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Smart Living Journal

Control4 West Vancouver - Home Automation

Control4 West Vancouver - Home Automation by Digital Smart Homes from Digital Smart Homes on Vimeo.


Complete Home Control, Control4 Home Automation system by Digital Smart Homes in West Vancouver.

This completely renovated home was originally built in 1973. It has transformed beautifully into a modern contemporary home. All the technology (including Amplifiers, Cable Boxes, Controllers and more) are completely hidden away from site and placed into centrally located media rack. Lighting, Media, Audio, Video, Security, HVAC and more are intuitively controlled by keypads and 3 built in touch screens throughout the house. The home owners iPad and iPhones also allow for complete control over the entire home and provides for remote access from anywhere in the world. All this keeps the walls clutter free and gives the home a very clean and user friendly feel.

Control4 Square Wired Keypad

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Control4 announces availability of the Control4® Square Wired Keypad, the newest addition to the Panelized Lighting family of products. Combining elegant Euro styling with flexible button configuration, the Square Wired Keypad provides a stunning user interface that controls any aspect of a Control4® system. The keypad can be configured with two to seven buttons, using four different button sizes, for a total of 37 possible configurations.
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Control4 Panelized Lighting Controls

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Control4 announces availability of the full line of Panelized Lighting Controls. The Control4 Panelized Lighting solution enables comprehensive control over residential and commercial lighting systems using sophisticated keypads, rather than a collection of switches on every wall. All dimming, switching and load management is performed by smart lighting modules, tucked away in a panel and completely hidden from view.


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Control4 Next Generation Wireless Lighting Controls

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Control4 announces availability of the new family of Wireless Lighting controls, the most significant product line introduction since the company’s launch! Showcasing elegant industrial design in a wide range of colors and custom configurations, these new controls deliver the most comprehensive, innovative and time saving Control4® Wireless Lighting solutions for residential and commercial installs to date.
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Lutron RadioRa2 Remote System Access

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Now you can have the added convenience of controlling your RadioRA 2 system from anywhere internet access is available. Set up is easy and you don't need a VPN. Simply download the Lutron Home Control+ app, available on the App Store and in the Android Market, to get started.

New Elegant Control4 Lighting User Interface

Wait 'til You See The Advanced Scenes Lighting Agent

Released with Control4® OS 2.3, is our stunning, sleek, new User Interface for Lighting including at-a-glance intuitive navigation, with at-a-touch responsiveness, easy personalization, and the brand-new Control4 Advanced Lighting Scenes Agent to save you time in programming and integration.


Home Automation’s Power to Simplify Your Life, Reduce Expenses, and Increase Security

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In today’s costly world, homeowners are fully aware of the expenses related to inflated energy costs and inefficient home security systems. There is nothing worse than receiving an electricity bill and being shocked by the amount owed at the end of a month or stolen possessions that could have been more strategically secured. Such realities have led homeowners to seek technologies that can help them beat the current system.
A growing number of homeowners are educating themselves on basic energy management and security devices, which often combine the use of innovate shade and control systems. For instance, Control4 offers a number of solutions that help homeowners monitor and control their home lighting from an iPad, iPhone, or wireless remote. With Control4, you can pre-program lighting levels and reduce energy output. It is also amazingly easy to set lighting to turn on and off at specific times. This significantly reduces the possibility of a light being left on throughout the night, or for several days while a homeowner is on vacation. Additionally, with Control4’s remote access service, no matter where in the world a homeowner travels he or she can turn lights on or off with a simple touchscreen command.

To make the management of lighting much easier to maintain, Control4 offers keypads with captions that can read “kitchen”, “hallway”, “master bedroom”, “patio”, and more. With a push of a single button, lighting is ignited in a desired location. The Control4 suite of products also offers dimmers that allow for lights to be set to a particular level.

Another ground breaking product for ultimate lighting, shading, security, and energy control is the Lutron RadioRA 2. The system is a holistic approach that combines total light and shade functionality. Radio RA 2 has the power to adjust the amount of daylight and electric light in a room throughout an entire home. Shades can also be lowered, electric powered curtains closed, and lighting ignited at pre-programed times. For instance, if particular rooms within a home are in direct sunlight in the afternoon, the lowering of window shades and closing of curtains can significantly reduce room temperatures. Or when the family is on vacation and dusk approaches, lowered shades, closed curtains, and automated lighting can offer higher levels of security. And for the family that has developed a high-tech home theatre, with the single push of a button window shades can be lowered and lights set to a particular level to create the perfect ambiance.

