As you prepare to renovate your Southlake, Texas home or begin construction on a new one, what details are most important to you? So far you’ve likely decided on which architectural style you prefer and the way you’d like to design your interior spaces. Usually lost in all the commotion is a comprehensive plan for your technology. You could bring it all together with a smart home automation system that makes your home more beautiful and efficient. Below we’ll take a look at some of the biggest perks of building a smart home.

SEE MORE: How Does Automation Enhance Your Lifestyle?

1.  Make the Technology in Your Home More Efficient

The primary reason to invest in smart home automation is efficiency. Placing control of all your technology under one system makes it easier to manage it. From the same touchpad or tablet, you can adjust your lights, music, and thermostat. A unified front also lets your technology work hand-in-hand. For example, in the case of a fire, your security system communicates with your lighting. Once the alarm goes off, the lights turn on to guide the way to the nearest exit.

2. Reduce the Equipment Clutter in Your Home

Even if your primary focus is aesthetics, smart home automation can be a great design partner. By centralizing control of your technology, you can reduce some of the clutter in your home. With smart lighting, switches and dimmers can be taken off the wall. Through your audio video system, you can place all your source components –including Blu-rays and media servers—in a dedicated AV closet instead of keeping the equipment in each room.

3.  Eliminate Energy Waste With Smart Control

There are a variety of ways smart control ensures your energy doesn’t go to waste. For most homes, air conditioning and heating represent the brunt of energy expenses. Your smart home is built to take the load off your HVAC system. Shades close automatically during the hottest times of the day to help cool down the house. You can also set different temperature presets for certain times. So when you’re away from home, the thermostat goes up to use up less energy.

Here in Texas, we know that summer can sometimes be a double-edged sword.

While it’s the perfect time of year for outdoor fun, summer also delivers higher temperatures – and, naturally, increased energy bills.

At DB Media Solutions, our team of custom technology experts love working with local homeowners in Westlake and throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to lower their energy consumption levels through smart home automation.

In this post, we explore three of the best energy-efficient smart home devices you should add to your house – just in time for this summer.

SEE ALSO: 5 Must-Have Smart Home Automation Technologies

If you follow our blog, you know that we love to talk about smart home automation and all the different ways you can put technology to good use. As great as it is to learn about these smart systems, it’s also helpful to get an in-depth look at exactly what DB Media Solutions is able to do. That’s why we’ve put together this overview of one of our favorite recent projects: the 2016 Home of Dreams. To learn how our team collaborated with builders, interior designers, and other trades to transform this Keller property into a dream home, read on.

What is the Home of Dreams?

In 2016, the Fort Worth Texas magazine started their inaugural Home of Dreams editorial, which oversees the construction of a gorgeous, high-end home in the greater Dallas area. The Home of Dreams is exactly what you’d expect: a property with the highest quality building materials and technologies designed by professionals to fit perfectly into the space.

About the 2016 Home of Dreams

The Texas hill country got a French infusion with this sprawling property. The French country estate spans 7,169 square feet. The open-concept layout includes a Great Room that connects a kitchen, wine room, bar, dining room, and patio. Visitors to the home might wonder why the sleek and spacious kitchen is missing an oven—it’s because most of the cooking happens in the second prep kitchen tucked away further in the home. Listed at $2.39 million, this property has been designed for ultimate luxury in every area—from the custom-built pergola in the private courtyard to the coffee bar in the master suite.

DB Media Solutions’ Contribution

DB Media Solutions handled all of the Home of Dream’s low voltage wiring, media installation, and smart home automation installation. We worked with the builders and architects from the beginning of the project to ensure that the home had the right wiring and design for reliable technology performance. As the construction progressed, we were there to oversee the installation, and we also worked alongside interior designers to ensure that the technology blended seamlessly into the home.

SEE ALSO: Make Homes Smart from the Start

Building a new home requires a lot of decisions—building materials, home layout, wiring, and more all have to be carefully considered so that the homeowner is happy with the final product. More and more often, homeowners decide after the residence is built that they want their home to be “smart.” While this is definitely possible, nothing beats the seamless design and reliability of a smart home automation solution that is built from the ground up. Below, we’ve covered how builders in the Colleyville, Texas area can benefit from installing smart home automation technology during construction of new homes.

