Enjoy Flawless Internet Connectivity with a Professional Home Network Installation

It’s easy to take a reliable internet connection for granted. Days will go by happily streaming, uploading, and chatting happily until suddenly, a webpage doesn’t load and refuses to refresh. You might try disconnecting from the internet, connecting again, and it still doesn’t work. One might fiddle with the router and come to the frustrating conclusion that the internet is down.

Do situations like these happen more often than you’d like? If you live in the Glenview, IL area, a Premium membership with Avidia can provide 24/7 management of your Comcast Xfinity internet. Plus, our professional home network installations can arrange your network’s devices to prevent future errors from occurring. Continue reading to see how your Illinois home can benefit!  

Why Avidia Service Makes a Difference

In large metropolitan areas like Chicago, there is no shortage of service providers for practically anything you can think of - and that goes for home automation technology as well. The technology itself is important, and with smart home technology and automation, you should choose companies and platforms that continue to innovate and add new capabilities.

Since 2003, Control4 has been an innovator and leader in home automation. There’s very little their system can’t do when it comes to smart home control, and Avidia is proud to be a Control4 Platinum Dealer. In June, we detailed the latest software from Control4, OS 3, which adds significant functionality and ease of use to make it one of the most elegant and flexible home automation platforms.

While the technology is critical, who installs and services it is just as crucial to your overall experience and satisfaction. This month, we’d like to tell you why and how Avidia is different, and why you should choose us for your Glenview home’s Control4 smart home system.

SEE ALSO: 3 Ways Smart Home Technology Gives You Hands-Off Control

Which One is Right for You?

What sets a mood better than music? Spotify, for example, has playlists for driving, exercising, relaxing, falling asleep, and romance; and that covers just some of the activities and moods. Services like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music have made it ridiculously easy to dial up most of the world's recorded music on a smart device, so music is just a couple of clicks away with streaming.

As streaming has revolutionized music consumption, the equipment delivering it has changed quite a bit too. Old school stereo systems and vinyl still exist and are thriving, but many people have turned to the convenience of wireless speaker solutions for background listening. While wireless speakers (like the plethora of Bluetooth models) can sound quite good, most will fall short of audiophile class and not compare well to more traditional speakers. With Bluetooth in particular, the technology does not accommodate multiple speakers playing the same music in synchrony. Traditionally, multiroom audio systems in the home have been built around a music source, distribution amplifiers to power built-in speakers in multiple rooms, and a unified method of controlling it.

Sonos is a company that made a name for itself in multiroom audio by upending the traditional model. With its wireless speakers, a proprietary wireless network for synchronization, and a unified user interface from a smartphone or tablet, the company's products made it easy to have a multiroom system.

Does that mean that Sonos should be your multiroom system of choice? In some situations, it might do well. But there are many factors to consider for whole-home audio. If you’re considering a multiroom audio system for your Glenview, IL home, read on to compare two approaches to state-of-the-art whole home systems: Sonos and Control4.

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

There’s nothing like music to boost everyone’s spirits. In fact, listening to music has been proven to reduce stress and symptoms of depression. So, this summer, enhance your days at home with more sun, more cookouts, and more music with a dedicated outdoor sound system. Whether you’re a country, rock, or pop music family, New Jersey manufacturer Coastal Source produces weatherproof outdoor speakers that will impress even the ultimate audiophiles here in the Chicagoland area.

If outdoor audio interests you, but you aren’t sure how to add entertainment to your backyard or how to add it to your existing home audio system, let us here at Avidia help. Continue reading below to discover how your home in the Glenview, Illinois area will benefit from an outdoor speaker system.

SEE ALSO: 8 Common Misconceptions About High-End Audio Systems

Getting Started

The first step toward building a dedicated outdoor speaker system at your Glenview-area home is to figure out what you want out of your outdoor audio setup. Do you want music throughout your landscape? Do you want to create a surround sound setup for an outdoor home theater? Perhaps a combination of both? Once you have your goals established for your new outdoor audio setup, the next step is to get in touch with your local outdoor audio installation expert.

Our team at Avidia is local to the Glenview area and has more than 20 years of experience designing custom outdoor speaker systems in the Chicagoland region. We can help you not only select the perfect outdoor speaker and subwoofer combination for your backyard that is optimized for coverage throughout your landscape, but we also can assist throughout the installation process – using weatherproof cabling, high-quality equipment and even integrations with your existing home control system. We explain more in the section below.

In case you missed the news last month, Control4 has unleashed a beautiful, brand-new operating system: OS 3. With an elegant appearance and helpful new features, OS 3 makes every interaction with your home automation system simplified and personalized. Whether you already have a Control4 system in your Northbrook-area home or you’re new to Control4 home automation, continue reading to learn how the Control4’s newest operating system can bring relaxation, convenience, and fun to your northern Illinois living space.

SEE ALSO: Why You Should Use Control4 in Your New Construction

New to Control4?

Control4 is one of the world’s leading home automation platforms that enables you to effortlessly manage your smart home’s devices from one universal interface. With a smartphone, tablet, universal remote or even a voice-command speaker, you can turn on all of your home’s lights at once, control music in every room, and check security cameras. With presets like “Morning” and “Night,” your home can automatically adjust the temperature, blinds, indoor and exterior lights at just the press of a button. On your way home late at night? Right from your smartphone, you can turn on the first-floor lights before the car is in the driveway. Control4 is a smart way to save energy, time, and peace of mind.

The New Features

Control4’s new OS 3 offers an evolved and smooth interface with larger icons that are easier to see from far away. With the “Favorites” feature, you can put the most frequently used icons on the main dashboard screen and save favorite rooms to the top of the list. Screens are now customizable with wallpapers, and new OS 3 icons represent the active state of your devices. That way, you can instantly see if the garage door is open, fans are on, or if the front door is locked – simply based on the status of the icons on your Control4 interface.

For whole home audio users, the new “Sessions” screens show what’s playing throughout the entire house. Sliders make it easier to change the volume in one room, multiple rooms, or the whole house at once. The new “Now Playing” screen enables you to adjust the volume, skip tracks, and even evaluate the audio quality.