Best of IBS Outdoor Living Product: Aero-Therm Advance Coatings
Would you like an insulation product whose thermal reflecting coating redefines the entire concept of heat and energy conservation within your home?
By focusing on the available radiant energy to absorb and reflect heat back into the room, Aero-Therm Innovative Coatings quickly achieves a thermal balance that prevents heat loss and makes a more comfortable living climate—for less cost than traditional insulation.
It’s also the 2018 Best of IBS winner for Best Outdoor Living Product (tied with Aquor House Hydrant V2)!
A 1mm layer of Aero-Therm is all that’s required to save up to 35% of energy used to heat your home. The ultra-thin reflective coating creates warm walls, eliminates cold spots and reduces mold. No regular insulation method offers this performance at such low thickness.
Other ways Aero-Therm is “the cool way to warm walls”:
26% or more faster than traditional insulation when warming to ambient room temperature
Reduced floor-to-ceiling temperature differences for more balanced temperature
Wall-to-wall warmth with fewer cold spots, allowing comfort with the thermostat set lower
Enables installation of a lower-powered heating system
Two-day installation process
Aero-Therm’s nanotechnology component, AeroGel, so successfully transfers heat in lightweight material, NASA uses it extensively in its space program
AeroTherm is a water-dilutable putty that can be applied to interior or exterior walls, ceilings or into the floor formation. It’s applied in a similar process to plastering, leaving a surface that’s smooth and ready to paint.
Want to see for yourself? Request a free sample tile.
Congratulations, Aero-Therm!
How would you like to affordably transform the entire look of your kitchen walls (or any room!) in just minutes, with a perfect fit and zero damage? And help the environment in the process?
Meet ARTIS Wall, the 2018 Best of IBS winner for Best Kitchen Product!
This beautiful and easy-to-install system uses authentic, reclaimed wood from old barns and other structures around the U.S. and crafts them into Artis Wall planks that can be effortlessly installed, removed, and reused in any room. Every plank comes with a code stamp on the back identifying where your reclaimed wood came from.
Or, enjoy Artis Wall Stone, made of scrap, paper-laminate composite materials sourced from fabricators of anything from bathroom partitions to skateboard ramps!
Interest in Artis Wall caught on quickly, says creator Patrick Cartellone. “We decided to launch on Kickstarter to introduce the product and installation system to an entrepreneurial audience. After hitting the goal within three days, we knew this could be special.”
According to Cartellone, Artis Wall stands out because of its ease of use. “We offer consumers a simple and smart way to decorate their home. Making the product removable, reusable and damage-free is a first in the industry. This is a clear differentiation to other wall décor offerings.”
You can have your Artis Wall creation in just a few simple steps. First, measure your wall in inches and use the calculator to determine how many square feet you will need to purchase. Prep your walls and install the planks in minutes. Then sit back and enjoy the beauty of your modern yet rustic wall!
Artis Wall will adhere as long as you want it to. If you ever need a change, simply remove the planks and peel the patented adhesive strips from your wall--Artis Wall leaves no marks or damage. Artis Wall offers a flex payment plan, and orders ship within 48 hours.
Congratulations, Artis Wall! And meet the other Best Kitchen Product finalists:
• LE600A by Air King
• GE Profile Wall Oven with Assisted Cook by GE Appliances
• Kitchen Transition by NanaWall Systems
• Whirlpool Smart Front-Control Range by Whirlpool
VELUX America and smart home solutions partner Netatmo are working together to bring you the first smart automated control of roof windows, blinds and shutters: VELUX Active. The Best of IBS winner for top Window & Door Product infuses your home with natural light and fresh air, and will be available this July!
People spend 90% of their time indoors, so the quality of your indoor climate (temperature, humidity, air quality, daylight levels) has a huge impact on your health and that of your family. According to the World Health Organization, our indoor air can be up to five times more polluted than the air outside. And not getting enough daylight during the day has been shown to negatively affect sleep, while not having a properly darkened room at night can do the same.
VELUX ACTIVE takes care of all this for you! The system measures these critical parameters above—even the weather forecast--then automatically operates your VELUX windows, blinds and shutters to ensure your indoor environment is optimum. And because roof windows are located at the top of the house, where stale air tends to collect, the positive effects can be felt throughout the home. You can even retrofit your old skylights to the VELUX Active system.
The interface for all this functionality is an app for smartphone and tablet. It gives you full control over settings and parameters for operation of your windows, even away from home. And you can override the system’s algorithms at any time for manual operation.
“At VELUX, we want to meet consumer demand for high-quality products that promote smart, healthy living,” says company representative Laureston Hawley. “Though smart home technology isn’t a new concept, we’re bringing to market a product that allows homeowners to do more than simply control skylights with an app--VELUX Active does it for them.”
Judges agree with the innovation’s usefulness, noting VELUX Active is Simple to use with few components and cutting edge technology...The ability to retrofit older VELUX skylights makes it very accessible…The adaptable algorithms automate the system requiring minimum use.
