Inside a Kiwi Smart Home

Located on a picturesque cliff edge, one architecturally designed home is distinctly different from the other luxury homes surrounding it. Not immediately obvious at first, the magic is in-built amongst the impressive floor-to-ceiling windows and expansive views, discreetly hidden behind the walls is smart home technology called C-Bus.

The home

One man who knows just how much C-Bus can enhance daily life is Des Dass, managing director of automation company Intellisys and the owner of this smart home.

Des has worked on automation projects throughout New Zealand for nearly 20 years and his own luxurious home in Auckland’s Gulf Harbour doubles as a showcase of what’s possible when C-Bus is running in the background.

He says C-Bus is ideal for homes that are 300–600m² or larger and usually have extra elements like air conditioning or pools, which require more management.

“As the houses grow in size you may not even have visibility from one end to the other,” says Des. “You would need to walk the length of the house just to check whether the lights and heaters are off and all the doors are locked! But with C-Bus you can do all that from the comfort of your kitchen or lounge. You manage and monitor the entire house from a central location.”

Des says it can be hard for people to imagine what living in a smart home is like and so his house functions as a “test drive”, where visitors can see smart home automation in action as it controls everything in and around his expansive property with the push of a button.

“People who build or renovate the kind of houses that we work on often won’t have any detailed ideas of what they want technology-wise,” says Des. “But then they come out here and see how everything comes together, that’s when the magic of it all starts to resonate, because they can picture it all working for them.”