41 minute read
With rising temperatures around the world, it’s time to consider water savings technology.
Saving Water With Smart Home Tech
With Rising Temperatures in the U.S. and Around the World, It’s Time to Consider Water Savings Technology
By Jay Basen
There have been a lot of stories in the news lately about the “megadrought” the western U.S. is currently facing. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of April 4, 2022, 67% of the U.S. is facing some level of drought conditions and 94% of the Western U.S. is in some level of drought with 37% of the Western U.S. experiencing extreme or exceptional drought conditions.
With rising temperatures in the U.S. and around the world, these drought conditions are not expected to change anytime soon. With this in mind, I thought it timely to look at how smart home technology can help people save water.
Start by Stopping Leaks
Water leaks in a home waste a tremendous amount of water. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average household’s leaks can account for more than 10,000 gallons of water wasted every year, or the amount of water needed to wash 270 loads of laundry. Household leaks can waste more than 1 trillion gallons annually nationwide. That’s equal to the annual household water use of more than 11 million homes.
I’ve written quite a bit about smart home technology that can help homeowners detect leaks in their homes. However, those articles were primarily focused on the amount of damage a water leak can cause in a home,
along with the cost of making repairs. Two leading water leak detection products are the Phyn Plus Smart Water Assistant + Shutoff and the Flo Smart Water Monitor and Shutoff.
Both of these products can detect very small leaks in a home, shut off the water supply to the home to minimize damage, and provide information on the water used by different fixtures or appliances in a home.
So, using one of these products you can see how much water was used by your dishwasher, when you took a shower, when you flushed a toilet, and more. These products allow family members to understand the consequences of their actions — such as the amount of water used when relaxing in a 20-minute shower or when washing dishes by hand versus using the dishwasher.
Using a Smart Irrigation Controller
According to the EPA, nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for nearly onethird of all residential water use, totaling nearly 9 billion gallons per day. In addition, some experts estimate that as much as 50 % of water used for irrigation is wasted due to evaporation, wind, or runoff caused by inefficient irrigation methods and systems.
One way to minimize the water used to irrigate lawns and gardens is to use a smart irrigation controller. Smart irrigation controllers are available from Rachio, Wyze, Hunter, Rain Bird, and others.
Smart irrigation controllers offer a wide range of features to minimize the amount of water needed for irrigation. Some of their features include the use of local weather data to decide when to water a lawn versus when the soil has enough moisture to support a healthy lawn and other plantings. They also include automatically skipping watering when it is raining or windy, scheduling watering at times of day that minimize water lost due to evaporation and the ability to detect leaks in your irrigation system. As well, seasonal adjustment of the amount of water applied to a lawn are made, so more water can be applied during the hot summer and less during the cooler spring and fall.
Rachio, for example, states that its users see up to 30-50% savings on their monthly watering bills and have helped saved more than 30 billion gallons of water.
Hydraloop combines six different technologies to clean the gray water produced in a home.
Stop Dumping Water Down the Drain While Waiting for Hot Water
The plumbing system in a traditional home uses a centrally located water heater to supply hot water to all the plumbing fixtures in the home. So, if you want to take a hot shower you have to pour all the cold water located in the pipes, between the water heater and shower, down the drain before hot water reaches your shower. This can waste a significant amount of water. In fact, according to an article in Rise, you could be wasting upwards of three gallons of water each time you take a shower while you wait for hot water. So, if each member of a family of four takes a shower each day, over four thousand gallons of water will be wasted each year. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to solve this problem.
The first solution is to install an on-demand, or tankless, water heater near the shower. An ondemand water heater doesn’t heat hot water and store it in an insulated tank. Instead, it senses when a hot water fixture is opened, such as turning on a shower, or starting a washing machine to clean a load of clothes, and only then starts heating water. The water heater heats the water as it flows to where it is needed in a home.
An on-demand water heater can either be centrally located to supply water for the entire home or smaller units can be located where hot water is used — including bathrooms, the kitchen, etc. By locating a small on-demand water heater in a bathroom, the amount of water that is wasted, for example, while waiting for hot water to reach the shower, is greatly reduced.
On-demand water heaters can be powered by either natural gas or electricity. Gas-powered models are typically used to supply hot water for an entire home, while smaller electrical units are usually located near where hot water is used in a home. It is best to consult a qualified plumber before purchasing an on-demand water heater to assist in sizing the unit, so it has the capacity to heat water at a fast-enough rate to meet the demand of the fixtures that it services.
A recirculation pump is another solution to minimizing the amount of water wasted while waiting for hot water. And, just like an ondemand water heater, there are both centralized pumps as well as pumps that can be located near where hot water is used in a home.
