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A home theater system is a movie lover's dream. You get to enjoy your favorite films in the best quality available without having to deal with long lines, stale popcorn or freezing temperatures. What if you haven’t gone to a theater since the Godfather came out? It doesn’t matter. A room optimized to get the most out of your high-end audio and video technology can have many purposes. Whether you want to enjoy a movie or watch the Bears with friends in your Glencoe, Illinois home, a private theater is the right choice for your family.

Invite Friends Over to Watch the Big Game

While home theater systems are designed with movies in mind, they've become increasingly popular with sports fans. Even the most die-hard fans will admit it’s better to watch a game –especially football—from home than at the stadium. You get close-ups of the action and replays on controversial plays. A private theater takes it a step further by creating an immersive experience that makes you feel like you're in the stadium while enjoying the perks of watching from home.

Install a surround sound system that booms audio from the front, back, side and even top of the room. From every corner, you can hear fans cheer and hear the power behind every hit. Older sports fans remember the pains of pre-HD days when it was hard to see even the numbers on the back of jerseys. With a large 4K Ultra HD display, you'll be able to see the details down to the millimeters to judge if, in fact, that was a catch or not.

Enjoy Theater Quality Without the Hassle

A smart home is a system in which a number of technology components are interconnected to make it easier to perform certain actions. These smart home automation systems simplify control over lights, entertainment, climate and more. Nowhere in the world has this concept taken a stronger hold than in the United States, where there are an estimated 4.6 million smart homes. That number is expected to grow to more than 24 million by 2020. Wondering if your Wilmette, Illinois home should join the movement? Read on to find out why smart technology is worth the investment.

Control of Your Entire System is in Your Hands

The primary benefit of an interconnected home is that you can centralize control. You don't have to walk from room to room or search through a mountain of remotes. Through a smart home automation system from Crestron or Control4, you can access your lights, entertainment, climate, security and more on one device. From a touchpad, tablet or smartphone, it’s all available on a customizable menu designed to match your priorities.

Experience a Home That Anticipates Your Needs

Smart technology can also give you peace of mind by being proactive. It does this primarily through the use of sensors and schedules:

REINVENT YOUR LIVING EXPERIENCE WITH A CONTROL4 HALO REMOTE 

Imagine having one sleek remote that controls every device in your entire home, completely hassle-free. It’d bring a new level of convenience and luxury to everyday life, simplifying your daily routine with unrivaled levels of control.

If this sounds appealing, then you’ll want to meet Halo, Control4’s latest evolution of their universal remote. 

This device builds upon the legacy of previous models but adds a flair of its own. The Control4 Halo remote is more user-friendly and customizable; plus it has a more reliable signal, backlit buttons, and a voice-control feature. Keep reading to learn more about the two new Halo remotes that you can bring to your Highland Park, IL, home by working with a Control4 dealer.

FIND OUT WHICH SYSTEM SUITS YOUR HOME BETTER

What sets a mood better than music? Spotify, for example, has playlists for driving, exercising, relaxing, falling asleep, and romance, and that covers just a few of the activities and moods you can accompany with music. 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 only a couple of clicks away with streaming.

There’s no doubt that streaming has revolutionized music consumption, and 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. Plus, these solutions don’t accommodate multiple speakers playing the same music in synchrony. Traditionally, multiroom audio systems have been built around a music source, distribution amplifiers to power built-in speakers in different rooms, and a unified method of controlling it.

Control4: Blending Safety, Comfort, and Fun in Your Home

A harmonious home is the foundation of a happy family life. Smart home technology has emerged as the go-to partner for bustling families in the past few years. Control4 home automation not only enhances home security but also elevates convenience and entertainment. It's a tool that seamlessly blends into your family's lifestyle, offering safety, ease of use, and fun. Control4 provides a perfect escape for all family members by adapting to your family's unique needs, making everyday living simpler and more enjoyable. Let's explore how a smart home becomes the ultimate family haven.

