If you're planning on remodeling a house, most likely you have several goals in mind for your new abode.  More than likely, you are updating kitchens and baths, as those are the areas that often get the most attention and return the most for your remodeling investment. If it's a full remodel, you may be gutting the interior or even adding on square footage, all of which is a significant project.

Regardless of the size of the project, any time you are moving walls, changing trim, upgrading electrical wiring, or replacing cabinets and plumbing, there is a perfect opportunity to install smart home automation.

Nothing updates a home more than installing current home automation capabilities. According to recent data from the National Association of Home Builders, 7-12% of home remodeling projects go to electronics.  Much of this is going to smart home upgrades in lighting, climate control, entertainment, security, and here in Texas, smart shading and pool control as well.

If you are planning a renovation or remodel in the Park Cities, now is the perfect time to integrate a smart home automation system to modernize your property fully.

Our home automation partner Savant has made a name for itself in smart home automation by creating systems that are at once very powerful but also very intuitive to use.  Of course, what one person might consider easy to use can be another person’s nightmare.  Just ask a Microsoft Windows fan versus an Apple MacIntosh fan. 

Speaking of Apple, while not associated with the company Savant has been known as Apple-centric.  It was the first home automation company to launch an app on the iPhone; the user interface has a similar look and feel to Apple’s, and it uses powerful Apple Mac hardware in their Pro controllers.

People who like the ease, elegance, and intuitiveness of Apple products like the iPhone tend to like the similar polish of the Savant system.  What makes something intuitive and easy to use?  When it comes to software, and home automation, it’s the little details in design, flow, and navigation that count. 

Let’s take a closer look at some features that makes Savant smart home automation easy to live with in your Dallas home.

If you have a large home in Dallas, you may have acquired a large variety of AV entertainment equipment over time. Perhaps there are cable boxes in the family room and master bedroom. There is a Roku streamer in the kids’ playroom. There is a Sony smart TV mounted in your kitchen, and a Samsung Smart TV in your master bedroom (for Netflix and streaming). There’s an Apple TV in the media room for music and movie rentals. Each one of these has its own remote, interface, setup, and wired or wireless internet connection.

If you’re lucky, your home has built-ins that help hide the tangle of wires and all those boxes. But sometimes those cabinets weren’t designed for today’s flat-panel TVs, or don’t have adequate ventilation for audio equipment and cable boxes that can get hot with extended use.

Enjoying your audio and video entertainment shouldn’t be work. What if you had one intuitive interface to get to all your entertainment sources, in the same way, in every room? What if you could do it with one remote control, and not five? If you are thinking this sounds good, you might be ready for a home audio video system.

Just read on to learn more.

Home automation technology continues to march onward.  Our homes are getting smarter all the time.  There are smart lights, appliances, thermostats, cameras, TVs, motorized shades, and speakers available these days.

While you can have one or all of these smart things in your home, it’s even smarter to control them all with a unified home automation system that makes them all work well together, to automate your routines and save time for the things that matter most to you.

If you are familiar with Amazon Alexa, you know it is a line of smart speakers.  Besides telling you sports scores, playing music on demand, and making a very convenient voice-controlled kitchen timer - it also makes a great way to control other smart devices in your home.

How do you do that?  Pair Alexa with a Savant home automation system.  Alexa can be your “voice butler” that tells your Savant system what to do.  Read on to learn about some of the things this dynamic duo can do in your Dallas home.