Smart Farm Automation - Keighley, Yorkshire

The Brief     

The initial brief was to provide a fully integrated home that would allow the clients complete and easy to use control over every aspect of their new home from the entertainment systems, heating and A/C systems to the lighting, access control and security of the house.

The client had previously had a small Crestron installation in his previous homes cinema room, controlling the AV kit and lighting which he loved so he wanted to include Crestron throughout his new home and extend its capabilities to cover every aspect of the houses electrical systems.

After visiting the Finite Solutions Show House and using our full Crestron system, which is installed throughout the 4000 sq ft home, he decided on a number of touch screen panels that he liked the look and feel of and a long list of features he wanted to control as per our Show house’ system.

Project Background and Detailed Design

The property itself was a 150 year old barn and farmer’s cottage set in the rural hillsides of the Yorkshire dales with a stunning view of the surrounding countryside. Requiring complete structural refurbishment and installation of all new electrical services, heating, windows, plumbing and interiors that blended the old heritage of the property with the modern styling’s which suited the client’s lifestyle.

Finite Solutions were involved at the earliest stage working with the Architect, electrical and heating contractors and the clients themselves to provide full detailed CAD drawings of equipment locations, cable risers and routes, cable schedules, comm’s room ventilation and management and complete structural, acoustic and interior design of the dedicated home cinema room.

Over 500 individual cable runs snake throughout the house, each with a distinct purpose and exacting position to fit inside custom made cabinetry and furnishings etc. The overall design phase of the project including the detailed engineering drawings required to build and program the central equipment room took our designers over 250 hours to complete. Although this may seem like allot of time it was this dedication and detail at start of the project that allowed the full build and installation of the house and its systems to runs smoothly and efficiently once work on site started and is absolutely vital with this scale of automation project. 

Simple Powerful Control In Every Room and Beyond….

The Crestron control system design produced for the clients provided for a combination of in wall TPS-6L touch screen panels in the kitchen, master bedroom  and house bathroom, TPS-6X wireless panels in the sitting room, lounge and master bedroom, TPMC-8x in the cinema room and MTX-3 hand held touch screen panels in the children’s bedroom, games room and kitchen.

Finite Solutions custom designed graphics were to be implemented as per our Show House system with numerous customising tweaks and upgrades to personalise the system and give additional functions.

As soon as we told the client about control via his iPhone and iPad he wanted both options and he wanted complete control over the AV systems in every room, lighting and heating control and the ability to view his CCTV and otherwise control the house remotely via 3G so he could prepare his home on his way back from work. New “preparation” functions were coded to allow the cinema room to activate, blinds to close, external and internal lights to come on and the cinema A/C system to warm the room to the desired temperature.

Simple Powerful Control

- WATCHING TV -Select, watch and control in full high definition on every TV screen via an Extron HDMI matrix switch the following sources: Sky HD box 1, Sky HD box 2, Sky HD box 3, Kaleidescape 1, Kaleidescape 2, Kaleidescape 3, CCTV, P.C. and Apple TV.

- LISTENING TO MUSIC -Select, listen and control in every room the following sources: Kitchen Crestron iDock, Sitting Room Crestron iDock, Lounge Crestron iDock, Dab radio, Kaleidescape 1, Kaleidescape 2, Kaleidescape 3.

- VOLUME CONTROL -Full volume feedback is provided to every touch screen panel showing you the current volume level, the system will also turn on at a preset sensible level.

- PARTY MODE –The TPS-6L in the Kitchen can be used to set up a party mode throughout the whole house giving you a very simple screen that allows you to select the rooms you wish to play music in, the source you wish to play and the volume level you require in each area. Once activated the system then display a “Party in Progress” message on the relevant touch screen and locks them from control other than volume control until the party mode is stopped or that room opted out on the kitchen touch screen panel.

- PARENTAL CONTROL –Via the password protected X-panel Crestron system in the study the client can look and see if the lights are on or off, see if the TV is on and what source is being watched and what the volume level being used is in his two children’s bedrooms. He can the turn the lights gradually off, turn off the TV and or music system and even lock the system off until 9 am the next morning if he wants to prevent his children watching TV all night.

- CCTV –The TPS-6L, TPS-6X and TPMC-8X can all view the CCTV system and control which camera to view or multiplexes’ of all camera.

- ACCESS CONTROL –When a visitor arrives at the gate intercom the TPS-6L panels and docked TPS-6X panel will all beep (long with normal doorbells) and display the gate CCTV camera. Via the TPS-6L panels the clients can then talk two way to the visitor and all panes can open and close the gates.

- SECURITY –The perimeter heat barrier system can be activated for client at home or client away modes and provides advance warning of any intruders within 15m of the property with instant CCTV display on selectable TV screen and automated lighting sequences.

- ALARM CLOCK– The master bed TPS-6X also provides a bespoke and very flexible alarm clock system offering different wake up and snooze settings that make the most of the full automation in the house.

- HEATING CONTROL– The Sensible Heat under floor heating system provides feedback of the temperature of every room to all touch screen panels with the ability to change the desired temperature and set holiday modes, boosts etc.

- LIGHTING AND BLINDS –The Niko lighting system and Silent Gliss blinds throughout the house are all controlled simply and easily by any Crestron touch screen or the iPad and iPhone Apps.

- VELUX WINDOWS –All operation of the electric opening and closing of Velux windows and their associated blinds is via the Crestron touch  screen panels in the respective rooms and via local rain and wind sensors for override protection from the elements.

- SYSTEM RESETS AND ENERGY SAVING –Even the greatest cooled central equipment location can’t prevent a Sky HD box from crashing and considering it’s a 5 minute walk from the master bedroom to the comm’s rack Triplite power relays were installed which allows the clients to reset Sky boxes and even the internet router from their Crestron panel in any room making Sky box freezes far less frustrating and quicker to resolve.  To save energy over night and when the clients are away they can also select to shut down the complete AV rack system other than Crestron processors and Sky HD boxes via a simple button on the password protect xPanel which helps saves considerable energy with equipment not permanently stood on standby.