Large homes, where hot water could take an extensive amount of time to reach plumbing fixtures, are typically designed to use a recirculation system. In this case, a centrally located pump takes water out of a tank-style water heater, continuously circulates it in the hot water pipes in the home, and hot water that isn’t used is put back into the water heater’s storage tank. This minimizes the waste of water, but it does waste energy as the hot water will cool as it travels around the home and will need some degree of reheating when it comes back to the water heater. Typically, these recirculation pumps will include timers so they only operate at times when homeowners will typically use hot water.
A second kind of hot water recirculation pump can be located at a plumbing fixture that is farthest from the centrally located water heater. Instead of circulating hot water through a specially designed network of pipes, the recirculation pump will pump water from the hot water line into the cold-water line until hot water reaches the pump. This kind of recirculation system can either operate automatically or manually.
The automatic recirculation pump senses when the water in the hot water pipes has cooled and will automatically pump hot water into the cold-water line until hot water reaches the pump and is ready for use.
As for the manual system, when someone wants hot water, they trigger the pump and only then does it pump water from the hot water line into the cold water line. Again, the pump will operate until it senses that hot water has reached
Rachio states that its users see up to 30-50% savings on their monthly watering bills.
Greg Simmons
Educating integrators across the country on the latest technology and business best practices. We’re more than just a buying group.
Want to learn more? Contact Hank Alexander, director of HTSN, at hank.alexander@nationwidegroup.org.
the pump and is ready to be used at any fixture between the pump and the water heater. Typically, these recirculation pumps are triggered by either a wall-mounted switch or a small, wireless, remote control.
The advantage of locating the recirculation pump at the location of the plumbing fixture that is farthest from the water heater is that it doesn’t require a specialized plumbing design and can be retrofit into any home.
In a ranch home where the two ends of the house can be quite a distance from a centrally located water heater, two recirculation pumps could be installed — one at either end of the home. The disadvantage of this system is that pumping water from the hot water line into the cold-water line can cause the cold water coming from a faucet for drinking to be tepid.
One solution is the Chilipepper CP9000 hot water recirculation pump, which can be integrated into a smart home, including the ability to trigger the pump using voice commands.
Water Recycling
Another way to reduce the amount of water you use it to recycle a portion of your wastewater — referred to as gray water. Gray water is defined as “household wastewater (as from a sink or bath) that does not contain serious contaminants (as from toilets or diapers).” Treated gray water can be reused in toilets, clothes washing, irrigation, and topping off a swimming pool.
Hydraloop is a gray water recycling system announced at CES in 2020. The way it works is that wastewater is routed from showers, tubs, your clothes washer, and water drainage from an air conditioning or heat pump system to the Hydraloop system. The wastewater is then cleaned, similar to technologies used in wastewater treatment plants.
Competing systems typically use filters or membranes that require ongoing maintenance to clean wastewater. Hydraloop combines six different technologies to clean the gray water produced in a home: sedimentation, floatation, dissolved air floatation, foam fractionation, an aerobic bioreactor, and disinfection of the cleaned water with powerful UV light. Hydraloop estimates that a family of four can save 20,000 gallons of water each year using one of their systems.
Obviously, a Hydraloop, or any gray water recycling system, is going to require significant changes to the standard plumbing layout in a home. A Hydraloop system is also about the size of a refrigerator so additional planning is needed when considering installation into an existing home.
The Phyn Plus Smart Water Assistant + Shutoff
Simple, Low-Tech Changes to Save Water in a Home
There are also a number of inexpensive and low-tech changes you can make to a home to save water.
For example, installing a low-flow shower head is an inexpensive change that can save a significant amount of water. WaterSense is an EPA program that helps consumers find water efficient products. According to the EPA, replacing showerheads with WaterSense-labeled models can save four gallons of water every time you take a shower. A family of four where each person takes one shower per day can save almost 6,000 gallons of water per year.
Another simple change is replacing an old toilet with a WaterSense-labeled toilet, which can, according to the EPA, save the average family nearly 13,000 gallons of water per year.
An Altered Extreme Water Saving Nozzle is another inexpensive option that can best be described as a faucet aerator on steroids. The Altered Nozzle produces a fine mist of water droplets. These droplets do a good job of, for example, applying water to your hands when washing them, but it uses 98% less water than the flow from the faucet without the Altered Nozzle. A simple twist of the nozzle changes it to spray mode that can be used to, for example, rinse your toothbrush. And, even in spray mode, you use 85% less water.
Lastly, a ShoweStart TSV minimizes the water wasted while waiting for hot water to reach a shower. The ShowerStart TSV monitors the flow of cold water from a showerhead. Once the water reaches 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the ShowerStart automatically lowers the flow of water to a trickle. Once you get into the shower, you simply pull the attached cord to resume the normal flow of water. The ShowerStart TSV allows you to save water and simplify your routine. You can start your shower and brush your teeth or get your clothes ready for work, while minimizing the amount of water you waste getting hot water to your shower.
