Centralite is a sleeper in the lighting controls business but a favorite among many integrators. At CEDIA Expo 2009, they're sharing a booth with Somfy, a giant in the motorized shading business.

Rumor has it that Somfy may be acquiring Centralite.

It would make perfectly good sense. Lutron has shown us again and again that lighting and shade control are great complements for comfort and energy savings: Turn off the lights during the day when the motorized shades lift to let in the sun.

For a perfect trifecta, Somfy should acquire Residential Control Systems (RCS), a sleeping giant in residential HVAC controls and home automation.

They could follow Lutron's lead of integrating lighting, thermostats and motorized shades.

Honeywell’s new Energy Internet Connection Module (ICM) not only helps homeowners conserve up to 15 percent of their energy use by managing their consumption online, it’s extremely simple for custom installers to retrofit.

With the module, dealers no longer have to worry about digging through walls to fish a Cat 5 cable to the thermostat from the home Web router.

At the furnace, integrators simply run the three-wire thermostat connection to the module, and then run a Cat 5 from the Energy ICM to the router.

By logging onto a secure Web site, users can remotely access information about the amount of energy being expended through heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

Parameters can cover temperature ranges, time of day, seasons of the year, etc. The system can communicate with home alarm systems and send email notifications when the temperature deviates from the parameters set. It also stores reports for the homeowner.

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Posted by Jason Knott on 09/06 at 09:14 AM
News, Product News, HVAC, Retrofit, CEDIA, Permalink