Builders and designers in the Dallas area, you know your Westlake clients to be a discerning lot.  They want it all – the most up-to-date technology in their new home or remodel – but they want it discreetly integrated and not to overwhelm them.

When your clients think about audio, they want great music and sound for background listening, movie nights, game rooms, and outdoor relaxation and entertaining.  In the past, there used to be a tradeoff between aesthetics and audio quality – you could have one or the other, but not both. 

Not anymore.  You can have high-end audio that blends perfectly with a home’s style, indoors and out.  Read on to learn more.

SEE ALSO: What's New In High-End Audio

It’s likely your Westlake clients are telling you they want their music everywhere in their home.  They don’t want speakers to be visible – maybe even have it be really difficult to tell where the great music emanates from.  In a media or theater room, they are looking for that cinema-quality sound, but don’t want to draw attention to where it’s coming from. 

You might love your media and entertainment, but also hate the clutter it creates.  With the excess equipment and audio video components, it can all be quite distracting from the film or show in front of you.  Plus, when you’re not watching a movie, these products might still be out and going unused during the day or when you have guests.  But with hidden audio video, your media room or home theater can serve an abundance of purposes in your Dallas, TX home.  Read on to learn more about veiling these smart technology features within your interior design.

Hide your Screens

There’s no doubt about it – 4K Ultra HD TVs are ideal in every way for your movie nights and viewing experiences.  But often times, they are extremely wide and take up a large amount of space.  We’ve listed out below several ways to hide your TV screen in your entertainment center.

• Moving Panels: You can feel like you’re in the future with wall panels.  Place your favorite piece of artwork or a picture frame on the panel, so when the TV is not in use, you have a nice addition to the room’s décor.  Then, when it’s time to binge-watch a series or film franchise – press a button, have the panel slide up, and enjoy.
• Furniture Lifts: Incorporate your TV into an actual piece of furniture in the room. The screen can slide up and down out of a TV cabinet or a table countertop, and will effortlessly appear when you are ready to view it.
• Ceiling Lifts: A ceiling lift allows a TV to hang up horizontally above its normal display area. Simply press a button on your smart device, and watch as the screen zooms down from the ceiling and vertically into place.

SEE ALSO: ENJOY FOOTBALL SEASON WITH THE LATEST AUDIO VIDEO TECH

Now for the Audio

You want your speakers to give you the best sound quality available.  This means no obstructions or hindrances to muffle them.  But speakers can be bulky and mess with your room’s style.  Now you don’t have to compromise your taste for quality!  Hidden wall speakers mean the product can be carefully placed within your wall, taking up hardly any space.  You can conceal the speakers’ looks and still hear their top-notch sounds.

If you don’t mind how standard speakers look, but still want them not to take up too much space, then bookshelf speakers are a viable option as well.  You get amazing, high-end sound quality, similar to larger and more predominant floor-standing speakers, but are instead able to place these on top of bookshelves or cabinets – eliminating the amount of room they would normally take up.

Thinking of upgrading your property with a smart home system? You’re probably trying to weigh the options: should you go hardwired or wireless with your audio system? Can you install a home theater by yourself? These are the types of questions that many homeowners face. But the truth is, you’re almost always better off working with a professional home automation installer. Sure, it may seem like the initial investment is higher than what you want to pay, but in the long run that investment pays off. In this blog, we’ll give you four solid reasons to work with an integrator.

See Also: How to Get Started with Smart Home Technology

Reason 1: They Know What They’re Doing

Installing a smart automation system is a bit more complicated than assembling your average Ikea coffee table – and we all know how annoying that can be. But when you’re working with electronics, the challenges can quickly become overwhelming. You may think it’s easy enough to install a smart thermostat, and you may even be right. But when you want that thermostat to talk to your surveillance cameras, or to respond to a single command that lowers the shades and dims the lights while playing a movie on your AV system, you enter a whole different world. 

Think of it this way: you may be able to change a tire or buff out a dent in your car, but you probably can’t fix the transmission. The same goes for your home automation system.

So you’ve decided to upgrade the media room in your Dallas, TX home. Instead of the standard 1080p HD you’ve become accustomed to, you want a video display that truly pops. You want to upgrade to 4K. But now that you’ve chosen to make the move, there are some questions you need answered, like: what exactly is 4K? How do you achieve full 4K picture? In this blog, we’ll answer your questions. Read on to learn more.

See Also: 4 Unique Uses for Your Brand New Media Room

What Is 4K?

By now you’ve probably heard the term 4K so much you might think it’s a standard feature on most TV displays. But actually, 4K has only become popular over the past couple of years. But do you really know what it means?

Also known as UHD, 4K is an image standard that’s four times the picture resolution of 1080p HD. Think of picture resolution like thread count on bedsheets: if 1080p equals 400 thread count, then 4K equals 1600. And, typically speaking, the higher the thread count, the better the quality.

The world has changed a lot in the last decade. Before 2007, iPhones didn’t even exist, and technology in the home was far from commonplace. Now, it’s not unusual to have televisions and smart devices in every room of the home. You might think that the more technology you have, the harder it is to manage it all, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Solutions like home video distribution allow you to easily control all your media across multiple devices.

In a previous post, we covered how home video distribution works, but let’s delve deeper into how you can make the most of this system in each room of your home.

1. Living Room

Let’s get the obvious room out of the way first. The living room is typically what comes to mind when somebody mentions televisions, and it’s usually the main reason why homeowners decide to go for a video distribution system. Either they’re tired of cluttering up the living room décor with countless media devices or they’re tired of being limited to a single room just to watch a movie or enjoy the latest episode of a TV show. Whatever the reason, consider the living room a must-have for video distribution.

