The Latest on Home Technology

Burglaries are on the rise in December

You’re not the only one window shopping this season. Every year, there is a rise in home burglaries for the last two weeks of December. That’s because criminals have been peeking through your windows, going through your garbage cans, and waiting for the right opportunity to pounce. And what better time to rob someone than right after Christmas? New TVs, gaming consoles, computers, and other expensive gifts are all left home when you travel for the holidays; or even return to your day job. When you can’t always count on a neighbor or friend to watch your home while you’re away, what can you do? With today’s home security systems, you can keep an eye on your home from anywhere.

Protect your home with Video Surveillance and Smart Security

With the growth in technology, it’s time to upgrade the alarm system. Video surveillance and smart security will give you the ability to peek in on your home from your iPad, iPhone, or Android device. The live video feed will give you access to view who’s at the door, who’s inside your home, and who’s lurking around the perimeter. Forgot to set the alarm when you left? No worries. You’ll be able to arm and disarm the alarm system from your device, even if you’re thousands of miles away from Atlanta. And with only a staggering 13.6% of burglaries resulting in arrests, you’ll be glad you upgraded your alarm system. Burglars leave hardly any evidence behind, making it difficult to find the intruders or your stolen objects. That’s why it’s smart to have video surveillance in your home. You can use the live video feed to alert police if there are intruders in your home. With the capability to record and play back video, you’ll have the evidence to put an end to their ‘shopping spree’. Smart Security and Video Surveillance is a must have in the world we live in today. You wouldn’t browse the web without security on your computer, so why leave your home without an alarm system to thwart the physical criminals.

Protect your home, family, and belongings from the Grinches of the world this holiday season. To learn more about us and our solutions, or to speak with a professional about your needs, visit http://atlantaaudio.com/our-solutions/security-surveillance. 

Lutron Makes Shading Control Easy for the Whole Family

Like many smart home technologies, motorized shades are meant to make life simpler, more comfortable, and more convenient—from form to function. That means commanding the shades throughout your Atlanta, GA home should be effortless, too.

Lutron, a leader in motorized lighting and shading solutions, offers a variety of intuitive ways to control your window treatments that are easy for the whole family to use. Start planning the new year with motorized shades you can manage with wireless handheld remotes, in-wall keypads, the Lutron app, voice commands, or Control4. 

Atlanta Audio & Automation and Sonos are official partners who provide you with the high fidelity audio and video systems in Atlanta. Sonos brings you a line of wireless speakers that are perfect for any room in your home. Wireless hardware has a reputation of not performing to par with its wired counterparts. Tracking in wireless mouse isn’t as good, wireless keyboard strokes aren’t as responsive and internet speeds aren’t as fast over Wi-Fi. Does this line of thinking apply to wireless audio?

Dispelling The Myth

While people’s fear of poorer audio quality in wireless audio systems are understandable, it is not justified by facts. A wireless audio system can indeed bring high quality audio as well as a wired counterpart. Hi-Fi audio is possible because of lossless coding.

Digital audio signals must be coded, or placed in a format that can be transmitted and received, when it travels from one point to another. The better the coding, the higher the fidelity of the audio. Many wireless systems use lossless coding to output a signal, which means the signal the system is receiving is the same as it is leaving the transmitter. Together with a strong Wi-Fi signal, wireless Hi-Fi audio is achievable.

What Do You Need For Hi-Fi Wireless Audio?

 Besides having a strong Wi-Fi connection, your playback hardware needs to be high fidelity. It doesn’t matter that your audio files are lossless coded if it’s being transmitted through poor speakers. Amplifiers and speakers make up the quality of your wireless system so here is what you need to look out for.

If you are using your speakers for parties, they need to provide enough power to achieve high volume levels without compromising sound quality. An underpowered speaker will clip or distort sound, damaging them if it outputs sound at a high volume. Check the frequency response which tells you the range in which a speaker can reproduce musical tones. This is important for finding a speaker that can give you true, realistic bass. Lastly, examine the sound quality of the speakers themselves; does it produce clean, transparent sound that is tonally accurate?

1. Invest in a a Whole House Audio System.

You'll be able to hear your favorite holiday tunes all over the house. Our systems can stream songs from your smartphones, which is a great way to get all of your friends and family to participate in picking out the music or set up a holiday playlist on Pandora, Spotifiy, or Mog.

2. Hang a Soundbar.

Mounted below a flat panel TV, a soundbar speaker will clear up the floor space (if you are using floor speakers with your TV now) and aim the audio directly at your ears, just as it should be.

3. Automate It.

During the busiest time of the year, it's hard to remember the basics, like turning down the heat before bed or shutting off the lights and turning on the alarm before you race out the door. A wireless home automation system can do the mundane while you focus on the merriment. We use the ELAN g! Home Entertainment and Home Automation system and Lutron lighitng control systems which can add so much value to your home while greatly enhancing your quality of life.

