Leading-edge architectural products distributor Agile OFIS must deliver the wow factor on a daily basis. As a Doing It Right This Time (DIRTT) reseller and installer as well as the largest commercial Lutron® shade dealer in the U.S., Agile OFIS’ working showroom features robust audio and video presentationsystems that are used during client tours of the facility. Part of the company’s 80,000-square-foot facility in Houston, Texas, the showroom gives clients an in-person experience of the extreme levels of customization their architectural solutions offer in a variety of settings, including three conference areas, a mock hospital floor, and a full kitchen.

Agile OFIS needed an easy-to-operate, dependable automation system with one-touch simplicity that would allow its employees to further highlight key features of the DIRTT and Lutron products. To supply the powerful control the showroom needed,the company turned to RTI. Using custom-designed graphic interfaces on in-wall and countertop controllers, mobile devices, and PCs, staff can easily command the sophisticated system as part of its impressive and inspiring product presentations.

“Our goal was to make control within the showroom as simple as possible,” said Gene Richey, technology product engineer at Agile OFIS. “We have a wide range of users, from those who are scared to touch the panels to the advanced operator. With RTI, we were able to build our own layout that enables powerful control of our systems with simple one-touch buttons that do up to 15 commands in some cases.”

An example of the custom control is featured on the RTI KX7 in-wall touchpanel installed in the main presentation area, where users simply touch a blue button labeled “Press here to begin meeting.” Once pressed, this switches the 70-inch Sharp® display and the 2x2 video wall in the adjacent kitchen area to the correct inputs, lowers the Lutron shades to 25 percent, switches the RTI AD-8x audio distribution system from the Sonos® system to the correct audio source for the kitchen and presentation area, and shuts off the audio in the nearby mock hospital area. When the presentation is over, the blue button on the KX7 changes to red and reads, “Press here to end the meeting.” When this button is pressed, the Lutron shades return to the last position, the AD-8x returns to the set level, the 70-inch display returns to the DirecTV input, and the 2x2 video wall switches to four Sony Blu-ray player inputs.

A driving feature behind the decision to go with the RTI control system is its dependable integration capabilities with third-party manufacturers. As a leading Lutron reseller and integrator, it is imperative that the Lutron products in the Agile OFIS showroom seamlessly integrate and play well with the RTI automation system. For example, the RTI XP-8s control processor is able to monitor and automate the Lutron shade system, demonstrating the full innovation of its energy-saving features. The Lutron daylight harvesting gear includes four LRF2-DCRB-WH wireless daylight sensors, eight EC-DIR-WH wired daylight sensors, and two LRF2-OCR2B-P-WH wireless occupancy sensors that are all tied into the RTI system to enable simple automation and conservation.

“The ‘blank slate’ approach to programming and customization of the RTI user interface enabled us to design a solution that provided straight-forward operation of the system with little training for users,” Richey explained. “We can’t afford to have a system in place that is confusing or difficult to use. For example,we can name buttons or use icons that correlate with our unique setup rather than be forced to use a default graphic template. We can also program the system for different daily and weekly schedules. That level of automation is critical to our operational efficiency.”