The brief

Inspire Audio Visual was brought into the project after the homeowner had lost confidence in the original Control4 integrator.
Rather than starting with a clean sheet, we inherited a substantial smart-home installation that had been developed in stages, with incomplete documentation and a number of issues that needed resolving.

Our first job was therefore to understand exactly what had already been installed.

From there, we could correct the existing problems, properly document the system and develop it into the reliable, fully integrated smart home the client originally wanted. The property itself is a beautifully renovated five-bedroom farmhouse near Halifax. Despite the amount of technology being introduced, the client did not want the house to feel technical. Quite the opposite.
The goal was to make as much of it disappear as possible.

The challenge: taking over somebody else's smart home

Taking over an existing automation project can be considerably more complicated than starting from the beginning. Every lighting circuit, speaker, television, network device, sensor, heating zone and control interface needs to be understood before meaningful changes can be made.

On this project, much of that information had never been properly documented. We therefore had to work methodically through the house, auditing the existing installation, identifying issues and creating the documentation required to properly support the system going forward.

Once that foundation had been established, we could concentrate on the more important question:

How should the home actually work for the people living in it?

One Control4 system for the entire home
At the centre of the property is a whole-home Control4 automation system.
An EA-5 provides the main processing platform, with EA-1 controllers supporting televisions around the property.

Despite the scale of the automation, the finished rooms remain visually quiet. Technology was integrated into the architecture rather than added on afterwards.

More than 100 circuits of intelligent lighting.

Lighting forms a major part of the installation, with more than 100 lighting circuits controlled directly through Control4.
Rather than filling the walls with rows of conventional switches, Control4 keypads provide scene-based control throughout the property.
The lighting design uses multiple layers within each room so the atmosphere can change depending on how the space is being used.
Extensive external lighting also brings the gardens into the wider system.
Bathrooms include presence sensors, providing automatic lighting when required without the homeowner having to touch a keypad.
This is where smart lighting becomes useful rather than simply technical.

The homeowner doesn't need to know which circuit controls which fitting.

They interact with the room.A house that knows when you're leaving. One of the family's favourite features is the Away scene. Pressing Away doesn't simply switch a few lights off. The house begins gradually dimming the lighting throughout the property, prepares the security system and arms the alarm.

At the same time, the entrance gate remains open long enough for the family to leave the property by car. Once they've departed, the house completes the sequence. It is a relatively simple interaction for the homeowner, but multiple systems are working together behind that single command.

That is the real benefit of whole-home automation.

16 zones of completely invisible audio

Audio is available throughout the house without conventional speakers interrupting the interior. We installed 16 audio zones using Amina Edge5 plaster-in loudspeakers. The speakers are installed within the walls and ceilings and then plastered over, leaving the finished surface completely uninterrupted. Once decorated, there is no visible speaker grille.

Music simply appears within the room. The family can listen to streaming services, AirPlay, radio and other sources throughout the property, with rooms operating independently or together.

It is a particularly good example of the philosophy behind the entire project:

• High-performance technology that doesn't need to look like technology.
• Six zones of distributed video
• A Control4/Leaf video matrix distributes television and video sources around the property.
• Six principal video zones can access shared sources, meaning the family isn't tied to a particular Sky box or source in a particular room.
• Televisions throughout the property are integrated with Control4, keeping operation consistent regardless of which room the family is using.
• Instead of juggling television remotes, source remotes and separate apps, the automation system handles the equipment behind the scenes.
• A kitchen TV that moves with the room
• The kitchen presented an interesting problem.
• It is a large multifunctional space, and the television needed to work equally well from different parts of it.
• Rather than fixing the screen permanently towards one seating position, we installed a Future Automation motorised bracket.
• The television can extend from the wall and rotate in either direction.
• Turn it one way and it faces the main kitchen.
• Rotate it the other and it can be viewed from the seating booth.
• When it isn't required, it returns neatly to its original position.

The kitchen television uses a Future Automation motorised bracket, allowing the screen to extend and rotate towards different areas of the room.

The master-bedroom television disappears completely behind the mirror when switched off.

Even the gas fire is integrated

The lounge gas fire is also controlled through the automation system.

It can be operated from Control4 interfaces including the homeowner's phone, putting another part of the living environment inside the same control experience.

These integrations are individually quite small.

Collectively, however, they are what turns a collection of connected devices into a genuinely integrated home.