Welcome to Our Smart Home Technology Blog

Getting started with smart home technology is incredibly exciting. You get to pick out devices and solutions that will make your home more beautiful, energy-efficient, secure, and comfortable! But before you start picking out the fabrics for your motorized shades, ask yourself this question: “Is my home ready for smart home automation?”

Many homeowners throughout the Prosper, Texas area don’t realize that standard electrical wiring may not cut it for advanced automation technology. Even new construction doesn’t typically come with wiring suitable for reliably operating smart technology.

But don’t despair! There’s a simple solution in the form of prewiring services. Below, we answer the most common questions that homeowners have about prewiring. 

What is Prewiring?

Many smart home contractors (including DeVance Electronic Lifestyle) offer prewiring services that ensure your home has everything it needs to support all of its smart devices—both now and in the future as technology gets more advanced. Typically, these services include an initial assessment to get an idea of the quality of your home’s wiring. Based on that information, we may run new wires that are capable of handling whatever your smart devices need!

Why is Prewiring Necessary?

Standard wiring in homes often doesn’t go beyond AC power lines, TV cables, and maybe some phone lines. However, the majority of smart home devices operate using low voltage cabling. If your home is wired with the right types of cables, the sky is the limit for what you can automate!

The modern boardroom is about more than just conducting meetings. It’s about collaborating with people all over the world, closing deals with key clients, and making strategic plans that could impact the company for years to come. If you’re relying on outdated or insufficient technology, you’re hindering your company’s ability to operate at peak efficiency and effectiveness.

Below, we cover the five technologies that are absolutely essential if you want a boardroom automation system that is reliable and capable of meeting all the needs of your Dallas, Texas area business.

SEE ALSO: 5 Commercial Audio Video Trends for 2017

1. High-End Sound System

Stop struggling to hear remote team members through weak, poorly placed speakers. A boardroom should utilize sound equipment that provides crisp, pure audio throughout the room. Brands such as Mark Levinson and Revel are a safe bet. These hi-fi audio systems are the product of decades of superior design and engineering. Your boardroom automation installer can strategically place the sound equipment and speakers so that you get perfect sound without any cords or devices cluttering up the room.

2. Lighting and Shading Control

Window shades or overhead lights aren’t typically what you might think about for boardroom technologies, but they should be. After all, the lighting in a room ties directly into the quality of your visual displays—too much lighting can wash out the imagery, but you still need a well-lit room to conduct meetings.

The new year is just around the corner, and savvy Dallas business owners have started to consider what improvements they want to make in 2017. While many of these planning sessions focus on increasing operational efficiency, you might want to consider an alternative approach: improving the customer experience. Whether you’re running a restaurant, a retail store, or a car dealership, creating the right atmosphere for a relaxed and happy customer is a key component of business success.

So how do you do that? There are many different ways, but some technologies are rising to the top. Below, we cover five great commercial audio video trends that we predict will hit it big in 2017. 

SEE ALSO: 3 REASONS TO UPGRADE YOUR COMMERCIAL AUDIO / VIDEO SYSTEM

1. Interactive Displays

Waiting in lobbies isn’t fun for anyone, but technology can help make the time go by faster. Interactive displays use motion or touch technology to allow guests to manipulate what’s on the screen. These customizable screens could be as simple as ambient art that reacts to hand motions or a trivia game that gives points for selecting the right answer. Restaurant patrons waiting for a table, children waiting for a dentist appointment, or key clients waiting for a business presentation—interactive displays can help all of them have a more enjoyable experience.

2. Serve Yourself Technologies

People know what they want better than any waiter or customer service representative could, so why not let them control the service experience? This “do it yourself” automation technology started out as a way for businesses to save money on staffing costs, but it turns out that customers actually prefer this approach. Common applications are ordering kiosks at restaurants or price check scanners at retail stores. You’re essentially giving your clients instant gratification. There are no delays or miscommunication—just an intuitive screen that provides simple options for your clients to choose from.

Getting that perfect gift for friends and family is a challenge. If you’re at a loss for what gifts to buy this holiday season, we’re here to help. As Southlake, Texas’ smart home automation experts, we stay on top of the latest trends in tech devices. This gift buying guide covers the best smart tech for both current smart home owners and people considering upgrading their homes.

For Current Smart Home Owners

If the person you’re trying to buy for already has a smart home, then they’ve probably already got a full set of gadgets and controls for every room. But don’t fret! Unless their smart home system was installed very recently, there’s one component they probably don’t have yet: voice control. Amazon Echo and Echo Dot are small devices that are easy to add to existing smart home systems, allowing you to control your home using just your voice!

In addition to asking Alexa’s normal capabilities, you can use the voice-controlled interface to initiate different smart home “scenes” that have saved settings for the best lighting, music, temperature, etc. for any given activity. For example, as you leave home each morning, just say “Alexa, turn on ‘Away.’” In response, your home’s lights will turn off, the shades will close, the music will stop, and your smart security system will lock the doors and turn on the alarm.

SEE ALSO: Explore What It Means to Live with Smart Home Automation

For Homeowners Just Getting Started

As wonderful as a full smart home automation system is, you don’t need all the bells and whistles right off the bat. To help friends and family dip their toes into the convenience and comfort that smart technology has to offer, consider getting an individual device that works great on its own but can also become part of a full automation system in the future. In addition to Amazon Echo, here are some other great devices: