This winner of the CEDIA Award for Best Innovative System or Solution also picked up the trophy for Best Auto, Marine, or Aircraft in the 2020 CEDIA Awards. The yacht – a truly stable platform built to anchor in remote locations while smaller craft aboard are in use, or to provide a true ocean-going getaway – needs to be as user-friendly as possible.

Why the need for such a simple interface? The vessel is available for charter, so any guest who boards needs to be able to call up the tech amenities with as short a learning curve as possible.

That’s part of the reason CEDIA’s judges gave this project the “Innovative” award. The challenges that come with every marine integration are known quantities: space for racks and cabling and devices will be extraordinarily tight, and great care must be taken to ensure that the elements are damaging delicate electronics. Add to that systems for navigation and security, and marine integrations become uniquely difficult.

But for a firm to really take a project such as this to the next level, all of those factors must be coupled with a brilliant design that makes the seafaring tech experience indistinguishable from what one might find in a high-end luxury home on land. That’s what Liquid automation did here, from the camera surveillance rigs to the multiple zones of audio and video. Additionally, the integrator had to travel quite a distance from their home base to get to the yacht’s construction site. Liquid Automation says, “We could not have accomplished this feat without our documentation process. It may mean extra work at the front end, but it guaranteed a smooth run once done and successful result.”

EQUIPMENT LIST

• Apple
• Avigilon
• Blustream
• Bosch
• B & W
• Computer Dynamics
• Crestron
• Dahua
• Fusion
• Future Automation
• Google
• Hewlett Packard
• Icron
• Ihiji
• Intel
• iPort
• LG
• Mbeat
• Middle Atlantic
• Niles
• Ruckus
• Samsung
• Sonance
• Vogels
• Targus
• Yamaha