Welcome! What's On Your Mind?

See Also: Here Are 3 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Home Theater Design

HOW AUDIO VIDEO DISTRIBUTION WORKS

In a traditional home entertainment system setup, each component exists in your media room. For instance, your TV, AV receiver, and other AV sources live in a single piece of cabinet furniture.

But this is the twenty-first century, and there’s no reason to clutter your space with bulky devices. Instead, you can store them safely in a clean rack that stays in your basement or an unused closet.

By organizing all your AV sources (except for your TV, of course) in an out-of-the-way area, you can maintain easy control over all your favorite movies, sports, and more.

The system will then stream content all over the house. Connected by cabling that runs within the walls, you can trust that the quality will be the same in your basement home theater and in your upstairs bedroom.

See Also: 5 Ways to Make Your Home Smarter in 2018

WHEN TO START WORKING WITH AN INSTALLER

If you’re a designer or builder, home technology can seem like an afterthought. After all, homeowners can add whatever technology they want and customize their own space.

But the fact is, technology is integrated in every aspect of the home. Smart TVs and thermostats may seem like secondary features, but the wiring necessary to support them isn’t.

Running wires for your AV, security and smart devices is an important part of setting up a network strong enough to support everything, and it’s easiest if it happens before the drywall goes up.

And if you’re renovating an old building, a technology professional can help determine where you need to build or add to include modern devices.

See Also: Where Does Your Music Sound Best? 

MISTAKE 1: YOUR SCREEN IS TOO BIG!

No matter what you choose to do with your design, you’ll need a display. Some homeowners are opting for non-traditional displays, like 4K flat panels, but for the most part users still prefer to pair a projector and screen.

But what you may not realize is that it’s easy to over estimate the size of screen you’ll need. A screen that’s too big can make viewers uncomfortable.

How to Avoid it: Measure your space before you purchase a screen. Determine how many seats you’ll add, and where they’ll go. Once you know that, the screen size is easier to determine. Investigate the commonly accepted ranges for seating distance to screen based on screen sizes.

MISTAKE 2: TOO MUCH LIGHT!

One of the biggest challenges when building a home theater is overcoming ambient light. That’s the kind of light that filters in through cracks in the doorway or the space between curtains.

See Also: Streamline Your Office with Commercial Automation

IN THE BOARDROOM

Simplifying boardroom and meeting space operations can make your meeting run more smoothly so your staff can work more productively.

Technology is a big part of your day-to-day toolset. From video displays to public address systems, you can’t escape the need for smart technology.

With an integrated commercial automation system, you can control everything with a single touch. A tap on your control device will lower the shades, start the projector and turn on the PA system.

That way, you can focus on the work, not on setting up the tech.

See Also: 5 Ways to Make Your Home Smarter in 2018

SPEAKER DISTRIBUTION

A whole home audio system means you can listen in just about any room. But if the space isn’t optimized for sound, you need to get creative with speaker placement.

First, distribution is the biggest factor in getting quality sound. You and your integrator need to ensure that you’re getting full coverage, even quality and no hot spots. That means placing speakers evenly throughout the room, in a similar manner to overhead lighting fixtures.

But just because speakers are scattered throughout a room doesn’t mean you have to look at big black boxes hanging off your ceiling or walls.

Hidden speakers are the way to go. Instead of blocky components taking up space in every room, hidden speakers are recessed into the ceiling, occupying spaces not much different from your lighting fixtures.

SEE ALSO: 5 Ways A Smart Home Makes Your Life Easier and Better Than Before

CONVENIENCE

Our lighting control partner is Lutron, the leading company in the industry for over half a century.  Their solutions can control lighting for one room or a whole house – and they can grow with you.

Lutron controls allow you to wirelessly adjust lights, even if you’re in another room.  From your bedside, you can turn them all off, or set a predetermined nighttime brightness.  About to leave for work, but can’t remember if you turned everything off? You can control lights from your car with a small remote – or your smartphone, depending on the system you choose.  The Lutron Caseta system offers various dimmers and switches for controlling one room or several.

