Home theater design is all about creating the perfect environment for the images and sounds from your favorite movies to flourish. Every little corner of the room is taken into account to make sure your speakers, screens, and projector are given the necessary space to shine. When we're brought in on retrofit jobs to fix old DIY home theaters, we often come upon the same design mistakes that can result in blurred images, muffled sound and an uncomfortable viewing experience. Below we go over some of these common challenges and how we can help you overcome them.

SEE MORE: 4 Steps to Designing the Ultimate Home Theater System

1. Uncomfortable Seating Arrangements

As you begin work on your home theater system, you need to figure out how you want to use it. Will it be primarily used by the family? Then a communal couch where everyone can huddle together under a blanket may be the best option. If you’re going to use it with friends, it may be more comfortable if everyone has their own leather recliner. If you don’t consider this from the start, you may end up with an awkward arrangement that ruins the viewing experience.

2. Fitting All the Necessary Speakers

Making the winter bearable in Lake Forest, IL is all about being well prepared. Everyone knows to don a few more layers of clothes when they leave the house and makes sure their cars have the necessary snow tires. Now you can also use your home automation system to prepare your household for any weather. Through intuitive control of your technology, it’s easier to keep your family safe, comfortable and entertained this winter. A smart home helps you get through the dipping temperatures and darkening days with the following features:

SEE MORE: Host the Perfect Holiday Party With Smart Control

Stay Safe with Smart Lighting Solutions

Now that the days are getting darker, it's important to make sure your home is well-lit at all times. Schedule your lights to turn on as soon as the sun sets and turn off once the sun rises. You can also have lights linked to photo sensors to make sure landscape lighting is on as needed during inclement weather; photo sensors ensure artificial lights only go down when there's sufficient natural light available.

Snow, sleet, and ice can cause even the most experienced of Chicagoland residents to have nasty falls. Diminish the risks by having pathway lights on all the main walkways. Install motion sensors at the start of walkways so they light up as you walk past, making it easier for you to see if there are any wet patches up ahead.

You can experience further integration, control, and customization with the latest Control4 O.S. 2.9 software. Whether you want to personalize your user interface, add your preferred smart devices or literally tell your system what to do, it’s all possible with the home automation company’s latest upgrade. As your local Control4 dealers in Barrington, IL, we’d like to show you some of the coolest features revealed earlier this year at CEDIA 2016.

SEE MORE: Product Spotlight: A Look at Control4’s EA Series

Integration with Alexa Voice Control

Since it hit the mainstream market with a pair of Super Bowl commercials earlier this year, Amazon’s Alexa has become one of the most popular systems in the smart home market. Through voice commands, you can turn devices on and off or ask questions just like you would Siri on your iPhone. Now you can use those same voice commands in your home automation system.

Clients can access individual devices that are compatible with Amazon. Tell the lights to dim down or the thermostat to lower a few degrees. The coolest thing about the latest integration, though, is the ability to activate your Control4 smart scenes to manage multiple components at once. Say “Party On” and the lights change color and your pre-planned playlist begins playing.

As technology continues to evolve from the radio to today’s streaming devices, one thing has remained constant: no form of entertainment is more beneficial to your family than music. A combined study done by Sonos and Apple earlier this year found that families that listen to music are happier and spend more time together. Maybe that's why whole house audio solutions are some of the most popular in the smart technology market, even above security and custom theaters. Which is why it’s so important you have a system in place in your Winnetka, IL home that offers high-quality audio and convenient control.  

SEE MORE: 5 Great Speaker Options for Your Whole House Audio

Easy Control of Entertainment

The digital music era has made it easier than ever to find the music you want within a matter of seconds. Through media libraries or streaming services, you can have thousands of songs at your disposal on your desktop, laptop or tablet. Where many families are still falling behind is getting that music to play in high quality throughout their homes. Without an easy way to send those songs to their speakers, they’re stuck playing music on their mobile devices.

Whole house audio offers a comprehensive solution to this problem. We place all your speakers and source components under the same intuitive user interface. Using the control device of your choice—a touchpad, smartphone or tablet—you can choose the song you want and play it anywhere even if you're not in the same room. You can even select all your home's speakers at once, immediately filling your entire space with music. 

When it comes to home theater design, like in real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. All of your high-end equipment needs the right environment to thrive in your Barrington, IL home. From the type of flooring to the room dimensions, the space you choose will all affect the quality of the sound and images as well as the kind of equipment you’ll need. Read on to see the room characteristics that could affect your theater’s performance: 

SEE MORE: What is the Best Surround Sound Setup for Your Home Theater?

Size:  There's no rule as to how big a room has to be. As with most entertainment spaces, you want to strike a delicate balance: if a room is too big it may be hard to hear well and see images clearly while a small one will be cluttered and likely lead to muffled sound.

Room Dimensions: Your room’s dimensions are much more important than its size. You want to make sure you’re not placing your theater in a square room as that will lead to distorted sound and an awkward home theater design. For one, choosing the size of your screen will not only come down to whether it fits in the room. You also have to be able to sit far enough from it to view the screen comfortably while leaving space for all the rows of seats that you want.

Windows: Ideally, you want your theater in a room that has no windows to eliminate ambient lighting. If you have no choice, we can install blackout shades that can reduce the amount of light entering the room. We can also give you smart control of those shades, so you can use your universal remote to open and close them instead of having to get up from your seat.