SEE MORE: What Are Some Perks of Living in a Smart Home?

Boost Home Value

Smart homes are worth significantly more than traditional residences, and even some basic home pre-wiring for future automation can go a long way toward upping the purchase price. Smart home automation is in demand for high-end home buyers, and that demand is rapidly growing over time. By investing in smart home automation during new home construction, you can reach far more buyers in the luxury home market.

Increase Buyer Satisfaction

The goal with any luxury home construction is for the homeowner to be completely happy with their purchase. Nothing beats the “Wow” factor of showing buyers their new home and demonstrating how their smart home automation system can control the lights, shades, HVAC, security, and more—all with a single touch on a screen integrated directly into the wall. You can also work with your home buyer from the start to tailor each room to fit their needs, with different technology and wiring going into each area.

Create a Clean Look

A common mistake that occurs when implementing smart home technology during construction is that the integrator is brought into the process at the very end of construction. As a result, many issues that arise during the installation process, which would have been easy to avoid with planning, end up affecting the design of the home. Closed walls have to be opened up again for wiring, or worse: wires have to be run outside of the walls where they are visible to the homeowner. By partnering with a smart home automation integrator at the start of construction, you can create a plan for a sleek and clean design right from the beginning.

The smart home revolution has arrived in full force. Much of the movement revolves around smart gadgets that promise automation, acting without you having to input information. There are products available for every corner of your Dallas, Texas home, from a refrigerator that lets you know if you've run out of beer to security cameras that activate when they sense any movement. While some gadgets are admittedly more practical than others, there’s no better whole-home solution than a smart home automation system.

How do these systems differ from devices you can buy off the shelf? They bring all your technology together and get it to work as one. Through a Savant Systems solution, you can have control of your lighting, security, entertainment, climate and more at the touch of a button. Sensors and schedules are the primary ways smart devices create automated responses. In this blog, we explain how both work best in a connected home.

Sensors

Sensors are the main way automation happens in smart devices. Your lights turn off when a room is unoccupied. A thermostat notices you’ve walked into the room and adjusts the temperature. What a smart home automation system adds to this dynamic is that all your technology reacts to a sensor's message rather than just one device.

Instead of just having a camera recording when a sensor is activated, you can have the lights in the room turn on as well to get the clearest images possible. When you return from work, it’s not just the climate that adjusts. As soon as you walk into your foyer, the room lights up and the television turns on to your favorite channel so you can settle in after a long day.

If you’re just now diving into the possibilities for smart home automation in your Fort Worth, Texas area property, you probably have questions. Fortunately, we have answers. Below, we’ve put together a list of the most common questions we’ve heard over the years in the automation business. Check out the questions and answers below, and definitely, don’t hesitate to call us at (817) 980-0347 if you want to learn more.

What is Smart Home Automation?

Smart home automation refers to the technology that upgrades “dumb” components of your home, such as the window shades or light bulbs, and connects them to a central system that can work automatically to keep your home safer, more comfortable, energy-efficient, etc. This system can control all of the technologies throughout your home, from high-end audio to your surveillance cameras.

What All Can I Automate in My Home?

You’d be surprised how many things in your home can benefit from automation. Realistically, there are too many to list, but here are some of the most popular options:

• Thermostats
• Window Shades and Blinds
• Door Locks
• Lighting Fixtures
• Audio and Video Equipment
• Pools and Water Features

Can I DIY My Own Smart Home?

There are DIY smart home automation solutions available that you can install on your property. If you’re particularly tech-savvy and looking for a budget-friendly system, this is probably the right choice for you. Keep in mind that you’ll be handling all aspects of building and setting up the system, and while DIY brands do try to make the process easy, we’ve had many homeowners call us up to do a system installation after they realized how complex everything was. There are also a lot of limitations to DIY systems—you won’t be able to take advantage of the full features and possibilities available with a professional installation.

SEE ALSO: How to Get Started with Smart Home Technology

One of the best things about living in a smart home is the ability to customize it to fit your lifestyle. Every smart device in your home can be optimized to make your life more convenient and comfortable. But getting started with smart home automation can seem daunting at first. That’s why we’ve put together this guide of the most popular and useful technologies worth integrating into your Westlake, TX smart home. 

