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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: Tired of Uninspired Controls for Your Lighting?

Revolutionized User Experience

Crestron believes that the heart of control is the user experience. Through their development of Crestron OS 3, the operating system behind Crestron Home, they put the user first and designed a revolutionized app that’s more responsive, beautiful, and user-friendly than ever before.

From your smartphone or a dedicated Crestron touchscreen, you’ll enjoy a seamless room-based experience, with all devices in that room available at your fingertips. See the status of every room at a glance, tap on a room to make changes, or access custom room and whole-home scenes at the top of the screen to quickly set everything the way you want it at any time.

More Personalization

Add a personal touch to your system by using photos of your home to represent every room—and edit their names and photos when needed. Do you have a lot of rooms in your house but mainly use four or five of them? Room Favorites allows you to select your most frequently used rooms to display at the top of your rooms list for quick and convenient access. The app also features Quick Action items at the top of every room to display what you use most so there’s no need to drill through a bunch of menus.

Crestron Home makes it easier than ever to create and modify smart home scenes, with no programming experience required. You can also seamlessly manage and control multiple properties from the same app. Want to check the status of your vacation home or guest house? Just swipe to your property in the app and adjust the thermostat, check that the security system is armed, and more.

SEE ALSO: What Do You Need for an Epic Media Room?

Retractable TV Mount for Better Views

While it’s best to install your TV so that the center of the display is at eye level, some rooms don’t allow this because of impeding structures like fireplaces. If your TV is installed above a mantel, it may be too high for comfortable viewing. In this case, consider a TV mount, which allows you to pull down the screen manually or with a remote and swivel it to your desired position so that your TV is in perfect alignment with your eye level. When you’re done, a quick button tap puts your TV back in place.

Hidden Display to Keep Eyes on Décor

If your media room also serves as the dedicated space in the house for hosting friends and family, you may not like having a big black wall-mounted screen distracting from your interior design when you’re not watching TV. Instead, consider a TV that transforms into beautifully framed artwork when turned off, like the Samsung Frame. Or conceal the display entirely by opting for a motorized projection screen that hides in a discreet cassette in the ceiling and reveals itself when you’re ready to use it.

Custom Media Furniture to Store Components

AV components stack up fast, causing unwanted clutter and wiring beneath your display. What’s the point of choosing a hidden display if your cable box, Blu-ray player, media server, and streaming device are in plain sight? Media cabinets solve this problem by storing and supporting your gear in a modular, ventilated cabinet that features sliding or removable rear panels for easy access to components and wiring. All that’s left to see is a beautiful, custom-finished credenza.

SEE ALSO: What to Consider When Finding the Perfect Home Projector Screen

A 2.4:1 Cinema Format Screen

First and foremost, you need a projector screen that matches the aspect ratio of the content you plan to watch. For cinephiles, that means a 2.4:1 screen. Because most of the content you’ll be watching in your home theater will be movies and streaming television, you’ll benefit most from this screen size.

You may wonder what this means for 16:9 content, like sports and news. If you also plan to use your home theater to watch the Cubs or keep up with local headlines, you could invest in two motorized retractable projector screens if you want to avoid black sidebars for the occasional 16:9 content.

Plus, when paired with a projector that features an anamorphic lens, you can automatically move between aspect ratios with zero inconvenience.

A 4K Projector with an External Anamorphic Lens

Speaking of an anamorphic lens, what is it? And why do you need one to create a true 4K UltraWide cinema experience? First, “anamorphic” simply refers to the cinematic format technique of shooting a widescreen picture. An external anamorphic lens externally attaches to your 4K projector to stretch or compress an image so that it displays properly based on aspect ratio.

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: Want the Ultimate Home Theater Experience? Start with Design

Mounting Method

While most homeowners envision a fixed, wall-mounted projector screen for their entertainment space, you have other options, too. A fixed projector screen works well in a dedicated home theater, but what if your screen will be placed in an open, multifunctional space like a media room? You may want to hide your screen from view when it’s not in use so that eyes stay on your décor. In that case, consider a retractable screen that lives in the ceiling or the floor and reveals itself at the touch of a button.

Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio refers to the width and height of your projector screen’s display area. To choose the best aspect ratio for your screen, consider the aspect ratio of the content you plan to watch. Most TV shows and online video, as well as some films, use 16:9, making this aspect ratio the standard for today’s projector screens. However, if you’re a dedicated film enthusiast, you may consider a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, which is a more popular choice for widescreen viewing and is used in many commercial theaters.

