total control, you might need to step up to a controller that costs $1000 or more. These remotes add features like radio frequency for “no pointing” operation, source power sensing and logic to know when to turn components on or when to leave them alone and RS-232 and IP control for even better communication with your system.

Further as homes continue to get smarter, everything becomes more intricately interconnected. And if you don’t want your home becoming totally self-aware and sending Terminators back from the future to attack your ancestors, then you better make sure you can control everything. And this is where the smartest of remotes come in, capable of interfacing with all manner of your home’s sub-systems: lighting, HVAC, surveillance and security, irrigation, pool and spa control, etc.

In the end, the best remotes allow you to truly enjoy your system instead of studying for the doctoral exam of figuring out how to operate it, and that makes a great remote one of the smartest investments you’ll ever make.

Welcome to Electronics Design Group’s new blog. We’ll be using this space to talk about anything and everything related to custom electronics integration  and  design. We — and our guest bloggers — will be offering opinions of industry news, observations on exciting new technologies, thoughts of our philosophy about doing business in today’s evolving digital world, and more. Please feel free to add your comments to any post; your opinions matter to us and we welcome the dialogue.

This first post is a good time to discuss what we do here at EDG, because it’s not as obvious as it seems. On the surface, we’re a pretty high-tech operation, and could define our business as something like this: “The design and integration of custom home theater, wholehouse audio/video, lighting, and home automation control systems in residential and commercial applications.” Pretty geeky stuff, for sure, and it’s true that our day-to-day here is largely consumed in working closely with trade partners like architects and interior designers identifying our clients’ needs, creating engineering diagrams, ordering parts, and constructing the elaborate systems for which we’ve won so many CEDIA Lifestyle and industry magazine awards. Then, like any other enterprise, we’ve got the ongoing job of promoting ourselves and making sure that there’s always another project lined up so we can thrive and provide a secure professional environment for the 50 or so employees who rely on us.

But all of this misses the real point about why we continue to succeed in what is arguably the most difficult economic environment in our company’s 22-year history. That part can be best explained not so much in what we do, but in why our clients hire us. They do so because they’ve come to realize the import in their daily lives of the systems we design and implement. They recognize, though not always consciously, that there is an emotional element to using custom electronics that derives from the power of the technology to entertain them, to shift their mood at the touch of a button, to assure their physical comfort, to protect and secure their persons and property. And, above all, to simplify their lives so that these benefits can be seamlessly enjoyed at will. Few trades involved in building a custom home have the same power to so dramatically enhance — or foul up — the ongoing lifestyle of the homeowner. While our successes are great, so is our responsibility, and we take it very seriously. That commitment to our clients is what’s separated EDG from its competition since the very beginning.

So if we crow a bit when we win an award, or receive another testimonial or referral from a happy client, its not just because we’re proud that we’ve successfully maneuvered all these elements into place one more time. It’s also because we know we’ve given a very real gift to the families that have placed their trust in us, one that will last their tenure in their home. Unlike with some other businesses, our clients touch what we do every single day, and it makes for pretty gratifying work. Now, granted, this isn’t the only reason we do what we do. But it’s one of the best.

Bob Gullo is the President and founder of Electronics Design Group