The National Canine Defense League was looking in the 1970s for a catchy phrase that could protect the dogs that were purchased in haste at Christmas time and then not wanted by spring. They came up with the line: 'A dog is for life, not just for Christmas.'

The same idea may be accurate for the partner you pick to do your home automation work. When you choose an automation company to do the job, like selecting a General Contractor (GC) to help build your house, you expect what they will deliver when they are done. But unlike your GC, your smart home is a living and changing system, and you need to ensure they will be with you long past the end of the job. Maybe the BRAVAS slogan should be, "we are not just there to install something; we are there for the life of your usage of it." Not quite so catchy!

One of the fastest-growing segments of the home automation market is the smart plug. In this blog, we want to explain what a smart plug is, where best to use them and when they might be making life more complicated rather than easier.

Private cinemas are retreats, and a chance to get away from the hustle and hassle of everyday life. When it is time to turn off the lights and slide into your favorite theater chair, the last thing you want to deal with is a burned-out bulb in your projector. As it happens, lamps only seem to fail at the end of a long day, so what can your home theater company, BRAVAS, do to remedy this?

There is great news: Lamp-based projectors are no longer the only option. Many manufacturers have released LED, and even laser projectors. Most of these LED projectors are small, portable projectors that simply wouldn’t look great on a big screen. But others, like those from Sony, Epson and Barco, were specifically designed to improve the theater experience.

If you have a home theater, you probably already have surround sound. 5.1 systems are the most popular, featuring three speakers in the front of the room, a pair in the rear and a subwoofer. This served as the de facto surround sound system for the last few decades. Many systems were upgraded to 7.2, with two additional surround speakers and another subwoofer, but the way they worked was essentially the same. If you have a traditional 5.1 or 7.2 system, there is a huge upgrade available to you through your surround sound installer, BRAVAS.

Dolby Atmos is a rethinking of how surround systems are designed, starting with how the tracks are engineered. Sounds are treated as 3D objects, and can be placed anywhere in space that the artist or engineer desires. In your room, speakers are added overhead to help create that three-dimensional atmosphere.

As we buy bigger and bigger TVs, we also can give ourselves a severe design problem. A 75-inch TV is great to watch a ballgame or movie on, but it is just a giant black hole in the wall when turned off. Having spent all that money making your room look great, the TV is just a giant, ugly black void when not powered on.  

But it doesn't need to be that way; here are ten hidden TV solutions to 'pimp your TV' and avoid all that ugly negative space.

In the extreme, commercial and residential technology integrations are very different. Both projects have shades, lighting controls, TVs, audio, and security, but the scale can be very different. At BRAVAS, we do a few home projects every year with more than 20 rooms with TVs, but they don’t have video conferencing. There can be hundreds of rooms in a commercial project, and all of them may have TVs and conferencing capabilities. As an office design company, we know firsthand that commercial projects are often of a massive scale as compared to most homes.

Today, after a year of working from home, some of us are starting to head back into our offices. However, as we re-enter these spaces, while many of the office chairs are better, we have noticed other elements of the experience are not as good. We explored some of the issues in a recent BRAVAS Luxury Living podcast which you can hear here.

Surveillance products, like security cameras and doorbell cameras, are an increasingly common addition to the home. As a security camera installation company, we get those calls all the time. Smartphones have made them much more useful, and simple DIY options like Ring doorbells have shown just how powerful they can be. Whether you want to know what is happening at home, you want to deter porch pirates, or you have legitimate concerns about your safety, there is a camera option for you. Whatever your reason for considering a surveillance system, following the guidelines below will help ensure your system does exactly what you need.

At their recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple repeatedly used the words ‘Spatial’ and ‘Audio’ together more than any other combination of words (except maybe ‘best’ and ‘ever’). Some people believe that spatial audio is the future of listening to music, and there is a lot of work going on to convert an old track to a new spatial sound. At BRAVAS, your local surround sound installer, we believe all this is thinking through, and it is work understanding what spatial audio is, how to listen to it and if there is a role for your Dolby Atmos system to listen to it.

As we add more and more devices to our home network, the chance of becoming a victim to cyber criminals dramatically increases. Most of us are unaware of the security risks these devices present, leaving our network wide open for thieves to steal our personal, private, and confidential information. But by following these simple guidelines, you help can protect you and your family from becoming the next statistic.