Congratulations, VELUX! And meet the other Best Window & Door Product finalists:
Best of IBS Indoor Living Product: Eaton Home Automation Hub
A “smart home” is only as useful as your ability to control its technology. Now you can manage devices such as Nest thermostats, Amazon Echo, Kwikset locks and security systems, all with just a single app!
Eaton’s Home Automation Hub is a powerful gateway for your connected home, putting automation and energy management a touch away. It’s also the 2018 Best of IBS winner for Best Indoor Living Product!
The Hub allows homeowners to access their smart home even when the Internet connection to the cloud is down. With automatic firmware updates, Eaton ensures the Hub is always current. This allows the device to have the latest features and fix any issues without service interruptions and expensive callbacks—a consumer concern Eaton made sure to address from the beginning.
“As a part of our product development process, we typically conduct extensive “voice of customer” research to understand what our customers are looking for, what are their pain points?” says Advait Katarki, Controls & Connectivity Manager, Eaton Residential & Wiring Devices Division. “We believe in delighting our customers, and every time we see that reaction from our customers we know it’s a special product.”
Along with these features, the Hub also offers:
Simple and quick installation
Can be mounted on the wall or placed on a flat surface
Powered by micro USB or Power over Ethernet (PoE injector sold separately)
Support for configurable scenes, schedules and notifications (text and email)
Works with Amazon Alexa for voice-based control
One particular feature stands out as a benefit to home builders: Z-Wave technology (short for Zensys, its Danish company founder). In today’s smart home, devices like sensors, lightbulbs, heating controls, locks and the like use Z-Wave to talk to each other. A much lower power alternative than Wi-Fi, but with a much bigger range than Bluetooth, Z-Wave operates using low-energy radio waves to communicate from device to device.
“There are some inherent challenges with adoption of smart home technology in a new home construction environment,” says Katarki. “The fact that with our Hub, installers can seamlessly install all of our Z-Wave devices and other select devices without an active Internet and Wi-Fi connection will really make this technology easier to adopt for home builders. Not only that, through a dedicated installer App (Pro Install), we have tried to simplify the installation and hand-off process for the installers so they can move from one job to another quicker while still letting the home owners have a very customizable connected home experience.”
Congratulations, Eaton! And meet the other Best Indoor Living Product finalists:
Uven-R Acoustic Panel by Corruven Inc.
Vintage Ranch by Eldorado Stone
Phoenix by Heat & Glo by Hearth & Home Technologies
Best of IBS: Instant, Effortless Access to Outdoor Water with Aquor
Are you tired of the hassle and leaks involved with your traditional hose? Now you can stop wasting your time at the tap, and enjoy instant access to your water with the Aquor House Hydrant V2, a revolutionary faucet system that makes outdoor water use easy and enjoyable.
It’s also the 2018 Best of IBS winner for Best Outdoor Living Product (tied with Aero-Therm Innovative Coatings)!
With its patented twist-lock design, Aquor automatically turns the water on as soon as the connector is inserted. You can connect garden hoses instantly, making quick tasks like watering plants or washing the dog effortless. Then unplug and go—the hydrant self-drains automatically. No more dripping faucets or wasteful leaks.
“The biggest improvement the House Hydrant offers homeowners is incredible convenience, followed by reliability,” says Kamil Slusarski, Aquor Water Systems CEO. “It allows you to instantly plug in your garden hose, without having to thread it on every time. It can be mounted at waist-level -- no more bending over. And the best part is, it requires no maintenance for decades.”
What sets the House Hydrant apart is its unique internal valve, which uses water pressure to seal a high-performance O-ring (instead of a traditional rubber washer and screw). This allows outlets to stay leak-free for many years longer than standard brass hose bibs.
Even better, no winterization is needed: for homeowners in cold areas, the hydrant provides seven times better freeze protection than brass, frost-free sillcocks.
The Hydrant’s marine-grade stainless steel endures zero wear—and contains zero lead. Bring your Aquor connector inside to easily prevent unsupervised water use or theft. And choose from multiple color options to match your home. No unsightly hose bibs protruding from your wall!
“We have some truly revolutionary products coming over the next couple years,” says Slusarski. “We are working closely with our builders, architects and plumbers on new product lines that will change the way people think about and use water around buildings and landscapes. Outdoor water fixtures shouldn't be ugly or hard to use. We're going to change that.”
Best of IBS: ecobee4 and Alexa Combine for Comfort, Savings
You don’t sleep in your hallway—so why do you rely on it to measure your entire home’s temperature?
Most thermostats only read temperature in one place (usually the hallway), which can make other rooms uncomfortable. But the new Voice-Enabled ecobee4 comes with a room sensor to help manage hot or cold spots. When you place sensors in your favorite rooms, ecobee4 can read the temperature and detect occupancy—ensuring your comfort, and keeping your energy bills down.
It’s also the 2018 Best of IBS winner for Best Energy Efficient Product. Along with the ecobee4, Toronto’s ecobee makes wi-fi enabled smart thermostats for residential and commercial applications that are intuitive to use and beautiful to look at.
