by Theatron | Jul 21, 2015 | Home Automation, Savant
You can now get Savant’s home automation app on the Apple Watch, so you can perform all the important functions in your home from the comfort of your own wrist. The Apple Watch, a wearable smart device, is being talked up, criticized, loved and hated, but especially bought. And if you give a person an Apple watch, he’s going to want some apps to go with it. When he sees what choices of apps are out there for the watch, he’s going to want the coolest ones. He’ll download them, try them out and delete the lame ones. But that won’t be Savant’s app.
Home Automation Pioneer
Savant is a leader in home automation, having gotten its start in 2005, when home automation was little more than a collection of TV remotes, dimmer switches and a garage door opener. Savant skillfully wove together the integral components, transforming a once-crude system into a sophisticated, sleek design in which customers run their homes from a screen in their hands.
Finger (Or Watch) on the Pulse of Your Home
The general public is sometimes impressed easily, but it always gets bored easily. People want the next new thing. And that new thing is the ability to control your home’s functions with a device on your wrist — the Apple Watch. All the same great functions are available — opening and closing blinds or window shades, turning lights on and off, adjusting the temperature throughout the day, locking and unlocking doors, performing surveillance and even more sophisticated functions, like remotely viewing the visitor at your front door, coordinating music playlists and lighting, and keeping tabs on your teenager who likes to sneak out after you go to bed.
Proper Support
For the app to work properly, you must have Savant 7.0 running, and you must have had your system installed by an certified technician. This is one reason it’s always a good idea to go with one home automation system and one dealer — cobbling together a hodge-podge of components and trying to integrate them yourself to save a few bucks can lead to huge headaches. With an expertly installed system, you have someone you can go back to if you have problems, questions or need upgrades.
Theatron Home Theater and Smart Home sells and installs Savant home automation systems. They can install your system for you, or help customize Savant App for Apple Watch to your specifications. Contact Theatron today for help getting your Savant system up and running in your home and on your Apple Watch.
by Theatron | Jun 5, 2015 | Home Automation, Lighting Control, Savant
Savant has decided to discontinue all Savant-branded, specialty wired lighting products, efective September 30, 2015. Savant will continue to offer a complete set of wireless lighting products, including the modern, elegant, and recently reinvented Metropolitan line. You can also use the Savant App with lighting control products from other brands, and use the App to incorporate lighting into scenes and schedules to match your everyday life. Savant will continue to honor all warranties for installed Savant and LiteTouch product, as well as provide our full two-year warranty on all equipment purchased on or before September 30, 2015. Savant will also provide ongoing technical support to their Authorized Integrators to help them continue to service your home. During this transition time, we encourage you to coordinate with your Savant Integrator to discuss maintenance options and the possibility of adding a Lighting Reserve Kit to extend the life of your Savant system. For the long term, Savant is actively pursuing unique alliances with leading lighting control manufacturers—inluding Lutron, who is already one of our Elite Partners—to ensure that all Savant and LiteTouch homes with wired lighting control have viable upgrade paths and maintenance options. Savant continues to be a leader, and among the fastest growing companies in home automation. By working with Integrators across the country, we’re confident that we’ll be able to provide you the best lighting control options available—and that you’ll enjoy them in your Savant Home for years to come.
by Theatron | Jun 2, 2015 | Control4, Home Automation, Savant, What's New
What is Video Distribution? In your typical home, you have a TV with a handful of video components plugged into it. You probably have a Blu-ray player, a Direct TV receiver, maybe an Apple TV and a game console. Hopefully you’ve got some kind of media cabinet to store all these items in, but there’s a good chance they’re all sitting out in plain site, and all the cables are out and attractive looking on the walls.
With Video Distribution, you centralize all the Video components; usually in some kind of media rack or closet. From there, you distribute the different Video content out to the different TV’s in the home. So instead of having all your components under each TV, and cables dangling everywhere, you conceal all the components out of site. The TV sits flush and clean on the wall, and there are no visible cables. An added convenience, is that you don’t need a Blu-ray player, or Apple TV for every TV anymore. You can feed all the TV’s in the home with the same Blu-ray.
In most instances, we run Cat5e, and preferably 2 Cat5e from the media rack out to every TV in the home. There’s a piece of hardware called a HDMI Matrix, or Video Matrix. It’s a fancy name for a switch. It’s kind of like a router for your internet, but it’s for the video components. It has a number of video inputs, and a number of video outputs. So lets say we have a 4×4 Video Matrix. That means you can pug in 4 Video Sources, and out put them to 4 TV’s or displays, including a projector. There’s a very small device that sticks to the back of the TV called a balun. These baluns convert the Cat5e coming from the Video Matrix, into HDMI. So you’re able to send HD content from the Video Matrix over Cat5e to every TV in the home.