Clean water is becoming an increasingly precious resource. Technology offers both hightech and simple solutions to minimize the water used in a home. Individual homeowners can make simple changes that can save thousands of gallons of water each year. If these changes were made on a nationwide basis the savings would be well over 100 billion gallons of water each year. x
HIGH-TECH ON THE Waterfront
South Florida Home is Modest in Size, But Massive in Wi-Fi Connectivity and Networking Needs
By Lisa Montgomery
Photography by Maritza Thibos Photography
For an extensively remodeled 2,800-squarefoot house in Key Largo, FL, a high performing, enterprise-grade network solution was the only way to go. Why? This house may be modest in size, but it’s big in technology thanks to the professional integration from The Premier Group based in Carmel, IN. “We installed every technology imaginable into this residence, to the tune of about $700,000,” noted Premier’s CEO Jason Barth. “The sheer magnitude of the smart systems consistently operating on all cylinders was something no ordinary networking system could handle. The music system alone plays non-stop indoors and outdoors. Dead zones were not an option.”
Given the heavy Wi-Fi load on the home’s network, The Premier Group set up separate VLANs to segment and streamline the hardwired network and Wi-Fi traffic.
Multiple mobile devices, computers, security cameras, motorized window shades and hurricane shutters, lights, thermostats, smart TVs, whole-house audio, and a home control system all compete for precious Wi-Fi bandwidth. Without it, devices would struggle to find a strong Wi-Fi signal, rendering them unmanageable and inoperable. Listening to music, enjoying a movie, and controlling the shades, lights and other devices would become more of a chore than a convenience.
Based on these potential problems, the homeowner willingly invested in a stable, reliable networking foundation to deliver the bandwidth, coverage, and speed necessary for all the tech the owners love so much to operate as it should.
“The Custom Core system from Access Networks checked off every box for the advanced networking needs and expectations of savvy technology users like these,” Barth explained. “It can handle huge bandwidth demands without a hitch, is failsafe, can be customized precisely to their specific requirements, and can be easily updated to support new devices and applications.”
For this project, one of the primary demands was “handing off” the network to The Premier Group. Per the request of the client, The Premier Group would manage and monitor the network and every device connected to it remotely from their headquarters in Indiana.
“She wanted the peace of mind that if anything went wrong, we’d be there to fix it, even though we’re located hundreds of miles away,” Barth pointed out.
Through the remote management capabilities of the Custom Core platform, technicians have full visibility and insight into the network. Should a device fall offline, for example, the Custom Core system notifies The Premier Group or the service team at Access Networks if it’s after hours. So far, there’s been nothing to fix but having the assurance of immediate remediation is priceless to the homeowners.
Remote monitoring, management, and resolution are vital to the functionality of the elegant, well-appointed home and the business efficiency and opportunity at The Premier Group. “Before using Access Networks, we refrained from jobs located outside our region,” Barth said. “As this project proves, we can provide exceptional service to clients no matter where they live, which gives us the confidence to work with clients throughout the country.”
This ultra-efficient mode of tech service can only happen if the networking system has been properly configured. Based on information gathered by The Premier Group — home size, construction materials, layout, number and type of connected device, and user preferences — the design experts at Access Networks set up the Core System and shipped the appropriate router, switches, and access points directly to the jobsite. They also provided The Premier Group with a networking roadmap indicating the ideal placement of each of the four recommended access points to combat Wi-Fi obstacles like the home’s concrete and glass construction.
“From here, installation of the network is nearly a plug-and-play process,” Barth said. “We had the network installed, validated, and fully operational by the second day on-site.”
Given the heavy Wi-Fi load on this particular network, however, The Premier Group went several steps further, setting up separate VLANs to segment and streamline the hardwired network and Wi-Fi traffic. This prevents bandwidth-intensive activities, like downloading high-res video, from monopolizing the network, which can impede the performance of other Wi-Fi devices. With security devices, AV equipment, and control and automation components each utilizing their own separate VLANs, the homeowners are assured that every component on the network has the bandwidth it needs.
VLANs also help protect the homeowners’ privacy. Per settings programmed into the Core System by The Premier Group, guests who connect to the network can access only certain devices, like the whole-house music system. The owners’ personal computers and security devices are off-limits. It’s the ideal scenario for now. However, plans are underway to add a third VLAN for business colleagues who regularly conduct meetings at the residence.
Through the remote management capabilities of the Custom Core platform, technicians have full visibility and insight into the network.
