Firstly let us have a look at the history of control systems in the Audio Visual industry.

There are two prominent control solutions that have been around since the 1980’s. With more than 20 years of experience as well as continual Research and Development, these companies lead the industry and are the only true consideration in commercial & high-end environments due to the flexibility & reliability they offer. Each system has its strengths and weaknesses as well as the organisation who delivers your solution so picking the right product as well as the organisation to implement it will ultimately provide you with a solution you are extremely happy with or a poor outcome that leaves you somewhat disappointed.

AMX & Crestron lead this marketplace. One of the downfalls using either of these products is the significant expense you will go to but ultimately you will not achieve the flexibility or intelligence achieved with these platforms. If you are not technically minded than comprehending this can be difficult but the best way to explain it is this:

Imagine you were purchasing a painting to hang in your new home and you were talking to an art gallery as well as the artist. You are not purchasing an existing painting because none of them will match with your new decor so you are looking to engage the artist to paint something that will be suited to you.

An important thing to remember is that every automation system in some shape or form is a custom solution and is not something you pull out of the box and turn on.

Now the artist is telling you that you can only have three colours and on a canvas that is one of three sizes and paints are water based only. Plus he can only offer you a few designs to choose from.

Not very flexible is it…

Both AMX and Crestron offer a blank canvas of a size you choose. The problem is that the artist needs to be good to deliver a great result. If the artist is not so good he might use a stencil designed by someone else but the problem is that he can’t change the stencil and can only use the colours provided with it. Sort of like a colouring-in book….

Take into consideration that the Gallery is the company you look to purchase the solution from and the artist is the programmer who will provide the user interface and code that is the core of any controlled environment.

If you can grasp this concept, now you know the difference between a control solution provided on AMX or Crestron verses the large number of control systems that have entered the market in the past 5 years due to demand. The majority of new control systems that have entered the market such as RTI, Control 4 & Philips Pronto provide limited flexibility either due to the hardware design or the proprietary software that is used to program them. Apart from the significant cost difference that these systems do provide customers there is one major benefit for the programmer not requiring anywhere near the skill and experience of a certified and experienced coder.

AMX provides the greatest flexibility when it comes to language based programming and although some people will have you believe that it takes much longer to program an AMX system over its competitors; that is only because of the poor programming methods used.

Our organisation has been providing solutions on the AMX platform for the past decade and our approach has allowed us to achieve deployment for residential projects within a third of the time of our competitors as well as delivering the solution remotely and giving the client a far more feature rich environment that is thoroughly bug tested and reliable.

More often than not, when it comes to people and organisations selecting a suitable integrator, price is a major consideration, but when you consider that each integrator is unique, it no longer becomes apples for apples.  Here are a couple of tips:

If a colouring in book is all you need and can afford, by all means go with it but take into consideration your requirements now and in the future because picking the wrong solution can be more expensive further down the track.

Be careful selecting the artist (programmer). Too many people assume that a programmer is just a programmer and that statement couldn’t be further from the truth. No artist is the same and all have their unique talents. Their background, training and experience are all very important.

Avoid organisations utilising contract programmers. The programming of a system is a core component of a solution and there for should be key personnel for the organisation delivering the solution. Organisations using contract programmers are doing so for a few reasons; to reduce or minimise costs, to cope with too much workload and a lack of expertise within the organisation. All of these reasons are not in favour of you as the customer. If you are making a significant investment with an organisation to deliver a control solution then why shouldn’t they be doing the same?

Make sure that the organisation providing the solution is a certified agent of the control product. Manufacturers want to insure that their products are installed correctly by trained people. They are also out to grow their market share so if an organisation is not a certified agent for the product, it is most likely with good reason!

A fundamental thing to consider is the system design. A control solution is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. This can be the products used or it can be how they are interconnected. It is not uncommon to find a control solution delivered with a poor system design that ultimately limits the functionality and flexibility. The system design should try to achieve ultimate flexibility on a hardware level and leave only programming changes to achieve the desired result.