Many homeowners love the fact that both the Control4 and RadioRA 2 systems are fully scalable. This provides homeowners the power to start with a single room and expand when time and budget permits.

Seeking to automate your home for added simplicity, comfort, energy efficiency, and security? The beauty of 2012 is that homeowners have more control than ever before!

The secret to discovering and installing a solution that best fits your needs is to consult with a personalized home automation expert. At Digital Smart Homes of Vancouver BC, we would be honored to provide you a free consultation. Give us a call to set up an appointment at 604-375-3474 or visit our innovative showroom at 1385 West 6th Street Avenue in Vancouver. We live to automate, simplify, and secure your world!

How the Lutron RadioRA 2 Can Revolutionize Your Home

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Are you looking for creative and cost-effective ways to save energy, reduce utility bills, upgrade your home’s technological framework? Lutron makes this more than possible with its RadioRA 2 -- also known as wireless total home control.

The system provides you the power to adjust the amount of daylight and electric light, room/home temperature, and energy utilized by all of the appliances and electronics room-by-room or throughout your entire home.

To help you better understand the Lutron RadioRA 2, we hope the following outline of its benefits will reveal the value it can hold within your household:

Saves Major Amounts of Energy. The system includes a combination of light, shade, temperature, and appliance control to significantly reduce the amount of energy you utilize each day.

Ease of Use. With the push of a single button, it is possible to create the perfect combination of energy saving elements that can include adjusting room lights, shades, and temperature to the exact level that you desire. This can either include room-by-room control or throughout the entire home.

Ambiance Control. RadioRA 2 is an amazing tool for creating the exact ambiance you are looking for at any time. For instance, when you fire up the flat screen TV for one of your favourite movies, you can set the system to automatically dim the lights, close the window shades, and adjust the temperature to a comfortable level.

Appliance Control. It is possible to control all of the appliances in your home such as computers, monitors, televisions, and air purifiers by placing them on standby. By utilizing this functionality, you can save an estimated 10 percent of the energy you normally use on a monthly basis.

Custom Technology. The system can be built out to meet your specific needs. You can control settings via wall panels, tabletop controls, or handheld devices. It is also possible to access controls remotely when you are on the road or out of the country by utilizing your iPad or PC Tablet.

The opportunities are endless with Lutron’s RadioRA 2, thus the key to discovering the right mix within your home environment is to assess all of your lighting fixtures, lamps, electronics devices, and appliances and dreaming up the right solution for you.

Also, you should think about how you would like to control your system. Would you prefer wall panels, desktop and/or handheld controls, mobile device controls, or all of the above?

At Digital Smart Homes, we offer the entire Lutron RadioRA 2 system and can help you find the best solution that will best fit your needs. We can also visit your home and provide ideas for helping you create a cutting-edge and efficient home environment. For more information, we invite you to visit our certified showroom or call our team at 604-375-3474.

Homeowners Are Turning to Smart Technology to Streamline Their Lives and Reduce Energy Use

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Article by Amanda Ash, Contributor for eHow

Long gone are the days when we read by candlelight and cooked dinner on a wood-burning stove. And for many North American homes as of 2011, the acts of flipping light switches and manually controlling thermostats are going the way of the dinosaurs.

The Green Revolution, coupled with incredible technological advances, has spawned tech-savvy "smart homes": digitally outfitted dwellings that may be programmed to do just about anything you can think of, except maybe clean your room.

Harry Saini, who owns Digital Smart Homes of Canada and has wired his Vancouver condominium to the hilt, believes that automating your home not only simplifies your life but also reduces energy consumption. Home automation technology is becoming more accessible every day, allowing the average person to transform a home into something straight out of "Star Trek."

"If you were looking at home automation five years ago, you'd easily be looking at 10 times the cost compared to now," Saini said. "And the number of dealers and retailers that are able to support that technology compared to five, six years ago has doubled---tripled, even.

"People used to think home automation is for lazy people, but that's not what it is. Essentially, everything talks to one another. Your lights talk to your stereo. Your alarm knows what your garage is doing. All your devices know what's going on."
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Control4 Panelized Lighting—powerful lighting control for home and business

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Home and business owners can direct complex lighting events from elegant user interfaces while the system is centralized “behind the scenes”
Indianapolis, IN – CEDIA Expo 2011 – September 8-10, 2011 – Booth #2302 – Control4, a leader in IP-based home control systems, today announced the new Control4® Panelized Lighting Solution. Panelized lighting systems enable complete control over whole-home and commercial lighting systems using sophisticated keypad and touch screen interfaces, rather than a collection of light switches on every wall.

