House Techtonics
Art: Bart Goldman
When Bill and Loris Benson decided to build their vacation home on a Park City hillside overlooking two ski resorts, they wanted all the bells and whistles for maximum safety and entertainment while they’re here — and minimum worry while they’re away.
These days, about the only thing their house won’t do on its own is take out the trash.
“I can turn on the system to melt the snow on our driveway from anyplace in the world,” Benson says. He likes the remote-control features that send commands over the Internet from anywhere on earth. A television camera mounted near the home’s entryway sends electronic images of snow buildup on the eaves to Benson’s laptop at his California home. Based on what he sees, Benson can amp up the heat tape.
When he’s not in Park City but guests come calling, Benson can alert the security system by cell phone to open the garage doors for those out-of-town friends who want to stay the night.
But Benson’s wife Loris thinks the coolest installation in their automated home is the Crestron system that controls everything from lighting to the television, movie and music selection in each room — even the fireplace, from a bedside remote.
The Bensons went to Park City’s Lifestyle Electronics for help in beefing up the I.Q. of the home they moved into in June 2005. Bill Benson says, while it’s possible to retrofit a home with remote-controlled electronic capabilities, it’s much easier to wire during the construction phase, which is what he did. And his advice to those in the initial building phase: wire for more than you think you’ll need. You never know what techies will come up with next, and wiring for the future gives better access to all those prospective inventions.
Kevin Barnes has owned and operated Lifestyle Electronics, in the Prospector area, since 1998. Lifestyle Electronics installs every electrical feature, gizmo and do-dad imaginable to make a home a warm, safe, comfortable and happy place to be; including everything from home lighting and temperature control to home theatre.
There are systems that notify not only of a break-in, but a break in the pipes. If a window is accidentally broken during winter, the owner gets an email warning of rapid cooling and the necessity of a repair. There is night lighting timed not to the clock but to daily variations of sunset and sunrise.
As for sound systems, Barnes demonstrates the Crestron system that features a touchpad screen. Select AM, FM or satellite radio or any one of the cable television networks by touch. The computer will “learn” your preferences. You can load your entire CD collection onto the hard drive where they’re stored as MP3 files. So if you prefer jazz to the hip hop your kids are fans of, no problem. The system distributes the appropriate audio to the right room. You can listen to George Benson while you’re reading in the den, the kids play video games in the media room, and your spouse listens to the radio on the terrace. (You gotta love a happy home.) And there’s no shuffle time between disks — or files — because CDs are digitalized and transfers between cuts are instantaneous.
The Bensons admit they haven’t quite gotten around to loading their CDs to the system. They have their hands full just keeping up with what’s offered on the video end. Crestron creates the ultimate home theatre. With a single touch of a controller, the lights dim, window shades close, movie screens open and room temperatures adjust. The audio visual components turn on, the inputs are selected, the volume is set, and the DVD server begins to play the selected screen favorite. Barnes says the system puts you in the driver’s seat and you never have to leave.
And your DVDs, like the CDs, can be ripped onto a file server, one after another. Kalaidescape is a pricy little system that integrates with Crestron to allow for a single DVD storage location and permits multiple viewers to pull up any movie any place in the house. When the movie is launched, good news: the FBI warning and all the previews are skipped. But, as Barnes says, it gets better than that — much better: Don’t know which movie you’re in the mood for? Press the touch pad and all DVD covers line up, arranged by genre. So, as Barnes explains, if you want to watch “When Harry Met Sally,” you’ll find it in the same grouping as “Under the Tuscan Sun” and other “chick flicks.”
And home theatre seating isn’t necessarily for the viewer who just wants to relax anymore. What’s “Jurassic Park” without the distant gut-pounding stomp of the T-rex first rippling a glass of water and then, raging for the kill. It’s enough to send a viewer diving for cover because he’s sitting in a seat outfitted with base shakers that vibrate, shake, rattle and roll — at all of the appropriate times.
Sirrus Audio of Orem is another automated system provider to Park City residents. General Manager Jonathan Law says base shakers come preinstalled in home theatre seating or can be installed in the customer’s existing furnishings — even in bean bag-type chairs!
Law says Sirrus Audio also offers alarm systems that turn off the heating and air conditioning during a fire (so that the house will burn more slowly); lights the hallways to exits; and outside homes, flashes lights and emits sirens so that emergency personnel don’t waste any time looking for an address.
Music systems these days are so advanced, Law says, that they “learn” homeowner preferences. You can be listening to the “Rocky” theme while working out, dinner music when you come home from work and rock ’n roll when you have the neighbors over for a barbecue — all pre-programmed.
Ovation Audio CEO Roger Ingleby is in the business of making home technology systems easy. “Simplicity” is his by-word, and it all starts with the remote. Ovation installs user-friendly systems complete with “remotes for dummies,” because Ingleby says there’s little purpose to installing a system that only the guy who bought it can operate.
He says there are user-based interfaces that know who a person is, where he is and what that person wants to listen to in his environment. The individual wears a programmed key that tells the system when he walks into the room. Ingleby can hook any homeowner up with that kind of technology, although he says he’d really rather install simplicity. “We’re kind of old school, where we think that a glass of wine, a fire and some beautiful music — not surround sound — just normal music in a room — is what’s nice,” he says.
Jeff Anderson, owner and CEO of Aurant in Salt Lake City, says techies have just scratched the surface of what can be delivered to the home environment. “What’s really going to happen, we haven’t seen yet.” But he has some predictions: Anticipate changes, he says, in media distribution. As the Internet has changed the way we work, expect home systems operations to change the way we relax, play and live.
“It’s really about art in our lives, how we define ourselves. I really think that there’s a shift around the corner.” So rather than just music or a movie, a system will be able to collect all of a person’s favorite songs and every scene from every film they’ve loved and montage them to play whenever and wherever at home. “And now you can control everything you see and hear, in your space. You’ll not just have the delivery of one thing, you’re going to be looking at media that takes advantage of that and becomes a new art form. It’s a convergence of forms that may not in the future fit into the nice little box that we call a movie or a song.”
There’s already environmental control — temperature, movies, music —through a central control system that knows what each person living in the house likes to watch and listen to. These systems cost thousands of dollars. But they’re definitely being marketed. Anderson predicts that in the not-too-distant future they’ll be purchased off the shelves of Home Depot and the like.
If you’re still amazed at the cleverness of the can opener or the ease of a refrigerator ice and water dispenser, get ready to be blown away by the latest comforts of home.
Ann Johnson is a 12-year resident of the Park City area who's written for several national publications. She produces KPCW radio's Park City Marketplace program. She says at this point, a techno house is only a dream. Reality is fighting with an ancient television remote and waking at 2 a.m. to turn off lights the kids have left on. As for home security, for right now, the dog will just have to do.
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