Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa June 2015 | Page 39

TRENDS

Designing Integrated
Future-Ready Homes
Innovative technology
for smart future-ready homes
BY CHRISTIAAN BEUKES

T

he advancement of technology has facilitated
numerous possibilities for home automation
and the addition of custom fittings in each
house. Technology has now advanced to the point
where many existing homes cannot accommodate new
technologies without considerable renovation work. It
also means that new houses have to be designed with
future-ready functionality in mind.
Planning ahead will avoid much cost and pain in the
coming years.
Cabling infrastructure
Ensuring the house is wired correctly to be future
ready in terms of quantity, quality and flexibility. This
includes installing the correct amount of sockets per
room, installing lines that prevent loss of quality and
establishing central control hubs.

“The advent of the automated
home has unlocked limitless
possibilities.”
Integration
Ensuring all appliances can talk to each other. It is not
only about ease of use, but also aesthetic appearance –
wall acne such as thermostats, clutter such as remotes
lying everywhere, and other unsightly installations can
be replaced with a single remote, or the smart device in
your pocket, and a tasteful screen installation.
Lighting
Lighting installations can help to save electricity by
switching on and off depending on who is in the room
or dimming according to preset indications to create
the perfect atmosphere. You can even connect groups
of installations to function together such as turning
www.reimag.co.za

your garden and patio lights on together when you are
enjoying an al fresco dinner.
Entertainment
Entertainment is leading the move towards home
automation, but this is just the beginning. Already one
can control a central music bank from all points in the
house and music can start playing as you enter a room,
with a different soundtrack for every room. Integration
means everything works together well such as lights
dimming to just the right brightness when you press
play on a movie. Installing the sufficient high-quality
cabling is vitally important to ensure the quality of
audio and visual entertainment, as well as lightning
media download speeds.
Security
Security systems can be integrated with existing
entertainment infrastructure. With control screens in
many rooms, the moment you hear a sound outside,
you can immediately stop your movie and look at the
images coming from your security cameras. The newest
security systems are developed to minimise false
alarms and foiling burglars’ tricks to overriding security
systems.
Sustainability
In addition to curbing consumption, smart homes are
able to harness renewable energy from solar plates and
other renewable energy generators to reduce carbon
footprints even further. Soon, ho