Smart home system features, one by one

Most people meet this as a pile of products. A video doorbell, a speaker, a thermostat, four apps. That is not what an integrated system is. If you are early — drawing a remodel, wiring a new build, or just tired of the four apps — what helps is a plain list of what a system does. Here it is, part by part. IntegrateIT designs and installs these systems across the Kansas City metro from Overland Park, as a Control4 Platinum dealer.

Lighting

Every fixture sits on a dimmer, and the dimmers are grouped into scenes. One button by the back door takes the whole first floor down on the way to bed. The switches on the wall still work the way switches have always worked, which matters more than it sounds like it should.

Shades

Motorized shades run on the same clock the lights do. In a west-facing great room they come down in the afternoon, before the room gets hot, and go back up in the evening. In a bedroom, the blackout shade opens a few minutes ahead of the alarm.

Climate

Heating and cooling get split into zones, and the zones follow the same schedules as everything else. The theater cools down before the movie starts rather than during it. The guest wing sits back until you tell the house company is coming. Nobody stands at a thermostat.

Audio

Speakers go in the ceilings and outside, and the music follows whoever is home. Breakfast plays in the kitchen and nowhere else. When people come over, one source runs the kitchen, the patio and the great room, each at its own volume.

Video

Sources live in a rack in one closet instead of on a shelf under every television. Press Apple TV in the family room and the display wakes, the input changes, the volume lands where you left it. The hunt for the right remote goes away.

Security and cameras

Locks, door contacts and cameras report to the same system the lights do. The doorbell camera comes up on the kitchen touchscreen, not only on one person’s phone. When the house goes to away mode, the doors lock and the exterior lighting picks up a dusk-to-dawn schedule.

The network

The network is the part nobody looks at and everything sits on. Wired drops wherever cable can be pulled. Access points placed for coverage rather than square footage. Locks and cameras kept on their own segment, away from guest traffic. When a system feels slow, this is usually why.

One interface

All of it lands in one place: keypads on the wall, a touchscreen in the kitchen, an app for the household. A guest should be able to work the lights without being taught. If a feature only exists inside a manufacturer’s own app, it is not really in the system yet.

Remote access

From anywhere with a signal you can check whether the garage is closed, let the dog walker in and lock the door behind them, or bring the heat back up the morning before you drive home.

Scenes and schedules

Scenes are the part people actually use. Good night: downstairs off, doors locked, thermostats back, one lamp left on in the hall. Morning runs it in reverse. Everything above is only as good as the handful of scenes somebody sat down and wrote with you.

What it adds up to

Any one of these can be bought at retail. What cannot be bought in a box is the part where they share a schedule, a network and an interface, so that leaving the house is one press instead of nine.

That coordination is the whole job. The smart home systems and controls we design for Kansas City metro homes start from how a household already moves through the day, and the equipment list follows from that. It is usually a shorter list than people expect.