The Control4 Panelized Lighting Solution is Ethernet-based, providing simple and robust communications from the home controller or Control4 Touch Screen to the light. The Control4 Panelized Lighting Solution is also one of the first centralized lighting systems to offer energy monitoring capability for each load, which allows energy management applications to monitor and control individual lights. This empowers high-end customers to enjoy the privileges of whole-home lighting control while still being energy conscious.

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What is the Control4 MyHome app for iPad?



Enjoy control from your favorite devices. Now you can control your lights, temperature, music, movies, energy, security, and more from your iPhone, iPad, tablet or laptop. With the Control4® MyHome app, you can now turn your favorite screen into your favorite control system.

Want to enjoy Control4 MyHome App in the comfort of your home?

It's easy!
  • You must have a Control4 system to use MyHome. If you don't, just contact us here
  • If you already have a Control4 system, just download the free app for the device(s) you'd like to enable.
  • Contact us to get the license to activate your app and start controlling your home, your life, your world!

New Driver Mates Crestron Lighting with Control4 Automation

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Just in time for Valentines, new driver mates Crestron Lighting with Control4 Automation. Especially valuable for retrofit jobs, Extra Vegetables® Control4® driver for Crestron® lighting allows you to integrate a Crestron lighting system with keypads into Control4. This provides the same features and customer experience as Control4's native lighting control. You can dim and switch loads and there is also the facility to represent Crestron relays as motorization devices within Control4. The driver is IP based.

Crestron keypads are fully supported by the driver. It is possible to add custom programming to key presses on the Crestron keypads within the Control4 system. So keys not used for lighting operations could be used for AV or other control purposes.

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uRay RGB Color Changing LED Lighting TAPE


iSky’s uRay RGB LED Lighting TAPE is a great way for allowing for a dynamic lighting effect in a home theater, kid's room, restaurant, hospital, casino, nightclub and other environments. It's a great way to enhance any star ceiling or other feature in a room because it adds depth and drama to an already incredible star ceiling. Each of our iSky Surface Mount Panels has a built in light shelf designed to seamlessly accept the uRay RGB LED Lighint TAPE. uRay can also be used to accent equipment racks, behind TV's (Bias Lighting), pathway lighting, under bars, cabinets, closets, etc. The RGB LEDs can be controlled with iSky's standard IR Remote & receiver or with the more advanced DMX RGB Module.

Lutron Releases New Apple iPhone and iPod Touch App


Light control manufacturer Lutron Electronics is pleased to introduce the Lutron Home Application, which provides control of lights and shades, including the new RadioRA 2 total light control system, via an Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. The Lutron Home Application provides control of a RadioRA 2 system over a Wi-Fi network and requires RadioRA 2 Software version 3.1.14 or higher. RadioRA 2 Software is available only to qualified installers. The application is available now, free of charge, on iTunes®.

Also new to RadioRA 2 is an Away Mode feature that lets users simulate occupancy while away from home by automatically turning lights on and off and controlling shades.
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Philips Pronto Launches Lutron’s RadioRa® 2 Module



New module offers easy two-way integration with Lutron lighting and shading control systems.

Philips Pronto, the value leader in two-way control solutions, in collaboration with lighting control manufacturer Lutron Electronics, has announced the availability of a new RadioRA 2 module for Pronto’s line of controllers, including the TSU9300 (limited), TSU9400, TSU9600 and TSU9800. This new module offers integrators a convenient integration between a Pronto touch panel and the RadioRA 2 wireless lighting control system. Read More...

Lutron Lighting and Shades


I am very excited to welcome Lutron Electronics into our line card. Lutron offers a complete line of lighting control solutions for residences as well as for commercial projects.

What is light control?
Light control is the ability to adjust the amount of daylight and electric light in a room or throughout your whole home or business. With Lutron, you can adjust the amount of daylight with electronically controlled shades and drapes, and electric lights with dimmers and switches. And you can conveniently control it all with keypads, sensors, and other light control devices to create the perfect balance of daylight and electric light to suit your lifestyle.

So whether you are a homeowner seeking to enhance the appearance or atmosphere of a single room, or a facilities manager looking to enhance employee productivity and comfort while reducing energy-related costs throughout an entire corporate campus, Lutron can offer you the best value lighting control solutions that will meet or exceed your expectations while staying within your budget.

Contact me today and I’ll help you see your world in a different light!
(Download the Lutron RadioRa2 Brochure)
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