Josh.ai rep — Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec

Josh.ai Voice Control, Built Into a Lutron Keypad

The wall keeps its buttons and gains everything a button cannot do.

What it does for a room

Josh puts natural voice control into the Lutron keypad that was already going on the wall. One sentence can set the lights, move the shades to a position, start the audio and bring the screen down — with nothing sitting on the credenza to do it.

For the people using the room, the technology stops being something to learn. A guest, a client or a visiting executive can run the space on the first try, which is usually the only try that counts.

It belongs on the drawing at the same moment as the keypads, because that is when it is easy.

What you get from it

Lives in the keypad

The Nano microphone sets into a Palladiom or Claro keypad, in the finishes you were already choosing.

Understands a sentence

One request can carry several outcomes, and shades can go to a position rather than simply open or shut.

Privacy you can see

A physical switch cuts power to the microphones, so the state of the room is visible rather than promised.

Speaks lighting protocols

Native DALI and DMX, so it reaches architectural lighting rather than only consumer devices.

See it in our Ottawa showroom

Josh Nano, Ottawa

Forty-two millimetres, and nothing else on the wall

The Nano is 42 mm square and 3 mm deep — smaller than a coin, in white or black, and paintable so it disappears into the finish. It answers through the room’s own speakers rather than adding a voice of its own.

The room goes on looking like the room. That is usually the reason a designer says yes to this.

See it in our Ottawa showroom

Voice control of shades and audio, Ottawa

Privacy you can point at

In a boardroom, confidence in the technology should not rest on a software promise. There is a physical switch that disconnects power to the microphones, so anyone in the room can see which state it is in.

For government and institutional clients that single detail often decides the conversation, which is why we raise it early rather than late.

Where it is at its best

Rooms with a door, where a keypad was going in anyway: boardrooms, executive floors, private dining rooms, hotel suites, amenity lounges. Spaces where somebody wants the lights, the shades and the screen to answer a sentence.

This is a residential-first platform and its maker says so — their own FAQ describes commercial, hospitality and healthcare as verticals they are exploring. It suits a commercial building in the rooms where it behaves like a private one. For a floor of open-plan workstations we will point you at a control system built for that instead.

Ask it something before you specify it

It is installed in the media room of our Ottawa showroom, set into a Palladiom keypad on the wall. Ask it for something and watch where it goes to find the answer. It is the fastest hour anyone spends working out what this is.

Why teams bring us in early

We help you choose where the keypads go, place the microphone, size the network and the Core behind it, program the Lutron side, and work out which voice commands are actually worth setting up.

Where the keypads go and where the network runs is settled long before anyone talks about voice. It is cheap to get right while the walls are open. If voice might be wanted in three years, the wall it will live in is being framed this month.

See the range

Browse the Josh.ai products published to our line card. Manufacturers maintain their own listings — if you can’t find what the drawing calls for, ask us.

Browse Josh.ai on the line card

Good to know before you specify

There is no published integration with Lutron’s commercial Athena platform, with BACnet or with Q-SYS. The Lutron partnership is with the Palladiom and Claro keypad families. Where a specification needs building-management integration, we will tell you which part of the scope wants a different product.

Processing is local-first, and speech recognition after the wake word goes to encrypted cloud services. For some government and institutional clients that is the deciding fact, so it belongs near the top of the conversation rather than buried in it.

Bring us in while the keypads are still on the drawing

Tell us the rooms and the network, and we will tell you where this belongs.

Get in touch