In Control

Instead of a central controller stored at the distribution center of the home, small modules or multi-functional controllers pack the brains to control everything in the house via Ethernet. The media controller, for instance, could be the whole-house controller. Its 80-gigabyte hard drive can store the family’s collection of music which is distributed to other rooms in the house. Users operate it using a touchscreen, a wall-mount keypad, or the TV screen, and using the same interface they can also turn off lights, lower the heat or flip on the Jacuzzi.

The company offers a home theater controller, too, to help simplify family movie night, which has become a juggling act of remote controls. With a TV, surround-sound system, DVD player, cable or satellite, and more, it’s not uncommon for consumers to use six or more remotes in the course of an evening. “Today, the mainstream solution is a smart remote that costs several hundred dollars or more that will blast out a series of infrared commands to make everything happen necessary to watch a movie,” West says. “The problem is that solution is clunky because if one of those commands isn’t received—your hand moves the remote or the dog walks across the room—everything goes out of whack.”

Pricey control systems running $2,000 have the smarts to make adjustments so that commands are received and the show goes on. Control4 wants to bring that intelligence down to a $595 box that more people can afford. “With our box, you hit Movie and then on the TV you see all the cover art of all movies in your DVD library. You don’t have to remember that ‘Shrek’ is slot 87 or how to find Norah Jones in the music library,” he says. Using the TV screen or another display, users tap the name of the artist or movie and the controller choreographs the other components.

Families can select music through Control4’s media controller (above) or call up a movie from the DVD library through the home theater controller (below). The Internet figures prominently into the Control4 picture. Installers don’t have to make an expensive service call to the house to reprogram a system. They can do it on the PC and shoot the changes to the home controller over the Internet. The company plans to offer online media content, too, where homeowners have a music subscription to their favorite artists. “If you’re in the mood for Nine Inch Nails, you can listen to it anytime over the Internet,” says West. “You don’t have to buy media anymore; it’s available through the PC.”

And of course, remote remote control is part of the Control4 package, which is expected to carry a monthly service fee similar to that of security monitoring. Homeowners can tweak any networked device in the home from across town or across the world. “Parents can set time limits on how long the kids play Xbox, or remotely turn off their lights at night,” West says. Big Brother may have indeed arrived.—Rebecca Day specializes in writing about home electronics. She can be reached at customhomerd@aol.com.