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Home Automation

forrest@theinnovative.group
In Custom Install, Design, Home Automation, Home Theater, Speakers, Technology

Why NOW is the Perfect Time for a Home Theater

Why NOW is the Perfect Time for a Home Theater

We are all spending more time at home than ever before. Working from home, schooling from home, getting food delivered to our homes. This makes home entertainment a big priority…especially since local theaters are less and less of an option.

So, what’s the best solution? A Home Theater! 

Its a cinema experience so immersive you won’t ever want to step into a theater again. With total control of the lights, temperature, speakers, and all entertainment gear, your home theater just became a box office hit. There’s nothing like a high performance theater system to make your favorite movies as life-like as possible.

Here’s 3 reasons why you should start your home theater project today:

1

You're Home More Than Ever

Being home more than ever, means how you enjoy entertainment at home is a big priority. With more of a home focus for your lifestyle, its the best time to think about how you consume media content. If you're going to be at home, why not create a space where the cinematic feel of a movie or the roar of the big game can come to life?
2

A Custom Designed Solution

A home theater from Innovative Sight & Sound is a custom designed and integrated solution. That means that whatever your space and budget is, we work to design a home media experience that you will love to enjoy without leaving the house.
3

More Content Available Than Ever

With the prominence of streaming media services from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Disney, HBO and more...there is more content available than ever before in gorgeous 4K HDR picture quality and digital surround sound. And, because of cultural trends, more and more major media players are moving fast to develop and release their own original content for distribution.
forrest@theinnovative.group
In Design, Home Automation, Technology

The Benefits of Motorized Window Treatments

Saving Energy

Motorized shades, when properly integrated with a smart home control system, can help you to save a significant amount of money on your monthly energy bill.  In Southern states such as Florida, and South Carolina, it’s possible to save as much as ten percent.

How does this work exactly?

By closing and opening shades at the appropriate time you can change the rate at which your house stores and releases heat.  During the summer months closing shades during the brightest parts of the day reduces the amount of solar energy entering through your windows.  It also reduces heat transfer through the windows themselves.  This can have a dramatic impact on the internal temperature of your home.  The result is that the air inside the house remains cooler with having to run the air conditioning as often.

In the winter months the shades can trap heat in your home during the night, and open to allow more sunlight in during daylight hours.  The result is a significant energy savings.

Entertainment Purposes

Coastal homes in the Southeast get lots of sunshine.  This is great when you want it, but it can be a nuisance when you’re trying to watch a movie or your favorite TV show.  Integrating your motorized shades or blinds with your home entertainment system means that with the press of a button your TV turns on, the lights go down, and so do the shades.

This helps to reduce glare making your experience more enjoyable.  This is especially important in home theaters where projectors and large screens can be significantly impacted by ambient light.

Wake Up Naturally

So many of us are used to waking up with an alarm clock.  But our bodies are naturally designed to awaken with the appearance of daylight.  An automated home can raise your shades at sunrise, or any time of your choosing.  This means you can ditch the alarm clock and wake up the way nature intended.

Increase Your Home’s Security

Motorized blinds can be programmed to operate as though you are home, even when you’re on vacation or out of town on business.  This can be a powerful deterrent to burglars looking for easy prey.  Further integrating your shades and lighting system makes it even more convincing.  Your home will emulate your routine even though you may be 1,000 miles away.

Enhance Privacy

Lot’s of windows are great when you want to look out and see the beach.  But what about when you would like more privacy?  Those same windows offer strangers and neighbors a view right into your home.  With an automated shading solution you can press a single button and create a more private space for you and your family.

If you’d like to learn more about how motorized shades and blinds can enhance your lifestyle, contact us today.

forrest@theinnovative.group
In Custom Install, Design, Home Automation, Technology

5 Ways Home Automation Can Reduce Energy Costs

Smart Home Control and Security

The convenience of home technologies such as interior lighting control, motorized window shades, and other such innovations is obvious. What we’ve found over the years, however, is that many people aren’t aware of just how easy it is to save money by installing these products.

