Healthiest Smart Home in Manhattan

       This project is a gut renovation transformation of a floor-through loft with Romanesque Revival details spanning 3,000 square feet in a beautiful former warehouse, built in 1884, in the Tribeca district of Manhattan into a chic and modern apartment with the latest smart home technology. It took close collaboration between our team and the architect, designer, and contractor to realize the vision of the homeowner. Enter the home via private keyed elevator and the lights automatically turn on as programmed revealing the massive great room lit by arched, east-facing windows delivering lovely views of the treetops outside. The smart home aspect of the remodel required close coordination with all core team members to ensure that the installation and performance could match the quality of the premium brand hardware utilized for the project. Some key aspects of the design include: Lutron Caseta Smart Lighting System, 8 Hartmann & Forbes Somfy controlled automated shades, Sonos Wireless Home Theater setup (Playbar, SUB, 2 One's) in Great Room and Master Bedroom; 4 Sony 4k Smart TV's, 3 zones of climate control tied to an air quality monitor system, whole house humidifier and medical grade whole house air filtration system to automate indoor air quality, Nest Cam IQ with cloud storage, and a dual mesh network WiFi coverage (1 for personal and 1 for IoT devices).

The homeowners do a lot of entertaining but they were not looking for a high-end whole house music system so we chose the simple-to-use Sonos ecosystem for their dual theater setup as well as several Amazon Alexa enabled One speakers to be placed throughout the apartment. Bringing power to each of the 8 floor-to-ceiling Hartmann & Forbes shades required running wiring from the centrally located power panel to opposite ends of the unit and carving out some of the grout on the brick wall to hide the wiring and re-grout over the wiring was necessary to hide all the wiring. Cat6, RG6, and HDMI cables were run to all four TV locations.

We hope that what was accomplished during this project will bring more exposure to how the latest smart home technology can help families, especially those suffering from asthma, allergies and respiratory issues, become more healthy.

       This project was one of the most extensive ones we have been a part of in our 4 years of existence. The homeowners are seniors and brought us in to make living in their new apartment more simple and pleasant using the latest smart home technology. When we discovered one of them had respiratory issues along with some other health issues we introduced our signature package which used the latest best-in-class hardware- Nest thermostat, Awair WiFi Air Quality monitor, Aprilaire Whole House Humidifier and the IQAir Perfect 16, a medical grade whole house air filtration system- to automate and optimize the indoor air quality in the unit. The air in New York City is not the best especially with all the vehicles on the road and elemental carbon floating in the air so this system drastically limits the impact from breathing in pollutants from the outside air. To further enhance the air quality we had the Zehnder ComfoAir 850 Ventilation ERV system installed. Without the need to open any windows and allow particulates and toxins from entering the unit, the ERV pulls in fresh are and pushes out stale air and transfers 90% of the energy (heat or cool) from the outgoing stale air to the incoming fresh air significantly reducing energy waste. Therefore the key proponents of air quality- filtration, ventilation, and humidification- are all dealt with in this project to ensure our clients will be breathing the cleanest air possible. We are most proud of being able to provide peace of mind to our clients in this regard.

To us, the remaining installations are just gravy on top as they help make it more enjoyable to be at home, provide more security and help reduce wasted energy.

A state of the art security and intercom system is in place to ensure the property is secure. We set up an eero Wifi mesh network for the client's personal devices and put all of the IoT devices on a Google WiFi mesh network. Three climate zones are controlled by Nest learning thermostats and each automatically activates the fan to filter the air should particulate levels detected by the air quality monitors rise above a set threshold.

Each of the 3 bathrooms has Nuheat Signature thermostats that work with Nest and go into Eco mode when Nest does to save energy and limit any wasted heating or cooling.

The homeowner can control all aspects of their smart home via their smartphone or simply speak commands to Amazon Alexa or Alexa enabled Sony TV's situated in each room.

       When we sat down with our clients we focused on our four core areas of a smart home: healthy, energy efficient, safe and fun. We explained to them what the latest products in the market were and how they worked as well as our recommendations after testing most of the leading products in each category. From there the clients simply chose what they wanted and we came up with the list.

Once the products were chosen I worked closely with the core team consisting of the architect, designer, and contractor to ensure that each of the products chosen would not only fit aesthetically into the architecture of the remodel but also physically possible to get all the wiring and hardware to where they needed to go.

We made sure to future-proof the system by running CAT6 throughout the unit as well as RG6 and HDMI to all the TV locations. Most if not all of the hardware chosen can be controlled by the Alexa enabled Sonos system as well as the Sony Smart TV's. The systems we are integrating include:

- Indoor Air Quality Automation- filtration, ventilation and humidity control
- Lutron Caseta Lighting System
- Hartmann & Forbes shades with Somfy controls
- Whole house music via Sonos
- Video distribution through Sony Smart TV's is wireless through the cable provider's box
- Networking and Wifi
- Climate control
- Indoor Camera with Cloud Recording and real-time viewing and notifications
- Remote control via smartphone
- State of the art security system

We designed programs to make life simpler and more convenient:

- Programmed Lutron to turn on specific lates at random times around sunset and to turn off all lights several minutes after sunrise
- The 'Leave Home' mode secures the apartment and sends thermostats into eco mode
- 'Sleep' mode leaves only certain lights on in dim mode and turns off lights in the Master Bedroom