A Smart Home With a Story to Tell

Overview

Voice control through Josh.ai gives the family a simple starting point. They can ask for a lighting setting, adjust the shades, change the temperature, or play audio without opening several apps. Keypads, schedules, and personalized settings provide other options when speaking to the house is less convenient.

Each space has controls suited to the way the family uses it. A dedicated yoga setting prepares the fitness room for exercise. Outside, lighting, motorized shades, screens, and heaters let them adjust gathering areas as conditions and plans change. Fusion worked with Argenta Solutions, which built the private cinema, to coordinate its controls with the rest of the home.

Challenge

Making the house easy to use meant bringing many different systems into agreement. The homeowner chose voice control as the primary way to use the home after the initial design was complete, so Fusion revised how the lighting, shades, and specialty effects would respond. Josh.ai became the family’s main point of control, while Control4 coordinates specialty systems behind the scenes.

Fusion also worked with Light Can Help You and the construction team to place fixtures, keypads, and shade pockets precisely within the home’s custom millwork. The placement helps the lighting highlight architectural details and create the right atmosphere for each room, while keeping controls easy for the family to use.

Project Standouts

Behind matching wardrobes in two bedrooms is a shared playroom inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia. Opening a wardrobe begins a theatrical lighting transition into a space with a custom star ceiling and a slide connecting two levels. It gives the children a place to read and play that feels distinctly their own.

That effect depends on DMX lighting, Lutron, Josh.ai, and Control4 working together. The family can activate scenes by voice or keypad without needing to know which system controls which light. It is the same principle used throughout the home: substantial capability, made approachable for the people who live there.

The project earned three Gold awards in CE Pro’s 2026 Home of the Year Awards: Best Lighting & Shading Control Project, Best Strange & Specialty Area, and Best User Experience, shared with Argenta Solutions. Fusion and Argenta Solutions also received Bronze for Best Whole-House Smart Home Project over $1M. See the full winners list.