Seeking occasional escape from weekly work rigors, the owners of this luxury smart home selected a secluded, woodland space outside of Helsinki to build their ultimate getaway called Villa Jubilee. Here, the natural surroundings and minimalist Finnish design would help refresh and rejuvenate before their return to the city, with Digisahko Oy providing advanced control and home automation systems to help further smooth out their experience.

“The homeowners wanted something that would make their well-deserved time off as easy to enjoy as possible,” says Sami Kainulainen, a technology integrator at Digisahko Oy in Helsinki, Finland.

That “something” would take shape over the course of several weeks as a full suite of smart home products and systems were installed into the new home.

At first, the focus was simple. Advanced lighting systems and whole-house audio was high on the list. However, that soon gave way to motorized TV lifts, automated window shading, choregraphed heating and cooling systems, remotely accessible surveillance cameras, security sensors, electronic door locks, a state-of-the-art home theater and much, much more.

While discussing options with the owners’ project manager, the Digisahko Oy team ultimately settled on Control4 as the main home automation platform. This made the most sense to the team, as many of the products that were planned to be used also came from Snap One, the parent company of Control4.

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Digisahko Oy was also very familiar working with Control4-based smart homes, which gave the group high confidence at being able to deliver the project with all the bells and whistles the homeowners wanted.

For instance, as part of the automations present in the system, Control4 4Sight allows the homeowners to prep the getaway residence well in advance of an arrival. Lights, thermostats, shades: everything within the home gets prepped for arrival before they have even existed the main residence.

“Having that peace of mind was priceless to them, and we’re able to provide it by procuring products from a single, reputable source that’s been in the business for many years,” Kainulainen says.

Villa Jubilee Keeps Life Simple with Advanced Automation and Control

Inside the woodland smart home, Digisahko Oy installed a Control4 door station, three 10-inch touchscreens and several handheld remotes to give the homeowners complete control throughout their environment.

Digisahko Oy also created several custom “scene” buttons to simplify actions throughout the home. For instance, instead of pressing several buttons to prepare the home theater for movie watching, the owners need only tap a single “Movie” button on any of the Control4 user interfaces to rev up the DreamVision video projector, lower the 100-inch Elite Screens projection screen from housing in the ceiling, and activate the Marantz AV receiver.

Arrival, departure, morning, bedtime and other routines are handled similarly.

The technology at Villa Jubilee was also made to blend seamlessly with the home’s minimalist interior design. In the home theater, the Triad speakers go unnoticed with flush ceiling mounts and a color-matching grille. Elsewhere, motorized TV lifts keep displays tucked inside cabinetry until they are ready to be used. Even the keypads and touchscreens are recessed into the walls, with nearly every other element, from sensors to light fixtures, receiving similar treatment.

Even the outdoor speakers have been tucked into the landscape so as not to detract from the beauty of the forest.

The icing on the cake, however, according to Kainulainen, is the ability for the systems to be actively managed, monitored, and serviced remotely by Digisahko Oy’s team of technicians thanks to OvrC.

“The owners may not even realize all the important work OvrC does in the background, but it’s crucial to the overall operation of their home automation system,” Kainulainen says.  

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