Control4 and Lutron showroom in Overland Park, with Josh.ai and Coastal Source.

What you can see and try

A brochure can tell you what a system does. It cannot tell you how a keypad feels under your thumb, how quickly a scene changes a room, or whether you would actually talk to a house. Those are the questions the showroom exists to answer, and it answers them with four things running on real hardware.

• A working Control4 system. This is the Control4 Certified Showroom. You hold the remote, use the app and press the keypads yourself, and you see how one button can set the lights, the shades and the music together. If you are deciding whether a whole-home system is worth it, ten minutes of using one tells you more than any feature list. More on the platform on our Control4 dealer page.
• Lutron lighting and shades. Lighting and shades are the parts of a system people touch every day, and they are the hardest to judge from a picture. In the showroom you can run a scene, dim a room slowly, and watch a shade move, then hold the keypad samples and finishes in your hand. That matters because an engraved keypad is a commitment, and the time to choose it is before anything is ordered. See Lutron HomeWorks in Kansas City and motorized shades.
• Josh.ai voice control. Voice control either fits a household or it does not, and the only honest test is to talk to it. Ask for the lights, the shades or the music the way you would at home, in your own phrasing, and hear what it does. We are a Josh.ai dealer, and trying it on a system that is already wired is the quickest way to find out whether it belongs in your house.
• A large selection of Coastal Source outdoor audio. Outdoor speakers are chosen as much by how they sit in a garden as by how they sound. Seeing the pieces side by side makes it easier to picture which will disappear into your planting beds and which will read as equipment. We are a Coastal Source dealer; the outdoor side is set out on our outdoor audio page.

What a visit is for

A visit has two jobs. The first is trying before deciding. Most people arrive with a feature list from a builder, a neighbor or a search, and leave with a shorter, clearer one: the things they will use every day, and the things that sounded good and do not matter to them. That shorter list is worth more than any brochure, because it is the list a good design is built from.

The second job is planning. The showroom is also our design center, which is where a project gets worked out with the people who will build it. Daniel designs every system we install and walks every project, so the person who shows you the equipment is the person who will draw your plan. You are not handed from a salesperson to a crew you have never met.

Planning a project at the design center

The design center works well for three kinds of visit, and each goes better with something in hand.

• A new build or a renovation. Bring the plans, even rough ones. The wiring decisions that are cheap before drywall and expensive after it are easier to make with the equipment in front of you. Our new construction page explains which of those decisions come first.
• A house that already has a system. If you bought a home with a system you cannot operate, or the company that installed it stopped answering, bring photos of the keypads, the equipment rack and any paperwork. Seeing a current Control4 or Lutron system running is often the clearest way to understand what yours could do again. Taking over an existing system is a regular part of our work.
• Builders, architects and interior designers. A client who has pressed a keypad and moved a shade makes faster, firmer decisions, and the samples are here when the finish schedule is being set. We work with the trade on both sides of the state line; the builder, architect and designer pages explain how.

A visit does not produce a price, and that is on purpose. A number given before anyone has seen your ceilings, your framing and your electrical panel is a guess that gets corrected later. When a project is ready for a number, it comes as one fixed price in writing after a site walk, and how a project runs sets out every step after that.

How to book a visit

Visits are by appointment, so the designer is free to spend the time with you and the systems are set up for the questions you came with. There are two ways to book.

• Online. Pick a thirty-minute time on our booking page and choose to meet in person at the design center. The same page books a call or a video meeting if you would like to talk first.
• By phone. Call (913) 804-7575 and tell us what you want to see. If it is lighting and shades, or outdoor audio, we will have that ready when you arrive.

The address is 15108 Glenwood Ave, Overland Park, KS 66223, in Johnson County and a short drive from Kansas City, Missouri. Consultations are at no cost, and you are welcome to bring whoever else will live with the system. The person who chooses the shades and the person who will use the remote often want different things, and the showroom is a good place to settle that.