Why Choose Comfort?

There are many Home automation systems and Alarm systems in the market, including systems that include alarm and automation, just like Comfort. What are the reasons for choosing Comfort over other products?

Fancy vs Practical automation

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Many automation systems are mainly made up of expensive designer switches and custom touchscreens whose function is to dim and control lights, blinds, music and other appliances individually or by setting scenes. There are others which consist of set-top boxes which control some lighting and appliances by RF and there are those which mainly use handheld remote controls to control appliances. Many systems can aso be controlled by smart phone apps. Comfort has separate apps for iPhone, iPad, Android tablets and Android Phones.

In our opinion, fancy switches, touchscreens, remote controls, and smart phones are not the essence of Home Automation. Practical home automation is more than user interfaces.

The allure of switching things on and off for their own sake using designer switches, phones and tablets will quickly fade after showing off a few times to friends and family. In the end, the value of a home automation system depends on the real benefits to the end user acording to their needs, apart from the user interface, like intelligent management of security and subsystems in the home in energy saving, better security, comfort and convenience which take place without the active intervention of the home or office occupants.

A practical home automation and security system is not just for the rich. A basic system with installation can start from several thousand (US) dollars depending on installation costs where you live. Technically inclined users can even do the installation themselves if they are willing to read the manuals, see this post on our forum.

Comfort's role is that of a controller to which other systems like alarm and other sensors, lighting, appliances, blinds, HVAC and other subsystems can be connected.

Comfort is mainly invisible as a practical home automation system should be, except for keypads.


Applications and Uses

Integrated Intruder Alarm

We believe that an alarm system is the heart of an Intelligent Home. Security is a necessity in most homes in todays world regardless of whether you live in a stand-alone house or an apartment in the city or in the country. Door and window sensors and motion sensors can give information about the state of the home whether the security system is armed or not. Arming the security system to Away, Night, Day and Vacation modes or disarming to Security Off are events which can cause preprogrammed actions to happen for Lighting, Blinds, heating/cooling systems, entertainment systems and other appliances. For example, arming to away mode can cause the lights, music, blinds, airconditioning and heating to switch off. Coming home and opening the front door at night can switch on the lights near the entry door. In Vacation Mode, music and lighting can be switched on at semirandom times to give the impression that the home is occupied. Cameras can be switched on when there is motion detected and the relevant light can be switched on to light up the area. When armed to Night Mode, non-essential lights and appliances can be switched off.

When an alarm occurs, the lights in the home can be switched on and phone calls,  SMS and emails  can be sent to 8 telephones including monitoring stations and mobile phones.

Energy Saving and Convenience

One of the most useful features in a security/automation system is also the simplest. At night after bedtime, lights in the passageways or staircases can be switched on if motion is detected and automatically switched off after a few minutes when there is no more motion in the area. This is especially useful for small children and the elderly. There are standalone motion lighting products, but an integrated function is far superior because the activation time and duration can be programmed, and the same motion sensors used for the alarm can also have this addtional function.

Time programs can also schedule the switching on of lights and appliances for each day of the week. Comfort's time can be synchronised to Internet Time Servers via the UCM/ETH03 (which also allows the Comfort apps to access Comfort).

Comfort can also be used in commercial buildings and offices for this purpose in passageways, toilets and meeting rooms for automatic control of lights and HVAC.

Blinds and curtains can be lowered or raised and sprinklers controlled based on Time programs for each day of the week.

Messaging

Comforts voice menu guides users through all operations on the keypad or telephone. The Door station rings the home phones or dials to mobile phones to let users talk to the visitor and open the gate. Voice Reminder or warning messages can be recorded which can be played back on a keypad or external speaker when any event occurs

Integration with 3rd Party Products

Comfort is not a lighting and dimming system, or a Home entertainment system. Instead it can work with almost all 3rd party lighting and appliance control systems like KNX, C-Bus, Z-Wave, Dynalite, Lutron, Rako, Velbus and others thus giving the user the choice of systems which fits their needs depeding on availability and support where they live. Integration with most 3rd party systems is not by crude hardwired output/input but by data interface at the protocol level.

Logic Programming

Comfort ties all external sub systems and sensors together by logic. Comfort has a powerful programming "language" which can be tailored to almost any requirement.
It allows for conditional statements which accomplish a scenaro like "If the time is after 7 PM and before midnight and Security is Armed, then Play a recorded message AND switch on the lights for 10 minutes". Comfort knows the sunrise and sunset times for where you live so these can be used in programming

Comfort is an Event-based programmable system which means that Events in Comfort eg system armed to Away Mode, Intruder alarm, time of day etc can be programmed to trigger Responses which are programs in Comfort to do programed tasks like control appliances.

Company

Comfort is manufactured and supported by Cytech Technology (Singapore) since 1995. Comfort is a proven product which is constantly being improved and has been tested for compliances to most international safety and regulatory standards. Cytech provides superior technical support and response which can be verified on the Comfort forum.

Summary

Comfort is the heart of a practical Intelligent Home, offering Security, Energy Savings, Convenience and Comfort at an affordable price.

Cytech Technology Pte Ltd

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