Intelligently designed home automation systems can help lower your home’s energy consumption, thus reducing your household expenses and your carbon footprint. There are several key ways in which lighting control, motorized shades, and other technologies can help you to save money.

Motorized Shades Help Reduce Heating and Cooling Costs

By automatically regulating the amount of heat which is able to enter and escape from your house, through the use of motorized shades, you can dramatically reduce your heating and air conditioning bills throughout the year.

Normally, changing shades on up to fifteen windows or more throughout the average two-story house, several times per day, would be a chore… and if you want it done while you’re not around, it would literally require someone coming to your house to do it for you.

Motorized shades remove the hassle, allowing you to program a series of actions in advance – or to remotely adjust your shades individually, from anywhere in the world if you like. Keeping your home cool has never been easier or more efficient.  When properly integrated into a smart home system, motorized shades can help keep your house several degrees warmer or cooler than normal, towards your advantage, and all while saving money on heat and AC.

Automated Climate Control Monitors Your Activity

Climate control – the heating and cooling of your house – can be automated, even on a room-by-room basis. Heating and cooling can be turned on and off, or raised and lowered as needed, depending upon whether or not there is activity within a room.  If there’s nobody around, why pay to heat or cool empty rooms?

This type automation is the hallmark of the equipment offered by Control4 and Savant. Over the course of months, the simple savings accumulated through the addition of automated climate control can add up to a significant amount of money.  Combined with other aspects of an automated home, this functionality can have  a significant impact on your overall energy usage.

Reduce Power Usage through Lighting Control

How many times have you climbed into bed only to realize you left a light on in another room? With lighting control you don’t have to get up to go turn it off.  It’s as simple as pressing a single button to turn off all the lights in your house.

You can program settings in advance, or use a mobile device to change your house’s lighting mode from anywhere in the world. Lights can be automatically dimmed, or programmed to turn off at key times of the day – such as when you’re going to bed. The need to remember to turn off the lights after leaving a room – a particular concern in a house with children – is gone; now, you can do that from anywhere. All of this combines to significant savings on your electric bill.

Reduce Phantom Energy Use

The term “phantom energy” is an increasingly common one. It refers to the power drain through appliances which are left in “energy friendly” modes, idling or dormant. The term “energy friendly” is something of a misnomer, since it refers to a mode in which the appliance – such as a computer, or a television set – isn’t actually serving any purpose, but is still drawing power.

Many appliances draw a surprising amount of power, even while they’re turned off: on average, this represents up to ten percent of your monthly electric bill. Traditionally, the only solution to this is to unplug appliances while they’re not in use – right down to your microwave, and your washing machine. Now there are devices that can tie into your energy management system allowing you to negate these appliances’ “standby” modes in a much more convenient fashion.

Integrate Energy Management Systems for Personal Monitoring

Energy management systems, such as solar panels, can be integrated into your smart home system as well.  This allows you to monitor electrical production, usage, and even chedule functions which draw the most power accordingly.

Much of this can even be handled automatically, allowing you to augment the savings provided by your solar panels – without having to worry about changing settings manually from one day to the next.

forrest@theinnovative.group
In Custom Install, Design, Home Automation, Technology

5 Ways Lighting Control Can Enhance Your Home

Modern home automation has produced innovations which were a pipe dream a mere ten years ago, but which have rapidly gained in popularity..

Through mobile internet connectivity and local device networking, you can control everything from your lights to your motorized window shades at the touch of a button.

But aside from the convenience and the “gadget factor,” a lighting control system can offer significant enhancements to the safety, energy efficiency, and overall look of your home.

Highlight Architectural Details and Art

A great deal of time and money goes into the design and construction of your living space. Many modern homes feature innovative architectural designs as well as important pieces of art. Light allows you to call attention to these important features and pieces.

The creation of “scenes” within an automated lighting system allows you to do just that. With the push of a button, you can activate preset lighting levels for a single room or your entire house. Popular choices include scenes for daytime, evening, and entertainment, but the options are unlimited.

