Sometimes, technology adds needless complexity to life. Shouldn’t technology make our life easier? When it comes to home automation, it’s surprising how some products and solutions seem to forget that critical aspect. Sometimes you get new innovative ways of doing things, but often you have to adjust to the vagaries of the technology.

As a company that has been at the forefront of smart home automation for decades, Crestron believes technology should simplify, not complicate. With the latest iteration of Crestron Home, they continue to deliver on that premise with an intelligent platform designed to make managing a smart home as simple, intuitive, and natural as possible. As a longtime Crestron dealer in Metro Atlanta, GHT Group is excited by the evolution of Crestron Home and the ease it presents in leveraging the full power of home automation, from lighting to climate to entertainment to security and more.

With the challenges of the pandemic still with us, working and schooling from home will be a continuing reality for the better part of 2020 in many areas. Major tech companies like Google have already announced they will continue work-from-home policies into 2021. Educational institutions at all levels are also grappling with how to resume classes, and many will adopt remote approaches in the short term. 

In this environment, communicating effectively from home has become critical. Communication is not just for work and school; maintaining social contacts with family and friends is also needed to not feel isolated.

Crestron has thought about this, too. A worldwide leader in enterprise video conferencing, audio-visual, and commercial automation, the company is bringing that expertise to improve communication and collaboration from home. Of course, Crestron is also a leader in smart home automation, so it couldn’t be a more perfect fit.

Keep reading to learn more about Crestron's new HomeTime, which brings together sophisticated video conferencing, communication, and home control to your Atlanta residence.

Is there such a thing as a no-compromise solution? In reality, there are very few, but we think we have one of them for you. If you’re thinking of custom window treatments for a new home, remodel, or just a little redecorating, we highly recommend (implore, plead, urge, beg) that you consider making them motorized. Why? We’ve written at length on this subject and think motorized window treatments are like sliced bread in the smart home. In all seriousness, the benefits in convenience, luxury, comfort, and efficiency will pay dividends for many years. 

But you might think, don’t motorized window treatments involve wiring and installation foibles? Interestingly, we find that misconception still exists. Wireless motorized shading is as easy to install as regular window treatments and requires no special maintenance.

If your Buckhead, GA home leans modern, industrial retro-modern, or mid-century eclectic, you'll want to know more about the new wireless option for Lutron’s Palladiom motorized shades. Read more below!

Several months ago, we introduced the concept of “human-centric lighting.” Considering lighting was invented by humans for humans, you might think the term is a bit of a misnomer.  But if you’ve worked in a large office with cold, bright, fluorescent lights, you would know that those lights were designed to get work done, but not necessarily to please humans. To be fair, fluorescent lighting is highly energy-efficient and inexpensive, which is why it is widely used in commercial environments.

At home, however, we get to control our environment. And thanks to LED lighting technology, we don’t have to use fluorescent lighting for efficiency at home. LED lighting has tremendous advantages over older incandescent and fluorescent technology, being far more energy-efficient and longer-lasting than both.

The latest LED lighting has another feature that no other lighting technology can touch – the ability to change color temperature. Ketra lighting, now part of Lutron, one of the leading companies in lighting, was a pioneer in tunable LED lighting. Read on to see how you could transform the feel of your Atlanta, GA home with Ketra tunable lighting solutions.

The way lighting designers approach home illumination has changed dramatically over the past decade as new lighting fixtures have increased creative options for layered lighting designs that effortlessly blend aesthetics and functionality. One trend that's quickly gained traction is the use of linear LED lighting, which offers an appealing combination of sleek design, versatility, and energy efficiency. Stay with us below as we cover several popular ways lighting designers are using linear fixtures to add flair and utility to home illumination in Buckhead, GA. 

By all accounts, the market for home automation and smart technology is growing at a rapid clip. The research firm IDC projects growth at 16.9% annually over the next few years, which means that prospective homeowners will be prioritizing smart automation features.

As trade professionals, you already know that you need to plan early for home infrastructure. But smart home technology is more than just including a basic pre-wire low-voltage cabling package. Keep reading to see how it pays to bring in a home automation company early in your process to make your Duluth, GA projects smart from the start.

You’ll have a lot of choices to make when adding motorized shades to your home in the Dunwoody or Metro Atlanta area. There are various control, model, and fabric options available. Then there’s the decision of how you want to power your shades. A lot of clients don’t realize they can pick between hard-wired shades and battery-powered ones.

The right choice, as with most technology, will come down to your family’s priorities and your home’s limitations. Are you most interested in having a lot of control options or a quick installation? Are you in new construction or looking for an upgrade to an existing home? This blog focuses primarily on the benefits of battery-powered shades and offers some recommendations from our Lutron partners.

If you’re considering adding a lighting control solution to your Atlanta home, you need to consider both the functional and aesthetic factors. On the functional side, you want a lighting control solution to offer many ways to control lights through apps, sensors, schedules, and wall-mounted controls. On the aesthetic side, you’ll consider the color temperature and dimming capabilities of lights and the look and style of the fixtures.

