It was hard for me to conceptualize Casaplex’s impact until I saw a system being built in a client’s home. The attention to detail required is unbelievable – it seemed obvious to me that a good deal of effort would be required to implement television and sound control from a touch panel, but the challenge of ensuring that lights with multiple switches behave intuitively had never crossed my mind. The idea, of course, is to make sure that it never has to cross the client’s mind either.

There are two sides to what they do here – one side being making changes that clients will notice often, maybe an excellent sound system or home theater, something actively enjoyed. The other side (which I find far more interesting) is changes that aren’t generally noticed. When the hvac system adjusts automatically based on preferences and time of day, or when the lights fade out if the room gets naturally brighter, or even when a control behaves exactly as you expect it to or an interface is easy to use, you don’t have to think about it because the designer did. I have enjoyed seeing the process from the designer’s point of view this summer.