Light plays an extremely important role in setting mood and ambiance. A lighting system allows you to do this both quickly and easily

Time Savings

Lighting systems offer a great many practical applications. Perhaps you’re used to walking around your home, turning lights on and off as you go. But imagine if your home could sense when a room was in use and adjust the lighting accordingly. Not only does this provide convenience, but consider the potential for energy savings.

How often have you forgotten to turn off a light upon leaving a room, leaving it on for hours? Or perhaps it’s time for bed. Many of us are used to walking around the house turning off all of the lights. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Automated lighting systems allow you to press one button on a keypad next to your bed and turn all the lights off in the entire house.

Ease of Use

It’s a small nuisance, but it’s one that occurs over and over again. Our keypads are clearly labeled and illuminated so you can tell which button to press whether it’s light or dark. One button illuminates the entire room.

Through the use of a home remote, such as that offered by companies such as Control4 further enhances your level of control. You can adjust individual lights one at a time as needed – without having to get up out of your comfortable chair.

Enhanced Security & Safety

This is one of the most popular inquiries made with regards to home automation, and yes – you can tie it into your home security system. In fact, the technology behind home automation arose from that which has been in use in remotely monitored home security systems for decades. There are a variety of popular functions available, such as turning on your home’s exterior lighting in the event that an alarm is tripped.

Your Home Works While You’re on Vacation

A “Vacation Mode” setting allows you to set multiple processes to run automatically according to a schedule, while you are out of town.

Once in vacation mode your home will turn lights on and off, shades can be raised and lowered, all to give the impression that the home is occupied. In addition to a home security system and cameras, lighting can offer a powerful deterrent to burglars while you are thousands of miles from home.

If you’d like to learn more about automating your living space with a lighting system, contact us to set up a demonstration at any of our four offices around the Southeast.

forrest@theinnovative.group
In Custom Install, Design, Home Automation, Technology

Practical Applications of a Lighting Control System

Custom Lighting Keypad

One of the most powerful components of a fully “automated” home is the lighting system.  Automated lighting not only enhances the look of your home, it can also contribute to considerable energy savings over time.  Let’s take a look at a few of the more practical applications of today’s automated lighting solutions.

Automated Lighting Keypad

Long Term Energy Savings

Lighting typically makes up 10% of a homes overall energy expenditure.  A home automation system with integrated lighting contributes to long-term energy cost-savings.  This is done by automatically reducing or eliminating lighting loads in rooms that are no longer in use.  Through the use of occupancy sensors, heat sensors, and light level sensors a system can instantly respond to it’s environment and adjust light levels accordingly.

What does this mean?

Perhaps your children often leave lights on when leaving a room.  A lighting control system will detect this and turn the lights off after a pre-programmed amount of time.

The average American household incurs 18% of their energy costs from air conditioning.  A lighting system can also be integrated with motorized shades and blinds.  This is one of the fastest ways to realize significant energy cost savings.  Sensors in a room can detect sunlight and lower blinds to reduce the load on your cooling system.  This is especially important in coastal areas where bright sunlight and lots of windows contributes to high energy consumption during the hotter months of the year.

Enhancing The Look of Your Home

Traditional lighting systems are either “all on” or “all off”.  The use of dials or rheostats allows for some additional control, but require manual adjustment every time you turn on the lights.

A lighting system allows each button on a keypad to be pre-programmed for a specific function.  All you do is press a button, but behind the scenes light levels are precisely controlled to best accent the features of the room.  This might mean highlighting a specific piece of art, using up-lighting to create a dramatic effect, or lowering the lights for watching your favorite movie.

In addition to the enhanced control, lighting keypads reduce wall clutter.  Multiple switches are consolidated into one keypad that is clearly labeled and backlit for easy use.  No more searching for the right switch each time you enter a room.  Simply press the “on” button and walk away.

At Innovative Sight & Sound we can help you choose the right lighting solution for your home.  Through design and program we can ensure you get the maximum benefit from an aesthetic point of view.