SEE ALSO: Now Is the Perfect Time to Install an Outdoor Speaker System

The Best TVs for Shaded Spaces

The Veranda 4K HDR TV series from SunBriteTV is perfect for areas that don’t see direct sunlight, such as a fully covered patio or outdoor kitchen. Like all SunBriteTV and Séura displays, the Veranda series is specifically built to withstand water, insects, extreme temperatures, and debris. Choose display sizes ranging from 43 to 75 inches and enjoy up to 50% more brightness than standard indoor TVs.

Séura also offers a TV line for shaded areas called the Shade Series 2. These 4K HDR TVs are available in sizes ranging from 43 to 75 inches and boast slightly higher brightness than the SunBriteTV Veranda series (700 nits vs. 400 nits). What’s more, a Séura Shade Series 2 TV comes with a 2-channel outdoor soundbar—though you can purchase a weatherized soundbar from SunBriteTV to fit their displays, too.

SEE ALSO: How to Upgrade Your Outdoor Music System

Discreet Speakers Let Your Landscaping Shine

We love Coastal Source for outdoor audio because of their high-quality performance and cutting-edge weatherproofing technologies. Plus, they offer an array of options for homeowners who want dedicated sound around the patio or evenly dispersed sound throughout their expansive backyard.

Their bullet speakers are winning contenders for homeowners who want to blanket their backyard with high-quality sound without settling for obtrusive components that steal the attention from otherwise beautifully tailored landscaping. These three-inch solid brass speakers mount discreetly among your gardens and foliage, blending with lights and other landscaping fixtures throughout your property.

SEE ALSO: Want the Ultimate Home Theater Experience? Start with Design

The Pinnacle of Architectural Loudspeaker Design

If you’ve experienced MartinLogan’s most ambitious floorstanding hybrid electrostatic loudspeakers, then you likely have a high benchmark for audio performance. Fortunately, you can experience that same level of accuracy and impact from an in-wall speaker when you choose the Masterpiece CI (custom install) speaker series from MartinLogan. The Masterpiece CI series is a tribute to the acoustic innovations of their iconic electrostatic speakers that put MartinLogan on the map.

The Masterpiece CI Statement 40XW in-wall loudspeaker is a testament to this achievement. With 16 tweeters, 16 midrange drivers, and eight woofers arrayed in a line-source design, the Statement 40XW delivers jaw-dropping levels of full-spectrum output even in the largest listening areas.

Its superior components and innovative design eliminate most of a room’s performance-destroying sound reflections, resulting in highly accurate and distortion-free sound. Enjoy a broad, enveloping soundstage with lifelike rendering of the most subtle audio details in all your favorite movies.

SEE ALSO: Want the Ultimate Home Theater Experience? Start with Design

Turn Your TV into Artwork

The Frame by Samsung is a sleek and innovative TV that features 4K resolution and QLED display technology when turned on. When turned off, the magic begins. The Frame transforms into beautiful artwork. The Frame’s Art Mode allows you to elegantly exhibit your personal art collection or any number of works of art from world-renowned institutions. From classic paintings to breathtaking photography, you can revitalize your everyday space with art as soon as you’re done watching TV.

Showcase Your Home Décor

The Frame complements large and small home spaces and blends in with photo or painting collages. You can showcase it as a centerpiece or hang it among your framed artwork and pictures. Say goodbye to messy wires that seep out from your TV to your devices with Samsung’s One Invisible Connection, a single wall-mounted TV cable that discreetly carries AV and power from your TV to the Samsung QLED Connect Box, which can be installed behind the wall in an AV back box or within a media cabinet.

The Frame comes with a variety of customizable bezel colors to fit the style of your room. Their built-in magnets make them easy to change out as you see fit. Choose a conservative screen size at 32 inches or make a statement with the 75-inch model.

Elevate Your Viewing Experience

The Frame isn’t just revolutionary digital art. It’s also an innovative 4K television chock-full of features. Samsung’s Quantum Dot technology reveals over a billion shades of color, bringing images to life from every angle. Its Adaptive Picture technology automatically senses surrounding light and adjusts the screen’s brightness and contrast so that your viewing experience is perfect at any time of day.