When you step off the elevator into the 8,000-square foot Savant Experience Center, it feels less like a showroom and more like a swanky Manhattan abode. “We wanted to develop a space where technology blended in with the environment,” says Robert Madonna, chief executive of Savant Systems, a Hyannis, Mass.-based home automation company. ”We built a high-end New York City ‘apartment’ and…everything is automated.”
The Savant Experience Center, which took eight months to craft and opened in July, was designed by Thom Filicia of TV show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” fame. It hosts a master bedroom with a walk-in closet, a loft-like living room, a Theo Kalomirakis-designed home theater, even a sports bar. But the real draw isn’t the lavish layout (which also has a hotel room, an office and a classroom); it’s the technology that covertly operates the space. Every “room” in the center is automated by Savant Systems and easily controlled with Apple products like iPads, iPhones and iPod Touch-embedded remote controls.
Toting an iPad himself, Madonna offers a tour of the mock smart home.
We start in the living room,where he pulls up a picture of the room on the tablet’s screen, courtesy of Savant’s TrueImage software. His finger taps a digital recreation of the floor lamp that flanks the couch. The lamp immediately lights up. He taps on more room fixtures, changing the color of the sconces bordering the fireplace and closing the window shades. We proceed through the center, remotely adjusting lights, monitoring room temperature, checking power usage, even summoning a hidden flat screen television out of the master bedroom’s dresser.
The technology works remotely from anywhere in the world. If you have an internet connection, you can control the home. Want the air conditioning running when you walk through the door on a hot summer day, flick it on using your iPhone.
Madonna founded the company seven years ago on the belief that home automation should translate into a user-friendly experience — a concept that has made Apple into a $632 billion powerhouse. For that reason Savant’s products are 100% Apple-based. Software and hardware rolled out of Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters are eventually adapted by Savant for home use. With the iCloud, for example, the company can distribute audio throughout a house, attaching music to the cloud service so those songs can be accessed and played from anywhere in the home.
Pricing for products runs the gamut, from installations of single rooms with simple controls to entire mansions fitted with every automation possibility. “In the past home automation was only for luxury homes because there was a cost barrier,” explains Madonna, swiping his finger across his iPad to fiddle with the programming on four conjoined television screens in the so-called sports bar. “With the iPad and iPhone, those costs are getting lower so the average homeowner can now afford to put automation directly into the home for security, lighting control, entertainment.”
More developers and homeowners, including Kevin Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, have been installing these systems. The global home automation industry is projected to grow from $16.9 billion in 2011 to $35.6 billion by 2016, according to MarketsandMarkets. And while only about 3% of homes in the U.S. currently tout automation systems, that percentage is expected to grow by double-digit rates in the coming years, according to an analysis by Reuters.
“Anyone who can afford to buy an iPhone can essentially have a piece of automation in their home,” adds Madonna. Just make sure you schedule an appointment if you do plan to visit the experience center. Affordable or not, in true luxury fashion, they only offer tours to prospective clients who call ahead of time.