LEARN HOW TO GAIN CONTROL USING PERSONAL AUTOMATION TOOLS

One intelligent control system can help you manage many different automated features within your home. As the number of smart tools in your home grows, you’ll find there comes a time when managing them all individually is no longer practical. This is where Control4 home automation comes in and makes things easier.

With Control4, you can merge all of your smart technologies into a single user-friendly control. The days of downloading multiple applications on your phone to operate various features around your home are over. If you appreciate the simplicity of a seamless experience, then consider a Control4 system for your Barrington, IL, residence.

Continue reading to learn more about how a personalized Control4 home automation system improves your day.

Learn What Control4 Can Do for Your Home and Lifestyle

Have you heard about home automation and how it’s transforming our living spaces? According to Time, 63 million American homes will be considered “smart homes” in 2022. So, what’s all the excitement about, and why would 86% of millennials pay more for a connected home?

Some suggest it’s the ease of living that it brings, managing their home from one automated system. Others say it makes them feel safer, allowing them to look in on their family members or receive notifications when someone arrives at their door.

Whatever the reason, home automation is making headlines worldwide as industry leaders take technology to the next level almost daily. At Avidia, we partner with those leading brands to offer our clients the best automated solutions on the market.

Let’s see what a Control4 home automation system can do for your Chicago, IL home.

The Control4 OS 3.2.3 Update Grants You More Control and Personalization

If you own a Control4 smart home, you know just how instinctual and enjoyable it is to use. Control4 is committed to providing personalized smart home experiences that give families simple control of every smart device in the home. Plus, they’re always making improvements to fulfill that commitment.

In their latest OS 3 update, Control4 has brought a wave of cool new features that grant you more control and personalization over your smart home system! Learn about these new features below and how to make the most of them in your Chicago, IL home.

Simplify and Enhance Your Entertainment Experience with Control4

Imagine having just one remote for controlling all your entertainment throughout the house. This universal remote offers you simple access to everything you love in any room. With just a few taps, you can enjoy your favorite music, movies, and shows wherever you roam at home.

We’ve just described the magic of a Control4 whole-house audio-video distribution system! If you crave a simplified way to access and share entertainment throughout your Kenilworth, IL home, Control4 delivers. Keep reading to learn more about the benefits of Control4 whole-home AV.

Lighting Control Is One of the Most Desired Smart Home Features

As builders and designers, you typically look for an edge in your projects. It may be the extra attention you pay to superior design inside and out, a unique flourish that you add like building a hidden room off of the den, or greater customizability in floorplans and finishes that gives clients more choice.

The explosion in the availability of consumer smart lighting products like Philips Hue and others shows that there is high interest and demand in residential lighting control solutions. And while these products are suitable for some applications, with new construction, the opportunity is there to add a comprehensive lighting control solution that is far more customizable for your clients.

Avidia works with Control4 for smart home automation and lighting control because it offers incredible opportunities to add smart home features your clients will love. It’s also far easier to add the infrastructure and fully customize it in the construction process than after the fact. Read on to see why adding a residential lighting control system to your Barrington, IL projects is a smart move for you and your clients.

SEE ALSO: Avidia Is Now a Distinguished Control4 Pinnacle Status Dealer

Receive Real-Time Alerts & Notifications

When you’re on vacation, you likely want to avoid checking your smartphone all the time unless it’s an emergency. To reduce how often you check surveillance footage or the status of other smart home devices, set up personalized alerts and notifications that ping you when an event occurs.

Did the pet sitter enter the front door? Was the garage door left ajar? Perhaps there’s a small water leak in the guest bathroom, or maybe someone broke a window. Whether you want alerts for significant events or simple status updates, your Control4 system will let you know right away.

SEE ALSO: Get the Ultimate Control4 Home Automation Experience

What Does Pinnacle Status Signify?

The exclusive Pinnacle status is awarded to dealers who have developed long-standing partnerships with Control4 and have purchased $1 million worth of Control4 products to serve their customers throughout the lifetime of that partnership.

This proud achievement signifies our expansive and proven expertise in programming everything from one-room smart home systems to comprehensive whole-home solutions that meet the unique needs of Chicagoland homeowners.

