If you have your own AV receiver or multichannel processor at home, you don’t need me to tell you how much a good surround sound system can enhance and enrich the movie-watching experience. You probably also don’t need me to tell you that controlling these beasts isn’t always entirely intuitive. Before I added smart control to my home, my poor wife could barely figure out how to play a DVD without my help, due to the pile of remote controls required to power things up and switch inputs.

Of course, control systems like Control4, URC Total Control, and Savant make that sort of remote control juggling a thing of the past. But still, getting your surround system and your control system to play nicely together isn’t always the easiest of tasks. So most of the time, home technology specialists have to resort to tricks like placing a little IR transmitter on the face of the gear itself. But every time my dad’s house cleaner visits, I’m reminded of the fact that those little IR transmitters are way too easy to knock loose. And when they’re not positioned perfectly, the system stops working. I can’t tell you how many 8pm calls I’ve received from my old man that begin not with a, “hello,” or, “how are you?” but rather an exasperated, “My sound isn’t working!”

We’ve all been there: It’s Sunday and that means football. But if you want to watch the NFL Sunday Ticket and the NHL game, you’ll inevitably end up toggling back and forth between channels and missing out on some of the action. Throw NBA and fantasy football into the mix and suddenly you are trying to catch multiple games, leaving you with carpel tunnel syndrome from playing remote jockey and an overall sense of dissatisfaction. Sure, you could record a game or two on your DVR to watch later, but then you run the risk of glimpsing ‘the spoiler’ via your Twitter feed.

Sudden changes in the current coming into your home are called surges. If minor, these surges are usually harmless, but larger surges can either damage your equipment instantly or slowly degrade the equipment from numerous surges over time.

These surges come from a variety of sources: lightning, problems with the utility company’s system or the cycling on and off of high demand devices such as air conditioners and refrigerators. Even the recent increases in solar activity can harm your equipment by causing surges to the power coming into your home.

Control4 announced a new family of wireless lighting control products for seamless integration with Control4® systems. With a fresh, sophisticated design, expansive customization options, and a myriad of innovative capabilities, this next-generation of wireless lighting control products caters to the growing number of residential and commercial projects.

According to a report from Pike Research, the global market for intelligent lighting controls will enjoy steady growth through this decade, rising from $1.5 billion in 2012 to more than $4.3 billion in 2020. Control4® Wireless Lighting control products provide a broad range of elegant and energy saving lighting solutions within this robustly growing market. From new adaptive phase dimmers and combination keypad/dimmers, to 0-10V dimmers for LED applications and  configurable keypads for control, the Control4 Wireless Lighting family delivers its functional innovation with elegant design including, a diverse palette of color and finish options, custom backlit engraved buttons, and programmable status LEDs supporting customizable color hues for at-a-glance feedback. Additionally, each new switch, dimmer, and keypad includes an ambient light sensor to automatically adjust the brightness of status LEDs and button backlighting.

Looking to add square footage to home? It’s time to look beyond the four walls of your home.

As more and more homeowners choose to remodel their homes, they’re finding additional living space in their own backyards…literally. The concept of a backyard is being redefined from green grass, a small patio with table and chairs to outdoor living spaces that include kitchens and bars, sitting areas and hot tubs. Thanks to advances in outdoor heaters and patio fireplaces, you can even enjoy your outdoor living space all year round whether it’s an extension off your master suite, a second kitchen or an alfresco dining room.

Like your indoor living space, your outdoor living area should be divided into distinct rooms or areas. You’ll want to determine what purpose will each “room” or space will serve and how much square footage should be dedicated to each area. With proper planning and guidance from one of our trained custom installers, you can make the most of your newly found living space. Once you decide what purpose each area will serve, you can then begin the transformation. Beyond pergolas, outdoor furniture and barbecues, there’s a ton of A/V equipment designed to help make the great outdoors feel a little bit more like home.

Have you ever had a system where you needed to use one remote for your TV, another for the A/V receiver, and yet another for the cable box or satellite receiver? Or even worse, there was only one person in your home who could actually make the system work on a consistent basis? A universal remote can rescue you from this situation and make it easy for everyone to enjoy movies, music and more.

When most people think about their dream home theater, whole home A/V or other home entertainment system they first think about TVs, electronics or speakers—the remote control system usually isn’t at the top of the list. But the remote is what you touch every day. It’s how you can control everything your system can do without frustration.

Imagine coming home from work late one night in the rain. You forgot your keys, and your front light is burned out. You fumble for the right key, then you drop your keys in a puddle. Isn’t there a better way?

If this situation sounds familiar, you may want to consider a keyless entry system. Stop fumbling with keys, and take the next step in creating a seamless digital home with a Control4 door locks system from Yale Real Living. A Control 4 system is a digital keyless entry system for your home or office, or for any other standard doors.

For true luxury – and convenience – many people covet the experience of easy access to audio around their home. Gone are the days where you put a CD in the boom box and then crank up the volume to have any hope of hearing it in another room across the house. Today, it is relatively easy to have wireless speakers installed around your home or office in order to get a more authentic audio experience that doesn’t leave you cringing in one room and straining in another.

Two of the main choices for wireless audio on the market today are Sonos and Apple Airplay systems. Both are similar in that they can use your computer’s hard drive, as well as online music services such as Pandora, to fill your home with sound. And both possess a common convenient feature: you can control the music playback remotely with devices such as an iPhone without leaving the comfort of your favorite chair. There are a few features, however, that set Sonos apart.

After a notable four-year absence in the TV category, the Pioneer Elite TV is back. And while it’s not plasma like its well-received predecessors, the LCD LED set is just as attention grabbing.

The new Elite TV is setting the standard again in the high-end television industry, providing the highest caliber picture and technology available today.  The groundbreaking flat panel is available in 60” and 70” class. A great set to research if you’re thinking of installing a new home theater.

Elite LED LCD sets boast a unique and powerful set of features that result in deep black levels, huge depth of color, high brightness and smooth images. Bottom line: it’s the best LED LCD picture on the market.

The Elite TV utilizes FluidMotion, a combination of an advanced frame creation system and scanning backlight technology. What does this mean to the viewer? Incredible picture clarity and smoothness. It also employs Full Array LED that creates a more uniform and brighter lighting versus the traditional edge-lit LEDs.

And there’s more! Elite’s proprietary RGB+Y technology, adds a yellow sub-pixel to the standard red/green/blue palette. This extra sub-pixel enables Precision Color Plus to create more than eight million dots per screen. What’s that mean in layman’s terms? You’ll be watching an unbelievably detailed picture.

But Elite’s shining differentiator is its Intelligent Variable Contrast. Developed specifically for Pioneer Elite TVs, Intelligent Variable Contrast technology automatically controls brightness and backlight to create an unparalleled depth of color, brilliance, detail and dark areas.