There’s no denying we live in an age of technological marvels, yet for all the recent innovations in home automation technology, many of us feel like our devices are controlling us instead of the other way around. However, there may be an answer to this dilemma in the form of voice control.

When paired with the right control system, a smart speaker can be the key device to unlock the potential of your smart home. Here are a few ways that voice controlled home automation can make your Bend, OR automation system easier to use and more useful around your home.

Do you remember the old intercom systems that used to be installed in many upscale homes?   You could press a button and talk to someone in another room.  You could push another button and make a household announcement that dinner was ready.  You could play music on it through the built-in radio that many of them had.

Does that seem quaint today? Indeed, these intercoms started disappearing in the 1990s with digital technology and inexpensive multi-phone systems that could do the same things wirelessly. But the intercom isn’t dead – in fact, some of those features are still useful even in today’s smartphone-filled  world. 

Along that line, Control4 has reimagined the intercom for the 21^st century.  Their Intercom Anywhere integrates with the Control4 smart home automation system to add new dimensions to communication and control for your property in Portland, OR.

Want to see what you can do with it?  Just keep reading.

Our music consumption habits have always changed with technology.  The venerable vinyl record is still with us, and is, in fact, enjoying a nostalgic resurgence.  Vinyl gave way to the convenience and resilience of digital CDs, and they are still with us too.  Today, the most convenient way of accessing a vast library of music and listening to it anywhere – in our cars, our portable devices, and our homes – is music streaming over the Internet. 

The old Apple iPod slogan of 30,000 songs in your pocket has given way to 40 million songs in the cloud that you can hear anytime, anywhere - as long as you have an Internet connection.  As we know, several popular music services that offer the capability of hearing your favorite tunes on demand.  But are they all just different peas in the same pod? 

The short answer is yes, and no.  If you are looking to invest in a whole-house music system in Portland, you might want to know a little more detail about the most popular streaming services. While all of them can be easily used in your system, the more you use and customize a particular service the more useful it will be to you. 

With that in mind, let’s do a brief roundup of five of the most popular services and some of their features and wrinkles.

We love home theaters.  There’s nothing like settling in to watch a great movie on a large screen with incredible sound to match. But today’s home theaters are no longer rooms that are built to resemble commercial movie theaters.  Today’s homeowners are doing more than watching movies in their home theaters – they’re binge-watching Netflix shows, multiple NFL games on Sundays, and playing music videos as background in a media/game room. 

Home theater design is evolving to meet multiple entertainment purposes. Of course, you can still build the completely enclosed, windowless theater in your walkout basement room complete with movie-themed décor and comfortable theater seating.  But the theater can be in any room you want to make it, and today’s technology allows more  flexibility than ever in designing the perfect home theater or media room.  Take a look at five current trends in home theater design to make any room into a state-of-the-art entertainment oasis in Portland.