Home theatre just the start
Savant uses Apple technology to automate features such as lights, security and air-conditioning
HOME THEATRES are quite commonplace today. The cost of large screen televisions and audio-video receivers has come down significantly, while their capabilities have continued to grow. That’s one of the greatest characteristics of technology: as time goes on, we get more for less.
A home theatre can be pretty basic. A TV connected to an AV receiver with some speakers and a satellite PVR is a pretty common configuration.
But a home theatre can be much more complex, involving different rooms of your home and even extending into something called “home automation.”
Home automation is the integration of devices and fixtures enabling configuration and control using remote controls or other devices. Home automation projects used to be something only the most high-end homes indulged in. It was also the realm of the hard-core geek.
These projects involved lots of custom work and expensive components. The costs for these elite home theatres could easily cross the $100k mark.
Every now and then I come across something “disruptive.” Being disruptive in technology isn’t a bad thing. This occurs when a technology or market is doing things one way, and a new entrant disrupts this market by using a new approach or technology.
This often results in advancement at a lower cost.
A company called Savant Systems is doing this for the home automation market.
Savant Systems was founded by a group of people with a rich history in building digital switching technology. These are the kind of devices that make it possible to connect networks and devices to the Internet.
It’s a space that requires a lot of expertise in high performance communications. They looked at the state of home automation and realized there was an opportunity to apply their expertise to this space, and use some of the approaches that power the Internet to manage home theatres and beyond.
Treating a home like a small network and using proven technology as the foundation for the management of the network is a good strategy.
This is what Savant Systems has done. I spent some time with Jim Hishon, the founder of Elite Systems Integration, a Savant specialist, in his demo centre. He showed me what is now possible without breaking the bank.
Savant leverages Apple technology throughout. The “brains” of their automation system live in the low cost Apple Mini computers. And it uses iPads, iPods and iPhones as the “remotes.”
This has proven to be a clever approach because having a powerful computer system