Extend Your Living Space with Outdoor Motorized Shades

Homeowners have been extending their living spaces for some time, creating enchanting retreats where they enjoy food, good company, and relaxing afternoons. Today’s technology makes adding entertainment to the mix easier than ever. High-fidelity outdoor speakers deliver immersive audio across expansive estates, and 4K UHD outdoor TVs provide incredible lifelike images in brilliant colors. 

Outdoor entertainment has never been better. There is, however, another technology that defies the elements, enabling homeowners to truly enjoy the great outdoors no matter the weather in Chicago, IL. The latest outdoor automated shades take outdoor living to the next level. Let’s explore how these motorized shades enhance your comfort and convenience.

Optimize Your Outdoor Space for Cinematic Entertainment

If you live in Chicago, IL, there’s a good chance you want to enjoy premium outdoor entertainment. With technology from leading brands and a streamlined design, you can listen to all your favorite music, movies, sports, and more from your roof deck or patio. Keep reading to see how you can create a cutting-edge outdoor AV system.

Comprehensive Outdoor Lighting Design with Coastal Source and Barrett’s Technology Solutions

As homeowners extended their living spaces and embraced outdoor living, barbecues gave way to full kitchens, and entertainment grew to impressive outdoor TVs and landscape sound systems. Others turned backyards into retreats, an oasis for the soul. Whichever approach appeals to you, there’s one feature that benefits them both—outdoor lighting design. 

Outdoor lighting has transformed significantly, with today’s manufacturers giving us the ability to create enchanting spaces with lights. While they still extend the gatherings and help keep us safe, they also develop places of immense beauty and mystery. The night is, after all, the time when lights change a space from a pretty landscape to a romantic setting or a lively celebration. 

At Barrett’s Technology Solutions, our design team partners with Coastal Source, the world leader in outdoor lighting and audio. Together, we create the outdoor living area of your dreams. Let’s see how it’s done and how we’re transforming backyards in Lake Geneva, WI, into works of art.

Bring the Best Entertainment to Your Outdoor Spaces with an Outdoor Home Theater 

As the lines between our outdoor and indoor spaces blur, extending our living areas defines the ultimate luxury lifestyle. Outside kitchens, fireplaces, and furniture seamlessly connect the indoors and the backyard. In many instances, today’s outdoor spaces resemble additions—another room that’s usually one of the most popular in your home. 

These “rooms” are often equipped with the latest outdoor audio and video, creating an entertainment space that rivals its indoor counterpart. The ultimate entertainment in this area is the outdoor home theater that delivers crystal-clear images and all-encompassing surround sound to the great outdoors.

Let’s explore the makings of an outdoor home theater for your Hinsdale, IL, home.

Work with a Smart Home Company Committed to Effortless Living

As a leading smart home company and audio-video expert serving Hinsdale, IL, and the surrounding areas for over five decades, we’ve watched technology evolve dramatically. Today, smart homes offer incredible ease of living once unimaginable. 

Throughout the years, we’ve remained committed to making complex technology simple, providing effortless living for many clients. With one touch or automated scheduling, you control your lights, climate, security, audio-video devices, and more. Better yet, let your smart home do it for you. 

Let’s explore the many possibilities in smart home living and the ease of operation a smart home system provides. 

Step into a Life of Luxury with a Savant Smart Home

Imagine living in a home that adjusted around your preferences and your schedules without having to lift a finger. Your Chicago, IL, home’s lights would always be how you like them, your shades could open and close at the exact right times throughout the day, and you’d have the peace of mind that your home is always secure. 

Sound too good to be true? With a Savant smart home design, this could be your daily reality! Savant’s home automation platform can integrate smart home technology throughout your home into one comprehensive system that makes managing your house easier than ever. Keep reading to learn more about Savant and see how home automation can make your life better every single day.

Here Are the Main Parts You’ll Want to Get Right

Home cinemas can be very complicated projects. If you are looking to build a dedicated home theater in your Chicago, IL, home, you might be surprised at the myriad of details involved, from the technical to the aesthetic. That’s one great reason you’ll want to hire a professional for the design and installation for the best results. 

In this post, we’ll break down the essential elements of a dedicated home theater space. Each of those elements has many details to implement, but if you get these areas right from the start, you're on your way to many blissful hours of immersive home entertainment. Keep reading!

Got Surround Sound? You’ll Be So Glad

The cinematic experience is not just about seeing a film on a giant screen; it's just as much about the sound. Watch an epic movie on a huge screen with less-than-stellar sound, and you will be underwhelmed. Watch that movie with a state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos surround system, and you'll be transported into that magic state of the suspension of disbelief. 

