Eight Smart Home Must-Haves

Smart domestic features increasingly inform luxury living. And where once this didn’t move past a robotic vacuum or some sensor lights, the ultimate modern home should be stacked with technology that ultimately makes for an elevated daily experience.

Here, eight absolute must-haves.

Savant Pro

Allows for the control of all smart home gadgetry under one system – think lighting, sound, TV, climate control, blinds and more. Video tiling and the TrueControl app allow you to add up to 9 things to a single screen – including from various streaming services – giving you complete control over your entertainment, while. the system also allows you to program ‘scenes’ to be set, which can lock doors, turn off light and engage security cameras from the touch of an Apple watch.

POA; savant.com

Offmat Tulèr Responsive Kitchen

The world’s first responsive kitchen bench, Tulèr weighs, cooks and washes through gesture controls and touch surfaces enabled by a system of state-of-the-art sensors. You’ll feel like a domestic sorcerer as you magically wave at the workspace to open drawers, commence induction cooking, make the kitchen sink appear and disappear and activate built-in countertop scales – which displays weight via a built in light or chosen device.

POA; tipic.it

Embrace Smart Mirror

Believe it or not, ‘splash-proof’ isn’t even the main selling point here, this so-called ‘smart mirror’ making for easy living with in-built voice command, gesture and touch screen capabilities. This allows a user to work with Google assistant, send emails, skype or video chat with friends, control the lights or play music while getting ready. Or, watch shaving tutorials and more through the 23-inch touchscreen display.

Approx. $1390; embracesmartmirror.com

Ecobee Smart Thermostat With Voice Control

Once connected to an air-conditioner, this thermostat learns and adapts to an occupant’s schedule to deliver comfortable temperatures at all times. Make adjustments via voice control, set timers and schedules and also regulate humidity (if connected to a humidifier).

Approx. $346; ecobee.com

LG’s CX OLED TV

Arguably the smartest TV in market, LG’s CX OLED leads the pack with its webOS technology. The user interface is built around launch bar for apps, inputs and features – which like a computer is customisable. You can Miracast images from your smartphone, screen share and use voice commands through LG’s own AI platform, or trust favourites like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. To help keep the image crisp, Dolby Vision IQ automatically adjusts the picture depending on the ambient light in the room.

$4295; lg.com

Vivint Home Security & Bit Defender Box

Vivint has built a reputation as the go-to for smart home security. With a range of customisable packages, Vivint offers smart sensors (for doors and windows), smart locks (to control remotely), doorbell cameras, outdoor cameras and more all controllable via a single app. You can set the outdoor cameras to record someone’s approach and view them via your smartphone. Physical threats aside, hackers are increasingly breaching smart home technologies. Enter the BitBox Defender, which monitors every device connected to a residence’s network and alerts to any threats by smartphone.

POA; Vivint.com / $149; bitdefender.com

Wi-Charge R1 Wireless Charger

More gadgetry means a greater need to charge. Here, Wi-Charge and its R1 ultra-compact chargers create wireless charging from any power or light socket. With accuracy of 9 metres, it projects infrared beams across the room charging a given device without a second thought.

Coming soon; wi-charge.com

U by Moen Smart Faucet

This, tap, as we would say, offers temperature-controlled water accessible through Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. It remembers favourite temperatures and reacts to conversational requests like ‘a little warmer’. Beyond temperature control, the U by Moen can also disperse water in specific quantities, handy for when cooking and you need exactly 150ml. Offered in a wide variety of styles to cover most kitchen designs.

Approx. $620; moen.com

A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.

The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.

“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”

The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.

It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.

In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.

“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.

The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.

“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.

He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.

The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.

“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.

His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.

“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.

When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.

They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.

The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.

For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.

“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”

As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.

“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”

Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.