- At this Woodside, Calif. home, family members and guests are surrounded by Old World architecture infused with state-of-the-art technology. The expansive, seven-acre lot is enclosed by Redwood trees, evoking the feel of a rural retreat. Located one hour from San Francisco, the 14,000 square-foot home is comprised of four buildings that represent the main home, guest home, garage, exercise facility and caretaker's cottage.
"AMX is unique in that the system is able to do master-to-master communication...The end result is a system that is more robust and efficient with better usage of the equipment that you have."
- "It was important for the family and guests to be comfortable, cozy and have the home evoke the feeling of always being on vacation; like you never need to leave," said Derrick Thames, president and CEO of Prime ECS, a systems integrator and AMX dealer with offices in Irvine, San Francisco and San Diego, Calif. "The home really looks Old World; not like new construction. It has a very traditional feel with handcrafted work throughout the house."
- Thames and his team at Prime ECS met the homeowner via the architect and became the integration and control system experts for the project. Thames chose the AMX Control System to provide the family with the best integrated solution possible. "You need to have a system that integrates well and gets long-term support," he noted. "From the aesthetics standpoint, we worked with color palettes from AMX and used earth tones in the touch panel menu system to complement the Old World feel of the house."
- Simplicity was the common goal of the installed technology, with every source function a touch or two away. "The goal was to keep everything at the minimal amount of touches in the menu screen. For example, a user can select 'music' and then a source, but there is also the option to go deeper into the menu, if necessary," explained Thames.
- "The AMX Control System was also a lifestyle enhancement designed to make life easier for the family. Prime ECS programmed the AMX Control System to assist with automated functions like automated shades and lights, pool and water features, and soothing music throughout the house in the evening. Additionally, the system is programmed to intelligently balance the HVAC needs of the home. Thames added, "The house has a combination of forced hot air and radiant heat. The AMX system is intelligent enough to know when to use which heating system and also how to balance multiple radiant zones that share independent forced air heat zones."
- Prime ECS became an AMX dealer in 1990 and continues with the relationship due to the forward-thinking of the company. "AMX is a progressive company that has really listened to their dealers in terms of product development," said Thames. "For example, a touch panel with two-way communication is pretty unheard of in this industry, but that AMX product is a direct result of requests from their dealers."
- For this home, Thames used several different touch panels based on the needs in the room. Its dedicated home theater uses a wireless touch panel to control the 7-channel surround sound and 110" video screen; additional wireless touch panels are used for indoor/outdoor convenience. Guest suites have limited access to house-wide systems, so each suite has both an AMX Mio Modero R-2 Remote for A/V functions, as well as a 5" Modero Wall/Flush Mount Touch Panel for control of local lighting, heating, security, pool and gate camera. Meanwhile, the office and study have 7" Modero Tabletop Touch Panels.
- Master control areas like the kitchen and master bedroom have floor plan-based touch panel menus for access and control of the entire property. Master control areas use graphical representation to indicate motion detection, open doors, HVAC and lighting. The home's control system uses a total of six NetLinx® Integrated Controllers.
- "Our goal was to really try to integrate, simplify and to have everything be as synergistic as possible," said Thames. "AMX is unique in that the system is able to do master-to-master communication. With so many systems in the house, you will have many integrated controllers. With master-to-master communication, you can distribute some of the processing between masters so that one master doesn't have the task of running the entire property. The end result is a system that is more robust and efficient with better usage of the equipment that you have."
- For this customer, Thames noted that "it is an extremely complicated system, but the technology doesn't stand out. Everything looks like it belongs. After a project of this type, it shows that it is possible to have electronics and aesthetics integrate well and consistently."
