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You may wonder with so many cool and beneficial smart home features, why invest in adding lighting and shading control? The truth is that automating your lights and shades has a lot of benefits, namely saving energy, time, money, and increasing home security. Making this long-term investment will not only add value to your home, but it will make your everyday life easier and more enjoyable. You’ll find that using smart lighting and shading is not just a luxury, but a smart choice when it comes to updating your home in Highland Park, Texas or anywhere you live in or travel to in the world.

SEE ALSO: Explore What it Means to Live With Smart Home Automation

1. Go Green by Adding These Energy-Saving Solutions

While installing smart lighting alone will save you a lot of energy – mainly because most of the electricity you use is spent on lighting – coordinating your lights and shades together will give you the most energy savings. Firstly, shades take the pressure off your HVAC system because blocking UV rays with solar shades will naturally cool the home. When it’s cold outside, you can also leave the shades open to let the sunlight warm your rooms. As soon as your shades go down at noon when the sun is high, your lights will turn on to a mid-level. Dimmers allow you to adjust lighting levels any time of day and still save energy. Our lighting partner, Lutron, recommends dimming lights down 30 percent, which will reduce overall energy use by 20 percent. Since our systems are customizable, the DeVance team can create a climate control system that saves you the most energy.

2. Enjoy the Convenience of Wireless Controls

Lighting and shading control is often considered a must-have aspect of any smart home because of how much convenience it adds to your lifestyle at home. If you’re considering adding lighting and shading control to your Texas residence, it can be tough to know how to get started. Keep reading to learn the main aspects of lighting and shading control so that you can start taking advantage of its benefits in your University Park or other Dallas area home.

SEE ALSO: Top 3 Benefits of Lighting and Shading Control

Choose Your Brand

When it comes to lighting and shading control brands, two companies stand out far above the rest: Lutron and Crestron. Some control systems only control lighting or shading, not both, which can make the system more complicated. That’s not the case with Lutron and Crestron. The great thing about Lutron and Crestron is that they both provide so many different options: roller shades, wireless dimmers, skylight shades, touchscreen controls, and more.

From the same company, you can get everything you need for a complete solution. And beyond the technical aspects of the control system, Lutron and Crestron also offer window treatment design elements. You can look through their extensive collection of different fabric types, colors, and patterns to find the best options to match your home’s décor.

Pick Your Locations

The types of lighting and shades you choose will depend greatly on where you put them. It’s important to get the right lighting and shading materials for your lifestyle and the purpose of each room – blackout shades for a media room, but transparent shades that simply reduce the sunlight glare will serve the client better in rooms with a gorgeous view. After you decide which rooms you want to have lighting and shading control in, a DeVance Electronic Lifestyle expert will be there to offer advice and guidance on selecting the best materials for each space—considering everything from what the ideal fabric type would be to reduce UV damage to furniture on through to the final selection of light fixtures to accentuate your artwork.

· Enhance Convenience - DeVance Electronic Lifestyle can program “scenes” to set the ideal levels of lighting throughout your home and automate your window shades for privacy and ambient lighting control. For example, pressing the “Goodnight” scene button on a keypad, smart phone, or tablet might turn off all the lights in the home except a bedside table lamp and lower all the privacy shades as well as the blackout shades in the bedrooms, creating the perfect environment for safely going to bed. Another "party" scene button may set the lights throughout the family room, kitchen, and patio areas to a mid-level while setting the shades in these areas halfway down so you can create a fun and relaxed environment perfect for entertaining. Whether you are out of town or just outside on the patio, you will be able to control all these applications with one simple touch, anytime, anywhere.· Aesthetics - Complete the stylish look of your Highland Park, TX home with beautiful architectural and designer keypad styles, a variety of options for keypad button configurations to suit your needs, with faceplates available in an assortment of colors, finishes, and materials to coordinate with any decor. DeVance works with both Lutron and Crestron products which offer an extensive collection of wireless dimmers, keypads, touchscreens, and a great selection of design options for shades and custom drapery controls as well.