They also come with built-in Amazon Alexa Voice Service—along with regulating temperature, you can ask your ecobee4 to order groceries or read the news from any room with a sensor.
“ecobee has been committed to delivering comfort to our customers’ homes since its inception,” says ecobee Trade Marketing Specialist Nicholas Kwon. “When we came out with the ecobee3 and Room Sensors™ back in September 2014, we knew our innovation would set a new standard for how thermostats should be serving homeowners.”
The Best of IBS judges agreed, noting, “There are other smart thermostats on the market, but we like the design of ecobee. The features are the kind of thing consumers want.”
The environment likes ecobee4 too. A “planet positive” company, “ecobee’s thermostats save homeowners up to 23% on heating and cooling costs by keeping energy use low when no one is home,” says Kwon. “Consequently, ecobee has saved 3 tera-watt hours (TWh) of energy to date,” says Kwon. “That’s equivalent to taking Pittsburgh off the grid for an entire year! We also prevented about 2.6 million tons of greenhouse gases, and that number grows every day.”
Building on ecobee4’s success, the company is next working on a new smart light switch that combines the homeowner’s schedule, the room’s occupancy and detected ambient light to determine when lights should turn on and off. It, too, will come with Alexa built in.
Congratulations, ecobee! And meet the Best Energy Efficient Product category runners-up:
Juno SlimForm™ Surface Mount Downlight by Acuity Brands
AIREX PRO-SYSTEM KIT™ by Airex Manufacturing, Inc.
Trane XR16 Low Profile Air Conditioner by Ingersoll Rand/Trane Brand
MagVent MV-180 Dryer Vent Coupling by MagVent, LLC
MXZ H2i® by Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating
Noritz Residential Combination Boiler by Noritz America
Protect the environment and stay warm and cozy while you do it! Efficient and environmentally-friendly, the Lennox DLS SL280NV Ultra-Low NOx Gas Furnace produces 65% lower NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions than standard low-NOx furnaces.
It’s also the 2018 Best of IBS Awards winner for Best Green Building Product, noted by judges as “a welcome addition to heating and cooling solutions with lower emissions…excited to see where this product takes the company and the industry.”
This ultra-low NOx gas furnace features a variable-speed motor to maintain consistent temperatures throughout your home, using as little fuel as possible. Its iComfort® S30 ultra-smart thermostat compatibility allows consumers to adjust heating for energy savings based on the family’s routine.
But its most critical contribution is low emission levels, says Senior Heating Product Manager, Jill Murphy. “Decreasing emissions by 65% was a big breakthrough. It took several years of research, development and testing to get all the improvements to reach this milestone and keep the same great benefits you get with a Lennox Furnace.”
An energy rating of 80% AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) means the SL280NV can significantly reduce heating costs compared to an older furnace. The furnace’s variable-speed blower and two-stage gas valve allow it to adjust its speed and airflow to maintain ideal temperature throughout the home. So even on cold mornings and chilly evenings, the home remains comfortable and energy-efficient.
Built for durability and reliability, the SL280NV is made with a heavy-duty steel cabinet for a long, trouble-free life.
But Lennox will continue searching for its breakthroughs, says Murphy. “Homes are getting smarter and technology is getting smarter. On our roadmap is how can we take this Ultra Low NOx technology and push efficiencies and diagnostics so the overall system is smarter and connected. Wherever this takes us you can be sure we will be leading with Innovation!”
Have your bathroom mirrors begun to show their age with blackening edges? Do you want a fast, long-lasting—and beautiful—update to the look of your bath?
The Precision Frameworks Easy Frame® is a flat-backed molding that does not have a rabbet and can instantly turn your mirror into a seemingly high-quality, framed piece.
It’s also the 2018 Best of IBS winner for Best Bath Product! Easy Frame is essentially a wooden-framed version of a bevel strip, designed for mirrors that are already installed on the wall. It’s adhered with industrial-strength, double-sided tape, directly to the face of the mirror.
All frames are precut all of the frames to the custom size that is required. “This is truly one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to upgrade the look of your bathroom and is designed to fit the exact needs of each individual,” says Guy Andrews, Precision Frameworks Sales Manager.
The Best of IBS judges agreed, noting the frames are a “Great product, well-executed at an excellent price,” “Neat product,” ”Very useful,” “Great solution for all the retrofit plate mirrors out there!” and “Innovative!”
The Easy Frame is made from medium-density fiberboard (MDF), and the finishes consist of laminated vinyl/foil wraps and a liquid compo that hard sets on the surface, allowing for intricate and ornate designs to be printed on to the molding.
Extending its value even further, all Easy Frames are shipped disassembled, saving customers on shipping costs. They can put the frame together with a prepacked assembly kit. Easy Frame® is manufactured and fabricated here in the U.S. and ships out of Atlanta.Bottom of Form
This year’s Best of IBS Awards competition was fierce, with more than 300 entries in nine product categories. These entries were narrowed to 60 finalists, and awards were given to exhibitors with a product or line that shows the best combination of design, functionality and innovation, as well as its usefulness to consumers and/or home builders.