LUXURY

Maybe you want more than just convenience – you want true luxury in your home.  Lutron systems like RadioRA2 and Homeworks QS are designed to control a large number of devices – from 200 to 10,000, making them appropriate for the largest homes.  They include features like customizable keypads, wireless communication, and multiple styles and color options to fit any décor. 

What’s luxury? You can set scenes based on times of day or activities.  Maintain full manual and automatic control of all your lights, individually, in groups or zones, and by room.  Augment the system further with technology like motorized shades and climate control.  You can even set mood lighting coordinated with your music. 

SEE ALSO: 5 Ways A Smart Home Makes Your Life Easier And Better Than Before

1) SMARTER LIGHTS

Managing lighting is more flexible than ever before. Home lighting control systems like those from our partner Lutron offer the convenience and luxury of controlling lights from anywhere you have an Internet connection – like your car or smartphone.  It’s easy to set scenes for moods and activities, coordinate those outside lights with sunrises and sunsets, and turn off lights in rooms that aren’t in use. Don’t forget the safety aspect of lighting control – you can make your home look occupied when it’s not.

2) SMARTER SHADES

Motorized shades that go up and down with a button push have been around for years – but they’re much smarter now.  They can be triggered by sensors that detect a specified level of sunlight, closing them when the heat rises. With our brutal Texas summers, this will make for a more comfortable and energy-efficient home.

Integrated to a home automation system, like that of our partner Savant, the shades, lights, and climate control can be set to your liking for when you leave or arrive home. 

3) SMART ACCESS

Need to give access to a contractor or maintenance person?  Maybe a guest?  You don’t need to leave the key under the door anymore.

See Also: Restaurant and Audio Visual Solutions in Houston, TX

VOICE CONTROL

Voice control is usually thought of as a home luxury. It acts as a personal assistant to accomplish basic tasks around the house. It may, however, be making its way into businesses soon. Here’s how:

• Individual Offices: With voice control devices like the Amazon Echo, it’s easy to adjust the temperature and lights, make notes, ask for an internet search, and make phone calls, all with a simple voice command. No need to take time in switching tasks and risk losing focus.

• Boardroom Control: Let’s say you’re running a boardroom meeting with multiple technology devices like laptops, projectors, lighting control systems, and maybe even more.
  
  With voice control as part of your commercial automation, you can adjust the lights and start your presentation with a simple voice command. Let the technology do the work for you so that you can focus on making a great impression. And imagine the impact when the lights dim and presentation starts at your command!

PROJECTORS AND SCREENS

Your projector and screen setup are likely the foundation of each presentation. The technology has the power to impress and enhance your presentation. But, if it’s not working well, it also can leave your audience sitting around waiting for you to get the setup just right. When that happens, it affects the meeting’s effectiveness and productivity.   

First, find the right screen and projector for the size of your meeting room. Select a projector with enough brightness to be visible regardless of other light entering the room. To accompany it, install a high-contrast screen that will make text and imagery clear so that nobody is struggling to see the presentation.

With commercial automation, you can sync these devices and control them from one source — be it your smartphone, a remote or another touchscreen device.

See Also: 5 Ways A Smart Home Makes Your Life Easier and Better Than Before

First, let’s break down what uses the network and, in turn, affects its performance:

• Multiple TVs streaming music or shows - especially in 4K
• General internet usage (especially video-streaming) on other devices like computers or phones and tablets
• Streaming music and distributing it to various speaker systems
• Any control system: lighting, motorized shades, and security

These are just a few standard examples. As the size of the home increases, the need for a stable network grows with it.

BANDWIDTH

Bandwidth is the amount of data being accessed or used in a moment. Each smart device uses bandwidth when working, and the amount of bandwidth available is directly tied to the strength of the home network.

Imagine that in our earlier example, the client’s music started buffering when the automated shades were activated. If the network doesn’t have enough bandwidth to support a variety of activities and devices, this could easily be the result.

This is why a strong, well-rounded network is essential to a properly-functioning smart home.