“This is one of the greatest benefits of an enterprise-grade network,” Barth explained. “We can easily customize it for business-like applications. In this case, we’ll create a ‘glorified guest VLAN’ to grant users access to smart TVs to stream presentations from laptop computers and to printers.”
Barth expects other modifications to the network going forward. “Home networks are no longer a set-it-and-forget-it type of amenity like they used to be,” he explained. “Like most home technologies, networking systems are constantly evolving with new features and security protocols to keep the system fresh, relevant, and protected against increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats. It’s important to us and our clients that their network is always on point with the current Wi-Fi standards and safeguards.”
It’s also important the network keeps pace with the owner’s insatiable appetite for new technology. “The owner loves tech, loves the comfort, enjoyment, and conveniences it delivers, so we expect him to continually update and upgrade,” Barth says.
Remodeling and redecorating can sometimes throw a monkey wrench into Wi-Fi performance, as well. But no matter what happens at this smart, automated custom home, there’s a networking infrastructure to support it. x
Multiple mobile devices, computers, security cameras, motorized window shades and hurricane shutters, lights, thermostats, smart TVs, whole-house audio, and a home control system all compete for precious Wi-Fi bandwidth.
Explore Our Wi-Fi 6 Access Point Portfolio
Investing in the Future
Deontay
Wilder By Jeremy Glowacki Former WBC Champion Collaborates with Top Designers on Elegant Private Theater Project
Deontay Wilder has experienced many highs and a few lows in professional boxing. Although his career has made him a materially wealthy and famous person, he is determined to avoid the pitfalls that can come from a sport that involves repeated blows to the head and business associates who may only have their own best interests in mind.
The former WBC heavyweight champion is shrewd about these things. The 36-year-old embraces the knowledge and wisdom that comes with age, stating “unless you apply knowledge” you pick up throughout your life, you run the risk of becoming “an old fool.” As he shares this bit of wisdom about aging foolishness, he laughs and adds, “And, I’ve known a few of those.”
Wilder says that he has learned over time that while professional boxing is a “team effort” from trainers, managers, promoters, and the boxer himself, it’s really an “individual business” once that fighter enters the ring.
“When I’m in the ring, you can’t go in there and help me,” he related. “Yes, you can help me train, and you may give me water, but you can’t help me throw punches or dodge a punch. I’m taking everything. And, while over time I may deteriorate physically and my mind may go, the guys that have been training me and guiding me? Nothing is wrong with them. And, they’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of me. As a fighter, you’ve got to be smart about all of this.”
That type of perceptiveness seems to have inspired the Tuscaloosa, AL, native to save his money wisely, investing in property in his home state, as well as in the Los Angeles area and Atlanta. He has built multiple homes to shelter his large family, looking to provide for them today, but also for his future generations, as well.
Photo: Eric Figge
A relatively small piece of this growing investment is an elegantly appointed entertainment space in Wilder’s Glendora, CA, home that he and his fiancée, the actress and entrepreneur Telli Swift, recently collaborated on with LA-based interior designer Lisa Slayman and custom integrator Eric Thies of DSI. Together, they turned an ordinary-looking bonus space centered between second-story bedrooms into an extraordinary, modern private theater featuring professional-grade video projection, LED star ceiling, pounding audio performance, and oversized seating to accommodate Wilder’s eight children and his own 6-foot 7-inch frame.
“We had a space in our house that was centered at the top of our home, and it was just a big open area that Deontay and I wanted to turn into a theater space,” said Swift, who is founder of the Boxing WAGS Association (501c3), which is a not-for-profit company that aims to raise funds and deliver them into the hands of service providers and non-profits who support children and families in a variety of ways. “One of my mother’s friends was friends with Eric from DSI. We got in contact with him, and he got us in contact with Lisa. Then the whole process started.”
The first priorities for Wilder were accommodating all eight of his children within the theater’s seating layout, using a color palette throughout the room that featured “royal” colors, and including lighting that made the space look more exotic. As an added, personal touch, Swift asked that her fiancé’s personal logo be included somewhere in the theater’s design.
“Deontay wanted dark blue and gold colors, and he wanted his logo on the back of each of the chairs,” said Slayman, who is an ASID and IIDA accredited designer respected for her home theater expertise. “What I ended up doing was taking his logo and some of the geometry and trying to do something with the walls. You can see it’s now a dark blue silk wall covering, which is acoustically transparent. All the equipment’s behind it, but the surface has gold metal on each panel; each of those angles were laid in separately.”
One of the technical considerations facing the design team was building a room with a room, covering up existing windows, and keeping the theater isolated from surrounding bedrooms. “Obviously, we had to close the walls and control the light,” Thies said. “We also had to get the gear out of the room and find a place for our rack.”
