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 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 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.