January 6, 2022 – Los Gatos, CA – cyberManor is thrilled to announce that we are the national winner of the Consumer Technology Association’s Mark of Excellence Award for 2022 for our New Home Technology Center. This prestigious award was recognized as a cover story in the Los Gatos Weekly and in the local section of the San Jose Mercury News. The Mark of Excellence Awards, presented by the Smart Home Division of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®, recognize the best in custom integration and installed technology. Each year manufacturers, distributors and systems integrators compete in more than 20 award categories for this coveted honor. cyberManor won this award in the Speciality Project of the Year category. This award recognizes an integrator’s creativity and innovative use of technology to achieve a specific application. The entry can include sustainable/green energy projects, as well as emerging technologies, including virtual reality / augmented reality, voice control, or advanced systems in audio (i.e., listening technology), video, or security camera technology (i.e., facial recognition, thermal imaging).
cyberManor built our New Home Technology Center home behind our main office in Los Gatos from 2016 to 2021. The home is a 1 bedroom, 1.5 bath loft style, 1,300 square foot townhome with a garage, front and rear yards, and a garden roof deck. This New Home Technology Center (NHTC) was built to emulate the Sunset Idea Homes theme. Sunset Idea homes are built to promote the most innovative building design, interior decorator and exterior landscaping ideas. The company built our Technology Center to promote and showcase best of breed innovative home technology ideas that improve the entertainment, comfort, and security of the homes in which we live. When all the electronic systems are intelligent, connected, and integrated the home can become personalized for the needs of every family member. Each can simply controlled by the sound of one’s voice or the touch of a keypad, phone or tablet.
Here are just a few of the many technology solutions that you can see, touch, control and experience in the cyberManor New Home Technology Center:
- Intelligent, secure front door access and control station
- WiFi connected kitchen and laundry room appliances
- Lighting that dims and tunes to the correct color to match activities and time of day
- Comfort control with motorized fans, skylights and window shades
- Hydrotherapy showering system that turns on with voice and a TV that disappears from view behind a bathroom mirror
- Touch screens that show a live dashboard of the home’s energy consumption, solar photovoltaic panel KWH production, distribution and battery storage.
- A master bedroom that transforms into a home theater at the touch of a button.
- A short throw projection screen drops from the ceiling while an ultra short throw projector displays content from Roku or Apple TV streaming box
cyberManor wanted to build a showroom home – not just a showroom. According to Gordon van Zuiden, founder of cyberManor, “We built our experience center home so we could showcase all the technology solutions that we provide our clients and builder partners. Potential customers want to see and experience the latest technology solutions for their front door/gate, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, and the outdoors. Builder partners not only want AV, lighting, shades, and security solutions – but energy and water management, healthy indoor air quality, and enhanced outdoor living and entertainment solutions. Building a showroom home allowed us to best showcase all of those solutions in one location. We also wanted to demonstrate how all of these technologies can easily be controlled by one total home control system (Control4), touchscreens, keypads, mobile apps, and voice.”
“Another overarching objective was to make the home look as beautiful as the homes of our clients – and to make the technology implementation appear to be seamless and aesthetic in accordance with the home’s overall appearance. To meet that objective we hired Celia Boutell, our interior designer to create the look and feel of our home. We also increased our home improvement budget to include top of the line cabinetry, quartz countertops, hardwood ceilings/floors, and dramatic tiling for the floors and walls in the master bathroom.”