Decorative wall panels were created to break up the wall space and allow for speaker locations hidden behind separate framed fabric panels. The panels consisted of Aniline dyed wood veneer frames from Italy with flush inset acoustical fabric divided by quarter-inch gold reveals in an informal “art deco” pattern.
“A lot of people assume hard surfaces in a theater are bad, but you do need some hard surfaces,” Thies said. “I think one of the biggest problems with theaters is that they’re often not ‘live’ enough. They seem claustrophobic. You’re already walking into room with no windows, so you don’t want to acoustically shrink that room. You want it to feel as open as possible, and you need hard services for that. I’m glad that Lisa did not shy away from hard surfaces with this project.”
The decorative fabric allowed for acoustical backing so there was some value to reduce echoreflection from walls as they were parallel with
Images courtesy of Deontay Wilder/Telli Swift and Lisa Slayman
Former WBC Champion Deontay Wilder has invested in the future with Alabama, Georgia, and California properties, including a private theater created by LA-based interior designer Lisa Slayman (right) and custom integrator Eric Thies of DSI. Deontay and his fiancé Telli Swift (left) also have invested in their future together with a unisex fragrance named D’Telli.
one another. Panels were designed to float off the walls with two-inch space behind every panel. This helped further reduce echo reflection. Slayman’s team added RGBW LED strip lights all around each panel, which resulted in each panel having a “halo” glow.
On the back wall, Slayman’s team created a bump out/air chase centered on the wall to pull cool air from a vent near the floor, behind the back row, up through the projector housing and into the attic space. It gave some interest to an otherwise flat wall. There are micro fans in the projector housing to pull heat. A framed, optical glass port was installed to limit noise from the projector and create a consistent channel for air circulation.
A perimeter room soffit was designed to conceal cabling, sprinkler pipes and ducting. It framed a recessed area to apply a “starry night” ceiling. The ceiling includes three different sizes of fiber optic lights to mimic the look of a real night sky, including a shooting star field. The panels are made from acoustical fiberglass to provide a reduction of noise reverberation. The custom star ceiling and fabric track system was supplied and installed by LBI Boyd.
Another challenge for the design team was accommodating two rows of large theater seats in a room that was not particularly long. “It made sense for the room to do a SeymourScreen Excellence CinemaScope projection screen that maximized the width of the room but didn’t impede on sightlines,” Thies said.
DSI also did not want to “shrink the room” with the type of gear they were installing.
“We knew we would have to include isolation layers for the soundproofing, but we didn’t want to create a screen wall that’s 30 inches deep, because we just didn’t have space,” Thies said.
That meant the front sound stage of theater would need to be in-wall speakers. “We went with the highest performance products that we can get within the budget that would deliver what the clients expected for a big, punchy dynamic movie sound, yet not take up a lot of space,” Thies added.
DSI specified JBL and Revel in-wall loudspeakers and JL Audio subwoofers for the room in a Dolby Atmos configuration, with 13 speakers and dual subs, that “really move a lot of air in that space and give you a nice, nice impact and great low end.”
All of the speakers are hidden behind acoustically transparent fabric.
“There was minimal space to conceal ceiling speakers, so we blended them into the soffit by locating them in an aesthetic way to work with the gold reveals while conforming to Dolby Atmos criteria,” Slayman explained.
A Barco Balder projector lights up a 13-foot projection screen, and AudioControl handles most of the amplification and tuning, “because we were trying to get a lot of bang for the buck, and AudioControl is a great value product,” Thies noted. From a control standpoint, DSI wanted to keep things “super easy to use,” so they went with a Savant system and Savant Lighting.
The final technical consideration was the aforementioned extra-large theater seating. “We’re working with a client who is a very big man and a world-class athlete,” Thies noted. “We have to get some seats that are comfortable and could handle that big frame of his. Fortunately, their house is probably within 15 minutes of Fortress Seating, and we took them down there and [we said], ‘Here’s our situation: We need to extend leg rests. We need to make the backs of the seat high enough to support somebody at his height, and it’s got to be super comfortable for him.’ That was not our usual type of request or technical hurdle that we have to jump.”
Photo: Eric Figge
Deontay Wilder wanted his private theater to feature dark blue and gold colors, and his logo on the back of each of the seats.
Photo: Eric Figge
Cinergy
LA-based interior designer Lisa Slayman and custom integrator Eric Thies of DSI helped transform this once-ordinarylooking bonus space centered between second-story bedrooms into an extraordinary, modern private theater.
When Thies took Swift to the seating manufacturer, Fortress Owner Gabi Wolper mentioned his company’s custom capabilities. That’s when Telli asked, “Can you put Deontay’s logo on these seats?” according to Thies. “So, they sent us the logo, and we got it embroidered on all of the seats. We wound up doing seats for their Alabama theater, too.”