Danalock Bluetooth Z-Wave Smart Lock

You’ll never need to stress over overlooking your key again after installing a smart lock. Rapidly and effectively installs, permitting you to open your door by means of smartphone and allow others way in no matter where you are in the world. It’s one of a kind smooth design blends with any home decor style.

Samsung Smart Home Monitoring Kit

Keep your home and family secure with this complete savvy home monitoring kit. Automate the electronics or lights of your home, and monitor who’s going back and forth to setup that takes less than 15 minutes. It monitors smoke and carbon monoxide levels to keep your family protected.

Netatmo Welcome

If you would prefer not to fork out a monthly membership, however, you’re searching for an innovative smart security system, try Netatmo Welcome. It offers you access to your Full HD videos for no extra monthly installment. It also uses face recognizing software to recognize your family as well as friends and immediately alarm you with a still when any burglar is seen in the house.

Nest Cam

The Nest Cam is another indoor Wi-Fi empowered security camera that cautions you when it identifies any movement in your home. This Smart Home gadget records at 1080p and has a 130 degree wide-angle view with the capacity to zoom in, making it incredible for observing huge areas while as yet capturing little points of interest. The Nest Cam sends an alert to your smartphone when it detects any movement or identifies a noise, however, it make sure to ignore background noise.

Canary

Canary packs an entire security system in a smooth box that resembles a router. The box incorporates a camera, acceler ometer sensors, a speaker and siren. At whatever time it spots something strange, you get a warning on your smartphone. If you get an alarm, you can tune into the video sustain straight far from your smartphone, empowering you to check if that it truly is an evening prowler or your dog has set the motion detector off.

Coming to home theater, it is the ultimate source of entertainment for game enthusiasts and movie goers. But that doesn’t mean home theater has made the listening room out of business. Read the differences between home theater and listening room to know why latter is still relevant in former’s dominance.

Components:

More or less, home theater and listening room have same components like audio speakers and players. Home theater comes with big screen lacking by listening room.

Listening room has only a speaker system with an audio player. On the other hand, home theater is equipped with LCD screen, video player, AV receivers and speakers set. Latter has more complicated setting and may be costly than listening room component.

Purpose:

As its name speaks, listening room is only meant for enjoying the music, only music, meaning that no video or other activity. The room may have two audio channels and few sitting arrangement.

On the other hand, home theater can be used for movie watching, playing games and many more things.

Your Home is Safe:

There are CCTVs cameras in your home which let you know the things happening at your property. Plus, the presence of smoke alarms will warn you in case of a fire breakout.

Nowadays, many home security systems are equipped with the features that can detect gas leaks, roof leaks, temperature and even flooding. And these all situations require you to act quickly to avoid the serious hazards.

It simply means these security systems have lowered the emergency chances in your home. As a result, your home will earn the good the appreciation value from the buying party on the basis of safe environment.

Low Insurance Premiums:

An insurance company is likely to lower their rates for the home installed with security systems, as they are safe. Generally, an insurer can offer up to 20% off on the installments, if your home has security cameras and burglary alarms. Needless to tell, a property with cheap insurance rate will attract the buyer soon.

Peace of Mind:

Having a security system in home means you need not be worried for the burglary, fire or water damage and other unpleasant things. Same thing will be enjoyed by the potential home buyer of your property, making him to pay more than the actual value of your home.

In this scenario, you’re willing for the “third” way of movie watching where you can mix up the pros of both these ways (DVD+Online Streaming). That’s why “cloud movie watching” fit in this condition. It means you convert the movies into files and then store them on server, where you can access them to watch or download. As an added bonus, you can watch movies on mobile phones and tablets while on the go. Let’s see how you can build your cloud movie library.

Choose Appropriate Cloud Services for Movies:

Well, there are many dedicated cloud services which let you convert DVDs into digital files which can be stored into their digital library later. Check their storage services and processes of building up your digital movie library. Choose the one which not only keeps the backup of your movies but also sync them on all PCs and devices.

Choose the Right Format:

After selecting the cloud platform, you can check their options to convert the movies into various formats. Make sure you have chosen the format that makes your files easily uploaded to the cloud side. Find a balanced bit rate to meet your need best. Whereas a high bit rate will make the file size bigger and reduce the storage space, file with low bit rate can affect the sound and video quality. MP4 is one of the popular media formats that is not so heavy and keeps the quality of your audio/video intact.

