Everyone has that friend who is the "tech person." They seem comfortable with technology and might be the go-to person for questions about smartphones, computers, or any device with an internet connection. We think that's great. But we have a word of advice—please don't rely on that person to put together your smart home. 

Smart homes are not simple projects. And your friend might know about some popular consumer smart home products, but chances are they don't understand the complexity of a complete, integrated smart home. To do your Vinings, GA, home the right way, you need a local smart home contractor. Let’s explore the reasons below.

When buying, building, or remodeling a new home, you'll have many decisions to make. Everything from landscaping to interior finishes to window treatments is on the table. All the decisions and options to evaluate can be exhausting. While you can't call Saul to help, you can rely on your local Control4 installer.

Smart home features are high on the list of most homebuyers today, and you likely want at least a couple of things or many. And the decisions for smart home tech can be equally overwhelming. But with a Control4 installer like GHT Group, you can have a personal expert in smart home automation that can take the stress out of the planning and work with your builder and designer to integrate the tailored system you want. Keep reading to learn what a Control4 installer can do for your new Cumming, GA home.

With warmer weather just ahead, it's time to get outside. As the days get warmer, the nights become even more pleasant in Georgia. Chances are you invest quite a bit of time, effort, and money into making your outdoor spaces in Buckhead and the Atlanta, GA area an inviting place to spend time in the warmer months. But in the evening, do you retreat to the comforts of your indoor audio and video entertainment?

If you do, we have a way to get you to make the most of your time outside. How about an outdoor home theater? Yes, it's possible. Read on for three options to get you enjoying your favorite movies and series al fresco, all day and all night.

Some products stand the test of time. Their design transcends the fads, and the company pedigree assures a level of performance that lives up to the brand. In cars, the Porsche 911 is one such product. In continuous production since 1963, its design has evolved with the times, and its performance continues to push the limits, but it has stayed true to its purpose. The Herman Miller Aeron chair is another modern example of iconic design, often imitated but never duplicated.

In home audio, several brands have also withstood the test of time. But few have hewn as closely to their purpose and heritage as McIntosh audio. In 2019, the company celebrates its 70^th anniversary of offering superlative audio products. Like the Aeron chair and the Porsche 911, McIntosh has its own classic design flourish – the blue-lit analog power meters and traditional metal trimmed knobs on a massive black faceplate. Just like those other classic products, older generations of McIntosh audio products are still prized by fans of vintage audio; they were designed to last for decades.

What makes McIntosh special? It has always been a commitment to ultimate performance and quality. The company may be best known for its amplifiers, and that was the starting point, as well as the genesis of those iconic blue power meters. In the 1960s, McIntosh amplifiers helped power the massive Woodstock concert, which was conveniently in the company's backyard in upper New York State. The 1970s saw the rise of HiFi audio, and the company broadened its line into tuners and speakers. If you walked into a HiFi shop then, you knew that McIntosh was top-of-the-line gear.

The 1980s saw the rise of digital audio with the advent of the CD, and McIntosh introduced its first CD player as well as expanding further into loudspeakers. The 1990s brought home theater and architectural speakers into popularity, and McIntosh was there with new multichannel amplifiers and in-wall transducers. The decade also saw McIntosh move into automotive audio, and a McIntosh system was produced for another iconic automobile, Ford's 2003 remake of the Lemans-winning Ford GT.

Currently, McIntosh continues to evolve with the times and has embraced two of the major technology drivers of the audio market: Digital music and wireless. For a taste on the current range of McIntosh audio offerings for your Atlanta home audio systems, you may be surprised at the breadth.

Just keep reading to find out more.

This blog has now been updated; you can view this updated post here.

Summer is here in the Atlanta area.  While our winters are fairly mild, we all look forward to spending time outdoors.  In the South, you can beat the humid heat on a lazy Sunday by floating or frolicking in the pool.  Or perhaps you just like relaxing on a chaise, in the shade, with a good book and a sweet iced tea. 

But there’s one more thing you need to set the right mood.  Whether it’s to frolic or relax, music can set the tone.  And if you’re picky about audio, you don’t want to settle for just mediocre sound outdoors.  You want an outdoor sound system that can rock when you want to, but also play with nuance when you want background music. 

We can make that happen. Read on for more.

