apartment

A chic loft apartment in New York City's Flatiron District was outfitted on Tuesday with a whole slew of new gadgets designed to put around-the-house routines at one's fingertips. The setup was centered around the Z-Wave open wireless standard, which was developed by Zensys for home appliance networking and automation.

The apartment was "furnished" by the Z-Wave Alliance, a group of manufacturers--many of them competitors--who have teamed up to promote the home networking standard.

This might look like a normal (albeit upscale) living room, but everything from the lights to the window shades to the thermostat to the meditative water fountain in the corner are synched to a Z-Wave controller manufactured by Intermatic. The Z-Wave devices are barely visible.