Organize your files

Don’t forget to organize your file amidst the exciting features of a cloud service provider. Name and tag the movies so that you can easily search them when you’ve a large collection in digital library.

So, these are the tips to build a digital library collection to enhance your movie watching experience.

Screen Size:

Choosing the right screen size matters! Know how many people in your family watch T.V at once and where you’re going to place your T.V. set. Though a bigger space will need bigger screen, a golden rule is that you must invest on the bigger T.V. However, for non-conventional T.V. watching areas like bedroom, smaller screen T.V. is better. Also consider the distance of your viewing position, which can be 1.1/2 times than the screen diagonal. For example, you can watch 40 inch screen from the distance of 5 to 8 feet.

(40×2: 80—80 inches means 6.6 feet)

Screen Resolution:

HD, UHD or 4K. Which one you have decided to take home?

The question may make many people puzzled as they don’t know these screen resolution differences.

Well, screen resolution means the sharpness and clarity of the TV picture. The more pixels a T.V. has, the clear picture it will have. A basic T.V set comes with 720 pixels while an HD format supports 1080.

Safety:

One of the greatest home automation benefits is the safety! Your home is equipped with the special cameras and alarming system to help you monitor even from remote location. For example, a smoke alarm rings up when it detects fire or you can watch over your mobile screen who is entering your property.

It Monitors Your Health:

Home automation system plays an important role in health monitoring also. Many dedicated sensors for this purpose are installed to the home to check the health and wellbeing of the elderly, disabled and people with chronic health conditions. Plus, they send the alert to the caregivers an elderly relative doesn’t wake up in a morning, while an Internet-enabled medicine cabinet checks if a patient has taken the medication or not. You can customize them to fulfill you wide range of needs.

It Saves Your Utility Bills:

A continuous surge in electricity bills can be the worry for other homeowners, but not for someone living in a smart home. They save on your monthly utility bills. For example, a smart lighting system has energy efficient bulbs while the automated controls will turn off the lights and appliances when they are not in use. In this way, home automation system helps you save on electricity.

You Can Control When You’re Away:

You can control most of the things in your home when you’re away. For example, you can turn off/on the lights and monitor the security with your smartphone. A smart lock system lets you generate digital keys which you can handover to another person via mail. In other words, you can control your home functions when you are not even there.

It Creates a Wonderful Ambiance:

Whether it’s a dinner party or film watching, smart home creates the environment according to the event. Thanks to the motorized blends and smart lights that create the mood with their automated settings. Blinds roll up and lights turn off when it is morning!

See Also: Here Are 3 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Home Theater Design

WHEN SECURITY IS “SMART”

You probably already know wat a security system can do. Surveillance cameras capture the action. Alarm systems send out signals to neighbors and authorities. Those are fundamental functions of any high-end security system.

But a smart system operates differently. Not only does it do all the same things as a standard system, but each device can talk to the others to ensure even greater safety.

For instance, your surveillance cameras can integrate with your smart lighting to automatically brighten whenever a connected motion sensor detects movement. That way you flood the area with light and capture a well-lit image.

Moreover, your system can operate with a single touch. When you head out of the house, tapping the “away” setting will arm your alarm and integrated locks. But it will also prompt your smart home to start alternating lights and shade movement throughout each room, making the space look occupied.

In this ever advancing digital world, everything has been revolutionized and T.V. watching is no exception. Today, there are many video streaming service providers who are providing the content at much cheaper rates than cable TV. For example, you can get seemingly endless content for a few bucks on any screen. Whether it’s a football match or new series of Game of Thrones, you can watch the video on demand anywhere. On the basis of these loose benefits, one can say streaming is the future of home entertainment.

Let’s see how streaming services are transforming the T.V. watching experience.

Rise of Content Service Providers:

This is the good news for those who are just fed up with the rising cable rates including the hidden charges. It means you have lot of choices to choose from! The growth will also trigger the competition among the provider—which makes the rates go even lower.

