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Summertime is Outdoor AV Upgrade Time

If you haven’t done it yet, now is the time to go back to those projects where you pre-wired for outdoor entertainment but didn’t install the actual hardware, be it because of budget at the time, the weather, or some other reason.

It felt so good in New Jersey this weekend. The weather was in the 80s, the sun was shining bright, I was grilling dinner every night, the kids were playing in the yard, and I had music going the whole time. My kids were dancing on the lawn, and I was loving every minute of it.

If you haven’t done it yet, now is the time to go back to those projects where you pre-wired for outdoor entertainment but didn’t install the actual hardware, be it because of budget at the time, the weather, or some other reason.

When we had a few warm days back in April, I started calling customers to talk about outdoor entertaining. When the weather starts to get warm and the action moves from inside the home to outside, clients are more willing to spend money on outdoor amenities. That Bluetooth speaker they may have been using in the interim isn’t cutting it; it’s not covering the whole yard, it isn’t synced with the rest of the home’s audio, or it gets interrupted when the phone rings.

SnapAV’s SunBriteTV 55-inc Signature Series outdoor TV

We have so many options today for outdoor speakers. We aren’t limited to bulky under-eaves speakers or rock speakers. We have beautiful landscape speakers, flower planter speakers, in-ground subwoofers, and path light speakers. The hardware can disappear into the yard’s décor but the sound can evenly cover everything, especially with 70v amps and speakers that allow daisy-chaining of the speakers so less wire needs to be run, less landscaping needs to be disrupted, and fewer channels on an amp are needed.

We’ve also been seeing an uptick in “outdoor theaters” in the last year or two. Outdoor TVs are getting better and better all the time. Coupled with two, three, or five speakers and a subwoofer, TV watching can move outside. Several clients are doing a fire pit facing a TV for year-round outdoor excitement—from movies to sports to everyday TV dramas. We even arrange for more flexible seating arrangements so the viewer isn’t necessarily looking through the heat of the fire pit, which will distort the picture in their eyes.

Get creative! Outdoor screens and protected projectors will provide the amazing movie experience in the yard, where they can make S’mores and watch a movie with the entire neighborhood or host an incredible party for the NBA Finals, Major League Baseball, or the kick off to the NFL season. Add lighting control for outdoor fixtures to set the perfect mood for an evening of cocktails, beers around the fire pit with friends, a “camp-out” in the backyard, a romantic dinner for two on the deck, or any other lighting scene you can think of. There are some great outdoor lighting products that are a low-voltage installation and integrate easily with the major control systems out there.

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