The holidays can be both the most enjoyable and stressful times of the year. Whether you are hosting parties or attending them, these next few months can get quite hectic. But thankfully, smart home automation can help keep you organized and relaxed as you prepare. As a Control4 dealer in the Lake Norman, NC area, The Integrated Home has the advantage of customizing your home exactly as you like it. Once all of the home technology is in place, the only thing left to do is figure out how to use it to your advantage on a regular basis. Today we have some tips on how to use your Control4 system to enhance your holiday meal preparation, or entertain guests.

SEE ALSO: Partner with a Control4 Dealer to Build or Renovate Your New Home

Customize Your Kitchen Lighting

If you’re on turkey duty for Thanksgiving, or baking cookies for Christmas or Hanukah, then you definitely need a well-lit and equipped kitchen. A common problem for many homes is that the lighting isn’t evenly distributed. The lights are either placed in inconvenient areas causing some areas to be brighter than others, or the lighting fixtures aren’t capable of producing the type of lighting you need to see well. With Control4 lighting, you’ll not only get an even distribution of light, but you’ll also be able to control the lighting levels and quality by choosing LEDs over standard bulbs for example. You can also create “kitchen” or “cooking” scenes with your smart home system so that every feature in the kitchen creates an environment conducive to making a good meal. You can include music, a TV, or temperature in your scene so that all you have to do is press one button on your tablet, phone, or keypad on the wall and you’re ready to get working. For example, label your scene, “cooking” and pick a comfortable temperature so that the area doesn’t get overheated while the oven and stove top is going, a festive music playlist to get you in the mood, and then play the Food Network Channel so you can watch what the chef is going as you make your dish.

Automate Your Entertainment

Some people like to shop on Black Friday so they can snatch up those amazing deals, while others avoid the stores like the plague because of the massive crowds. For the families who want to avoid the lines, there’s always Cyber Monday. But if you are a techie and want the best home theater products or smart home automation gadgets, you may be hard-pressed to find what you are looking for – even online. Sometimes retail stores make price cuts on those hot items, but most of the time they are trying to get rid of older TV models or less-than stellar tablets. But if you want only the highest-quality products and trustworthy brands, come to The Integrated Home in the Lake Norman, North Carolina area. You’ll never be disappointed with your purchase or wonder if there was a better item out there. We have exclusive partnerships with the best brands in the audio/video business—so you’ll never find them at the shop around the corner. Keep reading to see our list of the best products you won’t find on November 25th.

SEE ALSO: Enjoy Hands-free Automation with Amazon’s Alexa

Lutron Shades: Perhaps you want to spruce up your home with new décor accents, but you also want the convenience of living in a connected home. Instead of buying those discounted curtains, invest in motorized shades by Lutron. Why? Lutron is the number-one trusted brand for lighting and shading products. As a matter of fact, their founder invented the dimmer. With Lutron shades, you’ll be able to lift and lower your window coverings using a remote, mobile app, or keypad on the wall. You also won’t have to sacrifice style since they offer hundreds of styles and fabric selections.

Screen Innovations: Have you ever bought a flat-screen TV, brought it home and then were disappointed by the performance? Or maybe it just didn’t fit the room just right. Screen Innovations has beautiful screens for your living room that beat many TVs on the market. Their Black Diamond model displays vivid picture in broad daylight, without glare. You can leave your windows open on a sunny afternoon and watch a movie or football game in crystal clear picture. When you work with The Integrated Home, you also have the option of hiding your home theater system. We can add a motorized lift to conceal your screen so that it’s displayed only when you use it.

Control4 Remote: There are so many universal remotes at retail stores, but they can’t reliably control your entire smart home. You need a professional integrator to make this possible. Control4 has a smart hand-held remote that can change the temperature, lighting, shading, security, and of course the TV channel. Wouldn’t it be great if you could dim the lights in the living room and turn the channel at the same time? With this exclusive control device you can.

What makes a smart home run perfectly? While there are many factors to installing a quality smart home system, there is one essential aspect that is often overlooked – the network. The wireless internet connection is the backbone of your smart home. The reality is you need high-quality equipment and a network professional to fully enjoy all of the amazing features of your smart home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Continue reading this article to discover what services we offer to guarantee a perfect smart home operation.