SEE ALSO: Schedule a Visit To Our 20,000 Square Foot Marietta Showroom

We still have cable, satellite, and good old fashioned over-the-air TV, but it’s hard to ignore the incredible convenience of streaming video. There’s no major content network worth its well-deserved Emmys that doesn’t have a streaming video offering. HBO, Showtime, ESPN, CNN - they and countless others offer almost all content via on-demand streaming; some networks even offer streaming-only premium content.

You have likely heard of one or more of the most popular streaming devices. While smart TV capabilities are built into practically every new TV set, some are better than others. If you don't like the smart system that's native to your 4K TV, you can choose to use an external streaming device.

Since most TVs sold today are 4K-enabled, Georgia Home Theater believes you should only consider a 4K streaming device. They cost only a few dollars more than HD varieties and are far more future-proof. The leading devices in media streaming are those you’ve probably already heard of from Apple, Amazon, Roku, and Google.

These all offer a plethora of 4K streaming apps with a massive variety of content. What are the differences and which one is a better fit for your 4K televisions in Atlanta? Read on find out.

This blog has now been updated; you can view this updated post here.

Home automation makes controlling your home a simple affair. A touchscreen or your phone can command lights, audio, TVs, thermostats, and more to do your bidding. Sometimes, however, our hands are occupied. Sometimes our phones are recharging, or taking it out will immerse us in the thirty notifications we missed. At those times, we might just want to bark a voice command to get something done. Saying "I'm home," for example, could turn on a combination of lights in key areas and start a music playlist on your multi-room audio system. You might think that you need something like Amazon's Alexa, Google Home, or Apple's Siri to do that – but there's another option.

There’s a new voice home automation service that is going to make it even easier to control your Alpharetta-area or North Georgia home with just your voice. It makes it so easy and seamless that you may find yourself rarely reaching for a remote or your smartphone. It's called Josh.ai, and it will understand what you want to do as well as a personal butler.

You might be thinking at this point: What does Josh.ai do that I can’t do with Amazon Alexa or Google Home? Read on to learn how Josh does voice-controlled home automation differently.

Our clients love Control4 home automation for its power, flexibility, and compatibility with so many smart home features. Control4 never stands still, and they're always adding new features and functionality to the system, as well as continuously improving the performance, usability, and scalability of the system.

GHT Group – metro Atlanta's premier Control4 installer – is pleased to offer Control4 OS 3.3, available now. If you have an existing Control4 system, it's an excellent upgrade for your Milton, GA home. And if you don't, it's another great reason to step up to the convenience and luxury of Control4 smart automation. 

Keep reading below to learn about the major improvements in Control4 OS 3.3!

Have we gone off the deep end? We are now claiming that home automation can improve wellness? Bear with us; it's not as wild as it seems. First, home automation is a great convenience – and luxury – and if that alone reduces stress, that's an improvement in your wellness.

Think about it. If your home automation system can inform you that you left the garage door open because it knows you're not at home, you can close it with a tap on a screen or have it do so automatically after a few minutes. If you're on vacation and you have a video doorbell and smart security cameras, you can check in on your house at any time and be notified of any unusual activity. Peace of mind and reduced anxiety is a boon for wellness too.

But even beyond the convenience and security aspects, comprehensive smart home systems like Control4 can create a better atmosphere for wellness too. As a Control4 installer in Cumming and Metro Atlanta, we have seen (and helped create) many ways clients have used their smart home features to improve fitness, mood, and relaxation for a healthier atmosphere. Keep reading for some of the best ideas!

Spring is in the air, and it’s time to get outdoors. While Georgia’s weather is mild in the spring, the Kennesaw area will soon experience the southern summer’s warmer, more humid season. And with spring and summer comes rain, and oh, the bugs. Does that sometimes keep you from enjoying your patio?

You can control the environment outside, too (within limits, of course). Did you know that motorized outdoor shades can let you enjoy your patios even more? Today’s solutions are more integrated and sleeker than ever. Keep reading below to see how outdoor shading helps you make the most of your outside areas.

In the not so recent past, tunable lighting was simply not a possibility. As we've discussed on these pages, tunable lighting refers to the ability to control the color temperature of a light source. With incandescent or fluorescent (including compact fluorescent) lighting fixtures, color temperature was fixed - you could get a cool white or warm white bulb of a specific color temperature. If you wanted color, you could get that, but that bulb would forever glow that same color too.

