When Parimal Pandya, a 32-year-old network consultant at AT&T, walked into the sales office at Liberty Harbour, a mixed-use waterfront development going up in Jersey City, New Jersey, the selling agent launched into a standard sales talk: the layouts, the finishes, the amenities.
What captured Pandya’s attention was the home automation system. Residents at Liberty Harbour will be able to do this from touch screens in their apartments or from any computer with internet access, enabling them to make adjustments from kilometres away.
It may sound space age, but sophisticated smart-home technology is increasingly available and includes automation systems that allow residents to control lighting, raise and lower window shades and change a room’s climate, via computers. In many instances, they can manipulate a variety of audio and visual functions, allowing users to listen to different types of music in different rooms or transfer a movie from one plasma-screen television to another.
At Liberty Harbour, smart-home technology is standard in all apartments, from the rentals and studios that start in the mid-$3,00,000s, up to the single-family town houses that cost as much as $1.6 million.
Pandya, who bought a two-bedroom apartment for $5,00,000, was so excited by the electronics that he said he forgot to consider anything else about the apartment. So despite leaving a deposit the day of his visit, he had to call the sales agent and ask for pictures of the kitchen and bathrooms.
The plummeting cost of bandwidth — the amount of data that can be carried in a given amount of time — and of home technology components and an increase in the types of applications available are making electronic amenities much more common.
New technology is enabling new buildings to enhance their security systems, including keyless access, digital surveillance systems and in the not-too-distant future, biometrics, in which camera recognition of residents’ faces will be needed for entry.
Then there’s the wow factor that technological amenities can provide. The Ritz-Carlton Residences in North Hills, in the suburbs of New York City, will be full of technological innovations, said Dan Pfeffer, the president of Midtown Equities, its developer.
Pfeffer said, is the seemingly interminable wait for the front gate to open — something that won’t happen at the new Ritz-Carlton. “We’re going to give you a device, a chip, that goes in your car. As you get closer to the gate and enter the deceleration lane, it’ll judge your speed and open by the time you get there.”
Then, when residents enter that gate, the valet will automatically be notified. He or she will be there to meet them, along with the concierge, who will be ready to help with packages. As residents walk into the building, the elevator will be waiting to whisk them to their floor, eliminating the need to push a button.
NYT