‘Smart homes’ on the rise

As consumers have an increasingly bewildering number of choices of “smart” devices for the home, they are faced with a fundamental decision- install them on a do-it-yourself basis and deal with the challenges of integrating them, or hire an installer offering a holistic system like Control4, Crestron, Savant or AMX, the latter owned by Stamford-based Harman International Industries.

“The smartphone opened up the whole gamut,” said de Terlizzi, director of marketing and sales at County TV & Appliance, which in 2014 won an award from the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Fairfield County for its “smart home” showroom in Stamford. “We have a lot of people who we educate that have been longtime customers of ours. As their homes and needs evolve, they come in here.”

Internet-enabled devices are flooding onto the shelves of home goods retailers and contractors faster than even devotees of Popular Mechanics or Wired can keep up. Upstarts like Nest Labs and DropCam (both now owned by Google), Hue and WeMo are elbowing onto shelves and end caps alongside household brand heavyweights like Fairfield-based General Electric, Honeywell or First Alert.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/9/connecticut-based-company-says-smart-homes-on-the-

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