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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.

Motorized Shades Bring the Zing to Design Projects

As an interior designer, you are always on the lookout for the next trend. It doesn’t matter whether you do antiques, mid-century modern, or eclectic; you always look for the detail that gives your clients that extra custom touch. It could be an unusual accessory sourced from an exclusive vendor or the way you deftly mix the old and the new into a cohesive design.

That detail shows in various aspects of your work. You know how to take a basic electrical plan and customize it to ensure that unique lamp is plugged in just the right place. You work with electricians and other lighting professionals to ensure a room's lighting properly highlights your carefully conceived design.

When it comes to window treatments, you are an expert in creating custom designs that are both functional and stylish. And this is an area where you can add a custom touch as well - motorized shades and window coverings. How do they add that extra touch to your Lake Forest, IL residential projects? Read on to find out.

The New Avidia is Ready to Make it Happen

What is home automation? Is it the ability to turn a light on and off with your smartphone instead of a switch? Is it the ability to tell your thermostat to change the temperature? Or is a way to control your home theater equipment without getting lost in multiple remotes and settings?

The answer is yes, it’s all of the above - but much more. All of these things make for a better experience living in your home. When small things are taken care of for you, less time is spent checking on whether your doors are locked and your alarm system is armed, and technology does your bidding rather than you having to learn how to use it – then you have the experience home automation is supposed to deliver. 

We at Avidia are focused on ensuring that your experience with home technology is a luxury you can enjoy as the fruits of your hard work. Home automation and technology should make your life simpler, giving you back time for what you want to do and who you want to do it with.

At the same time, we don’t believe this kind of automated luxury is purely the province of the ultra-wealthy. We design, configure, install, and support home technology solutions that are accessible not only from a usability standpoint but also a financial one. Whether you need a lighting control solution for your living areas or a full-fledged Control4 home automation system to manage your sprawling Barrington, IL estate, Avidia is ready to be of service.

Read on to learn more about why you should consider Avidia for all your home technology needs.

Explore the Many Uses & Benefits of Automated Blinds

When it comes to the subject of motorized shades, you may be wondering—haven’t people gotten by with manual window treatments for many years? Why would anyone need motorized shades? The introduction of new technologies often prompts this question. But the more you learn about this smart solution, the more you will discover how it can benefit your household.

To learn how motorized shades work and all they can accomplish in your Glenview, IL home, continue reading below!

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.

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

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.

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.