Redundancy and resource sharing is paramount if you want to get the most out of your investment. When you are going to the expense of such a system, it should not be functioning as a glorified universal remote which unfortunately we see far too often…

As you can see there is a great deal to think about and you need to answer many questions when considering an integrator. You are placing a great deal of trust in this organisation to deliver on the promises made and your expectations.

Structured cabling has existed for many years and is a term more commonly found in the commercial sector. It is a cable network design that is implemented in a building to support technology and communications services. It can incorporate data, telephone, security, BMS, Fire and electrical but it is commonly referring to data & telecommunications services.

The term Smart wiring is most commonly used around residential dwellings and is a marketing term used to pitch home automation sales to new home builders. People regularly see a few blue coloured cables that have been run around the house and call it smart wiring but more often than not, there is nothing smart about it at all.

I personally dislike the term “Smart wiring” because I associate it with the poor installations carried out by so called “Home Automation Experts”. The first thing to remember is that probably 90% of organisations who claim to be home automation experts are in fact far from it. In an industry that bares no regulations how can there be so many certified experts?

Regardless of what term you choose, “Smart Wiring” or “Structured cabling”, the concept is very important because there is only one or two opportunities to install true structured cabling into a house which is when it is being constructed or a major renovation is taking place.

With structured cabling design in a residential dwelling you should be considering the lifecycle that you are trying to achieve. Try to consider how long it will be before the house will either be rebuilt or have major renovations carried out. This will be the next opportunity to change the structured cabling as retrofitting is near impossible.

When our organisation designs a structured cabling plan for a project, we are trying to achieve a lifecycle of at least 20 years. This means that we are trying to support current and new technologies in the future for at least this period. It doesn’t mean that in 20 years the structured cabling will need to be replaced.

One thing to remember is that the majority of cabling that you will install in a structured cabling design is relatively cheap. It should cost between 1 and 1.5% of your building cost, supplied and installed. Labour is probably the biggest expense in the process but the difference in cost between running 2 cables to a destination or running 3 is fairly insignificant so always have spare cabling installed for future capacity.

Try to pick a suitable central point for all cabling to run to. This is generally the biggest mistake that is made by picking an area that is unsuitable. If your installation is substantial then you should be looking for an area that can house a free standing equipment rack with good access to at least 3 sides and adequate ventilation. You should also pick an area that will not affect adjacent areas due to equipment noise.

Contrary to what some people believe, sticking a 40RU rack in a cupboard in the Theatre room is not a good idea. However it is advisable to have the equipment room in close proximity to the Theatre as it will most likely have a large amount of AV services installed and reducing cabling lengths is important for signal quality as well as a reduction in cabling costs.

A well ventilated store room is the perfect choice and something that is virtually dust free if you want to achieve good equipment life. If you are unable to provide a dedicated room for this then your next best option would be a space in the garage as it offers great ventilation but the drawback is typically an increased level of dust.

Avoid small cupboard spaces inside the house as they provide poor ventilation, poor acoustics and poor access. Cupboards are for linen and crockery, not for racks and noisy equipment that generate heat.

The types of cabling that you install will depend on the size of your project and the services to be installed. Try to have an open mind when working on your structured cabling plan. Assuming that you will never want the ability to watch TV in a guest bedroom or have music by the swimming pool is not offering you a great deal of flexibility in the future should you change your mind.

The structured cabling is the backbone of any technology installed in your home and you are given one opportunity to get it right so always talk to someone who has a great deal of experience in this area. Make sure that it is well documented and cables are clearly identified when installed. It is this documentation that will allow you to identify whether you can support future technology later down the track.

How much cabling is enough you might ask? I would tell you that more often than not, people tend to not have enough than have too much. A large scale residential project that our organisation completed a few years ago had more than 20 kilometres of structured cabling installed and this excluded the electrical services. Admittedly this was a 1300Sqm home valued at over 7 million so you wouldn’t consider it to be your average home…

We have successfully delivered solutions in residential, corporate & marine environments without the requirement of skilled local technical support due to having the ability of remote diagnostics and management of systems.

