Case Study: Welcome Home

Four years ago, Digital Home bought a 60-year-old house on a highway in Palatine, Ill., to serve as its headquarters and main demo site. The company filled the house with devices that would make any home integration customer drool, including a 50-inch Runco plasma display; Vantage automated lighting control; whole-house audio distribution systems from Elan, Russound and SpeakerCraft; and a Microsoft Xbox with wireless controllers. The demo house gives homeowners, builders and partners a hands-on experience with home integration.

"We're very adamant about our customers coming into our showroom so they can see, touch and hear," says John Goldenne, president of Digital Home, which works with builders and homeowners on everything from new home complexes with hundreds of units to individual retrofits and small businesses. "Seeing it on paper doesn't do it."

Ron Klein, president of Northbrook, Ill.-based Klein Builders, hired Digital Home to install audio systems, computers, central vacuums, security solutions and other products in his company's custom homes. Klein says a big reason he chose Digital Home was its full demo house and hands-on environment, which stood out from integrators with single showrooms.

"I liked the showroom. I liked all the toys he had," Klein says. "It has a working kitchen upstairs and everything else you have in a house. In some of the rooms, you can push a button and drapes go down to hide the light. I haven't seen a showroom like that with others. That really got me."

Though builders are becoming more interested in complicated A/V and IT products, many aren't familiar with the specific technologies. So they turn to Goldenne and his demo house. "Builders like a lot of the toys in the home but can't keep up with the technology. So they are constantly calling me to ask, 'Have you seen this new product?' " Goldenne says. "Who is better to sell your products than the builders who are out there?"

Klein says he may bring customers to Digital Home's demo home before and after construction to show them the latest products and technologies available.

And that's the idea behind the demo house: to showcase the full range of single-room or whole-house solutions that Digital Home installs. The first floor has a 1,000-square-foot showroom and serves as the main demonstration and training area. The second floor contains fully functioning demo rooms that double as offices for Digital Home's staff. The house also includes a stockroom and an R&D lab to test new products and build solutions.

Products and systems in the demo home are constantly changed to include the most recent devices. The first floor is designed to "educate, educate and educate," Goldenne says, so customers understand the potential of home entertainment and control and get a glimpse of how devices interact. Products include a Samsung DLP display, SpeakerCraft in-ceiling speakers, 19 IP cameras connected to a modulated Samsung SyncMaster display, a Philips Pronto remote and Krell Industries audio devices. The floor also features an Elan whole-house media system, an Xperinet DVD hard drive, a ReQuest CD hard drive, a Lutron Radio RA light dimming system and an M&S Systems central vacuum.

The second floor is a fully functional living environment with dining room, living room, kitchen and bedrooms. The dining room has a chandelier with Vantage automated lighting, Sound Advance Systems in-wall speakers and a Russound keypad.

"We have five different lighting scenes, blinds control, a 50-inch Fujitsu [display] above the fireplace and surround-sound hidden in cabinets. At the push of a button, lights close, the shades drop and a motorized screen drops," Goldenne says. "Every one of our rooms works with the other rooms. They're not independent. They share equipment through both floors, through the whole house."

The living room contains a Runco projector, a Da-Lite Screen Company motorized screen, a Yamaha DVD player, Russound media products and Snell speakers. Even the kitchen has its share of digital devices, including a Sharp LCD monitor that's mounted beneath the counter and integrates with the home's cameras and Russound equipment, as well as a wireless Macintosh laptop that can control the home's hard-drive systems, lighting and cameras.

Several exhibits throughout the home also allow homeowners and builders to learn more about specific technologies, such as CAT 5e cabling, or compare products in a particular category, such as doorbells and trim packages. "Clients want to see products and want to play with them. If you go to Best Buy, you can see 10 or 20 plasmas. But you'll wait 15 to 20 minutes to get help, you'll get frustrated and [you'll] leave," Goldenne says. "I'm a big believer in training customers, especially kids and wives. Here we let them play."

Another custom builder working with Digital Home is Lake Forest, Ill.-based Nantucket Homes. Digital Home is installing displays, entertainment systems, computers and other products into Nantucket's spec home and is working with several of its customers on new and existing homes. George Knorps, Nantucket's president, says he plans to bring customers to the Digital Home house when his own spec home is unavailable or to present solutions he doesn't have.

"My disappointment in previous [integrators] was that they would lean too heavily on me for the purpose of trying to demonstrate to their other customers," Knorps says. "They would be using my houses as the demonstration point and not have their own showrooms. So they fell short by a long way of where they should have been."

Knorps says that at first he was hesitant to work with an integrator, since he and some of his staff had experience installing high-end IP products, but he eventually was won over by Digital Home's deep installation experience and product knowledge. Such reluctance is common because builders and homeowners often think they can handle all of the product installations themselves, Goldenne says. But the demo house shows them the intricacy of connected home solutions and drives home the value of integrators.

Homeowners and builders often meet with Goldenne or his staff at the demo home to discuss a small request. But over the course of the conversation they realize that they will need more products or systems. Goldenne says 90 percent to 95 percent of customers who come to the demo house add on products to their original purchase order. "A $5,000 initial sale today could be $50,000 in a year," he says. "People don't know what's involved."

Goldenne and his partners also use the demo home to recruit new business and plan installations. He throws annual parties for the Super Bowl and other major events and has a traveling outdoor movie theater parked next to the house. He invites partners, customers, vendors and friends to attend, network and play with the solutions. Digital Home's demo home has been so successful that Goldenne is building another demo site in the area. The new site will include a theater, whole-house audio system, wireless network and CCTV with Internet access.

Besides installing custom solutions for builders and homeowners, Digital Home also offers standard installation packages with preselected products and upgrade options for builders. The integrator is installing Russound A-Bus media distribution systems into the 200 units of a new housing complex, and customers will be able to upgrade their systems with additional products such as high-end speakers, plasma displays and media servers. For all of its new home projects, Digital Home provides builders and their contractors with sales tools, training and technical resources to help sell and work with the systems.

"At Digital Home, we try to create excitement, create environments," Goldenne says.