Smart Home Pro

The crew is back from this year's 2010 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas.  The Electronic Home Expo (EHX) was included, so many of our home integration suppliers were included.

CES is posting video summaries on their YouTube Channel.   The big topic of the show was 3D Television.   Every television supplier had a demonstration (Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Mitsubishi).

In other news on the television front, LG, Samsung and Panasonic also showed some impressive prototype panels, from the enormous 152 inch Panasonic plasma panel to the ultra-slim but still small sized Organic LED (OLED) displays at LG and Samsung.

LG is introducing Skype and NetCast enabled televisions (you supply the USB camera for Skype).  Mitsubishi showcased their LaserVue television.   I've seen this television and it is every bit as good, and in some ways better than the best plasma I've seen.  Energy consumption is great and this technology has great potential for larger screens.

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Time to break up the stigma surrounding lighting control systems.  

Yes, lighting control is great for managing lighting scenes in a large room with more than five lighting loads.

Yes, lighting control is great for turning lights off in the whole house when you arm the security system, or to turn lights on so you never drive up to a dark house, or to create entertainment ambience, or to light up the house if there's a security breech.

There's also an energy savings boost using lighting controls.  Lighting contributes to as much as 15% of your annual energy savings.  Turning your lights to 90% intensity is hardly noticed, but saves you 10% of that energy cost while doubling the life of your bulbs.   An intelligent system can account for daylight and occupancy, saving further.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to start with the Crestron® Prodigy system, but other options exist.  Call us or stop by the Smart Home Pro showroom!

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Walls of bookshelves line the family room.  Neatly stacked rows of DVDs line the shelves, organized alphabetically by genre.  "The CDs are in the game room."   I wonder how many CDs and DVDs are in the collection...

If you're a movie or music collector, or if you have a collection of precious family videos on DVD, you should ask us about media servers.  A media server stores your music and movies in a digital format and plays them back much like a DVD or CD player.   Then you store your disks in a safe, dry location out of view.

Not all media servers are the same.  Here are a few features to consider:

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Crestron® is the clear leader in building automation and audio / video distribution.  Commercial or residential, Crestron has such a deep portfolio there's little we can't make happen using Crestron parts.

The Prodigy system from Crestron brings the most common features of a residential automation system to a price well within reach.   Prodigy starts with a control backbone to manage your audio and video equipment such as TV, satellite, Blu-Ray or DVD, for a price that will surprise you!

From there, we can add up to 12 rooms of room audio, smart lighting controls, remote thermostat controls, an iPod® dock, AM/FM/XM receiver, even a wall mounted touch panel!  Want access from your Windows computer or iPhone® while traveling?  That's available, too.  Everything but the wall-mounted touch panel is wireless – we don't have to bury wires.  Call us at Smart Home Pro 928-282-0775 for a quote!

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