The High-Tech House

The High-Tech House

lighten up Lutron’s AuroRA lighting-control system ($750) allows homeowners to control up to five lights in multiple rooms from a single panel or even from their cars. Available at and Hi Light Decorating in Yonkers, and Vitolite Electric Sales in Port Chester.

The latest state-of-the-art systems integrate your home’s security, lighting, heating, and entertainment and do your thinking—and worrying—for you. Put your feet up and let your place take care of itself.

By Rich Mintzer

When you get an email from your refrigerator telling you that its cooling system isn’t working properly, you’d better listen. Today’s appliances are serious business—and they’re able to speak up for themselves through the latest smart-house capabilities and high-tech systems integration.

“There’s a radio commercial where a guy is told by his boiler that he’ll soon get a call from his heating company,” says Tom Manna, founder and president of Digital Home Specialists in Mamaroneck. “Then the phone rings and it’s the heating company.”  In recent years, according to Manna, Local Area Networks (or LANs) have been put into more and more homes with jacks in kitchens and utility rooms. Why? So that the latest appliances can let consumers know when something is wrong. 

              But there is more to it than just chatty appliances. In our effort to move toward smart-house technology, home integration allows command central to be found on an easy-to-use touchpad. Companies such as Crestron, regarded by many as the Rolls Royce of the touchpad industry (with models ranging from about $400 to more than $2,000), along with Texas-based AMX, and a local multi-million-dollar company called Universal Remote (based in Harrison), manufacture the easy-to-program control panels.

“From one hand-held control panel, you can select between a radio, a CD player, an MP3 player; choose from a playlist; and control the sound in every room of your house,” says Robert Zohn, owner of Value Electronics in Scarsdale. With the help of a home computer, homeowners can set their washers or dryers to go on at a certain time, raise or lower their home thermostat, or control security cameras and lights to see who’s ringing their doorbell.

Frank Huang, president of Mount Kisco’s Reference Cinema & Sound, a company that specializes in high-end home-electronic integration, points out that touch-panel technology has also had a major impact on home lighting. “If, for example, you have a lot of art, you can change the lighting or program the shades to go up or down so it won’t fade in the sun,” says Huang. “You don’t actually program the lights themselves but the circuits instead.” Through the control system, it’s feasible to have a chandelier at 50 percent of full lighting capability, wall sconces at 30 percent, and table lamps at 10 percent—all with the push of a button.

magic touch   Crestron’s TPMC-8X ($3,800, price does not include required control system, installation, and programming) is a WiFi wireless touch panel cusomized for home automation.

While controlling appliances, watching the premises through closed-circuit cameras, and setting the mood with lighting are all part of smart-house integration, entertainment systems still pave the way in modern home electronics. “Home theaters, which so recently cost upward of $30,000, can now be designed for less than $5,000,” says Zohn, who’s seen sales of big-screen sets climb as prices drop. 

Of course, the big news in home electronics is HD-DVD (High-Definition DVD players), with competition from Blu-Ray (a next-generation optical-disc format developed to enable recording, rewriting, and playback of high-definition video and to store large amounts of data). “The new high-resolution HD-DVD players offer unbelievable quality,” says Zohn, who packages an HD-DVD player (listing for around $500 from Toshiba) in with large-screen TV purchases.

Not to lag behind, the big-screen TV manufacturers are also making news. Plasma manufacturers have moved to higher resolution screens on their sets, and LCD makers are competing with their own higher-resolution flat-panel equivalent. What this means is better picture quality from both camps as the plasma/LCD debate continues. (If you’re keeping score, LCDs are still considered more energy efficient, work well in brighter areas, and are thought to last longer than their plasma counterparts, which have a better refresh rate and are sharper in darker rooms, such as home-theater environments.)      

For those who want to integrate their appliances with their entertainment (a pretty nifty idea), you simply can buy a TV refrigerator made by LG, with a cable-ready, 15-inch LCD television screen (with remote-control features) incorporated into the fridge for just over $3,000. A stainless-steel kitchen may coordinate better with the new stainless-steel flat-panel set from Toshiba, which lists for only $699 and fits unobtrusively into most kitchen motifs. It also comes with a waterproof remote in case you drop it in the sink during a particularly dramatic moment of Grey’s Anatomy.    

cool idea   LG’s TV Refrigerator ($3,499) has a 15-inch, LCD TV screen with remote control features and built-in FM tuner. Available at Best Buy stores.

Security is also an integral part of the home-integration package with HD CCTV (High-Definition Closed-Circuit TV) providing much clearer shots of who is outside your front door or on your property, even sending you photographs via email. If you prefer to inspect your residence over your cellphone, the Motorola Q Phone, using CoPilot Live software (listing at $399.95), offers that possibility.  

             While full integration technology now allows you to see visitors at your front door while you’re at work or change the temperature in your Westchester living room while you’re in Tokyo, the reality is that a home-integration system is only as good as those who install it. 

“It’s the programming and interface that the installer designs that makes one system better than another,” explains Michael Demello, president and owner of AV Design and Integration in Elmsford. “And that’s what makes one company better than amother.”

“I wouldn’t say there’s a fail-safe in integrated home systems yet,” says Manna, who compares the situation to a car. “If it gets a flat tire, you can’t get anywhere. The same holds true if something stops working in the house. However, as home integrators, we’re doctors of technology and have to be able to help you fix your system.” He sees home integrators finding their way onto many speed dialers in the coming years.

So, settle down and relax, lock the door, dim the lights, raise the heat, and crank up some Miles Davis tunes—all without getting off the sofa. We know you have just one remaining question about your smart-house technology: what button can you push to get the kids to go to bed? 

Rich Mintzer is a journalist for Westchester Magazine and the author of several business books. He is closely acquainted with the latest in home technology, despite not yet having full automation in his Mount Kisco home.