The term ‘Smart Home’ is often heard advertising new home technologies such as voice activated speakers, doorbells and intelligent light bulbs but all too regularly these are single room solutions, temporary gimmicks and not beneficial to your everyday at home.

A truly Smart Home is a mixture of reliable products that work seamlessly together to make your home feel like it is working with you; involving minimal hands on interaction yet when you do the controls are simple and intuitive.

So what does that look like? Well, imagine walking through the front door and at the touch of a single button the lights turn on throughout the main living areas, the temperature of the rooms are set and your ceiling speakers start to play your favourite radio station. As you move from room to room lights can automatically turn on or even off if the room is left unoccupied for a period of time. Intuitive on-wall touchscreens allow you to lower the blinds and turn on the TV or you may wish to control everything from an app. Automation is a key part of the seamless experience which is why routine tasks don’t involve any human interaction – external lights turning on at dusk then off at dawn, irrigation systems operating based on humidity.

It often comes as a shock to new and existing homeowners just how poor the available broadband speeds are at their properties in this current day and age. More so, this shock turns into continued disappointment as what little internet they do have results in buffering Netflix streams, painfully slow file uploads, and some very agitated kids!

This issue is present where the main Internet Service Providers such as BT and Virgin simply don’t have the cabling infrastructure in place down certain roads or areas due to low demand or cost of installation.

Upon ringing broadband providers and being told that speeds are the best they can be, people often feel stuck and accept it. Fortunately, there are various other solutions available outside the realms of the main service providers, which offer faster speeds to enable fully-functional connectivity.

4G & 5G Cellular

Although highly disappointing, the below is a familiar and predictable statement we hear from homeowners:

“It cost an arm and a leg, never works, and when I do attempt to use it I’m forever on the phone to the installer!”

Understandably , people can arrive at this point after forking out thousands on home technology only to be let down by –

• Blank TV screens
• Buffering audio
• Complicated controls

And of course always when you have friends and family over to entertain.

But, (and this is a big ‘but’) this is not the case when you work with Lighthouse, or any other professional CEDIA approved installers. Why?

Technology has been prevalent in homes for decades now, but the past five years has seen the most significant adoption from homeowners and designers alike.

The likely cause of this adoption, aside from advances in reliability and functionality, is Audio-Visual equipment’s new look. 

Speakers, televisions, lighting controls and the like have all adapted to the needs of the modern-day home with more architecturally led products. Televisions can be disguised as artwork or even disappear completely, speakers are discretely colour matched or invisible to the eye.

Every client is different, but many needs are the same. Nobody wants multiple wall controls, confusing and cluttering new clean walls. And only a select few enjoy seeing speakers and televisions when they are not in use.