4. Put an IP Camera by the Door.

Able to be accessed from an app on your mobile phone, tablet, or from your integrated home automation system. The IP camera can give you a heads up to carolers at your front door or a special delivery by the UPS team.

5. Trim the House with LED Lights.

Wrapped around your Christmas tree or attached to the exterior of your house, intelligent LED lights can do more than just twinkle brightly. They can cycle through a ranbow of colors or pulse to the beat of a holiday tune.

The Consumer Electronics Show may be held in Las Vegas, but this year’s event means big things are coming to your home entertainment system here in Atlanta. Whether you’re looking for the highest resolution video displays, the most convenient control of your entire system or the next big thing in wireless surround sound, we’ve put together a list of our four favorite things to come out of the biggest technology show in the world.

SEE ALSO: Which Speakers are Right For Your Whole House Audio System?

Take a look at this video shown on the TODAY show yesterday.   It was showcasing SunBriteTVs which are the only true outdoor TVs in the world designed and built for all-weather use.  They are designed, engineered and assembled in the U.S.A.

We are a  local authorized dealer of SunBriteTV.   To find out more about these outdoor TVs and other outdoor entertaining options like outdoor planter speakers or rock speakers for your backyard.  Give us a call or make an appointment to come by our show house.

There are two distinct approaches -- no, philosophies -- to turning on the lights in Douglas and Lina Leonovicz's Old Metairie home.

Lina accomplishes this task the way most of us would: walking over to a nearby wall and flicking a switch.

Douglas, however, will have none of that manual nonsense. He is far more apt to commune with small, rectangular color touchscreens mounted in the kitchen or front hallway.

Pressing an icon here, sliding a finger there, the retired vascular surgeon can prompt anything from a soft glow to a brilliant glare in whichever space he chooses. He is a Jedi of illumination, rendering a 6,000-square-foot home into a playground for his watt-driven whims and wishes.

It's not just mastery of darkness and light that beguiles Leonovicz, 48, who delights in summoning up music no matter where he happens to be, rock standards thundering forth from speakers installed discreetly in the ceilings.

If you're building a new home or remodeling an existing one, you're probably wondering how, or if, the latest conveniences of home automation might figure into your plans. As always, we recommend getting together with a home technology professional who can show you options and answer questions.

To help get you started, here are 10 reasons why home automation is here to stay.

1. Control your home from anywhere.

And by that we mean control all kinds of systems - lighting, security, heating and cooling, appliances, AV entertainment and more - from a smartphone or tablet.

2. See your home from anywhere.

You can't put a price on peace of mind when you're away from home. With smart-home integration, cameras in and around your home can be accessed from a smartphone or tablet so you can see what's going on no matter where you are. Choose basic, single-view cameras or more sophisticated models with motion-triggered recording and remote-controllable pan/tilt/zoom.

3. Go crazy with convenience.

Why get up from the couch to see who's at the door when you can access the front-door camera on your TV? And instead of running around the house turning the lights off before you go to bed, use an app on your phone to turn 'em all off at once.

Select someone locally. Find a professional home theater company within a 50-mile range of your home. You are more likely to have an installer come by and tweak your system, if need be, when you are within a reasonable distance.

Ask for a link to the home theater installation company's Web site or for some images of recently completed installations. Also, ask to visit the home theater installers' showroom to provide you with living examples of their workmanship. Check our our portfolio. Here at Atlanta Audio we have a 6,000 square foot showhouse that showcases home automation, home theater options, whole house audio, lighting control, media rooms, video surveillance, and much more. Call us today to set up an appointment or visit our website at www.atlantaaudio.com.

Ask for references on finished projects that are similar to what you have in mind for your home theater and are relatively within the same cost range. Ask the homeowner about how the installation company works and how satisfied they are with the finished results. Visit our customer testimonials to get an idea of what our customers say about Atlanta Audio.

Find out how an installer works. For example if you are a neat freak and your professional installer is very proficient in plasma and audio technologies but can seem a little scatterbrained or sloppy, your working styles may not connect.

Award-Winning Homebuilder Makes Elan g! System Standard For Every New Home He Builds

After installing the ELAN® g! Entertainment and Control System in the award-winning Power Haus in 2011, Florida homebuilder Josh Wynne has decided to include a base ELAN g! system in every new home he builds. With the help of Mark van den Broek, President of SmartHouse Integration, Josh is providing every new client with a customizable, completely intuitive and easy-to-use home control system that offers iPhone, iPad and in-wall touch panel control of every core system in the home, from the lighting to the audio to heat.

“Homebuyers today want technology that can simplify things they do and improve their quality of life,” Wynne said. “By including a base home entertainment and control package with the ELAN g! system, Mark and I are giving clients a taste of the possibilities. From now on, every new client of mine is going to be able to use an iPad to control their six-zone audio system, lights, HVAC, pool controls, irrigation and security system. And we let them know right from the start that the possibilities really are endless—they can add to the system now as they see fit, and even prewire for future upgrades.”