Savant Systems has reduced the price of its iPhone home automation and control app from $200 to $50. Also, in a direct response to the challenging economy, Savant has eliminated the mobile device license fee from $1,000 (previous cost per license) to zero. So the new cost for the app and the license is now $50 where it used to be $1,200 per iPhone or iPod touch.
Savant also unveiled Protégé, a complete iPhone-based home automation product enabling total control of the home from an Apple iPhone or iPod touch. Protégé enables consumers to easily control and distribute their audio-video throughout a single living room or across a complete home.
Through the Savant iPhone or iPod touch application, users can control both the embedded features of Protégé along with AV equipment from many premium brands, resulting in easy and intuitive control of: integrated iTunes media server (delivering eight simultaneous and independent audio streams to any room); multizone audio distribution (any four audio sources to eight rooms); cable and satellite TV; satellite, AM-FM, and HD radio; lighting; security system; security camera monitoring; HVAC; motorized shades; and carbon footprint/power consumption management.
“We foresee Protégé as having the potential to revolutionize the home automation business,” Savant president Jim Carroll, stated. “This is the first complete iPhone or iPod touch multi-zone audio and whole-house control solution engineered not just to be run from within the home, but also from on the road as well.”
Like other Savant solutions, Protégé will be programmed using the RacePoint Blueprint design tool, so Savant’s network of authorized and trained technicians can feel immediately comfortable working with this new package. “Our dealers can offer their customers a powerful and scalable solution that can be controlled top to bottom using an iPhone or iPod touch, right from the palm of their hand,” Carroll said.