Considering the room is on a second floor, surrounded by bedrooms. Acoustical isolation was very important. LBI Boyd applied Sound Isolation Company resilient isolation clips with metal hat channels to the existing framed walls and the ceiling. They then applied half-inch plywood and two layers of 5/8-inch QuietRock 530 sound-damping gypsum board to the hat channel. The decorative finished wall fabric panels and soffit floated off the finished QuietRock surface two inches to create pockets that help diffuse sound because the walls are parallel to each other and echo reflection was a potential issue. The designers also specified a standard 1 ¾-inch thick solid core wood door with Pemko neoprene seals all around the opening, as well as an interlocking threshold for the bottom of the door.
In the end, everyone was happy with the final results. For the family, much binge-watching and horror film viewing already have taken place. “There were some good Marvel actionpacked movies where the bass was great. When we watch a family movie with the kids, we’ve got a horror film family! Even the smallest kid loves horror movies. She says, ‘Daddy, I’m not gonna get scared.’ We’ve got a brave four-year-old!’”
For Slayman, working with an energetic and engaging couple like Deontay Wilder and Telli Swift was an enjoyable experience, as well. “It was really fun working on this project,” she said, “and I enjoyed getting to know Deontay and Telli better. The whole process was great.”
For Thies, who has worked in the homes of some of the most power people in the entertainment business, more than anything, he did not want anything to go wrong.
“In the back of your mind, you think, ‘Man, I’ve really got do a great job for this guy. He’s a heavyweight champion and a pretty intimidating fellow. I must perform!” he said, maybe only half joking.
Speaking of performing, Wilder says that he is not done with boxing, just yet. Although he might have considered hanging up his gloves after last year’s fight, it was a hometown ceremony unveiling a bronze statue saluting his many career accomplishments and contributions to his community where he realized that too many people were looking up to him to retire right now.
“So many people came from all walks of life, from all over the world… That was amazing to see. But, also, to have grown men bring their sons up to me and break down crying while holding my hand, telling their son that I’m a real leader because of the things I’ve done… That helped me to understand that I am not finished. I can’t stop right here because so many depend on me for strength, for motivation, and for guidance. I had to apologize to my children, and say, ‘Daddy’s coming back.’ But, I’m so proud that I’ve gotten to the point where I can dictate and do what I want. The reason I’m coming back is that it’s just bigger than me.”
Deontay Wilder returns to the boxing ring for the first time in more than a year on Oct. 15, when he fights Finland’s Robert Helenius at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. x
Navigating New Frontiers
Tayloe Stansbury Leads Kaleidescape Toward Next-Generation Entertainment Experiences
By Jeremy Glowacki
Kaleidescape, the Mountain View, CA, manufacturer of premium movie servers and movie players, has been busy over the past two years with new hardware releases and marketing partnerships, trailblazing a new frontier for entertainment experiences in the home. Tayloe Stansbury, a longtime Kaleidescape customer before joining the company’s board, was appointed CEO in late 2020, after serving in executive roles at Watermark Insights, Intuit, and Ariba. Although his background in applied math and computer science is a less traditional route into the home theater market, his insights as a technically astute Kaleidescape enthusiast and lover of movies already have proven invaluable to the company as it charts its path into the future.
The company has focused on improving performance and scalability, discontinuing allin-one products and moving to the server and player products that have faster downloads, faster UI, and download while you play. Kaleidescape now has a line of products that deliver customers more options when it comes to storage sizes, as well. All of this, Stansbury says, leads to a much better customer experience.
Here’s what else we learned from Stansbury on the Residential Tech Talks podcast. This portion of the interview has been edited for length and clarity.
time customer before joining the company. How does one go from Kaleidescape customer to chairman and CEO of the company?
Tayloe Stansbury: My journey to Kaleidescape is an unusual one. My background is in applied math and computer science. I grew up as an engineer at a number of different companies and then led engineering and product at a number of companies, including as EVP and CTO at Intuit. I became a Kaleidescape customer in 2011, when my dealer told me that I really needed to try it out. I was reluctant, so I bought the smallest one that I could. But we quickly fell in love with the device, and it spread throughout our house and to a couple of other houses. We loved the product.
I happened to be on a couple of boards of directors with people who were affiliated with movie studios. When there were titles that I would have loved to see in the Kaleidescape movie store, I called up Cheena Srinivasan, who was CEO at the time and said, “Hey can I help with some connections?” And he said, “Absolutely,” and we proceeded to get those movies into the collection.
Right around the time COVID-19 started, I called him up again and said, “How’s it going?” And he said, “Well, I’m looking for investment.” I ended up investing in the company and joining the board, and ultimately the then-chairman asked me to become CEO. So, that’s my journey as a software guy coming to an entertainment tech company with a customer perspective, thinking about the ways in which the company had treated me as a customer that I liked and that I didn’t like. And what kinds of changes I would want to make.
