Make Your Smart Home Work for You - Motion Detectors
Make your smart home work for you by introducing presence detectors throughout your home. Increase its comfort, utility, and security with one simple device.
One of the best things that you can do in a smart home is presence detection. They can help with routines built around schedules that will automate the way other smart devices in your home work.
Smart Vents and Air conditioning.
If you have presence detectors, you can create automations that open your smart vents, and cool or heat your rooms only if they detect people in them. Even if you don’t have smart vents, you can set your AC unit to only heat or cool if it detects that people are home. This can substantially increase comfort in your home, while at the same time saving energy and money on your monthly utility bill. I personally highly recommend pairing motion and presence detectors with the Flair Smart Vent system, which you can read more about in an article coming soon.
This Automation can definitely help with the sweltering heat we get here in the Tampa area of Florida, and if you live in any of the surrounding areas, like Riverview, Ruskin, and Wimauma, don’t hesitate to contact me!
Paired with a smart vent system, presence detectors and motion detectors can help make each room that you are in as comfortable as can be.
Lighting, Switches, and More.
With smart human detection, you can set up routines and schedules that will help making moving through your home seamless, not to mention cutting out the “Ok Google,” or “Alexa” phrases for turning on your lights. Imagine walking into a room, and the lights just turning on automatically, and turning off automatically after you leave the room. These routines can also be put on schedules, so that way they won’t turn your bedroom lights on in the middle of the night if you toss and turn in bed, but can turn on a dim light if you walk to your bathroom. All of these actions can be accomplished with a presence detector in combination with smart lights or switches. I personally recommend using smart switches unless you want some fancy color lighting in a room.
Smart lights, smart switches, and so much more can be seamlessly controlled with these motion and presence detectors.
Full Security System Integration.
The last big benefit to motion sensors, and presence detectors is that they can be integrated into a whole home security system. These sensors can be finely tuned to pick up any human motion moving throughout your home, and when paired with a security system, can make a robust way of keeping an eye on your home, alerting you to any suspicious activity. They can work in conjunction with an alarm system, and act as a deterrent, via an alarm, or can be integrated into and monitored by a 3rd party service such as Brinks.
Nest Security cameras, are a great option if you are the google centric household.
As you can see, adding presence detectors into your smart home, can greatly help with your smart home’s functionality. I personally hate asking google to turn my lights on and off all the time, I much prefer to set up routines that can do it automatically for me, just as a smart home should.
If you would like this kind of automation built for you, don’t hesitate to reach out and call me for a free virtual consultation, and I can build the best system for your individual home. I can also come out to you for an in-home consultation in Riverview, Brandon, Apollo Beach, Sun City Center, and Many of the Surrounding Areas of Tampa
Otherwise you can give me a call or send me a message at (813) 699-9776
The Smart Way to Pick the Right TV
Picking the right TV can be a daunting task. There certainly is a huge number of choices. I will help break down all of the differences down for you, so that you have the perfect fit for a TV. I believe that there are four specific categories to look at when purchasing a TV: Size, Content, Color, and Environment.
Size Matters - Bigger is not Always Better
This TV was carefully selected for its size to match the aesthetics and viewing distances in the room.
Lets get started with size. Everybody wants to have that 100+ inch screen, but unless you have the appropriate room for it, it will be both uncomfortable to watch, and be an aesthetic eye sore.
For one, large pieces of furniture (including TVs) usually will not look good when placed in a room. If you have a minimalist aesthetic, a large TV, is going to ruin that clean look that you have. Even if you have lots of picture frames and tapestries, an excessively large TV will be overbearing, and drown out all of your other pieces.
Secondly, depending on where you normally sit, a television that is too large will be uncomfortable to watch; your eyes or head will constantly have to move side to side just to see all of the action happening.
For comfortable every day viewing, televisions should take up about 30 degrees of your field of view. That means if you have a 65” TV, you should sit about 9 feet away from the TV for comfortable viewing. If you do want a slightly more theatrical feel, you can go up to a 40 degree field of view, which would allow up to an 85” TV at about 9 feet distance of viewing.
If you want to have amazing aesthetics for your home, The Frame TV by Samsung is an amazing choice. (Photo Credit House Beautiful)
When it comes to Aesthetics, it really is a personal preference, however, if you want to impress, and make sure the home looks good. I would recommend having the TV mounted about 4-5 feet off the ground, and looking into about the 65” range if you have 8-10ft ceilings. If you have 12ft ceilings or larger, you can go up to 75” and maybe 85” without looking too ridiculous.
Content - Sports, Gaming, Movies it all matters
This is where the type of TV becomes important. There are three main technologies that most TV manufactures use. Two of them are LCD type TVs, and the other is OLED. The two LCD types are regular LED, and Quantum dot (QLED). LED itself can come in two varieties, edge lit, and full array.
If you play games, or watch sports, QLED might be the way to go, they are both bright and vibrant making sure that you see every color.
However if you are a movie buff, OLED may be your dream come true, as they shine, particularly in dark scenes where they can create perfect blacks.
If you are on a budget, regular LEDs can be good, they are brighter than OLED, but not nearly as color accurate as QLEDs, and you may experience a bit of light bleed, especially if you select an edge lit model.
Color - Bright and Vibrant, or Dark and True
The LG OLED is truly a beautiful TV, with perfect blacks and amazing color, they really are hard to beat for that movie going experience.
For the most part, Color out of the box comes down to the brand that you select, though most TVs can be calibrated to come pretty close to the same color, especially since nowadays most TVs have HDR built in.
Samsung is definitely known for it’s bright and vibrant picture. Even Samsung’s OLED TV is brighter than the competition, however that does come with the drawback of colors sometimes being over saturated, and the potential for burn in if you watch anything that has static images in the picture (think heads up display in games).
Sony is my favorite when it comes to out of the box color. The biggest downside, is that Sony is a bit pricier for a comparable model TV. Sony also has the darkest image of the big three brands, but honestly as long as you have the correct space to place it in, these will make amazing TVs, especially for watching movies.
LG TVs tend to strike a balance between color accuracy and brightness. They are great TVs, usually being cheaper than both Samsung and Sony, while taking some of the best traits from each of the brands.
Environment - Where the TV is located can make or break the experience.
Where you watch your TV makes a huge difference in which one you select. As I said earlier, I personally love the dark picture of a Sony TV, however if you have a brightly lit living room, or are placing the TV outdoors, a dark TV would be a terrible idea. Likewise, if you place a bright Samsung TV in a dark theater room, it will make your eyes feel like they are burning.
Hopefully I’ve helped demystify your TV selection, but if you want help making a selection you can always schedule a free virtual consultation with me! Even if you don’t live in Tampa, Riverview, Ruskin, Brandon, Apollo Beach, or any of the surrounding areas, I can still help you make the right decision for your TV, absolutely free.