Toll Brothers to Offer Control4 Home Automation Packages in Select U.S. Markets

Luxury home builder Toll Brothers will offer Control4 home automation packages to buyers of select Toll Brothers homes throughout the U.S, the companies said Tuesday. The packages are expected to be available later this quarter, they said. Prospective home buyers will be able to choose from several pre-configured Control4 home automation packages that include lighting, thermostats, smart locks, touchscreens, and multi-room audio and video solutions with smartphone and tablet integration.

Control4 hardware prices will start at $4,000 manufacturer’s suggested retail price for a controller with a remote control, lighting and thermostat, Jeff Dungan, Control4 senior vice president-supply chain & business development, told Consumer Electronics Daily. Control items including sensors and garage door openers will add “a few hundred dollars,” he said. A high-end upgrade package with home theater starts at $5,000 in hardware, he said. Homeowners will also have access to additional automation products via independent Control4-trained automation specialists who can custom design systems to owners’ specific needs, the companies said.

Toll Brothers will set the final package prices, which may include installation, Dungan said. The builder will announce package pricing in the next month or so, a spokeswoman told us. She said two basic packages built around the Control4 HC-250 and HC-800 controllers will include lighting, a smart lock and thermostat. Additional packages will include a home theater option, audio upgrade, garage door control upgrade, intercom/camera kit and additional zones of HVAC control, she said.

All builder packages will be installed by Control4-certified dealers that have gone through product training, Dungan said. There are already projects where Control4 dealers have been sub-contracted by Toll Brothers to install AV solutions, “and it’s easy to get rolling with those,” he said. In other cases, Toll Brothers works with sub-contractors that “are not yet Control4 dealers,” he said. Control4 plans to qualify those dealers and “get them through training,” he said. Other projects coming on line have no specified sub-contractors and in those cases Control4 is offering Toll Brothers dealer suggestions from its dealer base. All Toll Brothers installs “will be conducted and supported long-term by Control4-certified dealers,” Dungan said. He estimated the relationship will add 20-30 net dealers over time. The term of the deal is for one year with automatic renewals, Dungan said.

The agreement between the two companies is not exclusive, Dungan said. Control4 is free to work with other builders, and Toll Brothers is free to work with other home automation providers, he said, but no other home automation system can be offered in Toll Brothers subdivisions where the Control4 packages are offered. Toll Brothers offers Honeywell’s Tuxedo Touch home automation system in some areas, the spokeswoman told us, and that relationship continues. Dungan said the Honeywell offering is “more of a security package,” and Control4 integrates with it. The Control4 option won’t be offered in all Toll Brothers homes but in neighborhoods “where management believes there will be strong demand” for the systems, the spokeswoman said.

Control4 dealers have worked with builders in the past, and Dungan described the builder market as “quite diverse.” The Toll Brothers relationship is likely to lead to other home builder agreements, he said. “Now that we have a standard builder program we will likely talk to other builders,” Dungan said, adding that the company hasn’t shifted its focus from “individual homes and supporting end customers.” Dungan said Control4 hasn’t put a projected value to the Toll Brothers deal. “Our focus is making sure that they're successful because we're confident that it’s going to work out well for us if that happens,” he said.

The agreement between the two companies is acknowledgment that “the time is right” for Toll Brothers to provide a smart home solution as a standard part of their offerings, Dungan said. For Control4, it’s a way provide the smart home lifestyle as “broadly as possible,” he said. The Toll Brothers spokeswoman said, “There appears to be a strong matchup between Toll Brothers’ focus on luxury and the consumer most likely to want Control 4 products."

Customer feedback has shown that smart home capabilities “are highly desired” today, said Toll Brothers Chief Operating Officer Richard Hartman, in a prepared statement, and the agreement with Control4 enables the builder to offer “best-in-class” solutions. The companies will jointly market the home automation option through on-site product demonstrations, videos and marketing collateral at Toll Brothers Model Homes and Design Centers, the companies said. Toll Brothers’ footprint covers Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

Meanwhile, at Integrated Systems Europe in Amsterdam this week, Control4 announced that five top security monitoring manufacturers have adopted its Simple Device Discovery Protocol (SDDP), which automatically identifies and loads drivers for supported IP-connected devices. Adding SDDP support brings “enhanced interoperability” to 1,500 models of surveillance cameras, Control4 said. The company also announced new IP camera driver-creation tools designed to simplify dealer installation and provide new features for a “robust and accessible remote security monitoring experience” for homeowners and commercial facility managers, it said.

According to Paul Williams, Control4 vice president-security & communications, one-third of Control4 projects include an element of security, and the company hopes to increase that percentage as security becomes more a part of the automation mindset. With SDDP deployed in surveillance cameras, dealers will be able to integrate features such as facial and license plate recognition and advanced motion detection into a Control4 system through simple drag-and-drop operations within Composer Pro software. All of Control4’s mobile apps will support H.264 video streaming, the company said. Enhanced functionality will be available with the next Control4 software release due later this month, it said.