Lennar and Amazon have teamed up and recently announced the opening of interactive Amazon Experience Centers within select Lennar model homes across the United States, including the Tovero at Mare Island Community. Now customers in the area can experience first-hand the convenience of Alexa smart home experience and more in a real home environment. Learn more about Lennar’s connected homes and the future of smart home technology in this recent Times Herald article by Rachel Raskin-Zrihen.
The future is alive and well and living on Mare Island.
Lennar Homes’ most resent development, called “Tovero at Mare Island,” (Tovero, not coincidentally, is a type of horse,) includes a model home where what’s possible in “smart homes” can be experienced.
The Amazon Experience Center on Mare Island is the result of a partnership between Lennar Homes and Amazon, Lennar Bay Area division president Tom Burrill said. It produced a house to which you can speak, and which not only answers, but performs tasks like turning the lights on and off, lowering and raising the shades, adjusting the temperature, finding the movie or TV show you want to watch, playing your music and vacuuming the floor.
“Lennar and Amazon have teamed up to produce a home automation experience that really shows how this can be incorporated into a home,” Burrill said. “It won’t cook your dinner, yet, but it does control many of the home’s functions.”
The built-in Wi-Fi is the home’s basic intelligence backbone, operating a slew of labor saving, convenience and other cool gadgets you may want or need, that can be added, as they become available, he said.
The sign in the home’s doorway says, “Re-imagining Everyday Living,” and that’s where the experience begins.
“It starts at the front door, with a Ring doorbell and a keyless entry,” Burrill said. “You can see who’s at the door and activate the front door remotely, as both are app-controlled.”
Amazon and Lennar experts used a heat mapping process to locate any “dead spots” in the house and create wireless access points to eliminate them, he said.
“It’s pretty cool,” Burrill said. “A lot of people reference the Jetsons.”
For instance, you can program various devises so you can talk to whoever’s at the door or have it function as the next generation baby monitor,” he said. You can ask it to show you what’s going on in the backyard, pull up recipes or check the score of whatever game you’re interested in.
A basic list of functions is included in all Tovero homes, which are priced in the $600,000 to $800,000 range. Other functions can be added, and an Amazon expert will come and show you how it all works, once you move in, Burrill said. All 35 to 40 Phase One Tovero homes, except the show models, are sold. Phase Two will hopefully be available later this year, he said.
Technology is exciting, but it can also be intimidating,” he said. “That’s why the Amazon expert really helps.”
Continue reading the full article HERE.
