For the brand-new residential construction in Shefford, Quebec, the homeowner took an active role in the entire process, designing and constructing much of the 9,500 square-foot home himself. When it came time to integrate a comprehensive control system for the home’s extensive audio, video, lighting, and security systems, RTI’s robust control solutions led the pack. The homeowner took charge of the pre-wiring for the system and enlisted the expertise of Onyx Audio Inc. to fulfill his creative vision for a personalized, unique system that intelligently tied all the system components together with ease.

“Our client was the ultimate do-it-yourselfer. There were no building designers, contractors, or sub-contractors, so his home automation ideas were really out-of-the-box and creative,” said Jean-Francois Gilbert, technical director and project manager at Onyx Audio. “For example, he wanted the lighting control to work in tandem with the security system, so when the garage door motion sensor is triggered after sunset, the garage and hall lights turn on.”

To drive the comprehensive control and automation system, the large residence required the power of RTI’s XP-8s control processor. The XP-8s is specifically designed to meet the needs of advanced and large-scale projects through ample processing power and memory built for real-time multitasking. Utilizing RTI's Integration Designer® programming software, Onyx Audio was able to easily execute advanced programming including time-based events and smart home integration of the audio, video, lighting, and security components in the home.

The audio experience was perhaps the biggest priority of the installation. Using two RTI AD-8x audio distribution systems and a CP-1650 power amplifier, the system is able to route audio to 16 zones, providing rich, quality music throughout the home. Audio sources include three Sonos® Connect network audio players that are controlled via RTI’s Sonos two-way driver. Through seamless integration with the RTI system, the "Selected Player" function allows all Sonos Connect players to be controlled from a single page of an RTI user interface, which gives the homeowner the power to select and play songs anywhere in the house. The homeowner can also group players on the fly, and external audio sources plugged into any player can be accessed from any other player. To deepen the dynamic experience, Favorites may be assigned to ‘preset’ buttons that display dynamically updated media titles, descriptions, and artwork information.

For a complete, whole-house experience, Onyx Audio also integrated video, lighting, and security components into the comprehensive control system. For video in the four TV rooms, a Binary™ 6x6 HDMI matrix controlled via the RTI Binary driver routes five video sources — including two HD cable boxes, two Apple® TVs, and the security camera DVR system — to any display. A whole-house Centralite JetStream light system controlled via RTI’s Centralite 2.0 driver enables the homeowner to adjust the lights in the entire home effortlessly from any RTI user interface. Finally, a DSC alarm system was seamlessly integrated into the control solution with RTI’s DSC driver to provide the homeowner with convenient access to a virtual keypad.

Five RTI KX7 touchpanels are installed in the kitchen, master bedroom, main entrance, garage, and family room. With these easy-to-access wall-mounted panels, the homeowner can operate every component of the AV, lighting, and security systems with simple and intuitive screen navigation. The 7-inch LCD touchpanels also feature custom-tailored layouts, showing specific options for each room. RTI’s T2x, T1-B+, and SURFiR handheld remotes provide control in each of the four TV rooms. Each remote provides quick, intuitive control through hard buttons. In addition to the hard buttons, the T2x’s 2.8-inch touchscreen interface is also programmed for full control of devices throughout the environment. Two iPads and two iPhones running RTI’s RTiPanel app round out the control experience, giving the user seamless, intuitive control of the entire system from anywhere.

“We’re really proud of the unbelievable control we were able to achieve with this residence,” said Gilbert. “It’s very sophisticated and intelligent, but from a user standpoint, it’s intuitive and simple to use. For us, because of the drag-and-drop simplicity of RTI programming software and the large library of two-way drivers, integration was practically effortless. We were able to deliver exactly what our homeowner had envisioned.”