The Importance of a Unified Control System in Smart Homes

In today's era of smart homes, it's not enough to just have individual elements such as Smart TVs, smart lights, and smart thermostats. To truly experience the benefits of a smart home, you need to integrate all these disparate elements into one easily controlled system. This is where Control4 comes in, a comprehensive control system that can seamlessly integrate multiple devices and provide users with full control over their smart homes.

One of the primary goals of this project was to eliminate as many visible boxes as possible. Traditional entertainment systems are cluttered with cable boxes, Blu-ray players, DVD recorders, and other equipment that takes up valuable space in entertainment cabinets or credenzas. The team behind this project wanted to create a system where everything is hidden from view, allowing users to enjoy their smart home without the distraction of unnecessary devices.

To achieve this goal, the team had to establish a robust network in the house. Unfortunately, the existing network was lacking in several areas. It didn't reach different parts of the house, and there was no hardwire throughout the entire space. This meant that data transmission was slow and unreliable, which made it difficult to power and control all the devices. The team decided to retrofit a new package network with high bandwidth, allowing them to distribute data throughout the house efficiently.

The installation of this new network was perhaps the most time-consuming part of the project. Miles and miles of Cat6 cable had to be run around the house, which was a painstaking process. However, it was worth it in the end, as this network is now the backbone of the smart home. Everything electronic runs through this network, providing users with full control over their devices.

The audio side of things was also upgraded significantly. The team replaced the old FM tuner and CD player with an audio control rack that integrates seamlessly with Sonos. This allows users to play any internet radio station, Pandora, Spotify, or access the entire iTunes library from one location. The control matrix switcher and multi-channel amplifier further enhance this system by distributing any source to any room independently.

In addition to audio and video upgrades, the team also integrated new lighting controls from Lutron and a connected smart thermostat. They upgraded the security system, which included a new gate control and video monitoring system. These individual components work well independently but are now orchestrated together through Control4's system, allowing users to control them all with ease.

One of the most exciting aspects of this project is how it will be demonstrated in future episodes. The team plans to show how these devices can be controlled using Control pads, phone apps, and most impressively, Amazon's Alexa. This seamless integration will demonstrate just how much your home can do for you automatically without you having to lift a finger.

In conclusion, the unified control system provided by Control4 is essential for creating a truly smart home experience. By integrating multiple devices into one cohesive system, users can enjoy full control over their homes while minimizing clutter and maximizing convenience. As seen in this project, the benefits of such a system are evident, and with technology like Control4, the possibilities are endless.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou can load a house with Smart TV smart light smart lock smart thermostat but you don't really have a smart home until you can take all those disparate elements and put them under the hood of one control system today we're going to show you how control four takes all of these individual elements and folds them into one easily controlled system anyone can use one of our goals with this project was to get rid of as many boxes as we could we didn't want visible cable boxes blu-ray players DVRs Roku's or anything else cluttering up entertainment cabinets or credenzas in fact we didn't want to have any entertainment furniture at all so to do that and to be able to power and control everything we would need a robust Network and that is something we did not have coming in the network in this home was was erect it was it was really poor Wi-Fi didn't reach different areas of the house there was no hardwire throughout the house so we went in and retrofitted in a completely new package network with high bandwidth and gave it the ability to be able to put as much data as we needed to throughout the house so miles and miles of cat6 cable had to be run around the house this was possibly the single most time-consuming part of the project but it was totally worth it this network is the backbone of this home now everything electronic runs through it and that means we can have a high level of control over everything connected here we have the new audio control rack now you might remember from before there was an FM tuner in here and a CD player and that was pretty much the extent of the music service that you could get in this home before we started you would go into the rack of equipment and you would physically place in a disk or select a disk from your CD player started in that location and then go around to the different rooms and actually physically turn them on with a keypad volume control now everything runs off of Sonos so we can play any internet radio station Pandora Spotify you name it plus it can access the entire iTunes library that's in this home it all goes through this control for matrix switcher and multi-channel amplifier and that allows you to distribute any source to any in the house independently so I could have iTunes going on in the living room while Spotify is going on in the kitchen as for the video all of the TVs are on the same network so the video content delivered by Apple TV's and cable boxes is delivered over network cable so no boxes are visible we get a clean installation even outdoors where we install the Sun bright TV for outdoor entertainment now that's the audio and video side of things but there's so much more that goes into a smart home with automation we integrated new lighting controls from Lutron there's a new connected smart thermostat we upgraded the security system which included a new gate control and video monitoring system all these pieces work well independently you can even control them went away from home but to make them work together you need a system like the one control for mates you could call it the brains of the automation system that connects each of the individual products but then orchestrates all of them to work in there together so that when you walk into your home you can turn on lights and the music at the same time so you don't have to start thinking about the separation between all of that we make all of that work together in our next episode we're gonna show you how all this stuff works with control pads phone apps and most fun of all Amazon's Alexa we think you'll be surprised just how much your home can do for you automatically without you saying a word or lifting a fingeryou can load a house with Smart TV smart light smart lock smart thermostat but you don't really have a smart home until you can take all those disparate elements and put them under the hood of one control system today we're going to show you how control four takes all of these individual elements and folds them into one easily controlled system anyone can use one of our goals with this project was to get rid of as many boxes as we could we didn't want visible cable boxes blu-ray players DVRs Roku's or anything else cluttering up entertainment cabinets or credenzas in fact we didn't want to have any entertainment furniture at all so to do that and to be able to power and control everything we would need a robust Network and that is something we did not have coming in the network in this home was was erect it was it was really poor Wi-Fi didn't reach different areas of the house there was no hardwire throughout the house so we went in and retrofitted in a completely new package network with high bandwidth and gave it the ability to be able to put as much data as we needed to throughout the house so miles and miles of cat6 cable had to be run around the house this was possibly the single most time-consuming part of the project but it was totally worth it this network is the backbone of this home now everything electronic runs through it and that means we can have a high level of control over everything connected here we have the new audio control rack now you might remember from before there was an FM tuner in here and a CD player and that was pretty much the extent of the music service that you could get in this home before we started you would go into the rack of equipment and you would physically place in a disk or select a disk from your CD player started in that location and then go around to the different rooms and actually physically turn them on with a keypad volume control now everything runs off of Sonos so we can play any internet radio station Pandora Spotify you name it plus it can access the entire iTunes library that's in this home it all goes through this control for matrix switcher and multi-channel amplifier and that allows you to distribute any source to any in the house independently so I could have iTunes going on in the living room while Spotify is going on in the kitchen as for the video all of the TVs are on the same network so the video content delivered by Apple TV's and cable boxes is delivered over network cable so no boxes are visible we get a clean installation even outdoors where we install the Sun bright TV for outdoor entertainment now that's the audio and video side of things but there's so much more that goes into a smart home with automation we integrated new lighting controls from Lutron there's a new connected smart thermostat we upgraded the security system which included a new gate control and video monitoring system all these pieces work well independently you can even control them went away from home but to make them work together you need a system like the one control for mates you could call it the brains of the automation system that connects each of the individual products but then orchestrates all of them to work in there together so that when you walk into your home you can turn on lights and the music at the same time so you don't have to start thinking about the separation between all of that we make all of that work together in our next episode we're gonna show you how all this stuff works with control pads phone apps and most fun of all Amazon's Alexa we think you'll be surprised just how much your home can do for you automatically without you saying a word or lifting a finger\n"