Voice-activated smart home technology is moving beyond lights and thermostats. Discover how Summit Automation is transforming doors, windows and the user experience—without locking homeowners into a single system.
Home automation has evolved from novelty gadgets to an essential component of modern living. As homeowners seek convenience and style, voice-activated innovative systems are revolutionizing how we interact with our homes. The result? Environments that are as intelligent as they are attractive.
Beyond Platform Limitations
Advances in home automation and speech recognition platform integration have taken modern convenience to the next level. What used to be a physically demanding task, for example, opening and closing heavy floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors and windows, is now possible with simple vocal commands.
Rather than limiting homeowners to a single ecosystem, forward-thinking companies are developing solutions that work across centralized smart home hubs, including Alexa Smart Home, Google Home and Apple Home.
One such company is Arizona-based Summit Automation. Through cutting-edge voice-activation technology, thoughtful configurations and advanced engineering, Summit streamlines window and door automation for homeowners and architects alike.
“We have found that each of the larger home automation companies—Savant, Control4, Lutron, Crestron, Google Home, Apple Home, etc.—has its strengths and weaknesses. The technology is improving daily with the bugs being worked out,” says Patrick J. Gruetzmacher, CEO and president of Summit Automation. “That’s why we’ve chosen to be automation agnostic and build a system that integrates with all existing systems without requiring us to keep an Application Programming Interface (API) library up-to-date.”
As a result, Summit’s home automation systems are low maintenance and automatically update in tandem with linked platforms.
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User-Friendly Features
Today’s automation systems must prioritize ongoing user experience, which begins with implementation.
“Our process starts with the homeowner having a smart home platform in place, and we become an accessory to that platform,” Gruetzmacher explains. “Our system can link to all existing ones. If the homeowner has their own home automation system, then they simply need to follow our connecting instructions to activate our system.”
By functioning as an accessory to existing smart home platforms, Summit has streamlined the installation and setup process, requiring minimal additional configuration.
“Our voice command module links to Alexa, Google and Siri seamlessly, and by doing so, those platforms manage to keep their libraries up-to-date as our systems simply piggyback onto their platform,” Gruetzmacher notes.
This versatility means homeowners aren’t locked into a single manufacturer’s ecosystem, providing greater flexibility for future upgrades and expansions.
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Looking Forward
The future of home automation extends even further beyond the industry’s current capabilities.
In the next 12 to 18 months, Gruetzmacher expects smart homes to have full home automation commands—beyond just doors, windows and lights, adding that “the technology is getting better every day.”
