Creating an “Invisible” Smart Home – Hidden Smart Home Technology

The impact smart technology could have on a home’s aesthetics is one of our clients’ biggest reservations.

It’s an understandable concern. If you’ve spent hundreds of thousands of pounds creating the perfect home, the last thing you want is to spoil it by installing a bunch of systems that stick out like sore thumbs.

However, there are thousands of smart technologies available today which can transform the comfort and convenience of your home, without ruining the aesthetics. An invisible smart home, if you will.

Hidden Smart Lighting and Automated Blinds

One of the first smart technologies that many people install, smart lighting can have an enormous impact on your home’s appearance, as well as your personal wellbeing. This effect is compounded when you pair lighting with automated blinds or curtains.

If you want to gain the benefits of a smart lighting system but with no visible bulbs, you can opt for LED strips. These can be hidden behind coving, furniture or existing decor, giving you highly-customisable lighting with no obvious light sources.

Blinds and curtains can be hidden within window surrounds as well, only appearing when in use, to preserve your minimalist aesthetic.

If you want to be able to control and customise your smart lighting without large switches or wall-mounted control panels, there are various options available to you. For starters, occupancy/vacancy motion sensors can ensure your lights are always there for you whenever you enter a room.

For further control and customisation of your lighting, there are also apps for phones and tablets, smart remotes from Control4 and voice assistants, but we will discuss this in our “Smart Home Controls” section, later on in this blog.

Invisible Speakers

A high-quality home sound system needs high-end speakers. Unfortunately, these speakers are often large and very distinctive, making them at-odds with a carefully-cultivated interior.

This is bad enough in a single room, but for a whole-home sound system, these speakers will be an ever-present blight on your decor. There are a few options available to you to avoid this scenario, however.

First of all is hydro-dipped speakers. This involves designing the mesh of your speaker front to blend in with its immediate surroundings. For example, you can have your speaker front made to look like a row of books, in order to blend in on a shelf.

Secondly, there are in-ceiling speakers. These typically look like small rings with mesh in the middle, and can come in a variety of colours, to blend in with the most vibrant ceilings.
But what if you wanted to make your speakers truly disappear, but with no loss in sound quality? Well, there is an option for that.

Sonance’s “Invisible” line of speakers are designed to be installed in ceilings and walls, then plastered over and painted, vanishing completely into your home. They sound just as good as any other high-end speaker, too, so there’s no need to worry about compromising on your audio quality.

Beyond preserving your aesthetics, this is also fantastic for entertaining. Turn on your sound system after a meal, and watch your guests gradually realise that the sound seems to be coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once!

Stealth Home Cinemas and Hidden TVs

Want the benefits of TVs in multiple rooms without large black rectangles taking up your walls when they’re not in use? Not a problem.

Firstly, there are Samsung’s “The Frame” and “The Serif” series televisions, as well as LG’s “Gallery” series, which can display artwork when not in use. This is ideal for homes with lots of wall-mounted art in prominent places.

Next, there is the option of turning your TV into a mirror. This involves attaching a one-way mirror to the front of your TV. This mirror will allow light from the TV through, but reflect all light from in front. The result is that when your TV is off, it will simply look like a mirror.

Finally, you can have your TV hidden in your furniture, only rising into view when needed.

But what about a whole home cinema? For a lot of people, installing a home cinema may involve sacrificing a prime entertaining/hosting space. This is a big decision for a cinema that may only be used for a few hours a week.

This is where hidden media rooms come into play. Instead of having your screen and projector fixed, they can descend from the ceiling or rise up from the floor when needed. As we mentioned earlier, your speakers can be installed in the ceiling, or plastered directly into your walls as well.

This means that your room remains an excellent entertaining space, which can transform at the push of a button into a state of the art home cinema, with no loss to either function.

Smart Underfloor Heating

Instead of radiators with smart thermostats taking up wall space throughout your home, you can opt for underfloor heating in every room. The temperature can instead be managed by small air probes that are mounted on your walls, and which can be hidden behind artwork or in picture rails and coving.

Hidden Smart Home Controls

Having all these systems is great, but you’ll need to control them. Much of the time, this is done using wall-mounted touchscreen devices.

However, for a truly “invisible” look, these can be done away with, and instead, all of your systems managed through smartphone or tablet apps. This allows you to manage your smart home from anywhere in the house, or even the world! All you need is an internet connection, and you can turn systems on and off, manage security, and even set schedules, no matter where you are.

Hidden Fire Detection

As an alternative to conventional smoke detectors, why not choose a system that is more sensitive, more customisable, and almost completely invisible?

VESDA is an air sampling device that can detect smoke at incredibly low concentrations, far below the level that would be needed to trigger a conventional detector. It does this by drawing air samples from around the house through pipes that end in tiny holes as little as 2mm in diameter. These pipes can be installed and then plastered over with only the hole remaining to show that they’re there at all.

The result is a highly responsive fire detection system that will protect you, your family and your property far more effectively than a regular smoke alarm, and with no ugly white disks taking up space on your ceiling.

Final Thoughts

If you want to upgrade your home with all the latest technology, there’s no need to worry about your aesthetics. At Chris Lewis Smart Home, we have been installing invisible home automation technology in immaculate homes, historic buildings and even Royal Residences for over 15 years.

Our expert technicians create state of the art systems that seamlessly blend into a property’s looks while transforming the living experience within. To see some of the work we’ve done in the past, why not check out a few of our case studies?

If you’d like to find out what we can do for you, simply fill in the form below, and our team will be in touch.