Insights & Innovations: The Integrated Home Blog

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.”

Our team of professional audio video installers look forward to attending CEDIA every year as we get to discover new and trending smart home products and systems, as well as connect with other expert in the field. This month the CEDIA 2016 conference showcased many new products ranging from new 4K TVs to convenient chargers for smart home touchscreens. In this blog, we’d like to share with you some of the top products nominated this year for the CEDIA Awards, which are manufacturers we carry and install in homes in the Lake Norman and Charlotte, North Carolina areas. Keep reading to learn more about these innovative solutions for your home theater and home audio. We’ll let you know on social media who the winner is!

SEE ALSO: Dedicated Home Theater or Media Room? What’s Right for my Lake Norman Home?

Screen Innovations Zero-G Rollable Screen

Our partner Screen Innovations has developed the first rollable TV, the Zero-G. When getting ready to watch a sports game or your favorite movie, the Zero-G drops out of a hanging case on the wall and expands to give you a levitating image suspended by cables. This revolutionary screen can be placed in front of bay windows, an art deco wall, or anywhere in the room. It gives you the flexibility to choose where you want the entertainment to be placed instead of conforming to the constraints of the room’s layout. Before, there were only a number of places you could hang a flat-screen TV, but now you have the freedom to put it anywhere in your home. SI even sends crayons along with the screen so you can color the cables to make the screen look as if it’s hanging in mid-air.

Seura Storm Ultra Bright 84” Outdoor TV

Dropped calls, unreliable phone reception, and fuzzy conversations…do these sound familiar? If you ever have to say that popular Verizon tag line, “can you hear me now?” or walk around your Lake Norman home looking for the best cell phone signal, this blog is certainly for you. It may not be as simple as getting a new phone plan, or getting an upgrade. The Integrated Home can help you solve this issue, but first, read these steps to get an idea of the situation and how we can help with our cell phone boosters.

SEE ALSO: How Can You Boost Your Home’s Cell Phone Signal?

Step 1: Check Your Cell Phone Carrier

The commercials you see on the TV are partly true, you may simply need to switch cell phone carriers. In most cities, there is a dominant phone tower that has the best signal. It could be due to a mountain range, or other local situation where one brand has better signals than the others. Due some research or ask your friends and family if they have the same problems with dropped calls and then try another carrier to see if the situation improves. If not, move on to step two.

Step 2: Check Your Location

Smart lighting has so many benefits, from saving energy to adding convenience. It’s definitely a simple yet stylish luxury. You may be familiar with dimming the lights to create ambiance and turning all your lights on or off by hitting one button, but you may not know about some of the other lighting features we offer in Charlotte, North Carolina homes. Customers sometimes ask us, “what else can it do?” We know you like to stay up to date on the newest home technologies, so in this blog we’ll share a few of the newer functions you can add during our lighting installation – including colored lighting, customizable keypads, smart watch control, and car control.

SEE ALSO: 3 Tips on How to Enhance Interior Design with Automated Lighting

Add Color Both Inside and Out

Today, you are not limited to picking from either white light or yellow; The Integrated Home can incorporate any color of the rainbow in your home. Colored LED light fixtures are often used outside to highlight gardens, fountains or other landscaping details, and inside for special occasions. Since fall celebrations are on the way, you could plan to decorate your yard with fun fall décor, or spooky Halloween decorations and use smart lighting to show every detail. Inside, pick orange or green lights to display pumpkins or monster characters throughout the house. Of course, Control4 lighting scenes can be created for all of your holidays or family gatherings throughout the year. Using an app on your smartphone or tablet, select a color and the room you want to display it in. Tie in other features, like shading and audio, and then save the scene for later. You can also select a different setting for every light. Choose red for the front porch during Christmas or dim the lamps in the living room for a soothing evening in. Control4 lighting controls are in one convenient location on your mobile device, or are accessible using your in-wall keypads.

Stylish Keypads

Control4 keypads eliminate the wall acne created by too many switches and dimmers by simplifying your buttons and displaying them in a stylish and simple way. Our keypads can also be customized to any setting you like, such as “Welcome”, “Movie”, or “Entertain.” They have over 35 different configuration options. In addition, the engravings are backlit so you can see the titles easily. You won’t have to try every switch to figure out which one turns the kitchen lights on. Every button is named. Not only can you customize the names of each scene, but you can also pick your keypad color and style to match your personal interior design taste. You could stick with a basic white or choose a sleek chrome. It’s all up to you how you want your home to look and feel – and even the buttons on the wall are included in that effort.