In light of this month's CEDIA Expo, systems designed for multi-dwelling units deserve some attention.
WHEN PRO AV ASKS ITS READERS whether they do work in the residential market, nearly half say they do. Now, that figure might be down this year if all we were talking about was single-family homes. But residential projects encompass so much more.
By the end of 2008, the city of San Antonio expects to see an additional 6,200 new luxury apartments on the market. In Toronto, now called the Condo Kingdom by local pundits, 33,980 units are under construction, more than are under development in Manhattan, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Only Miami exceeds Toronto's pace, where properties with name like Jade Ocean, Jade Beach, and Asia continue to make the crane the national bird of South Florida.
In fact, a market shift from single-family homes to multiple dwelling unit (MDU) properties has created something of a glut. That's why more developers plan to include a broad array of technologies to differentiate their products and entice buyers, many of whom are expected to be empty-nesters and younger retirees coming from houses where they've already grown used to integrated AV, automation, and security systems.
“Projects like the Jade properties and Asia at Brickell Beach are becoming the templates for the future of MDU systems,” says Pete Baker, vice president of sales and marketing for control systems maker RTI. “They've provided for structured cabling from the very beginning, the subsystems they're putting in are logically tied together, and they've partnered with systems integrators who are scaled to be able to meet the needs of the projects.”
And who also, almost by necessity, have strong IT backgrounds. Because in the high-rise, Internet Protocol is where it's at. For MDU developers, devices that are IP-addressable mean a larger pool of products to choose from; they allow wireless and server-based systems to be more widely implemented in units; and they now address one of the biggest concerns of integrating systems for multiple units: security (information and otherwise).
“Every endpoint on the system is specifically designed to require a programmed permission to be used,” explains Chad Gillenwater, vice chairman of AVI-SPL. “With the permissions in place, one unit owner can respond to a doorbell by activating the lobby security camera, tilting and panning it if necessary, and having control of the camera and its content for the time it takes to answer the ring. That way, no one else in another unit can watch who's calling on them.”
Another challenge particular to MDU environments is the fact that any propertywide systems will have to be updated periodically. Again, this argues for an IP-based approach. “The touch panels in a unit are the common port of entry for information and system updates,” says Baker.
Jimmy Baikovicius, principal at Ikatu, a Boca Raton, Fla.–based integrator that's working on the Jade and Asia condo projects, says updating the software is done transparently. “The touch panel in each unit is programmed to look like a typical button-type interface, but it is actually a Web page on an always-connected browser,” he explains. Each unit becomes a private network that rides on the buildings' common fiber-optic cabling.
