You’re headed to work when— oh no! Did you lock the door and close the shades? Did you engage the security system?
Fortunately, you have a home automation system installed by Electronic Interiors Inc., the electronic architects and systems integrators with 20 years of experience. You just pull out your phone or tablet, hit a couple of buttons and—voila!—the door is locked, the shades are closed and the alarm is set.
On your way home after a long day of toil, you’re looking forward to relaxing. You walk in and turn up the air conditioning, turn down the lights and turn on some music, set to play in every room of the house.
All that happened with a few clicks on your phone. You didn’t have to get up from the couch.
You catch up on the news in life-size high-definition while heating up the hot tub with two clicks. When it’s ready, you unwind with a glass of wine.
If you involved Electronic Interiors when the house was built, the equipment required for this is all integrated seamlessly into the building. You have Creston products—the leading manufacturer in the industry. Creston produces all the elements of the system, right down to the speakers, shades and thermostats, so you know it will all work together.
David Dodson, founder and president of Electronic Interiors, says he’s tried other manufacturers but prefers working with a high-quality company that offers the whole home solution in one place and provides award-winning tech support.
If you choose to retrofit all this home automation into your existing house, Electronic Interiors can handle that without disrupting your life. Some customers prefer to install one part of the system first—maybe the audiovisual system—and then add additional pieces over time. Others choose to make parts of the system inaccessible to children or guests. Electronic Interiors customizes each system for the individual client.
Electronic Interiors recently finished a project at a 25,000- square-foot home that included the most cutting-edge systems throughout the house. The family now has one-touch controlled sliding glass doors and an entire video wall in their game room, on which they can watch six different things at the same time. “It’s the future,” says Dodson. “It will eventually trickle down to all homes.”
One of the latest trends is video over IP, or internet protocol. Dodson notes that all homes built in the last few years are wired with CAT6 cabling, so the ability to stream video throughout a home and to Wi-Fi-connected devices is simple and does not require expensive rewiring of the home.
Dodson is proud of the fact that his company is an Elite Platinum dealer of Creston. The benefits of this are passed along to his customers. Creston offers Elite Platinum dealers limited lifetime warranties on all of its lighting and shades products. The warranties on other elements are most often three to five years.
But no matter, because Electronic Interiors doesn’t just install, integrate and program your system, it services it as well. Customers have even called the company to troubleshoot the system the day before a big party in the home.
If you’re wondering what all this feels like, a recent project for a customer can give you some idea. Away from the house for three weeks while it was being renovated, the customer returned for one big reveal: All the house’s systems could be controlled from a central location.
“They could stream all the services they wanted and it was all so intuitive,” Dodson says. “They were overwhelmed. They told us it was beyond their expectations.”
Barry Waldman is principal of Big Fly Communications, a PR/marketing firm for nonprofits and small businesses.