A couple of tips on Video distribution. Most people want to have at least 2 satellite/cable receivers, and at least 2 Blu-ray players. If the kids want to watch the Disney channel, and you want to watch the news, you’re going to want two different receivers. The same is true for you Blu-ray players. Next, most people find they want 6-8 video sources. You can save money by buying a 4×4 matrix, but in our experience customers are always disappointed they can’t have 6 video sources. Pay the extra, and get a minimum 6 sources. You’ll use 2 receivers, 2 Blu-rays, and Apple TV or Roku, and a DVR for your surveillance system. Lastly, buy the Video Matrix that supports the number of TV’s you think you might use someday. If you’re only going to use 4 TV’s initially, but know you’ll have 8 TV’s down the road, then buy the 8×8 Video Matrix. It’s cheaper than upgrading later.The Video Matrix, allows you to select the TV you want to watch, and the Video source you want played to that TV. It does the rest of the switching and sourcing to give you the desired content. Now, if you have a Video Matrix, you have to have some kind of Controller like Savant’s Smart Host or Pro Host. This allows you to use a remote, or a smart phone to control the Matrix.
by Theatron | May 29, 2015 | Home Automation, Savant
Savant 4 Zone Distributed Audio Suite SSA-PKG4-00
Priced from: 3,999.00 Plus Installation
The Savant 4 zone distributed audio suite SSA-PKG4-00 provides 6 x 4 distributed audio along with control, all in one compact 1U rack-mountable design. It offers 4 zones of high-performance pre-amplification, including independent control of volume, balance, bass and treble along with a 7-band equalizer (EQ). The package includes the SMS-001A single-source audio digital audio player providing instant access to your entire music collection and the most popular Internet media services. Your speakers will be powered by an ultra-efficient Class D amplifier delivers 8 channels of reliable, affordable, feature-rich amplification rated at 40 watts per channel (WPC) at 8 ohms in a two rack-space metal enclosure.
Savant Four Zone Sound Suite Package includes the following:
SSA-PKG4-00
Four Room SmartAudio / SSA-4004
SmartMedia Server Single Stream / SMS-001A
Four Room Digital Amplifier / AMP-8040
A Smart Host is required and is sold separately.
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by Theatron | Apr 1, 2015 | Home Automation, Savant, What's New
Savant Smart Host
New Savant Smart Host is 40% Faster, Includes Embedded Control, and Makes Owning a Savant Home More Affordable Than Ever; Also Announces Breakthrough Notification Features on its Award-Winning App
Hyannis, Mass. – April 1, 2015 – Savant®, a leader in premium smart home technology, today announced the all-new Savant Smart Host, an update to their best-selling product that enables control over a home’s lighting, climate, entertainment, and security from a single app.
The new Savant Smart Host combines the functionality of a host and controller in a single unit, and can help automate a wide range of devices in up to twelve rooms. With incredible performance and a beautifully compact form factor, installation is simple—and its US MSRP of just $999 is the most affordable entry point yet to a Savant system.
“The all-new Savant Smart Host allows our Authorized Integrators to offer Savant’s best-in-class premium automation software at an incredible value,” said Savant CEO, William Lynch. “It makes installations faster, easier, and more affordable than ever—and starting this May it’s going to be powering the next generation of Savant Homes.”
Savant also announced the reinvented Metropolitan wireless lighting line, consisting of switches, dimmers, fan controllers, and keypads offering both dimming and volume control. Its elegant design is compatible with industry-standard faceplates and features a modern look perfectly suited for discriminating designers and homeowners. Metropolitan’s adaptive design also enables the products to work automatically with almost any lighting set-up, which leads to a smoother installation experience.
Additionally, Savant announced new software features to its award-winning Savant App. Using powerful but easy-to-use new functionality, homeowners can now create their own system notifications—and get alerts on their IOS and Android devices while at home or away. “Our goal is to continue to develop ways that Savant homeowners can personalize our App to fit their needs, while arming our Integrators with the best automation system in the world to sell,” said Lynch.
The new products are now available for pre-order through Savant’s network of Authorized Integrators, and will begin shipping in May 2015. The Savant App is available on both iOS and Android platforms.
savant smart host
