Welcome to Our Smart Home Technology Blog

An effective and reliable smart home automation solution has a lot of pieces and parts all working together to add convenience and comfort to your home. One often overlooked aspect of this complex system is the home network. In this blog, we discuss three aspects of home networking that are vitally important for ensuring your smart home operates smoothly, whether you’re in Highland Park or another Texas area.

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

Speed

The speed of your home network is directly tied to the speed of your devices. Each piece of equipment might say it can reach lightning fast speeds, but if your network is throttling your bandwidth, your smart home automation system will never operate at full performance.  DeVance can optimize your home network and remove the obstacles that are causing network throttling. By streamlining your home network, your devices will be able to reach their full speed capabilities.

Reliability

When you’re streaming television shows on Netflix or watching a movie in your dedicated home theater, you’ll be able to enjoy the entire show without any lagging or delays in audio or video. However, 4K streaming requires a lot of bandwidth, and your network simply may not be up to the task.  Often, the source of video lagging during streaming is a lack of strong Wi-Fi. DeVance can install wireless access points at strategic locations throughout your home to ensure that each smart device has a strong and reliable Internet connection.

Scalability

Your home network needs to be ready not only for today’s technology, but also for tomorrow’s. You don’t want to be one step behind the latest smart home automation technology simply because your home network isn’t capable of supporting more devices. Using the latest standards and advances in home networking technology will ensure that whenever you want to upgrade your smart home automation system, your network won’t hold you back.

Some people may describe their company’s conference room technology as “practically stuck in the stone ages.” That’s a problem. Even if your system isn’t that old, commercial audio/video technologies have come a long way in recent years, and an outdated system could negatively impact your Dallas, Texas business. Fortunately, there are many new and innovative technologies available for businesses that make using conference room AV easy and effective. Below, we’ve covered the three main ways that a commercial AV upgrade can add value to your business.

Save Time
How much time do your employees waste fumbling around with the conference AV system, trying to set up a presentation or connect to a teleconference? If it’s more than a few minutes, there’s definitely room for improvement. Modern commercial AV systems are designed to be user-friendly and simple to start, so your employees know exactly what to do with minimal training and no guesswork.

Commercial automation integrates all the audio and video components within your boardroom into one simple control system. Want to lower the screen, turn on the projector, dim the lights, and turn on the speakers? That can all happen with one press of a touchscreen. There’s really no comparison when it comes to time savings for conference room automation vs. manual operation methods.

Increase Reliability
There are few things more frustrating than getting ready to start a presentation with an important prospect only to have your AV equipment fail you at the last minute. In today’s fast-paced and demanding business environment, you need a commercial audio/video system that will always offer crisp, clear audio and video. The streamlined approach to operating your commercial automation system ensures that you’ll never accidentally exit out of a video conference or struggle with finding the right controller to adjust the audio. The result is a conference room system that functions exactly as it should, every time you need it.

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What does your conference room technology say about your company? If you want it to say that you are cutting edge and innovative, commercial automation is the way to go. An outdated and inefficient AV system can be off-putting to potential clients, while an AV system that has your presentation instantly start at the push of a button can impress those clients and assure them that your company has a good handle on things.

You may wonder what the term whole house audio/video actually means. Is it any different than simply placing an audio system in every room? We would like to educate you on all of the features and benefits of multi-room music and whole house video in part one of this series on our blog. Not only do we have a lot of options to offer you based on personal preferences, style, and budget, but we can install our audio systems in older and new homes in University Park, Texas. Keep reading to learn more. 

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

Keep Equipment and Wires Hidden From View

Since 1996, the sound engineers at Revel by Harman have been creating cutting-edge audio products for homes around the world. The science of sound is at the heart of this company, and it shows in their multi-room systems. Their in-ceiling speakers are discreet so that you don’t notice them or see wires, and they sound incredible. The truth is that in-ceiling speakers do sound better than ones that are completely invisible. The reason for that is that the sound waves aren’t hindered by drywall or paint. However, if you absolutely do want your speakers to be completely hidden from view, we can install some models from high-quality manufacturers, and good sound will still be produced. One of the biggest benefits of our sound systems is that they won’t clutter up your home, and they will add value to your property. They’re in the walls and out of the way, making your home look gorgeous and sound beautiful too. CD players and amplifiers can be tucked away in an A/V closet and send their content to the various speakers throughout your home. You have immediate access to it all, including digital media stored on a cloud or server, from your touchpad, tablet or smartphone.

Connect Every Speaker

With no design limitations, you can scatter speakers throughout your home. This allows you to build distinct sound zones so each member of the family gets the most out of their favorite entertainment without disrupting others. Groups of speakers are called “zones” – meaning that you can play different songs on different groups of speakers. So for example, if you and your husband want to listen to your favorite artist at the same time while he is in the living room and you are in the kitchen, you can play the same track on the 10 speakers in those areas. We can group bedroom speakers together, outdoor ones together, or any way you like. Are you having a big house party? Play some fun tunes on all of the speakers throughout your house so that as people move around they hear evenly distributed audio in every corner – inside and out.

Expand Your Music Library

What makes a whole house audio system different, besides being able to connect all of your speakers and install them in the walls, is being able to play music from a variety of different sources. You won’t be limited at all because you can play your own music collection via mp3 players or CDs and stream music online too. Pandora, Tidal, Spotify, and XM Sirius radio are just a few channels you have access to with a strong home network. You’ll be able to open an app on your smartphone, tablet, or touch panel and pick a station or playlist, then stream the music to any location. The user interface is simple and easy to follow, and even displays beautiful album cover art as it plays. Playing music at home has never been easier, and expanding your library has never been so affordable.

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