Over the years, many Georgia homeowners have invested in home automation to make their lifestyles easier and their homes safer and more efficient. If you’re buying a recently built or an extensively remodeled older home, there’s a good chance the previous owner added smart technology like lighting, security, and more. 

Perhaps the smart tech in your newly purchased house is the icing on the cake that made you love it. And you were told that the system is something called Control4. You may not know what Control4 is or how to make it work for you in your new Atlanta abode. Since you're here, you're in the right place! Keep reading to learn more about Control4 home automation and what you can do to tailor it for your needs. 

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.

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.

Welcome to the connected era where home automation has become the cornerstone of modern living in Alabama. Control4, a leader in smart home solutions, consistently sets the standard for sophisticated living with its intuitive systems. At GHT Group, we are proud to bring the latest Control4 innovations to your Birmingham home, offering personalized environments where every interaction is tailored to your lifestyle. With exciting updates like enhanced surveillance monitoring and innovative LED lighting control, there's never been a better time to embrace the convenience and elegance of Control4 automation. Join us below as we explore the cutting-edge features that keep Control4 at the forefront of smart home technology.

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.

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.

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.

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 might be familiar with some of the most popular ways to make your home smart. Smart thermostats like Nest and Ecobee have been extremely popular with homeowners, and professionally installed options from Lutron and Control4 offer integration with other smart home features, remote temperature sensors, and more. Intelligent lighting is also a top feature in smart homes, offering streamlined and simplified control of a wide array of lights. 

But those aren't the only things you can manage in a smart home. In your Alys Beach home, you likely have a pool. Since it's Florida, ceiling fans are a must. And your home probably has a garage for your car. Did you know that you can include all those in a smart home system? As a professional home automation company, we use systems like Control4 that can integrate and manage a wide array of smart features in your home. Learn more below!

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!

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.

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.

Lighting control is one of the most popular smart home features with Georgia homeowners. But is it a necessity or nice-to-have? The answer will depend on your preferences and lifestyle. We could direct you to our many blogs on lighting control, but we thought we could help by giving you a little quiz.

While there are several ways to control lighting in your Atlanta home, our solution of choice is Lutron, a pioneer and continual innovator in lighting. To see if Lutron lighting control is right for you, just answer the following questions in our little quiz. At the end, we'll score your answers and tell you how good a candidate you are for lighting control!

Note: More than a year after we originally drafted this blog, voice control has taken an even more prominent role in today’s smart homes. Clients rely on voice control technology to search for information or ask their home assistants to perform certain actions. For example, maybe you’re cooking and want to brighten the lights, but your hands are busy. Just ask your virtual assistant for help, and you’ll notice the room brighten in seconds. However, in the past, you had to mind your diction and use exactly the right words for your assistant or voice control app to understand you.

But that’s not how humans speak on a regular basis. Sometimes we jumble words, ask something in a more obtuse manner, or simply speak with an accent. Your voice control should be built to accommodate that. Josh.ai revolutionized the industry by creating the first home assistant with natural language processing capabilities. Keep reading to see how that function works in real life and why we highly recommend Josh.ai voice controlled home automation for your Alpharetta or Metro Atlanta residence.