When you live thousands of miles away in a different country from your vacation home, staying connected can be difficult … unless you’ve outfitted your getaway with a home automation system that can be accessed remotely. The owners of this “Jewel Box House” in Sarasota, Fla., did just that, choosing a Crestron automation system as the link from their home in France to their seasonal Florida destination.
“The ability to control aspects of the Sarasota residence remotely was extremely important to them,” says Mark Bolduc, president of Wicked Smart Homes, the local integration firm hired. “They not only wanted to make sure the home was secure and operating efficiently in their absence, but also wanted an easy way to visually monitor activity in and around the house.”
Bolduc and his team outfitted the 5,000-square foot house with several strategically located Visualint surveillance cameras.
“These are the next generation of IP cameras,” Bolduc says, noting that in addition to standard features like the ability to view footage in real-time remotely via smartphones, the cameras can be configured to notify the owners of activity under specific conditions. They can be set up to watch only a certain area of the property at only certain times of the day, for example.
The ability to fine-tune each camera ensured that the homeowners would only be alerted when absolutely necessary rather than every time the landscapers come. Wicked Smart Homes also created a virtual perimeter at the seawall, which would ensure that nobody would trespass via the water.
Complementing the cameras in their vigil are two Yale electronic door locks and a Liftmaster garage door opener.
“These two elements are important to seasonal homeowners, because they allow them to let maintenance people into the house and property without having to provide keys,” Bolduc remarks.
From anywhere, the homeowners can create unique codes for people to enter, change codes on a whim, and enable codes only for certain periods of time.
Meanwhile, the Crestron system provides the owners with easy means of controlling the home environment. From a Crestron mobile app, they can prep the house as they leave the airport, adjusting the Crestron thermostat and opening the Lutron HomeWorks QS window shades, for example.
They might also turn on a few lights, courtesy of the Lutron HomeWorks QS system, and instruct an Autonomic Mirage media server to stream music to the Paradigm speakers and Leon Speakers soundbar in the family room.
In the same simple manner they can prepare the house for their departure, using their smartphone to sweep through the house to close the shades, adjust the thermostat, turn off the lights, activate the security system, and lock the doors as they drive away.
The app comes in just as handy for simplifying everyday routines. The three in-wall Crestron touchpanels serve as home control dashboards, showing the owners the status of every light, shade, camera, door lock, security sensor, thermostat, and Pentair swimming pool controls on the premises and enabling them to adjust the settings.
The Crestron system also delivers music and video to destinations in and around the house. Using a Crestron remote, the owners can cue video to play on four Sony TVs.
Audio from the Autonomic Mirage can be dispatched to nine music zones, including Terra speakers poolside and a surround-sound system in the family room, where an Anthem receiver, Paradigm speakers and subwoofer, and 75-inch TV do the entertainment honors.
Equipment List
- Voigt Brothers Construction
- DSDG Architects, Mark Sultana
- Paradigm, Terra speakers
- Leon soundbar
- Anthem A/V receiver
- Autonomic music server
- Sony TV
- Crestron automation, thermostat & A/V distribution
- Lutron lighting & shading
- Pakedge networking
- Visualint (SnapAV) surveillance cameras
- Holovision intercom
- Pentair pool control