SEE ALSO:  Reasons to Consider a Wireless Networking Professional

The Secret to a Smarter Home

The reality is that you can buy thousands of dollars’ worth of high-end equipment and the performance of the devices will still only be as good as the network. Would you purchase a Ferrari and fill it up with regular fuel? But that's what you do when you use the modem and router supplied by your local Internet Service Provider or electronic store instead of hiring a professional integrator.

The network is the foundation of your smart home, so you must invest in the best wired/wireless networking solutions to support all of the connected devices you own. A poor network will result in interruptions while you’re watching shows on Netflix or Hulu, slow download speeds, and unreliable smart home performance. An enterprise-grade network is the secret to a good smart home.

Our Networking Services

The Integrated Home uses high-quality, enterprise-grade Wi-Fi technology to support the smart homes we install throughout North Carolina. The following is an in-depth summary of the steps we take to ensure your home network is robust and reliable.

Being “green” isn’t only about saving the environment; it’s also about using your smart home wisely and enhancing your day-to-day life. But it may be confusing for homeowners to understand which settings to use to save electricity effectively. With so many controls, it can be overwhelming to choose the right scenes that will give you the most benefits. Today we are going to explain three easy ways to use your energy management system in Charlotte, NC. 

SEE ALSO: 7 Ways to Make Your Home Green

Create a Green Scene

When activated, a green scene will put the entire house in an energy-savings mode. This is sort of a catch-all solution to reducing energy output. The lights will dim 50%, your solar shades will roll down, certain high-power devices will shut off, and the thermostat will adjust the temperature. After selecting the appropriate settings, label this scene “green” or “save energy” and hit the button on your keypad or mobile app anytime you want to reduce energy expenditures. It can be while you’re working from home or relaxing on the weekends. You can also use an “away” scene that turns off everything except for the security system when you leave the house or go on vacation to save energy too.

Use Timers and Sensors

To avoid wasting electricity, use timers or occupancy sensors to shut off lights or fans when not in use. As soon as you leave a room, the sensor will detect no one is there and turn off the lights and fans. Another idea is to program bathroom lights and fans to turn off after a set time delay. You could also use your bathroom timer to remind you to finish showering to save water and electricity.

Schedule Events According to Sunset and Sunrise Times

Your Control4 smart home can mirror the earth’s natural rhythms by corresponding to changes in the weather or time of day. As the sun rises in the morning, your smart home will draw your blackout drapes and lower the solar shades to protect your furnishings from the sun’s rays and prevent additional heat from affecting the HVAC system. A sunrise scene will also ensure your outdoor lights stay off during the day. Then, your home will re-adjust as the sun sets – like raising the lighting levels and turning on the front porch light.

What if you could tell your home to turn off the lights and it would do it for you? Writers and TV producers have always imagined a future where we could control our homes with just our voice. For example, Captain Kirk in Star Trek asked the Enterprise computer for data during space voyages, and Marty McFly heard a “Welcome Home” from his smart home in Back to the Future 2 as he walked through the front door. Today, these imaginations have come to life, and now you can enjoy them in your own Lake Norman, NC home.

Amazon released Alexa this year, the voice control system that runs on the smart devices, the Echo, Dot, and Tap. Not only can it give you the weather report, turn the lights off, and order a pizza for you, it also works with your Control4 system to perform the same scenes you use every day—like Good Morning, Movie, and Goodnight. Keep reading this blog to learn more!

SEE ALSO: Top Audio Video Products from CEDIA 2016

Amazon’s smart home director, Charlie Kindel, says the inspiration for Alexa came from Star Trek. They wanted to create a computer in the cloud that is controlled entirely by your voice. You could ask it things, ask it to do things for you, and find things for you. Alexa started out as a DIY-type automation product that could play music and connect with other wireless smart home devices – such as smart thermostats, smart lighting and more. However, our partner Control4 has developed drivers to integrate the Alexa voice control system into your smart home. They are one of the first home automation companies to combine smart home scenes with Alexa.

In a press release on Control4.com, Control4 CEO Martin Plaehn said, "On average, our customers have over 40 connected devices in their homes that are orchestrated by Control4. And now, voice interaction with Amazon Alexa offers another convenient way to control all of them. This integration combines Control4’s automation power and extensive support for connected devices with the intuitive voice control from Amazon Alexa, reinforcing our shared vision to make life in a connected home ever-more personalized, comfortable, and hassle-free.”