Home Automation and Home Theatre Gets Easier
The Home Theatre category on Homestars has been exploding over the past year. With the price of big flat screen TVs coming down to what people who don’t work for an investment bank can afford and sound systems getting better, it’s easier to head off to your local retailer or someone like Brentview Electronics and get a decent TV. But even the basic connections are getting harder. How does one get universal remote to actual be universal? And how do you run the wires so they don’t look like a birds-nest from behind the TV? 
That’s when you call the experts. Companies like Toronto Home Theatre, Integrity Electronics and Audios Amigos are there to help. They can make the basic system better, easier and more efficient.
But what if you really want to go crazy and have your whole house work together on one great system. That’s when you need a serious system.
Last week I attended a product launch at Sound Designs, a Home Theatre and Home Automation specialist down in the distillery district of Toronto. It was for a product and line-up called Rosie, a home automation system built by a company called Savant AV based out of Maine.
Savant works closely with Apple and builds their hardware primarily out of Apple hardware – primarily the Mac Minis – installing it into specialized boxes, complete with touch screen functionality so it can be integrated right into a home network. The core of the system is a product called Rosie which provides the central functionality for the system, and all the other pieces fit onto the edges and integrate with this main piece. The system extends right into full home automation, attaching to your lights, security system, cameras, as well as your stereo. Because it works on Apple, it’ll tie your iTunes right across your house.
One of the cool pieces there was a coffee table with an integrated touch screen so you could do your controlling right from the coffee table in front of your screen. We were told at the demo it was okay to spill drinks on it (although no one did).
If you’re down in the distillery district doing some holiday shopping stop in and talk to the fine sales people at Sound Designs and ask them to give you a demo. You’ll need them to install this system as it doesn’t come installed ‘out of the box’, and currently they are the only integrators here in Canada, but according to the people at Savant we will see more soon. (Hopefully some of our well reviewed HomeStars companies!)
Posted by BrianS
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