Tunable lighting introduces tremendous new flexibility for the lighting in your home. Science has shown that our bodies react to different light, and it regulates our rhythms, with bright white light providing energy and focus while dimmer, warmer light promotes relaxation and leads to more restful sleep. Beyond wellness, tunable lighting brings aesthetic benefits to your home as well.

When it comes to tunable lighting, one brand stands above the rest. Ketra is the pioneer in tunable LED lighting, and now as part of lighting leader Lutron, forms the most complete and technically advanced tunable lighting solution. Keep reading to learn more about Ketra lighting and how it can enhance your Marietta, GA home.

At GHT Group, we’re proud of the audio brands we work with. Names like Bowers & Wilkins, MartinLogan, Klipsch, and many more are known for their vibrant reproduction of sound, which is also a way of saying, we know what good audio is!

When you take the audio outside, there are some different challenges in achieving high sound quality. Lack of walls to reflect sound, ambient noise, and wide-open spaces all play a part in requiring more planning for a great outdoor sound system for your Brookhaven, GA home.

While there are several excellent choices for outdoor speakers – and we offer many – there is one company that we particularly like not just for sound quality but also for the complete solution they offer. Read on to learn more about creating your ultimate outdoor soundscape with Coastal Source.

Do you like to be the master of your environment? Your house can be a quiet refuge from the world outside. And when you want to change the mood, you can put on some music to energize, unwind, or something in between.

What about outdoors? When you go outside, you no longer have complete control of sound. There might be a distant drone from the highway, lawnmowers, or pool pumps piercing the serenity of your comfortable patios and landscape. But you can have a secret weapon, and it's not noise-canceling headphones. An outdoor audio system can envelop your Cumming, GA home’s outside environs with full, rich sound that makes the barking dogs and other annoyances fade into the background.

Read on to see how an outdoor audio system makes everything in your backyard a memorable experience.

Aside from the continuing popularity of vinyl records, the world of audio went digital years ago. It started with the CD, moved into computers, audio players epitomized by the iconic iPod, and ultimately into internet streaming. Sound, however, is an analog wave, and in many systems, that final step of delivering sound to the speaker is still analog.

In whole-home audio systems, depending on the cabling setup, the system might have speaker wire emanating from a central point to speakers in many rooms and even outside. In those configurations, distances must be considered as the signal can degrade over very long runs. Different connections and cabling might be made to move amplifiers closer to the speakers in some of those cases.

Digital audio, when routed over wiring like standard ethernet cable, does not degrade over distance. Bits are bits, and if all the bits don't make it over to where they're going, network protocols check for that and ensure that missing bits get sent. Digital audio can be sent over any distance without affecting sound quality. That makes distributing audio digitally ideal for whole-home audio, especially in very large homes and properties.

As a longtime Crestron dealer, GHT Group has significant experience with the company’s digital audio and video distribution solutions in both the residential and commercial spaces. We’re excited that Crestron is bringing flexible IP audio distribution to your Duluth, GA home with unprecedented scalability and usability. Keep reading to learn more about the new DM NAX matrix amplifier for whole-house audio.

We’ve discussed the merits of Crestron home automation systems at length in the past. Crestron is the company that is practically synonymous with automation in both the residential and commercial spaces. For some smaller residential applications, Crestron solutions had the reputation of being complex to integrate, as the system had many options.

Several months ago, Crestron introduced OS 3, a redesigned automation system aimed at making a home automation system easier for a homeowner to use and for integrators like GHT Group to install. In truth, OS 3 was not radically new; it was an evolution and improvement over the Pyng system that they had introduced a few years earlier that added many modern features to Crestron automation.

It’s important to understand Crestron’s approach to home automation. They are a company that designs and tests all their own equipment and software, not merely designing equipment that is manufactured offshore. When it comes to the software, the ability to control a home remotely through the internet also means being able to do it with the utmost security and privacy. 

If you have multiple homes, like your primary residence in Brookhaven and a cabin in Blue Ridge in the Georgia mountains, Crestron OS 3 is an ideal solution for managing your homes securely. Read on to learn more.