2. Kitchen

There are plenty of great reasons to add a TV to your kitchen. You can try a new recipe alongside an episode of your favorite cooking show or have reruns playing in the background while you prep dinner. However, a TV in the kitchen isn’t much good if it can’t play the TV show or movie that you want to watch. With a video distribution system, your waterproof kitchen TV can have access to all the same media as the TV in your living room—sans cords or equipment.

3. Home Theater/Media Room

Like the living room, any home theater or media room worth its weight will have a video distribution system in place. A large part of what makes home theaters special is the ability to sit down, press play, and enjoy the immersive cinema experience. That experience shouldn’t involve sifting through different Blu-rays, booting up the Blu-ray player, finding the right remote for the projector, and so forth. Instead, all the devices are connected to one central control system that you can access right from your smartphone or tablet.

The holidays are nearly upon us. Is your home ready for entertaining? Many holiday traditions revolve around the television: watching the Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving morning or The Grinch during Christmas break. So why not make the most of your time enjoying media with family by upgrading your outdated, clunky system with one that’s easy to use? Keep reading to learn the benefits of a modern audio video system during the holiday season. 

A Better Movie-Watching Experience

If you or your family members are squinting at the grainy image on the television or bumping up the volume to its highest setting, it’s time for an upgrade. With 4K Ultra HD, the latest advancement in television image resolution, you can now get a super crisp, clear picture of all your favorite shows and movies. Whether you’re watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation or It’s a Wonderful Life, you’ll be able to see so much detail, you’d swear you could reach out and touch the actors.

Of course, the view is only part of a great movie setup. You also need high-fidelity sound to create that immersive experience. The sleek, thin look of modern televisions comes at a price; there’s no space for quality speakers. Whether you have a dedicated home theater or a family room, it’s important to supplement your television with either a sound bar or surround sound speakers. We can work with you to help you decide on the best brand, speaker type, and placement for optimal sound.

Spread Holiday Cheer in Every Room

Nothing gets people in the holiday spirit quite like music. Instead of blasting the Christmas carols from one room or individually going into each area of your home to set up music systems and pick out playlists, it’s possible to set the same music, optimized for easy listening, in every room at once. By upgrading to a multi-room music system, all of your audio equipment, music, and streaming services are instantly accessible via your smartphone or tablet. So when Santa Baby comes on the radio for the fifth time that day, all you have to do is press “Skip” on your phone, and the multi-room music system will immediately respond to your command.

Of course, it’s possible that not everyone in your family will be gung-ho for Christmas music 24x7. Your audio system can have separate music zones that allow everyone to listen to their own music in different areas of the home. So if someone in the family is ready to go on a rampage from too many Christmas jingles, they can retreat to their room without interrupting the holiday atmosphere.

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.

There are a lot of great smart home automation technologies out there. You can control your lights, your HVAC, and your home security all using one simple system. A popular component of a smart home is a home video distribution system, in which all of your A/V devices are connected to simplify access to shows, movies, etc. To help you decide if a video distribution system makes sense for your Dallas, Texas smart home, answer the three questions below.

SEE ALSO: How to Connect All the A/V Devices in Your Home

Do you have 3+ TVs?

The amount of A/V equipment you have in your home is usually a good indicator of whether home video distribution is a smart investment for you. If you have just a few TVs, each with their own Blu-Ray player or gaming system already set up, then a distribution system may not be as valuable as another automation technology. However, for homes with TVs in the bedrooms, dedicated home theater, living room, patio, etc., a video distribution system can vastly simplify the process of using and managing all of your different TVs.

Do you waste time moving A/V equipment from room to room?

If you want to play your Xbox in your bedroom but it’s currently in the living room, what do you do? Without a home video distribution system, you may resort to unplugging the equipment and lugging it to a different room, only to have to repeat the process the next time you want to use that system elsewhere. It’s time-consuming and annoying, and it makes it difficult to hide your equipment away where it’s not cluttering up your home’s décor. This issue is solved completely by a home video distribution system because you can centralize all of your equipment in one location, such as a utility closet, then easily switch sources using a remote, smartphone or tablet to access the device you want in whatever room you’re in.

Do you have redundant gaming systems, streaming services, etc.?

When faced with moving those devices from one room to the next, many people will decide to skip the inconvenience by just buying an extra device for each room. While that makes it easier to access your media content, purchasing redundant equipment isn’t the best option for two primary reasons.

When looking to create the right atmosphere in your outdoor spaces –the pool, patio, or backyard—a big part of it is having quality entertainment for friends and family. Whether it’s inside or outside, a get-together can get stale without the right music to set the ambiance. With such great weather in the Colleyville, Texas area, we know you’re going to want to invite people over to enjoy some fresh air. Below we’ll take a look at some of the equipment you should include in your audio video system to create quality outdoor entertainment. 

Sonance Speakers

Outdoor music has always been popular since it’s a relatively easy way to boost the atmosphere in your home. Many people bring out wireless speakers or boom boxes when people arrive. But these make-shift solutions can post a few problems. The quality of these products is not usually the best, and since you're only bringing one source of audio, it will be limited to only a small space. 

The solution is an audio video system installation that places weather-proof speakers throughout your outdoor area. This way you get high-fidelity, uniform sound from your pool to your patio. For outdoor speakers, we recommend the Sonance Sonarray series, which resembles landscape lighting fixtures to better blend into your foliage. 

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