When it comes to those lighting wall controls, they need to meet your most stringent criteria – are they easy to use, save you time and effort, and look good doing their job? Lutron dealers like GHT Group understand these needs and have the full set of Lutron solutions available to meet your needs.

Lutron offers seven styles of wall-mounted controls, ranging from wired models to wireless models that use RF (radio frequency) for ease of installation in existing homes. We’ll cover three of these popular wireless styles below, so we hope you keep reading!

We love motorized shades, and we wonder how anyone can get along without them. Although “shades” might be the name most often associated with the motorized variety, you could attach most other window treatment terms to motorized (or powered, if you prefer) um, shades.

The most popular motorized shades are roller types, but one company goes way beyond those. Lutron is a world leader in lighting control as well as powered window treatments. Lutron’s mission is all about managing and controlling light, and regulating natural light is a big part of that.

If you didn’t know there were so many possibilities with Lutron shades for your Buckhead, GA home, you should definitely read the rest of this blog!

Lutron is an industry leader when it comes to motorized shades, creating products that allow homeowners to quickly adjust their shades, drapes, and blinds with the push of a button. This provides a variety of benefits, from better insulation to reducing the damage caused by U/V rays and increasing the amount of natural light in your home so you can be more energy efficient with your smart lights. By linking your motorized shades to a smart home control system, you gain total control of their movement and can set up schedules and scenes that automatically adjust your window treatments for different occasions and times of the day.

Keep reading to learn about how Lutron’s variety of motorized shades, drapes, and blinds can enrich your North Georgia or Birmingham home – whether in Alpharetta or beyond.

The holiday season is upon us, and that means your energy bill is about to skyrocket. And we’re not just talking about the Christmas tree, either. The temperatures here in Metro Atlanta are dropping, and your bank account could be taking a big hit when January comes around.

Smart home technology is intended to make your life easier, and it can take some of the financial weight of the holidays off. (You’ll have to hit the treadmill for anything you gain from feasting on turkey and pumpkin pie.)

Motorized shades are an especially valuable smart home technology when it comes to conserving energy.

Read on to learn how these window treatments can lower the power bill of your Metro Atlanta home during the holidays and year-round.

A couple of times, you may have seen us mention the "golden age of audio" on these pages. It's because we can't think of a time when there have been more choices in quality audio equipment. It's not only choice but incredible sound quality that can be had from a wide array of equipment.

When it comes to outdoor sound systems for your Atlanta-area home, the same holds true. There are so many excellent options in speakers, control systems, amplifiers, and more for outdoor sound that we can’t cover them all in one blog; we can only tell you about a few.

In this blog, we'll cover three types of outdoor speakers from three of our favorite brands in the hope of giving you some ideas on how to amp up your outdoor sound. Given the current environment where you may be spending extended time at home, why not consider spicing up the outdoor entertainment to make it a little more enjoyable?

The audio industry has no shortage of buzzwords, and “high fidelity” is one you may often hear. Perhaps you already know that high fidelity refers to the high-quality reproduction of sound with very minimal distortion. In other words, high-fidelity audio systems reproduce music as close to the original recording as possible so that listeners can enjoy music the way the artists heard it in the studio.

Any music fan deserves a high-quality listening experience when playing their favorite tunes at home. Unfortunately, some homeowners in Vinings, GA may be missing out on such an experience due to persisting misconceptions about high-fidelity speakers. Let’s dispel these myths so that you can truly take advantage of high-performance sound at home.

Lighting control is one of the most popular smart home accouterments, and for very good reasons. But those reasons will vary greatly depending upon people’s needs and motivations. For some, it’s the convenience of having more than one way to control lights, like from a smartphone or through a voice assistant. For others, a schedule or sensor that turns off lights brings efficiency and energy savings.

Perhaps the best reason for going with a whole-home lighting control system – and not just one room or a few lights – is all of the above. Each reason is justification enough for lighting control for a Milton, GA home, but it becomes so easy to rationalize when putting them all together. See what we mean below!

If you are a Control4 system owner, congratulations. We don’t need to tell you about the convenience it brings to managing your home. And if you use advanced features like Mockupancy, you appreciate the extra peace of mind you get from the added security as well. Whether you use all of what the system can do or just a subset of it, your home is a lot smarter.

Like any technology, it sometimes needs maintenance and updating. We’re already accustomed to updates with manual and automatic updates on computers, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and many other popular smart devices. A comprehensive smart home system like Control4 is no exception; it occasionally needs some help to fix glitches and keep it running the way it should.

With such a powerful home automation system, you may also want additional capabilities added to your home as well. It might be an outdoor audio zone, expanded lighting control for a wing of your house, or simplified control of a new media room AV system. Any of those might involve some hardware and software and some integration to make it seamlessly blend into your existing setup.

So, where do you go for all of that? You aren’t required to go back to the dealer that installed the system if you don’t want to. Georgia Home Theater is your local Control4 Pinnacle Dealer (yes, that is the top tier) with a Control4 Certified Showroom in Marietta, and we’ve made significant investments to represent the best of smart home technology, audio, video, and more to offer you a complete “one-stop-shop” for all your home technology needs.

Read on to see how Georgia Home Theater can keep your Control4 system in top shape.