Today`s Smart Wired Contractor

From an electronics technician to General Manager of fi Smart Homes, James Stewart has long understood the value of smart wiring.

From an electronics technician to General Manager of fi Smart Homes, James Stewart has long understood the value of smart wiring.

"From the beginning, smart wiring has been one of our core offerings and the essential infrastructure that most of our projects are built around," he says.

fi Smart Homes was established in Noosa on Queensland's Gold Coast in 2001, with the ambition of becoming the state's first comprehensive home automation and home theatre reference environment. Accredited as a smart wired installer and designer, fi has 11 staff offering expertise in home automation, home entertainment and music reproduction.

Its impressive 310 square metre showroom displays audio visual and lighting control products using bathroom, bedroom and living room settings. "Touch screens operate various automated technologies, including products that come out of the ceiling on motorised droppers and flip up out of cupboards," James adds.

"People have a better appreciation of what technology it is all about when they can have a play with it, push the buttons and see what happens", he explains.

"We offer our clients a complete solution, and smart wiring provides the skeleton on which can build a system design. We have two designers whose job it is to sit down with the client in our meeting room to look over their architectural plans and pull together a concept that suits what the client is trying to achieve.

"A luxury residence we recently completed included 18 phone points, 16 data points, 18 FTA points, 10 PTA points, 5 LCD screens, 3 plasma screens, a full 1080p HD home theatre, 32 zones of distributed audio with media server and 120 channels of CBus lighting."

The design aspect of the business has been so successful that another fi outlet is soon to open on the Sunshine Coast that will function as a design centre for commercial applications.

"The centre will include a fully-fitted corporate boardroom that will demonstrate what is new in corporate smart applications. Above this will be a display apartment run by a media centre computer, connected to a large plasma screen and operated by touch screens," says James.

"As the sunshine coast continues to grow and develop, so does the demand for smart wiring applications in the corporate and retail sector.

"There has also been a real increase in the demand for smart wiring in residential developments. We have a business development staff member on the road who promotes to developers - a task that has become much easier as developers are now starting to see the need for this technology. A couple of years ago developers were hesitant to put in smart home technology as there was no driver for it from end users, but now all this is rapidly changing."

Contact:
Fi Smart Homes
www.fismarthomes.com.au
Noosaville, Qld, 4566
Ph: 07 5455 6300