The Oaks, Chatham, Kent
“The key to success was to use everyday technology such as the iPad and iPhone to easily communicate and control the home from anywhere”.
A newly built luxury home near Chatham, Kent comes complete with a Carlo Gavazzi smart-house home automation system to control its lights and heating. The Oaks, a 14- room architect-designed house has six bedrooms, plus a bar, indoor pool and gymnasium, and outdoor tennis courts.
As well as automation, the Oaks installation reflects another trend in today’s electrical installations: that new light sources are fast replacing traditional incandescent lamps. Here, energy-saving LEDs provide the lighting throughout. Each room has a wall mounted dimmer switch, and accent lighting is provided through programmable wall sockets, giving the owners a selection of scenes for each area of the home. External lights are also activated by the smart-house system, for example in the tennis courts. In addition, master light switches have been installed in the main bedroom and in the entrance hall, enabling all lights to be extinguished when the owner turns in for the night, or goes out.
Heating is provided by an under-floor hot-water system. Using manifolds controlled by smart-house input/output modules, temperature can be set independently by thermostats in each room. smart house keypads for the control of lighting, blinds and heating have been designed to fit standard wall plates, with a wide choice of finishes and styles for the homeowner.
At the Oaks, the smart-house controller is linked into the home’s wireless Internet router, and this provides further flexibility for the owners. They are able to review and adjust all the system setting from their iPhone and iPad using the SHApp app from Carlo Gavazzi. Wherever in the house there is a Wi- Fi connection they can manage lights, scenarios, temperatures, alarms and timers using easy taps and gestures. The iOS service is delivered over a secure Modbus connection and offers a number of advantages over the existing secure Web server built into the controller; such as dimming lights directly and showing timer countdowns.