Enhanced Security

Integrating your lighting system with your home’s alarm system can significantly enhance it’s effectiveness in several ways.

When an alarm is triggered the lights in your home can be programmed to flash on and off.  This attracts attention and reduces the odds that an intruder will enter your home.  Since most of us have grown accustomed to loud alarm sirens, anything you can do to draw additional attention to your home makes for a powerful deterrent.

This same solution can also increase your family’s safety in case of a fire.  When smoke or fire is detected the system can automatically turn on specific lights creating a path to the fastest escape route for you and your children.

You can also use a key fob to turn on lights before you even enter the home.  No more entering in complete darkness.

At Innovative Sight & Sound we are proud to offer lighting products from both Control4 and Lutron.

forrest@theinnovative.group
In Custom Install, Home Automation

Choosing an Automated Lighting System

Control4 Touch Panel

Whether you are building a new home or remodeling your existing, lighting should be a part of the equation. While you may tend to be more focused on audio and video if you enjoy movies and music, it’s important to consider all your options when it comes to installing a smart home automation system—this is especially true of lighting.

A home with automated lights should be easy to use, intuitive, and offer a host of benefits. Here are a few options from Lutron, one of the biggest manufacturers of automated lighting products in the world. They pioneered lighting controls decades ago and to this day continue to bring technology and innovation to homes and businesses around the world.

SEE ALSO: Practical Applications of a Home Lighting System

Caseta Wireless Products

Caseta Wireless products don’t require the installation of new wiring in your home. It’s the quickest automated lighting solution in both new and existing homes. It operates with energy-efficient, dimmable light bulbs and can control both in-wall and in-ceiling lights. There is also a plug-in lamp dimmer control module. This allows you to control every type of light in the house.

The Pico Remote Control, or Lutron App, you can turn all the lights off from anywhere in the house (or outside the house for that matter), adjust the lights and shades at any time during the day while you’re at work, and then from your car while you’re traveling or on the way home. This means you never have to come home to a dark house.

One of the more recent innovations is that Caseta Wireless works with Apple HomeKit so you can control the lights through voice command via Siri on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.

For Android devices, the Lutron App can downloaded from Google Play. You can even take this system to the next level by integrating Lutron’s shading system for even more energy savings.

Ready to Get Started?  CONTACT US

Additional Features

One of the biggest benefits of an automated lighting system is that it can be customized to suit your particular lifestyle. Keypads can reflect the exact scenes you want for each room. In the home theater for example, the buttons might say “Movie” “Intermission”, “All Off”, or “Reading”. Touch “Movie” and the lights will dim so that there is no light to wash out the image on the screen. “Reading” might leave some spot lights above the chairs on so your wife can read while you watch the game.

Keeping it clean and simple, the Grafik T dimmer enables you to swipe your finger along an LED strip to raise and lower the lighting level in a particular room. Tap the strip and all the lights will cycle between on or off.

You can even take your Lutron lighting system a step further by installing occupancy/vacancy sensors which automatically detect your presence and turn the lights on accordingly. As soon as you leave, the system turns them off so you’re not wasting money and energy on an empty room.

forrest@theinnovative.group
In Home Automation, Home Theater, Project Spotlight

Home Automation & Home Theater In Rosemary Beach

Alys Beach Sonos Soundbar

Smart Home and Surround Sound Installation

This project in Rosemary Beach, FL utilized many of our preferred technologies.  It is ideal for showcasing how audio video equipment can be hidden to minimize it’s impact on the decor of the home.

Audio Video Details

Invisible speakers from Stealth Technologies were used throughout the house.  These in-wall speakers are installed during the drywall phase of the project to ensure they blend seamlessly with the rest of the wall.  They are then painted to become completely invisible.

Artwork was used to hide the TV in the living room home theater system.  When not in use it is completely hidden behind a painting.   A Sonos wireless Sound Bar mounted below the TV provides high quality audio and takes up very little space.  Sources include Apple TV, HD Cable, and online music sources such as Pandora and Rhapsody.

