Ryan Herd is the author of “Join the Smart Home Revolution” and CEO of 1 Sound Choice from Northern New Jersey. He has been in the technology business for the last 28 years, and his passion for technology is as alive as ever.
“I love technology, and I love solving peoples problems,” Herd said. “For me, smart technology is a way that I can do that; a way that I can make my clients’ lives easier. It is all about solving problems.”
“I have three kids so in our house the mornings are very chaotic. My wife and I are up with the kids and dog, and we are all getting ready for the day. All the lights and TVs are on, the doors are open, and the dogs are run loose. It is absolute chaos. Then the kids head out the door to school, I leave for work, and my wife is on her way too. She typically departs having left every light, TV, and appliance on. My two dogs sit watching SpongeBob! (laughs).
With smart technology the same thing happens. The difference is, there is a keypad next to the front door with three buttons. It is very very simple. I hit ‘away’, and it shuts the entire house down. It doesn’t matter what light is on or what tv is on; everything goes to sleep. When my wife comes home, she presses ‘home’ button and that button is pre-designed to what she likes, which is music in certain rooms, and certain TV’s and lights on. When my kids come home, they hit the ‘home’ button twice, and that turns on their playroom TV on the program they want to watch, (the Disney channel). Again, it is all about problem-solving through the use of technology.”
“We believe your home should be your sanctuary; a very special place that offers you an escape from the outside world,” Herd said. “It should be an everyday experience that rewards you and your family with peace of mind. Our technology lets you more fully enjoy your time in your home. We’re here to make that dream come true for you.”
He shares one of his favorite stories:
“I have been doing this for a while, and after every smart technology installation, I ask my clients to let me know if they have any other lifestyle problems that I could solve with technology. So you always have the usual stuff like different light and music preferences. This one time we installed the smart technology in a police officer’s house. Super lovely family.”
“He calls me up and says: ‘Listen, I have a problem and I know you can help me with it.'”
“So I said: ‘Sure, what is it?’ Now keep in mind that I have heard it all until this. He says:”
“My little girl, she gets up in the middle of the night because she has to go potty. So she wakes up and she has to have somebody else wake up with her and bring her to the bathroom. It’s always around 2:00 am and I have to get to work early the next morning. So I take her to the bathroom and turn the lights on, she does her business, and then we turn the lights off and I put her back to bed. The issue is, she is not tall enough to hit the lights.”
“So I listened to the story and told the police officer that I would think about it and let him know if I come up with anything.”
“This is what I ended up doing for him,” Herd said.
“He has the smart technology in his house, so we put a sensor in the bathroom, and we did a little bit of fancy programming. Now when she gets up she triggers that sensor that we put in, it turns on the lights in the hallway to the bathroom at 30% (you don’t want it at 100% because the bright light would wake her parents up.) She goes to the bathroom, does her business, gets out of the bathroom, puts herself back in the bed, and a few minutes later the lights go off, and everybody is happy.”
“So it is a neat little thing, I wasn’t sure at the start how I going to help the girl go potty and allow the police officer to get more sleep, but I knew I could figure that out. I love that stuff.”
With a love for human psychology and a love for smart technology, Ryan Herd makes a lot of impressive things happen. What I found even more amazing is what he said next:
“If I own many homes I want them all to work the same. Each one might be different, but I still want them all to function the same. For example, I want the same lighting and same music. We are all creatures of habit. That’s another good thing about smart technology is that we can make five houses work in the same exact way regardless of where they are.”
