On behalf of everyone at BRAVAS, we hope you and your family have a Happy New Year. We hope that 2021 brings you everything you desire, and after 2020, just a bit of 'the ordinary' might be all we need!

While we are thinking of 2021, we wanted to share a few ideas for your home automation plans in 2021. At BRAVAS, we would love to discuss all the ideas with you, and more details can always be found in our Solution Guide, which you can download here.

Idea 1: New Year, New Scenes

A well-designed home automation approach creates scenes that can be activated by your home automation platform. Among the most used are Good Morning, Good Night, and Away. With just a simple press of a button, your lights, shades, TVs, and so much more all change to create the right experience for you. Chances are you have the same scene programmed today that you had on day one of your systems.

If that programming was a few years ago, you might not be using your home the same way you did back then. Your family may have changed, or how you use the house may be different. Rooms that were little used a few years ago can be the center of attention when you have the whole family around or when, one day, we can throw parties!

As an experiment, walk into a room and ask yourself, "How do we use the room and what new scenes would increase the light, convenience, or utility of the room?" If you can think of some, let us help you get the scenes in that room updated. It might make the room feel new again.

For some ideas on scenes check out our blog 6 Home Automation Scenes Every Smart Home Should Have.

 

Idea 2: Make a Happy New Year a Healthy New Year

It can be surprising how we use our homes can affect our day-to-day wellness and aliveness. Here are some simple ideas to improve the health of your home.

• Get the best sleep of your life with lighting and window solutions that deliver the perfect brightness, color, and saturation throughout the day and total restorative darkness at night.
• Cut through the noise with sound damping interiors and the right mix of professionally designed audio systems.
• Enhance your environment with pristine quality air, water, and climate control.
• Spark joy by building in and hiding away devices and cables and designing your home around the people and activities you love.

You can download our Healthy Home Guide here or listen to our podcast on a Healthy Home here.

 

Idea 3: Fix Your Light Not the Light Fixture

One of the last few years' big ideas has been understanding the difference between lighting fixtures and light. For a long time, we mostly focused on the fixtures and ensured the ones we had in our homes had the right design. Today we want to make sure we have great looking fixtures; we want to make sure we have great light.

New homes and those being renovated install cheap LED bulbs into expensive fixtures. We love LEDs because they use less power and last longer, but they can have problems too. Cheap LEDs do not dim well; they often flicker at low levels and don't bring the same warmth as traditional incandescent lights.

To solve these problems, you can work with someone like BRAVAS to help you with Ketra and USAi or other lighting suppliers. Together we can make sure the light in your home looks as good as your light fixtures.

For more ideas on lighting, check our podcast here.

 

Spring Cleaning Your Home Automation System

Like any home, your Home Automation System might need a little spring cleaning. What's more, you don't have to wait till spring to start. We often spend more of our time inside our homes during the winter months, and that may be just the perfect time to think through how you use your home and how we can help you get more from it.