Connected apartments open their doors in New York
The concept
The Stanwix is the first building in Brooklyn to offer smart home technology in every apartment. Each tenant receives a free gadget equipped with Amazon Alexa when signing his lease.
The building, with its integrated technology, is a leap into the future of contemporary urban life. Each unit is fully equipped with a Control4 home automation system, a company that offers the installation of connected home solutions. Apartments equipped with Wi-Fi technology bring a whole lot of new amenities and insurance to residents.
Using a mobile device, voice control or touch screen control panel, tenants can control access to their apartment (open the door remotely to a delivery person or friends), receive package delivery notifications, and use their integrated audio system. The Stanwix is also equipped with Building Link’s technology, which allows to book workspaces, pay rent online and submit requests for repairs in the apartment.
And this building is not the only one !
Another such building is currently under construction in Brooklyn : the Quay Tower.
The first condominium tower in Brooklyn to partner with Amazon, the tower provides each apartment with a fully integrated Alexa experience. The premises are all sold with an Amazon Echo and Amazon Dot. All the equipment in the apartment will be compatible with Amazon and owners will be able to perform a variety of daily tasks simply by using their voice. In addition, the building offers a concierge service dedicated to the configuration of Alexa and compatible devices before the move. The tenant can have an expert in his building, to help him optimize his use of Alexa or just to help him discover this voice assistance system dedicated to his apartment. What better way to move into an apartment with a connected lock that opens with your smartphone ?
The 485 Marin, an 18-storey building and 397 apartments in Jersey City, has a unique partnership with the Hello Alfred platform that allows residents to manage a wide range of services directly from the mobile application. The platform is designed to help residents before moving in (providing quotes, installing utilities, packing/unpacking) but also with weekly tasks once they are installed, making life easier for owners or tenants.
Why rent a connected apartment?
Being able to talk with your connected apartment
“Alexa : open the curtains”, “Alexa turns on the air conditioning”, “Alexa : turn on the light in the room“. In this building, the daily lives of tenants and residents look a little like this. Just talk to Alexa to trigger a set of actions from the connected elements of the apartment.
When you enter an apartment (with the door opening using the mobile application of the building), all you have to do is ask Alexa to do a few basic tasks to turn on the light, put on music or open the blinds.
Access to many services
Many services are offered by Stanwix for tenants: booking workrooms in the building online, paying rent from the mobile application of the residence or accessing spaces for parties or simply watching a movie on his Netflix account on the big screen.
Opening its doors to Amazon
All these tools are of course intended to make life easier for the tenant or owner, but above all to provide more knowledge about the customer.
For apartments equipped by Amazon, for example, these gadgets will provide a very important set of information for the online retail giant : the hours of presence in the apartment or its energy consumption. The connected lock will allow Amazon to deliver at any time of the day and make it easier to manage its distribution rounds without having to take into account the customer’s presence at home.
So there is a real interest for the technology provider and the user to connect the apartments.
It remains to be seen whether all uses will respect the customer’s privacy.
Of course, if you don’t want to use these services, simply disconnect the devices using Alexa from the network and do everything manually. However, voice-assisted and the connected building are assets of the apartment and tenants or buyers settle in this place to use all its services.
Be notified by SMS when your laundry is washed
A laundry room is open to residents of the building. No need to arm yourself with coins to pay : everything is connected to the mobile application. You activate the machine from your smartphone and you will be notified by SMS when the washing or drying cycle is complete.
The apartment of the future will be more economical
Thanks to remote control technologies, these apartments allow tenants to manage their energy consumption more efficiently and avoid omissions.
Smart apartments improve building efficiency on two levels : energy management and people management. Intelligent devices consume less energy than analog devices and together create greater efficiency throughout the building. With smart locks, maintenance processing and smart sensors, property managers and staff are spending less time on maintenance and resident assistance.
