Savant Smart Home System Puts Homeowners in the Driver’s Seat

The owner of this smart home gained fame as an auto racing magnate, but he now gets to spend his days on auto pilot, thanks to an amazing array of technologies at his fingertips. The team at R.D. White Co., Royal Oak, Mich., was put in charge of the design and integration of full-blown Savant automation system that would supervise the operation of audio, video, security and much more, and all the homeowners need to do it tap a button to set things in motion.  It’s a setup that was recently honored wiith the Electronic House Home of the Year Bronze award for Best Modern/Contemporary Smart Home, $150,000 and up. See more Home of the Year winners here and here.

Savant Takes the Smart Home Pole Position

This ease of control has led the homeowner to wonder how he and his wife possibly lived without it, reports integrator Tim Weiser of R.D. White Co. Through the Savant system they can manage 17 A/V zones, security system, 16 zones of climate, intercom, 225 lighting zones, 35 window shades/drapes, pool and spa system, four garage doors with status, motorized gate, water valves, and remotely reset their cable boxes and modem.

“There have been many hours of custom programming, working with the owners to make their home simple and fun to use,” says Weiser. Many of the buttons have had custom sound effects added; a chime plays throughout if an exterior door is opened or a car pulls into the driveway; the owners easily can set the time the gate automatically opens and closes each day. When they turn on the lights in the master bath the TV automatically turns on, setting to their favorite channel and volume level.

Mulitmedia Races to the 17 Entertainment Locations

Other trades on the project included builder Thomas Sebold & Associates, Gary Steffy Lighting Design and Eric Charles Designs. The main areas of the home feature Planar displays with gorilla glass screens to reduce the glare from sunlight beaming through large windows. Both master bathrooms received custom Séura mirror TVs. “We worked with the builder and designer to get every display built flush into the walls in many different surfaces including wood, limestone, marble and fabric,” says Weiser. In total, there are 17 TV locations, including a home theater, where a 98-inch Planar 4K TV provides the eye candy.

Each of these TVs can access content from five DVRs, Apple TV, and a BluRay Disc player, which R.D. White Co. stowed away in a centrally located equipment closet. A Savant Pro matrix switch juggles the delivery of the content.

Sonance Architectural Series speakers, which the clean look of the Acculux recessed lighting, provide the audio to these 17 zones. In addition to playing TV audio, they tap into a Savant media server to play tunes from major Internet radio stations. The music can also travel to outside, where the pool deck is surrounded by 14 Sonance speakers and two subwoofers.

Remotes, Tablets and Keypads Put Owers in the Smart Home Driver’s Seat

Given the sheer mass of media areas, plus the plethora of other high-tech features, having multiple modes of control was crucial to the design of this smart house. R.D. White Co. loaded up the residence with a variety of user interfaces so that the homeowners would be able to monitor and manage every aspect of their home conveniently and efficiently.  These interfaces include a combination of more than a half-dozen iPad (running on each iPad is the Savant control app) docking locations, 15 Savant WiFi remotes, and several Lutron keypads.

 

Systems Design & Installation

R.D. White Co., Royal Oak, Mich.

 

Equipment Highlights

• Savant automation, media server
• Planar, Sony, Séura displays
• Sonance theater & architectural speakers
• Cambridge Audio, Panasonic electronics
• Avigilon, Panasonic surveillance cameras
• Holovision door station
• Middle Atlantic racks

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