You Can Watch Them On the Go:

Whether you’ve smartphone or tablets, you can watch your favorite show or sports, no matter where you are. All you need to download the app of the service provider. So, you don’t need to turn on T.V. every time, when few swaps can do this.

You Don’t Pay for Bundle Pack:

In video streaming services, you pay for what you watch, unlike in cable or satellite TV. As an added bonus, many content providers are giving deals and discounts.

That’s why we offer cutting edge audio video solutions for your restaurant and bars. At Echo Workshop, you find all integrated audio video solutions specially tailored for the restaurants and bars. Our sound systems produce awesome sound quality while our video systems include big screens ensuring a flawless visibility from all points. Let’s see how Echo Workshop Audio Video solutions can set the right mood in your restaurants and bars.

• We provide user-friendly integrated audio and visual system for your hospitality business.
• We deploy the dedicated music servers and devices to be integrated with the smart lighting control that dramatically set the right mood.
• We install HD, LCD panels, and multiple projectors to make your restaurant a hot spot during sports events.
• We offer security solutions for the restaurants and bars, like CCTV for monitoring, alarm system and intercom system.
• We also give training to your staff for the operation of our integrated AV systems.

From wiring to mounting, our services are performed by our experienced and qualified technicians. Like installation, they can train your staff to operate these systems. So, wait no more and make you restaurant atmosphere compelling so that the guest would like to come again and again.

Every AV system that Echo Workshop installs is supported by our competitive price guarantee.

With Relative Home Systems, those in Houston and The Woodlands, are only one touch far from effortlessly working the majority of a home’s smart technology. Whether it’s a new development, a redesign, or a retrofit, connected home is the best solution for your space.

Here in this article, we’ll going to talk about what is connected home? What are the benefits of a connected home?

What Do You Mean by “Connected Home”?

Networking technologies, for example, super quick broadband and wifi imply that a greater amount of the gadgets we use are connected to the internet than any time in recent memory. Also, permitting us to communicate with loved ones, huge numbers of the gadgets communicate with each other to make what’s been named the ‘connected home’ or ‘smart home’.

These gadgets communicate with each other on your home system or by means of Bluetooth, doing things like sharing data, exchanging records and computerized media and giving remote get to and control to household appliances.

What Kind Of Connected Home Devices Are There?

The most well-known connected gadgets are PCs, games consoles and Smart TVs, yet in the course of the most recent couple of years the number and type of connected gadgets has extended to incorporate connected heating system, lights, pots, vacuum cleaners, scales and security cameras.

You Need a Smartphone for That:

You need to pair your smartphone’s Bluetooth with deadbolt to lock or unlock your keys. Just simply tap that deadbolt to open your door. Yeah, it’s pretty cool and handy in the situation when you lose your keys. Plus, it gives you a freedom from carrying the bunch of keys with you.

Send e Keys to Your Near and Dear Ones:

Don’t make your family members and friends wait outside because you’re not at home. Send the eKeys to them via the mobile app so that they can let in. This is the other great benefit of using smart locking system. So, you don’t need to skip office hours or send somebody else to hand over them a key.

It Detects Your Presence:

Let’s accept it, many of us are either locked outside or inside our home accidentally. Instead of screaming or worrying, you can trust your smart locking system. It knows whether you’re outside or inside the home.

Ensures You a High Security:

Burglary is the common threat for all home owners. Any unwelcome guest can easily break into your home, no matter how stronger your lock is. But a smart locking system is the hard nut to crack for them, since it is without any keys. Their mechanism is based on the security protocols deployed in bank system. It means their digital encryption mode can’t be duplicated or broken. In this way, the burglars are unable to pick or bump the system. With smart door locking system, you can decide who can enter your home at what time. It lowers the risk of anything get stolen.

Convenient for Elderly and Physically Impaired People:

Technology has made the living much easier for disabled or elderly people. And smart door locking system is no exception in that! Since it can be opened with smartphone, a senior citizen or disabled don’t have to struggle with keys or go near the door to open it.