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 So why not make the most of your time enjoying media with family by upgrading your outdated, clunky system with one that’s easy to use?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.

In our last blog, we talked about the aspects of a smart home that are absolutely essential, and a strong home network came in at #4. There’s a good reason for it: without a professional network installation, your home is going to have a hard time handling the demands of modern smart devices, such as televisions streaming 4K video. So how do you know if your Colleyville, Texas home network needs an upgrade? See if the three common issues outlined below sound familiar.

SEE MORE: 5 Questions to Ask When Upgrading Your Home Network

1. You Only Have Wi-Fi in Certain Areas of Your Home

This is a sure-fire sign that your home doesn’t have good coverage in every room. Most likely, the areas nearest to your router have Wi-Fi access, but the further away you go, the harder it is to connect. Especially in larger homes, this can be a big problem. Obviously, you want to be able to use your home’s Wi-Fi no matter where you are on the property, from the patio to the bedrooms. A networking expert can analyze your home and identify the best spots to install network bridges or wireless access points – devices that boost the wireless signal from your router for even coverage.

1. You Don’t Have Any Network Security

What kind of security do you have set up for your network? If your answer is “I don’t know,” there’s a good chance that you don’t have any protections at all. Your network and all of the connected smart devices in your home need to be secured so that only you and authorized individuals can access them.

Even if you don’t keep any sensitive information on your computer (and let’s face it: most of us do), a determined hacker might be able to access other sensitive areas of your home, such as security cameras, if the network is not secured. We can work with you to not only set up the firewalls, virus protection, and other security features, but also to ensure that all of the smart devices in your home are prepared against network security threats.

A common misconception about motorized shades is that homeowners will be forced to choose from one of five generic patterns if they want their window treatments to be part of a smart home automation system. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Below, we outline the different possibilities to make motorized shades fit the style and décor of your Westlake, Texas home. 

SEE ALSO: 3 Reasons to Invest in Motorized Shades for Your Home

Fabrics

The type of material used for motorized shades is entirely dependent on which room you’re planning on installing the window treatment. You wouldn’t have the same shades in a media room that you would have in a bedroom, for example. Here are some of the most common types of fabric to consider:

• Blackout: This type of fabric is ideal for home theaters, media rooms, or bedrooms because it completely blocks sunlight from entering through the windows. Particularly useful during Texas’ scorching summers, blackout shades also help to reduce solar heat gain.
• View Preservation: If you have a room with a gorgeous view, you obviously don’t want to hide it away behind curtains. By choosing a fabric style that allows you to see through it while closed, you get the benefits of reduced sunlight glare without compromising on your view.
• Thermal Management: You don’t have to go straight to blackout shades if you want to reduce solar heat gain. There are plenty of fabric types specifically engineered to have a high reflectance value, turning the sun’s heat away while still allowing some daylight into the room.
• Eco-Friendly Materials: For the environmentally conscious homeowner, choose from a strong selection of sustainable fabrics designed to keep your ecological footprint small.

Styles                                       

• Roller: When you want your motorized shades to be a subtle addition to the room, roller shades are a good option. The shades are practically unnoticeable when raised, but still provide complete window coverage whenever you want it.
• Drapery: The perfect shading choice for bedrooms and formal living rooms, traditional drapery can make a big statement. The great thing about motorized drapery rods is that you can add your own draperies to the room for a truly customized design while also taking advantage of the automation technology. Of course, you can still go with drapery fabrics specifically designed for motorized use.
• Honeycomb: The unique design of honeycomb shades makes them easy to fold up tightly, and the air pockets that expand as the shades lower can actually help insulate your home from heat.
• Roman: Similar to the honeycomb style, Roman shades pull the fabric straight up and down. Roman shades offer more variety in pleat and fabric style, so you can find the perfect option for each room.

Patterns

Whether you want your shades to be one neutral color or the fashion statement in the room, there are plenty of patterns to choose from. DB Media Solutions can provide you with a comprehensive selection of patterns and work with you or your interior designer to decide on the best option for each room. Beyond the pattern of the fabric itself, you also have options for the color and material of the curtain rods, finials, and other hardware.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of the different options available for motorized shades, but the point is clear: whatever design or style you’re seeking for your home, we can supply it. To learn more about motorized shades or our other smart home automation technologies, contact us today.

Good news for everyone with Savant smart home automation systems: the intuitive control technology can also be used to manage your multi-room music. Savant recently announced new upgrades to their all-in-one music solution that make it easy for you to enjoy high-quality audio in every room of your Texas home. To learn about the different aspects of Savant’s multi-room music features and how you can take advantage of them, read on.

All of Your Music in One Place

Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Tidal, traditional CDs… you likely have a lot of different sources for your music. Swapping between streaming services or media types is usually a hassle, but Savant makes it a simple process by centralizing all of the music on a server with plenty of storage for those high-fidelity files. With one touch, your entire music collection is at your fingertips so that you can easily find the perfect song to jam out to.

SEE MORE: 3 Aspects of a High-Quality Multi-Room Music System

Airplay Straight from a Mobile Device

Want to play a song from your iTunes music account? With Savant, you can use Apple AirPlay to instantly start listening to your chosen music within your home—no cords or cables required. With AirPlay, you can continue to use your phone for other activities while the music is playing instead of leaving it docked somewhere as the official “music” phone.

Music Wherever You Are

One of the best things about a multi-room music setup is that you’re not restricted to enjoying music only in one area of your home. Sure, you can get away with adding speakers and stereos to each room and controlling them individually, but nothing beats the convenience of simply pulling up your phone as you walk from one area of your home to the next and having the music follow. The centralized access to all of your speakers and media makes listening to high-fidelity music an effortless process.

What do you use your home’s lights for? The obvious answer is something along the lines of “I use them to make each room bright enough to see,” but your lights can do so much more than that. Below, we outline some of the unique things you can do with a smart lighting control system. Explore the possibilities for your Dallas, Texas home.

Let Your Home Greet You When You Arrive                 

As you’re returning home after a long day of work (or a fun vacation), walking into a dark, empty house can be downright depressing. But what if your home lit up moments before you arrived? Your home’s lighting control system can use sensors to identify when you have entered your property or passed the front gate, then automatically turn on the lights at the porch, entryway, living room, etc. It can even trigger the outdoor lights to illuminate a pathway from your car to the front door if you arrive home at night.

Secure Your Home with “Vacation” Lighting

Break-ins are far more likely to occur when the home is empty for extended periods. To help deter criminals while you’re away on business or vacation, you can use your lighting control system to make the home appear occupied, even when you’re halfway across the world. The lights will mimic everyday use – turning on in the morning, changing from room to room, and finally turning off at night. You can also add motorized shades to your “Vacation” scene to create even more convincing signs of life.

Go Green with Energy-Efficient Lighting

Even if you make sure to turn off every single light every time you leave a room (and let’s face it: who wants to go through all that effort?), the odds are likely that your lighting use isn’t as energy efficient as it could be. By adding sensors, timers, dimmers, and other lighting control technologies, you can make your home’s lighting more eco-friendly while adding convenience and enhancing your home’s decor at the same time.

SEE MORE: 5 Ways to Manage Your Lights With Smart Control