Now, not every movie you'll watch in your home theater will knock your socks off. Some dramas are very dialogue-oriented and not full of action and complex audio, for instance. But some will stretch the limits of your home theater system and make you glad you opted for that new Dolby Atmos surround system. Here are four of the best movies for surround sound to watch in your Chicago, IL, home cinema. Oh, and the visuals are pretty darn good too. 

Our Tailormade Solutions Offer Luxurious Control of Your Lights 

Intelligent lighting systems allow homeowners more control over their home’s lighting. They make it easier to turn your lights on and off, dim them, adjust their color temperatures and pull up your favorite settings. They truly can transform how you interact with your space. Not all systems are made the same, though. 

Often, people settle for basic solutions that just offer basic dimming control over a few fixtures. Instead, make the most of your smart lighting with a professionally installed Lutron HomeWorks lighting control solution. Control all your home’s lights easily through on-wall keypads, touchpads or the app and enjoy cutting-edge solutions that will transform your home. Keep reading to learn more and see how Homeworks by Lutron can benefit your home in Lake Geneva, WI!

The Benefits of Ketra’s Tunable Lights in Your Smart Home and Your Health 

Modern smart homes are filled with systems and devices engineered to simplify and improve our lives. Smart locks and surveillance cameras keep us safe, AV systems entertain us and encourage spending time with each other, and climate controls offer both comfort and energy efficiency at home. Lighting control is no exception to this rule. In fact, what if we told you that smart lights could lead to better health? 

At Barrett’s Technology Solutions, we partner with Ketra to design and install circadian lighting systems for our clients in Chicago, IL. Read on to learn more about Ketra’s tunable lights and how they improve every space in your smart home while keeping you and your family on the path to wellness. 

Lutron's Elegant Wireless Palladiom Line Is the Perfect Solution for Existing Homes

Imagine waking up to the first rays of sunshine peering in through shades slowly rising. As the day progresses, your window coverings automatically raise and lower, letting in the diffuse light of the sun that brings beauty and natural light while limiting the direct UV rays that harm furniture and floors. Your electric light responds, dimming and brightening based on the available daylight. When it’s time for the family dinner, one tap on a touchscreen lowers the shades in perfect unison, offering privacy. 

A life of luxury. 

Motorized shades offer ease of living and convenience once unimaginable. No more pulling on cords to close shades when the sun shines on your computer screen or missing another sunset because you’re preoccupied. We can program shades to raise and lower based on preset schedules or set up sensors that detect changes in temperature and direct sunlight. The result is the perfect environment and level of light throughout the day. 

Even better? Today’s motorized shades come in numerous styles and over 1,000 fabrics, enhancing any home’s aesthetics. At Barrett’s Technology Solutions, we partner with Lutron, the industry leader in lighting and shade control. Let’s look at one of their most popular motorized shades—the Palladiom line—and what it can offer your home in Chicago, IL.

Bring Your Home Theater to Life with the Latest Sony 4K HDR Projector

If you’ve searched “home theaters” on the internet, you’ve undoubtedly seen every type of home theater design, from red velvet curtains and plush, reclining tiered movie seats to sectionals and loveseats designed for comfort and casual viewing. You’ll find home theaters that incorporate pool tables and arcade games and even outdoor theaters by the pool. 

What the best of these have in common is the bigger-than-life viewing experience with crystal-clear images and brilliant colors. At Barrett’s Technology Solutions, we specialize in home theater design, installation, and automation in Hinsdale, IL, and the surrounding areas. With flat-screen TVs growing in size and projectors increasing in image quality, we are often asked which display we recommend. 

Let’s explore the options and one of our recommended brands.

Design Your Media Room for the Way You Use It

We've talked before about media rooms as entertainment SUVs. The ever-popular SUV is prized for its carry-anything, go-anywhere versatility. The media room can be an equally versatile entertainment center, just as comfortable when hosting a Bears watch party on a Sunday afternoon as enjoying family movie night with the latest Marvel epic. So what does that mean for your media room installation? 

Your media room doesn’t need to follow any rules. Not that you needed to follow them anyway. To some, home theaters are more "formal" entertainment spaces, while media rooms are more fluid. In other words, anything goes in media rooms. It can be a home theater-esque space with fixed theater lounge seating or a more freeform game room. Regardless of which way you want to roll, you get to decide what setup is right for you. And along that line, if you are considering a media room project, here are some things to spark some ideas for your "SUV" entertainment space in your Chicago, IL home. 

