Step Inside Guy Sebastian’s Impressive Smart Home

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Singer and songwriter Guy’s Sebastian’s four-bedroom Sydney house, which he shares with wife Jules and their children Hudson, nine, and Archer, seven, features all the elements you’d expect to see in a rockstar’s home – soaring ceilings and swathes of concrete, steel and glass. But a clever design by architect Joe Snell of Snell Studio sees it combined in a way that feels intimate and inviting, which is exactly the note Guy and Jules wanted to hit.

But beautiful design wasn’t the only thing the couple sought from their family home – they also wanted it to be comfortable, secure, easy to live in and use, and great for entertaining. For this reason, they fitted their home with a SpaceLogic C-Bus by Clipsal smart-home system. And the couple couldn’t be more thrilled with the results. “Smart technology changes your life in ways that you don’t necessarily see, but you feel it,” says Guy.

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

Home comforts
Entertaining, songwriting, security and enjoying downtime as a family – these were all priorities for Guy when he and wife Jules were designing their home in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.

“Home is comfort. You want to feel safe and have privacy,” says Guy. “I built this house to be an entertainer’s house. We’ve become the hub of entertainment for our whole circle of friends and family. That’s what home means to us; for other people to feel like they’re home, at our home.”

The couple chose flexible smart home system SpaceLogic C-Bus by Clipsal to help them achieve the comfortable and convenient lifestyle they dreamed of.

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

The system seamlessly controls just about every comfort and entertainment feature in their expansive home, including lighting, heating and cooling, security, blinds, audio, appliances, louvres and windows, and the pool heater and pumps – all integrated into one, easy-to-use interface. “Nobody’s got time to learn how to use 20 devices. I do everything on my phone or the iPads around the house,” he says.

SpaceLogic C-Bus is a cabled solution, making it ideal for large-scale renovations or luxury new builds, like the Sebastians’ home.

The system includes wall switches, touch screens, high-powered commercial dimmers, control relays, multi-room audio systems, thermostats, light and temperature sensors, security and access systems, as well as energy monitors.

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

More convenient
Guy and his family don’t need to lift a finger to enjoy all the good things their home has to offer.

The SpaceLogic C-Bus system can be completely automated, controlled by voice command (so you can tell the lights to switch on, the blinds to open or music to play) or operated remotely via an app on their tablets or smartphones when they’re not home – for example, if the temperature suddenly drops, they can turn on the heating on the drive home.

It also allows the couple to set up lighting/temperature/audio ‘scenes’. “We might finish dinner and have put the kids to bed, and suddenly the whole mood will shift according to a scene that I’ve set up,” says Guy. “The music comes on and the lights dim. In winter, the fire will come on.”

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

“There was a lot of stuff that I discovered through this process that I never thought was possible; like voice commands or being able to control the environment remotely,” says Guy.

And it’s not just the grown-ups in the house who are loving the system. “My kids have to be able to do stuff around the house without having to bother mum and dad; so, ease of use was really important to me. Now, they’re absolute whizzes – it’s that easy,” he says.

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

Simple installation
Setting up the system was just as straightforward as learning to operate the system; Guy collaborated with local electrician Ryan Anderson from Amped Automation (a certified EcoXpert system integration partner with Clipsal) to tailor the system to his family’s requirements. “Ryan looked closely at our needs and how we operate as a family,” says Guy. “Every home should represent the individuals that live in it.”

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

Lighting for mood
It’s no secret that the right light can make or break the atmosphere in a room, and it’s something that is particularly important to Guy. “I love lighting and what it does to the mood of a home. I’m able to adjust the lighting of our whole house, including external lights, with one click of the button. It’s those little mood changes that make a massive difference,” he says.

Clipsal’s SpaceLogic C-Bus lighting control and automation solution integrates individual components across the Sebastaian home into a single unit, creating optimal lighting levels at every time of day and night.

The sleek and stylish light switches also complement the architecture; “I wanted the house to look tough, but still feel homely,” says Guy. “It was important when we wanted to stick stuff on the wall, [it had] to look great, so the Saturn Zen switches are what we went with. They’re easy to use; the switches have a USB charger and they just look amazing.”

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

Smart security
The smart-home system also helps keep Guy’s home and family safe. “I have two young kids, but I’m also a public person and this is our home,” he says. “The Security Expert system has given me so much peace of mind. I [can] use it on my phone, not just to open gates to let people in, but also to monitor the security cameras in the house.”

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

Efficiency without compromise
Whatever the scale of your home, with utilities prices soaring across the country, we’re all looking for ways to keep our energy usage down.

A system like SpaceLogic C-Bus can help you minimise energy consumption in a number of ways. For example, by only turning power on
when it is required, which it can do by synchronising motion sensors with lighting in areas such as the laundry, hallway, garage or butler’s pantry.

It can also prioritise power consumption for those times of day or night when energy costs are lower.

Clipsal by Schneider Electric

And the system doesn’t just cater to the needs of your home and family today, but for years down the track. Guy’s smart-home system, for example, is set up for the day when his family might switch to electric cars; “We’ve future-proofed the house with an EV charger in the garage,” he says.

The result? A home that’s as smart and energy efficient as it is stylish – and ready for whatever the future might bring.

More: Discover more about the Clipsal SpaceLogic C-Bus smart-home system here. And you can find an EcoXpert expert installer near you here.

Tell us: How would a smart-home system improve your lifestyle?

This story was written by the Houzz Sponsored Content team.