These solutions have been deployed throughout Australia, Papua New Guinea and the United States with minimal resources whilst providing very minimal system failures and downtime.

The concept can be hard to accept when choosing an integrator to provide a solution as it is common for people to want the organisation to have a local presence as a sort of security blanket however the IT industry has been successfully achieving the same result for almost the past decade.

Integrators with a solid IT background are capable of using the same methods and incorporating smart management services within the system design before deployment. Power management, external watchdogs and monitoring have helped increase system reliability and quick fault diagnostics.

It is possible to diagnose issues with systems before the user is even aware of the problem in the first place.

Some manufacturers are now incorporating remote diagnostics internally in their products to not only improve the customer experience but to gather metric data on the reliability of their products to help improve manufacturing design and techniques.

One may consider this as “Big Brother” watching but more often than not there is little personal information, if any that is being supplied. However there is a significant benefit to consumers with the ability to provide a standard operating environment throughout their sites

Ultimately this now provides customers with more choice when they select an organisation to deliver a solution.

What has changed is that there is a greater presence in the residential arena for these systems and they extend from the basic contactor switching methods to dimming systems with a greater focus on energy management.

Lighting in the home has had some significant changes too. Once it was all about functional lighting for people to see what they are doing and provide a safe passage. Now feature lighting is becoming more prominent and if you are serious about lighting when you are building your new home, the services of a lighting consultant are utilised to provide a lighting design that will deliver both functional and feature lighting throughout your home.

Sustainability is also playing a key role with the use of energy efficient fixtures as a mandatory requirement for all newly built homes.

A lighting control system provides the management of your lighting throughout your home and is designed to simplify the way you interact with it.

This is not always the case as there are a large number of people installing lighting control systems who do not understand the basic principles and defeat the very key purposes for installing such a system.

So what are the key benefits?

• Reduced energy consumption – This is achieved through dimming circuits. Conventional light switches provide full power to a lighting circuit when more often than not it is excessive and a waste of energy. A lighting control system can be configured to run your lights at 70% as a standard brightness over a typical 100%. By this we achieve 30% less power consumption and we extend our lamp life which means less lamp replacement costs.
• Reduced energy wastage – It is quite common for children or even adults to exit an area such as a bathroom and forget to turn the lighting or exhaust fans off. This could be left on for hours at a time but a lighting control system can be configured to automatically turn off lights in designated areas after a predetermined time, helping forgetful people and saving you money in the long term.
• Dynamics – Conventional lighting circuits can’t be changed. They are restricted to the switch that they are wired to and require a person to activate or deactivate from this switch. A lighting control system does not care for the location of a switch point or circuit, just as long as it is a part of the network, any switch can be instructed to control any individual or multiple circuits. This gives you the ability to turn all lights off at one point when exiting the home or perhaps turn on all exterior lights in the event of an emergency.
• Integration – Other systems that operate in your home such as smoke detectors or Alarm systems can be configured to integrate with your lighting control system. In the event that your alarm system is triggered, the lighting control system can be instructed to turn on all exterior lighting or provide egress lighting inside in the event of a smoke alarm.
• Low level automation – Not to be confused with a full automation system which is how some lighting control system manufacturers like to sell and brand their products but a good lighting control system will provide basic interfacing / control of ceiling fans, motorised curtains / blinds, zoned audio systems, RGB lighting control systems and more.

There are different manufacturers of lighting control systems and the decision of which system to go with is a very important one as a lighting control system becomes an integral part of your home once implemented. Design, hardware implementation, programming & support play key roles to delivering a trouble free solution.

Be sure to read up on our article that discusses the major manufacturers in Australia where we look into their strengths and weaknesses, giving you the ability to make an informed decision of which system is best for you.