RT Today: Where did you see an opportunity with your background to make an impact and to help make some changes when you took the reins there?
I've loved it since I first bought it. It is an excellent product to use, and I love movies. But coming from the mindset of an engineer there were ways to improve it from both a technical and experiential perspective. Beyond being the ultimate movie player, it is the source component for any entertainment environment. This put Kaleidescape in a position to make everything it touches perform better. Kaleidescape elevates every component in the home theater with higher-fidelity video source material, lossless audio, and integrative cues to control lighting, shading, seating, lenses, and screen masking. And we have brought all of this to the forefront with our strategic partnerships.
RT Today: Yes, over the past year you have made many moves, partnering with some of the leading brands in the industry. Tell us about those partnerships.
Kaleidescape has selected best-in-class category partners to deliver the ultimate cinematic experience. Sony (projectors & TVs),
Tayloe Stansbury, Chairman & CEO, Kaleidescape
Meyer Sound (speakers), Trinnov (surround processors), Lutron (shading & lighting), Stewart (screen masking), CINEAK (seating) and most recently, Keith Yates Design (design).
KYD has been a great partner. Nearly every theater they spec is equipped with a Kaleidescape. They understand the value of having a really high-resolution audio source that can power the rest of the theater. Kaleidescape’s uncompressed audio at the source can make all of the amplifiers and speakers and sound treatments really take advantage of the beautifully engineered design and shape of a KYD theater.
We worked with Lutron over the course of this last summer and fall to introduce direct integration with their shading and their lighting. The experience is entirely automated due to cues that are encoded as metadata into our movies, and this allows the audience to have an undistracted, seamless movie watching experience.
Our partnership with Stewart Filmscreen also takes advantage of home automation, this time with screen masking. Cues within our movies identify aspect ratio, and the screen automatically adjusts to the right shape for a given movie. Customers who purchase select Stewart screens with masking capabilities get a discount on Kaleidescape systems. We’ve also partnered with the vanguard of projectors, Sony, and offer a discount when you buy a qualifying Sony projector or a large screen display together with a Kaleidescape.
With Trinnov and Meyer Sound, we have collaboratively curated a set of movies so that when you buy a Trinnov processor or Meyer Sound speakers together with a Kaleidescape, you get a collection of movies specifically selected to showcase the pure, matchless sound your theater is actually capable of.
For seating, we have partnered with the best in the business in CINEAK. With Kaleidescape’s ability to provide cues to CINEAK, you only have to press play and enjoy an automatically reclining seat.
So, Kaleidescape’s goal is to deliver a product that changes the landscape not only for how people enjoy entertainment but how they experience it throughout their home. “Kaleidescape makes the industry's best movie servers and players, and we use the system for all our calibrations when we do quality control on a commissioned KYD home theater.” — Keith Yates, president and CEO, Keith Yates Design
“Kaleidescape underscores our unwavering commitment to provide the finest in 4K HDR entertainment. This ensures that our customers will get the very best from their premium Sony projector.” — Jeff Goldstein, head of custom integrator channel sales, Sony
“I recently saw a Kaleidescape, Sony projector and Stewart Filmscreen together and it just blew me away. Just a breathtaking image – and when that gets paired with great surround sound, it's quite impressive to think about how far our industry has come to be able to deliver this kind of impact in a home.” — Adrian Silva, vice president of sales, Stewart Filmscreen
RT Today: And you have been making a lot of product updates and announcements as well, including some at CEDIA Expo 2022.
So, a ton of the focus has been in marketing and sales to promote the brand and create momentum there. At the same time, we hadn’t released new products in some time, so I thought it was important that we should get some out the door. We, in fact, got several out the door last year — some six new products, mainly new servers of different capacities and sizes. One of the changes we also made was to pivot toward an all server and player architecture for better performance and scalability.
When I was a Kaleidescape customer, I soon realized that I wanted more storage as well as another player in another room of the house. It was important that the architecture was a scalable one that you could add to as your passion for the platform grew. Some of the products we had previously put out were ones that did not scale well.
So, performance and scalability was something that I thought was important. We discontinued all-in-one products that were less performant and moved to the server and player products that are more performant, have faster downloads, faster UI and download while you play. That leads to a much better customer experience. And, what we found is that customer engagement is two and three times higher with a new product line than it had been with the old lines.
We now have a line of products that deliver customers more options when it comes to storage sizes, which is the Compact Terra movie server, available in 6 terabytes (TB), 12TB and our newly announced 22TB offering. The Compact Terra line supports up to 5 simultaneous 4K playbacks with no loss in quality. The Terra movie server stores 48TB and we just announced a new 88TB. The Terra supports multiple Strato players, and up to 10 simultaneous 4K playbacks with no loss in quality.