“Our team at Avidia is proud to be a distinguished Control4 Pinnacle dealer and looks forward to continuing to use Control4 as our primary platform to provide personalized smart home experiences for our customers.” – Matt Cwiokowski, Sales Director, Co-Owner

What Does This Mean for You?

While many Control4 certified dealers are highly technically competent in delivering Control4 smart home solutions, Pinnacle dealers are especially committed to best-in-class design and programming work and have a reputation for providing unparalleled customer satisfaction year after year.

SEE ALSO: Comparing Two Popular Video Doorbell Systems: Ring and Control4

Stunning Video Quality & Adjustable Motion Zones

With Chime, you’ll never miss a thing. Its 5 megapixel HD camera captures sharp, vibrant, and detailed snapshots and video of all activity happening around your front entry within a 180-degree field of view. It also has built-in night mode so that picture is just as clear after dark as it is when the sun is out.

Chime features advanced motion detection with five adjustable zones that can be independently programmed for different actions when motion is detected in that zone. For example, instantly receive a snapshot notification to your smartphone when a visitor steps onto the porch but begin recording without notification when there’s movement in the yard.

If you missed a visitor, don’t worry. Control4 OS 3 makes it easy to go back and watch recorded video clips from the app. You can store seven days of event recordings in the cloud if you have a 4Sight subscription, or pair Chime to record to a local NVR.

SEE ALSO: Interested in Control4 Home Automation?

Ring Video Doorbell Overview

Ring, bought by Amazon in 2018, manufactures several standalone video doorbells that offer the same purpose: to allow you to see, hear, and speak to visitors from anywhere via an integrated mobile app. As of now, homeowners can choose from six doorbells that increase in reliability and performance.

Most of Ring’s video doorbells are powered by a rechargeable battery but can also be hardwired into an existing doorbell system. These doorbells, which range from $99 to $249.99, feature single-band or dual-band wi-fi for connectivity, adjustable motion detection zones, HD video, two-way audio, up to 160-degree field of view, and cloud storage with a Ring subscription plan.

Ring also has a professional-grade video doorbell system at $349.99 that offers more reliability than their popular DIY-style solutions. The Video Doorbell Elite is hardwired via PoE (the doorbell draws power from the ethernet connection) rather than wi-fi enabled and features customizable motion detection zones, HD video, two-way audio, up to 160-degree field of view, and cloud storage with a Ring subscription plan.

SEE ALSO: Why Residential Lighting Control Makes Sense for Your Projects

Do We Need Human-Centric Lighting?

Science tells us our bodies respond to the natural stimuli of light. Clearly, we sleep at night when it's dark. We also have an internal clock of sorts referred to as the circadian rhythm, and our bodies respond to different types of light during the day. Bright, intense, cooler-toned light, like that of the noonday sun, tends to awaken and energize us. Warmer, amber, and red tones, like those of the setting sun, signal our bodies to wind down and prepare us for sleep.

The wrong light can throw off our natural rhythms. Imagine if you were subjected to bright fluorescent lighting in your bedroom, like that in many offices at 11 PM – it's not likely you would feel relaxed or ready for sleep. With new technological solutions, we can now make artificial light follow natural patterns that are in tune with our bodies.

SEE ALSO: Want Great Audio Throughout Your House?

Neeo’s Unique Design & Features

Crafted by Swiss designers, the Neeo remote has a sleek and refined shape that incorporates a glass touch screen alongside hard buttons. While touch screens are currently all the rage, there’s still a valid demand for hard buttons that a user can intuitively operate via muscle memory. That way, you won’t have to take your eyes off the movie to pause, mute, or change the channel. You’ll know exactly where to press at the right moment. The lightweight remote can also withstand drops from several feet high and runs on a rechargeable battery that can stay powered for five days. When Neeo is not in use, it sleeps until instantly reawakening when you pick it up.