SEE MORE: What Are Some Perks of Living in a Smart Home?

1. Lighting Control: With lighting control technology from Vantage, you’ll never have to walk into every room of your home to turn off the lights before bed or get up from a comfortable spot to brighten the lighting while reading. Instead, all you have to do is tap your smartphone or tablet, and the lights will adjust automatically.
2. Audio/Video System Control: Imagine being able to turn on your TV, select a movie, and adjust the volume for your kids…all without ever stepping into the room that held the equipment. With a centralized A/V system, you have instant access to the speakers, TVs, gaming systems, streaming services, etc. throughout your home.
3. Smart Home Security: Modern security systems go far beyond really good locks and deadbolts. When you make your surveillance and security system “smart,” you gain the ability to view camera footage in real-time from anywhere, lock or unlock your doors remotely, access your home without any physical keys, and more. Your home security can even react intelligently to certain events—for example, calling the fire department if a fire is detected or even shutting off your HVAC system to avoid fanning the flames.
4. A Strong Network: Networking probably isn’t what comes to your mind when you think about smart home automation, but it’s absolutely essential if you want all of your devices to work smoothly and reliably on a daily basis. By optimizing your home network and adding in wireless access points or routers to ensure all devices receive a strong connection, you’ll never have to worry about dropped signals or lagging shows.
5. The Total Control System: Each of the technologies listed above is a great way to make your life a little bit easier at home, but by connecting them all together into one easy-to-use system, you gain a solution that is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Savant’s smart home control systems are intuitive and streamlined so that you can skip the hassle of trying to figure out your technology and go straight to enjoying it.

If any of these smart home automation technologies appeal to you, contact us! We’ll help you design a fully customized smart home solution that includes the technologies that matter most to you.

When you’re getting started with smart home automation, one of the biggest decisions you’ll need to make is which system you’ll use to manage everything. There are a lot of great smart system providers out there, but the one we recommend most to our Dallas, Texas clients is Savant. If you’re interested in learning what makes Savant such a great choice for smart homes, then read on.

1. Super User-Friendly Design

The most advanced smart technology in the world won’t do you much good if it’s difficult to use. Instead of a clunky, complex interface that’s hard to navigate, Savant keeps things simple. Each screen is completely intuitive, so you know exactly where to go to manage every part of your home. You can access the system from your phone, tablet, desktop computer, or dedicated remote—whatever you’re most comfortable with. The touchscreen design helps you access each part of the system quickly, so turning on your favorite music playlist or checking the security system is as simple as pushing a button.

SEE ALSO: The Perfect Remote for Your Media Room: Savant Pro

2. Powerful Enough for All Your Needs

One of the best things about smart home automation is how it can be customized to fit your lifestyle. With Savant, you’re not stuck with a cookie-cutter solution. Instead, the system can be designed with all sorts of cool features that you might not expect. Savant is compatible with all kinds of different technologies and systems. So whatever high-end audio, surveillance cameras, or existing smart devices you have, they can all be managed by Savant with ease.

3. Reliable for the Long Haul

At the end of the day, the most important thing is that your smart home works the way you want it right when you want it. Technology can be fickle, and the more systems you try to control at once, the higher the chance that something will go wrong. We love Savant because it’s high-quality, well-designed technology. You won’t have to deal with the system breaking every few months or glitchy software that doesn’t perform the way you’d expect. Instead, it just works. When you’re investing in a full home automation solution, having a reliable system is absolutely essential. That’s why we use Savant.

A smart home automation system is of no use if you don't feel comfortable in your home, and interior design plays an integral role in transforming empty rooms into parts of a welcoming, cohesive home environment. 

With technology playing a more prominent role in the functionality of a home, architects, designers, developers, and integrators are all spending more time considering how their specific contributions can enrich the others by satisfying different needs. Technology used to be an obstacle for interior designers, but now it’s a tool that allows them to form spaces in new ways and create a fuller sensory experience.

Read on to learn three ways home automation and interior design work together to increase the beauty and convenience of your Dallas or Forth Worth area home.

SEE MORE: Frequently Asked Questions about Smart Home Automation