Ray Rice, of Digital Sight and Sound, offered some simple and easy home automation recommendations in some fun formats. Here’s what he had to say:
“It’s 2017, why would you not automate? It’s easy, inexpensive, effective and fun.
Why wait? It’s time. Everyone reading this already has automation in their home. When you pull in your driveway, and you push a button, the garage door opens. That’s automation. It’s reliable, and we all like it.
If you had to get out of your car and manually open the garage door, how often do you suppose you would leave your car in the driveway? When you automate, you will likely use those home features more often.
My family has had whole-home audio for 20 years. When the system was new and we wanted to turn the system on, we had to do everything manually and we didn’t use it often because it was cumbersome. When we were tired of listening to the CDs that were in the player, we turned the system off rather than change the CDs.
Today, we have a system that is controlled by our iPhones and an iPad built into the wall in our kitchen. All of the music comes from the Internet. All the music we could want is available instantly and in incredible quality. We use the system daily, and it was not expensive. You can buy it at a store and you can install it yourself.
If you’re looking for safety automation features, one way to improve safety is by installing Internet-enabled deadbolts in your doors. It’s safer to unlock a deadbolt from your office, with your smart phone, to allow the plumber or cleaning person to get in, than it is to give out your garage door code.
Want to control the room temperature? Get up off the couch and get an automated thermostat. If you’re not super handy, pay a handyman or your HVAC guy to put it in. The thermostat will cost somewhere between $150 and $350, but you’ll get that money back with how much you’ll save on energy costs.
There are plenty of advanced, integrated automation systems that allow you to control all of your home devices from one app or one voice recognition device. If that’s what you’re interested in, give Digital Sight and Sound a call at 317- 848-0101.
If you want to try home automation, go walk around the home improvement stores. The end caps are full of devices that automate and are Internet enabled. Pick one and get in the game!”
