Easy Automation Simplifies Huge Home
By Lisa Montgomery
This home caters to the needs of guests and its owners by providing easy, one-touch control of lights, music, video, shades and more.

A belief among custom electronics professionals is that if your mother-in-law can operate the electronics gear you installed, you’ve done your job well. Chad Bessette of ASL Home Entertainment Group in Tucson, Ariz., thinks kids can be a good measuring stick of simplicity, too.

Bessette’s 6-year-old daughter Abbey recently gave her stamp of approval to one of the most elaborate design and installation projects his company has ever done.



“I put a remote in my daughter’s hand and told her to play the music, turn on the TVs and switch on and off the lights,” he recalls. “We wanted the remote to be as easy as an ATM machine to use,” and for good reason.

Located near the mountains of Tucson, the 17,000-square-foot ranch that ASL was hired to automate is a popular overnight stomping grounds of the owners’ friends and family.

While guests are present, they’re treated to the best tech in town: amenities like a whole-house video and music system, an architectural lighting system and a zoned heating and cooling system. These systems can be controlled directly from each of four guest suites by using a 6-inch portable Crestron touchpanel.

Specially programmed by ASL’s Bryan Schlegel, the touchpanels display a menu of commands intuitive enough for even the most tech-challenged person to figure out. It takes no more than a few button presses to choose a movie from a Kaleidescape media server to watch on a 42-inch Pioneer flat-panel TV, adjust the room temperature and stream music from the server to speakers on the suite’s own private patio.

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