This same setup is utilized throughout the house allowing each TV access to music, HD cable, and movies from sources such as Netflix and Hulu.

Home Automation Details

Control4 home automation products were used throughout this installation.  Audio video, lighting control, automated shades, and the climate control system are all seamlessly integrated into touch screen controls.

Lighting keypads were used throughout the house to cut down on the amount of wall clutter.  All the lights in each room can be turned on or off using one button press.  These same keypads also control automated shades and blinds allowing the homeowner quick and efficient control over lighting levels and privacy.

This lighting system also allows the entire home to be turned on or off with the press of a single button.

All of the climate zones of the house can monitored and set from any of the touch screens or smart phone devices.  This allows the homeowners to turn the AC on or off from inside or outside of the house.  This is ideal in a vacation home as you can make sure the house is cooled before you or your guests arrive.  It also allows you to turn the system off remotely in case this wasn’t done before leaving.

forrest@theinnovative.group
In Home Automation

Control4’s New EA Series of Automation Processors

Control4 has been a force in the home automation industry for over a decade now.  They were one of the first company’s to approach the industry with a view of driving down costs of equipment and installation time.  Before their entry into the market many home automation systems were EXTREMELY expensive, highly proprietary, and difficult to program.

10 years later they are continuing to innovate with EA series of processors.  These new processors are designed to increase overall system performance with additional processing power.  But they include some additional features that we’ll dive into as well.

The Control4 EA Series

Built with substantial processing power to ensure a highly responsive smart home experience that is both scalable and upgradable, the EA series of processors include three different models from which to chose.

>The EA-1

For those just stepping into home automation there is the EA-1 which is designed for single-room control.  Included with the EA-1 is the SR-260 remote.  This system is designed to automate everything in a typical home theater or family entertainment room.

This processor is the ideal starting point for complete room control.  It is capable of handling over 9,500 connected products including sources like Blu-ray players, satellite or cable TV boxes, gaming consoles, TVs and any other product that allows for infrared control.

It also features IP (internet protocol) control for web-enabled devices like Roku, Apple TV, and more.  The unit wirelessly communicates with other more common automation equipment such as lights, thermostats, automated locks, and more.

>The EA-3

The EA-3 is a step up from the EA-1 and integrates high-performance audio into it’s structure.  This includes three audio outputs for distributing up to three simultaneous audio streams from music sources.  One HDMI, one stereo analog, and one digital coax output.

It also features an integrated music server with built in functionality for Pandora, Rhapsody, Tidal, and TuneIn.

This unit is ideally suited for mid-sized systems.  It integrates fully with other Control4 home automation products including lighting, HVAC, security and more.

You can see it’s full spec sheet here.

>The EA-5

The EA-5 is the top of the line processor designed for the largest home automation systems allowing for integration and control of hundreds of devices.  This includes an advanced must-core processor that provides instantaneous control and feedback of all your smart home devices.

As with the EA-3, it also includes on-board high-resolution audio capabilities using high quality DACs (digital to analog converters).  The integrated music server works with Pandora, TIDAL, Deezer, TuneIn, and Rhapsody.

Designed from the ground up to offer the ultimate automation experience, the EA-5 has abundant processing power and can concurrently control hundreds of automated devices.  It simultaneously allows for browsing robust music libraries, distributing high-quality audio, and controlling a multitude of devices through even the largest homes.

It can manage sophisticated interior and exterior lighting control, integrate security and communications systems, and control the climate in multiple rooms.

Click here for the EA-5 spec sheet.

Smart Home Controller Cost

The Control4 EA-1 Bundle with Control4 SR-260 remote retails for $600.  The  EA-3 controller retails for $1000, and the EA-5  comes in at $2000.  These prices do not include installation. All three come with the latest Control4 Operating System 2.8.1, and are compatible with Android and iOS mobile devices including the Apple Watch.  They are backed by Control4’s standard 2-year warranty.

If you’re looking to step into your first home automation system, Control4 provides lots of options for getting started.  And as we’ve highlighted before, they are considered the best home automation system out there.