Can home technology contribute to a greener lifestyle?

By Tas Kyriacou, Director at Intelligent Digital Solutions (IDS).

IDS designed and installed an energy-saving home automation system for a prime property in West London’s Notting Hill.

The home owners were an American couple residing in London with their three-year-old twins. Their hectic but home-oriented lifestyles meant they wanted the interiors to feel like an inner-city sanctuary that was luxurious and comforting while providing the perfect environment to create beautiful memories as a family and when entertaining guests.  

The family was looking to live a greener lifestyle, so incorporating sustainable features was of high importance and so, Designed by Woulfe commissioned IDS to deliver a smart home scheme, optimising the house’s performance and green credentials.

Today we are in a position where technology can play a major role in achieving energy efficiency and contribute to the reduction of our green footprint. For this project, our technology choices needed to reflect the client’s brief to be sustainable and greener. Together, we decided on a lighting control system including LED lighting throughout and an automated heating and cooling system to ensure that the home was sustainable in its functionality.

We presented an automation system that can fuse together the audio, security, lighting, shading and heating, which not only ensured that the home was as energy efficient as possible; but also gave a real boutique luxury hotel experience in the bedrooms. 

Family entertainment

Family time was precious to the clients, and they wanted to have a defined space that could happily entertain their children and guests. From soundbars to frame TVs, IDS programmed multi-room audio distribution, allowing music to be played throughout the home, giving the clients the flexibility to control music via the keypads, touch panels and smart devices, thus having entertainment at their fingertips.

Essential lighting

Working with lighting designer Lucy Martin's scheme, IDS strategically coupled lighting circuits to create beautiful lighting scenes for use throughout the home, all controllable via Crestron keypads, which were placed at optimal positions around the house.

Scenes included good morning, good evening, late evening, and entertainment.

Good lighting plus good controls are about what you don't see. A lighting control system's main aim is to make life easy and make light easy to use. The client can walk through the house without thinking about light; it just happens when needed. A standard 2700K colour temperature was used throughout the property. With a combination of sensors and timed scenes, the right light is provided at the right time. 

By having most of the lighting scenes dimmed, we automatically reduced the energy consumption; however, it has been designed in a way where we do not lose the quality of light. Using occupancy sensors in the bathrooms means lights are only on when they need to be, contributing to the energy savings while still creating that calming ambiance. This design maximises the use of natural light, so artificial light is only triggered when it is needed, saving a lot of wasted energy.

A combination of quality light with easy, intuitive controls is conducive to good living and creating an inviting, sustainable environment – the result is magical.

Good system communication is vital in energy saving.

Heating and cooling integration have also contributed to the energy efficiency of the house. IDS did this by ensuring the underfloor heating and VRV cooling system communicate. This way, if the heating is on, then the cooling system will turn off and vice versa; this prevents system conflict and regulates the home's temperature.

Additionally, all of the touch panels not only display the temperatures of each zone within the house, but also allows the client to control the whole home heating and cooling system, without having to go to the specific room to make the change – an excellent intuitive, user friendly and convenient solution for the client. 

Charming, old-world design

We kept the keypads in the children's areas modern and discreet, opting for standard white. Whereas in the principal bedroom, living, and entertainment areas, we opted for a brass plated finish with black buttons to complement the charming, old-world design choices.

All off

With sustainability high on the agenda, one of the most important features of the automation design was the ALL OFF button, located at the exit. With this button, the clients can ensure a light is never left on again when leaving their home.

This project is the perfect example of achieving luxury lifestyle living while being energy efficient and reducing your carbon footprint. The beautiful lighting scenes throughout the home add a level of elegant luxury, resulting in an opulent, fun, guest experience like what you find in a luxury hotel. I think the combination of high-end design and the latest home automation platform and behind the scene controls has had a stunning effect all round.

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