Strato C 4K Movie Player and Terra Movie Server 88TB “No other source compares to Kaleidescape for providing such a versatile library with a lossless media path. With audio reproduced through Meyer Sound cinema systems, customers at home will hear exactly what the movie’s creators heard in the studio during the final mixing session.” — Blake Vackar, residential solutions manager for Meyer Sound “Only Kaleidescape is designed to present movies at full reference, with lossless-quality audio ensuring customers will be blown away when they hit ‘play’ and experience the power of Trinnov audio processing when matched with Kaleidescape playback.” — Jon Herron, managing director, Trinnov Audio “With Kaleidescape’s ability to provide cues to CINEAK, just press play and watch the control system automatically recline the seats, adjust the position of the articulating headrest, dim the lighting, and let the movie start… And when the credits begin to roll, the seats automatically readjust as the lighting slowly comes back up.” — Alvin Hellemans, president, and founder at CINEAK “The ability to directly couple control automation of lighting and shading with Kaleidescape’s premium entertainment platform brings a new dimension to the concept of home entertainment, providing infinite possibilities to architects and designers who work with Lutron.” — Ben Bard, engineering director at Lutron
RT Today: Why do you think the engagement is better?
I think it’s primarily because of performance. The system is snappier. You can download movies while you’re playing movies on several different stations around the house. It’s also about scalability, because if you decide you need more space, it’s just easier to scale up server capacity with the current architecture. You can add more players throughout your house. You can have different TVs able to pick up where you left off and watch something while simultaneous playbacks are hitting the same server.
And with an audio bitrate 10x higher than typical streaming rates, Kaleidescape drastically elevates your processor, amplifiers, speakers, and room treatments. With a video bitrate 10x higher than typical streaming rates, Kaleidescape elevates your video processor, projector, and screen to produce lifelike clarity and precision. Kaleidescape has all the performance you need to deliver the best experience.
All movies featured are available on the Kaleidescape movie store. All copyrights, trademarks, and logos are property of their respective owner. Compact Terra Movie Server 22TB and a view of the Kaleidescape Movie Store
RT Today: As you navigate the new frontier of entertainment experiences in the home, how have you positioned Kaleidescape for success?
The very first thing that I did when I joined the company was to hire a new CMO. And she’s hired a great team and started working on marketing. This goes way beyond the onslaught of marketing our partnerships. The team has been diligent in reengaging with dealers as well.
We have developed an award-winning dealer certification program. We have multiple online training courses and webinars to help dealers sell Kaleidescape. I encourage those attending CEDIA Expo to check out our live technical training sessions while at the show.
We’ve also made a number of changes and upgrades in the sales team, as well as hired manufacturing representative firms and marketing alliances like One Firefly. As part of our focused efforts to provide a customer-first approach and elevated dealer support, we’re sponsoring integrated marketing campaigns delivered by One Firefly to help key integrators bring Kaleidescape’s premium solutions to consumers across North America.
From a content perspective, we have hired a VP of content engagement, who has been bringing Premium Video On Demand and rentals to the movie store. We have 14,000 movies in our movie store, and we have 700 movies in 4K that you cannot get on 4K Blu-ray discs. So, it’s a rich library from many movie studios, including all the Hollywood majors.
Finally, our engineering is top notch and the team has been able to bring the processing capabilities from the larger servers and repackage it in a smaller single disk drive package at a lower price point. This supersedes the all-in-one boxes that we’d had before, and with the much higher performance that we talked about earlier. The video quality is just that much crisper and that’s important for certain movies and certain scenes.
RT Today: So, Keith Yates is helping to build the movie lab there at your headquarters. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that space is all about?
in their mezzanine formats, we then encode in the format that our players will consume. The content team watches every frame of those movies to make sure that they come across clean, that there aren’t subtitle issues, channel mix ups, audio glitches or video glitches. And we’ll either fix those ourselves or go back to the studio and ask for a deeper fix. All of those movies do get reviewed, so now we will have a premium space for the team to evaluate the content and ensure we deliver the best experience to the movie store for our customers.
RT Today: To wrap up, I just wondered if now that you’re well into your role there at Kaleidescape, how has the customer experience changed for you? Are you ever in your own home theater sometimes going ‘You know, I really kind of wish we did this,’ and then you can go back and actually implement change?
Oh, sure. There’s a little bit of that. And there’s also a sense of where the product line ought to go over the course of time and what future innovation we want to drive. We’ve got a number of really cool things in the pipeline that I’m excited to bring out to market soon. x