Ensure a Robust Home Network and a Reliable Internet Connection for Work, Studying and Fun 

Our homes have become technology powerhouses, with the number of connected devices increasing almost exponentially. Today, your average U.S. home has about 16 connected devices. When you add smart home automation, the hybrid workforce, video conferencing, and the kids returning to school, it’s clear we ask a lot of our home network.

If you have continued adding internet-connected devices without upgrading, you may be experiencing signs that suggest it’s time for an enterprise-grade home networking solution in your home in Naperville, IL. Let's look at the signs and the solutions that will ensure your family stays connected while doing online schoolwork and enjoying 4K streaming movies over the weekend. 

Enjoy Peace of Mind Knowing Your Loved Ones and Property Are Protected

In the week from September 12 – 18, 2022, the Chicago Police Department reported 181 robberies, 144 burglaries, over 400 thefts, and 558 stolen motor vehicles. We share these statistics with you not to scare you but to make you aware of what you probably already know: the crime rate in Chicago is increasing. 

The CPD reports a 26% increase in burglaries and a 63% increase in thefts from 2021 to 2022. Some of these residential burglaries involve offenders representing home repair personnel before entering the home.

The good news is that you can protect yourself, your loved ones, and your home. Today’s home surveillance system offers crystal-clear video once limited to commercial applications and can take proactive measures, stopping intruders before the unthinkable occurs.

Let’s explore how these systems help protect homes. 

Barrett’s investment in unique deployment processes removes the pain points in smart home installations

What should you look for when you want to add smart home functionality and advanced entertainment systems to your home? The reality is that in a large market like Chicago, IL, you will find several integrators that can offer the same solutions. Those might include top-tier solutions from Savant for home automation, Lutron for lighting controls, and several others. But we like to think the real difference in your experience will come down to your integration partner.

As a company providing home entertainment and technology solutions for over five decades, we have always been continually evolving, not only with the technologies we offer but also with how we implement them for clients. Our goal is to provide clients with the best experience, and that includes the process for deploying these solutions in the home. If we do it right, we think you'll be a client for the next five decades.

To that end, We’re very excited to tell you about our latest investment in ensuring a superior client experience – our Advanced System Implementation Process. We've even given it a name because we think it's that important. Please keep reading to learn more about our process, and we hope you'll see how it differentiates us from others in this space. 

Smart Home Automation Makes Entertaining and Holidays a Breeze

It's still late summer in Illinois, so why are we already discussing the holidays? As you know, if you don't think about them, they're upon you before you know it! But there's a reason we're bringing up the holidays now. With a little planning right now, you can have a Savant home automation system and Lutron lighting control that get you through the holiday season in Western Springs with less effort and more enjoyment. 

Ready to see how a smart home system can help? Keep reading below!

A Dedicated Home Theater Installation Provides Endless Fun

Some people might see the words "home theater" and immediately think of a darkened room to watch movies. Certainly, a dedicated home theater installation is the perfect place to enjoy a film in its full glory, with a large screen, comfortable seating, and powerful, enveloping surround sound. But even if you watch no movies at all, a home theater gives you the ultimate place to gather friends and family for the best audio and video entertainment in the house. 

What else can you do in a home theater in your Chicago, IL home? Keep reading to see more!

We Help You Think Through What’s Important

Some people have called this the Golden Age of Audio. As an integrator that’s been around since 1966, we have seen many stages in the evolution of audio technology. And whole home audio systems are no exception. The transition to digital audio has created a wide array of products, such as IP-connected speakers, high-resolution audio capability, wireless streaming, and much more. These days, there are many solutions for multiroom audio for your Chicago, IL home. So how do you choose? 

There are many areas we could discuss, but for the purpose of this blog, we broke it down into three key things to consider. Ready to learn more? Please keep reading below. 

Updating Your Lighting Might be Easier than You Think

What’s one of the things that can transform the way you see your home? The lighting. Many homes have basic lighting packages. Unless you built a completely custom home or did a very extensive remodel, your home lighting might be making do with the basics. You may have overhead can lighting in the ceilings for ambient light, but these are fairly basic and generally fall into the category of budget fixtures. 

But here's the good news. Since you have all the electrical wiring in for those cans and the switches that control them, replacing them with modern LED lighting is not arduous. Why would you want to do that? LED is up to 80% more efficient than those incandescent floods and spots you may still be using. And if you have newer, more efficient CFLs, those are eclipsed in efficiency by LED, and LED is instant on versus the annoying minute that it takes CFL to warm up to full power. 

So why not easily upgrade those existing cans in your Chicago, IL home with modern, flexible, aesthetic lighting? It’s easy with the help of a lighting retrofit company. Keep reading to learn more!