You started your Valentine’s Day evening off by taking your wife to your town’s finest Italian restaurant where you shared a delicious dinner and a robust bottle of red wine. This is only a glimpse into what the rest of the evening holds for her.
On the drive home, you use your iPhone to remotely access your home automation system. You close the shades, turn on the fireplace, set your lighting scene to “Romantic” (which dims the recessed lighting and turns on the much softer wall sconces), and turn on your whole house audio and TV.
As you pull into your driveway and help your wife out of the car, you secretly flip through your iTunes until you find your wedding song, which you set to play through the speakers inside the house and stream photos that you have specially chosen of the two of you to your TV screen.
She opens the door to find this romantic display—soft lighting, music playing, and a photo stream on the TV. You whip out the flowers you hid in the closet and hand them to her, making it the perfect end to the perfect evening.
Integration doesn’t just have to always be about how tricked out your movie room experience is, but can actually help to enhance the significant, memory-making moments that we will always hold dear and reflect back on. It helps bring people and families closer, building stronger bonds, similar to the one that you and your wife just shared.
Home automation systems give us infinite abilities to improve our quality of life—from simple TV capabilities to orchestrating an unforgettable evening for your wife. You can use it while you are present in your home to watch your Apple TV, or you can use it when you are on your way to work and realize that you forgot to close the garage door.
You can use macros to control all of your desired devices with the push of one button. You can have a “movie” setting where you push the GUI and it closes the shades and the lights and turns on the projector…all at the same time. Or a “Romantic” setting like the one we used for Valentine’s Day where the recessed lighting dims, the wall sconces go on, and soft music begins to play.
As an integrator, we can use the opportunity to reach out to our clients. Send out an email blast of “Holiday How To’s” giving them ideas on how to utilize their system to their advantage. For those who did not choose to initially go with certain system perks, this could reignite the need and get you back into their homes.
The possibilities are endless—there is just so much we can do with a fully integrated system that will not only benefit you, the “home theater guy,” but when utilized to its fullest potential, will bring a lifetime of enjoyment to the whole family. In all seriousness, after a Valentine’s Day like that, your wife will think twice before declining your next system upgrade. How can she say no to a system that exercises your softer side? In my eyes, everybody wins.
Todd Anthony Puma is president of The Source Home Theater Installation in New York City.
