Synco living is a comprehensive home automation system designed to control and operate lights, blinds, and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems to suit occupants’ needs and requirements. It also incorporates a range of security and safety features – to monitor doors and windows, simulate occupancy as a safeguard against break-ins, and detect water-leaks and smoke.

In addition, Synco living makes it easy to read out consumption data for heating, cooling, hot and cold water, gas and electricity, enabling occupants to keep track of their energy and water use and helping them to economize. Building managers, too, benefit from easy remote access to consumption data.

Synco living helps save money while reducing your environmental footprint. For private households, optimizing room climate regulation not only means more convenience and less environmental impact, it also pays financially. Synco living generally recoups its initial costs within four or five years. A simulation conducted by Siemens building technology experts in association with Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts showed that the system has the potential to bring down energy consumption by as much as 30 percent. By investing around €1,200 in the system – and without compromising on comfort – someone who is typically out of the house during the working day can cut their annual heating bill by €250, based on today’s energy prices.

These savings are achieved by precisely controlling the heating in each room with the aid of time-based programs or by setting target temperatures. Home owners and tenants can define heating periods, room temperatures and lighting scenarios for each room to suit their daily pattern of use, and can adjust these settings whenever they wish, either through a central apartment control unit or locally in each room. They can even check and configure settings remotely from a personal computer or smart phone. Using the absence button or a central card reader, they can switch off the lights in the whole of the apartment and turn down the heating, much like they would in a hotel room. Synco living also alerts them to any windows and doors that are open before they leave.

Because Synco living communicates with a building’s technical systems, it’s not just suitable for installation in new builds, it can also be added to existing houses or apartments without the need for major construction work. Tenants can even take their systems with them when they move to a new home. The system’s components communicate wirelessly in the 868 MHz frequency band with a signal strength well below that of Wi-Fi equipment or a mobile or cordless phone.