Case study: How Niko lighting and home automation systems transformed a property

Home automation is only a short step away from the twinned worlds of advanced lighting systems and home cinema. Indeed, most custom installers now offer levels of automation as a standard ingredient in aspects of home cinema and multiroom entertainment projects.

But what was once the sole domain of the high-end market is now coming down in price. At least that’s the message coming from Europe’s leader in lighting and home automation, Belgium-based Niko.

This can only be good news. When I visited its headquarters recently, I was blown away by the elegance and upgradability of its smarthome solutions.
The adjustable house
For a glimpse at the potential of lighting and automation, I toured the home of Patrick Van Steelandt, the company’s commercial director. His home is equipped, from top to bottom, with Niko kit. The install was supervised by Didier Legrand, Niko’s project support engineer.

According to Legrand, the house was originally only intended to be a small project: Van Steelandt wanted to automate a couple of window shutters. ‘He asked if I would come around to see how we could best handle that,’ explains Legrand. ‘While we walked through the house, we saw more and more places that were just screaming out for a Niko solution. And in the end he was so enthusiastic that we just made a complete Niko house out of it.’

’If he is expecting guests, then he chooses the 'visitors' atmosphere on his remote control. And snap: the lights dim, the coloured LEDs behind the television pop on, and the curtains close,’ explains Legrand. ‘Is he sitting on the terrace? With the same remote control, he can extend the sunblind. Time for bed? With a press of the button he can turn off all of the lights downstairs. And the LEDs by the staircase and in the corridor stay on for another five minutes so that he can get upstairs safely. The house adjusts itself totally to him.”

All aboard the Nikobus
Driving the entire infrastructure is a Nikobus home automation system. ‘Nikobus works with modules,’ says Legrand. ‘You can start off with a big idea, but you can also start small and expand piece by piece. Laying cable and programming are also simple.’ Naturally, there’s a multiroom audio system installed, courtesy of Niko’s own-branded audio distribution system.

From a central AV stack, radio, CD-player, iPod docking station and more route into the distribution amp.  Pretty much every room in the house has speakers; some are visible; others hidden.

As with most advanced multiroom systems, different sources can be routed to different rooms: while a quiet piece of music emerges from  the living room, there’s news radio in the kitchen. The gym, bathroom, even the terrace are all connected. And since the system is connected to the main Nikobus unit, everything can be controlled with the same remote control,

Mysterious control
Despite the ubiquitous remote control, there’s no shortage of switches around the house – but not all are that noticeable. ‘In a number of rooms, like the dining room, we ended up choosing Mysterious switches,’ says Legrand.

’Those are our ‘invisible’ switches that fit flat into the wall. The finish of the wall is the same as that of the switch. In this house they have been painted in the same colour as the wall, but you can, for example, also just put wallpaper over a Mysterious switch. All that you see, then, is just a small, discrete circle. You can find the switch in the dark because of the white LED behind it, which makes the circle glow faintly.’

Interestingly, the dominant style of lighting in the home is LED. ‘There are LEDs everywhere,’ confirms the engineer. ‘At first, we only wanted to try them in the kitchen. But they turned out to be much more flexible than we had thought. Now, there are RGB LEDs in the entrance hall, the kitchen and behind the TV. They emit red, green or blue light and we mix these primary colours to conjure up other colours. White LEDs, like those behind the Mysterious switches, illuminate the dressing room and the coat closet.

'Are you looking for an incandescent lamp? Then you will have to look for a long time in this house. They are as good as dead. LED is the light of the future.’

When pushed for a total price for the project,  Legrand pauses and thinks. ‘It’s around 30,000 euros,’ he says. Given the cost of many home upgrades and extensions, this really doesn’t strike me as too expensive. ‘But remember,’ he adds, ‘it’s modular so you can build this kind of system as and when you can afford it.’  

To find our what Niko systems can do for you visit  Intellihome Solutions. Contact details for Niko UK can be found here.