A detected difficulty was to prepare adequately the sales people, not habituated in their daily routine with Home Automation, to demonstrate accurately the operation of the model apartment. So, the Integrator and the marketing people decided to prepare a video presentation where an actress welcomed visitors and invited them to understand all details of the installed automation.
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But this wasn’t a normal video; it was an interactive video. Some actions of the actress displayed in the LCD monitor of the Home Theater were synchronized with “real” actions started by the automation system. This way, the visitors had an outstanding experience while walking by the apartment, being aware of automated functions like: changing of lightening scenes, drapes opening and closing, volume of music shifting, air conditioning starting and stopping, real time images from internal cameras among others. And , a very special feature was that the sales agent need only to push a button to start all the operation, in an extremally easy procedure.

The reaction of the visitors was a mixture of surprise and delight. Comparison with other “normal” apartments in the surroundings were inevitable, with remarkable advantage to this “automated” showroom. This favourable comparison reflected in the sales performance, far above the competitors.

The diagram shows all the technological possibilities included in the project of the Practical Life Campo Belo (the name of the enterprise). Among the available features, we stand out:

* automation centralized system (Bticino MyHome brand) that takes care of lightining, drapes, electric lock (with bimetric recognition), garden watering, air conditioning
* fixed wall mounted touchscreen panel
* central vaccum system
* multiroom / multizone ambient sound
* smoke and gas detectors
* conectivity central (for data/voice/image systems)
* universal remote control with customated touchscreen

Practical Life Campo Belo is a 16 floor building with 4 apartments in each floor being constructed in the South Zone of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The official website contains the mentioned video and can be acessed in this link http://www.practical.com.br/campobelo.

Author:

Jose Roberto Muratori, engineer, system integrator, co-founder of AURESIDE, the Brazilian Home Automation Association