On the touch screen, you’ll save recognizable icons for your favorite programs, like ESPN, Netflix, or HBO. The remote offers one-touch access to the rest of your devices, too, like locks, smart lighting, speakers, and shades. Select any screen in the house or queue songs for your home’s speakers, all in one place. Neeo removes complexity, making it simple to switch between Roku, Apple TV, Blu-ray, and satellite on the TV and choose custom scenes for your home’s smart devices.

How to Get Neeo

It’s All in the Scenes

What’s residential lighting control all about, and why might you want it?  It can do many things in your home. Admittedly, you might find it frivolous in one respect - do you really need automation for your lights? After all, you can always flip a switch, or slide a dimmer up and down. Indeed, some interior designers might specify dimmers in their electrical plans for almost every room but might not think about lighting control. 

We know smart technology is being imbued into all manner of products, even lowly kitchen appliances. Lighting control is actually one of the most requested for smart home features, and is also one that is easy to justify as more than a luxury. In commercial environments, from offices to warehouses, lighting control is used extensively for efficiency, worker comfort and productivity, as well as to extend equipment life. In your Wilmette, IL residence, lighting control can bring those same benefits - and a little luxury that you won’t mind as well

Read on to see why residential lighting control simply makes sense, and learn about the killer lighting control feature that will really win you over.

Control4 Multiroom Audio Shows You How

These days, there is no shortage of home audio solutions, from simple Bluetooth speakers or high fidelity two-channel to ultra-high-end multichannel home theaters. Each has its purpose and advantages. What if you want a solution that is simple to operate, can expand to every possible area where you want great sound, and can feed every music and audio source you can imagine all through your house?

For that scenario, we recommend Control4 multiroom audio. It will tick all the boxes you will want to check. Can it handle multiple sources, digital and analog? Check. Can it scale to many rooms or zones, even outdoors? Check. Can it deliver high-quality sound to every space? Check. And critically, is it easy to operate so the whole family can use it? Check.  

Why is Control4 the right multiroom audio solution for your Barrington, IL home? We’ll show you why below.

By now you’ve probably seen advertisements for a variety of home electronics that you can control from a mobile app. There’s one for your thermostat, one for your locks and one for your entertainment. But what if you could bring it all together under one umbrella, practically turning your IPhone or Android into your personal butler. You can do just that with a smart home automation solution in your Highland Park, Illinois property. Below we take a look at some of the best features from the Crestron and Control 4 Apps.

SEE MORE: 3 Reasons to Upgrade to a Smart Home

Four Main Features of the Crestron App

In conjunction with your smart home automation system, Crestron offers a free mobile app that lets you control your lighting, security, entertainment, climate and more. Some other features are also available as in-app purchases.

• Integrate Third Party Apps: Want to settle in for an all-day Netflix marathon? You don't have to navigate through multiple apps just to pick out the show you want and get the lighting just right. Crestron lets you open third party apps within your graphic user interface so you can keep everything under one roof.
• Stay Informed: Receive alerts when a door is left unlocked, someone comes to your front door. or your alarm goes off. This way you can stay connected without having to constantly check-in on your surveillance.
• Upgrade to PinPoint: This add-on lets your system recognize exactly where you are based on your smartphone’s location. This way your user interface immediately adapts your menu to the room you’re in.

Your home theater is only going to be as good as the equipment in it. Which is why a big focus of your installation will be on finding the right speakers, screens, and projectors. But a lot more than that goes into crafting a comprehensive home theater design. Check out some features you should consider when upgrading the entertainment in your Winnetka, Illinois home.

SEE MORE 4 Steps to Designing the Ultimate Home Theater

Enhance Your Style With Hidden Technology

When you’re purchasing equipment, focus not just on its performance but also how it will fit into your overall design. Most AV manufacturers offer ‘hidden technology’ options that provide a discreet approach to your home theater. This way you can show off your style without losing any of the quality.

When it comes to your speakers, you can go with KEF in-wall and in-ceiling speakers. Get all the benefits of a Dolby Atmos surround sound setup while keeping your equipment hidden. Your screen is also easy to conceal. If you don't want it to be seen when your theater is not in use, invest in a retractable screen that disappears into the ceiling at the press of a button.