Looking for an excuse to go out? Maybe you just need an outdoor TV. 

As the weather gets nicer this year -- and the pandemic shows no signs of slowing down -- more and more families are starting to look to their yard and outdoor spaces as avenues for possible home upgrades. And there’s no better upgrade to a home than setting up a lovely and enjoyable outdoor theater with a modern outdoor TV. 

Some people, however, have a resistance to outdoor TVs, thinking that they are overpriced shadows of what is possible with an indoor TV. That couldn’t be further from the truth: Today’s outdoor TVs are bright, 4K-resolution-capable devices that can bring your favorite entertainment outdoors! So, to really help our customers know what outdoor TVs are capable of, this week on the blog, we’re going to debunk some common misconceptions and answer some common questions that come up about them. 

Are Outdoor TVs Weatherproof?

You bet!

One of the most important things we tell people about TVs is that they should never use an indoor TV in an outdoor application. While indoor TVs are great, they just aren’t made to deal with the elements the way an outdoor TV is. Installing and using an indoor TV outside will not only most assuredly shorten the life of that TV but also pose a safety hazard as well. 

When you open a new TV, it doesn’t come with any cables -- only the power cord. When you open a new gaming system or Blu-ray player, or set up a new cable or satellite receiver, it often provides a basic patch cable -- typically an HDMI cable.

As your technology solutions provider, one of our core tasks here at AV Design Consultants is to connect all of your electronics, and that normally means a discussion on cables. If you want to get the best-quality picture and sound out of your devices, you’ll need to know about the cables and settings on your equipment. If you leave out either, you may not be getting the best experience -- and neither of us want that.

If you’re like most of our customers and have legacy devices, you have probably collected a myriad of red, white, yellow, green and blue color-coded cables (composite, component and left/right audio). Add those to the mix with coaxial, ethernet, fiber optic, and speaker wires (s-video, DVI, USB), and that drawer of extra cables can become quite the rat’s nest. So, this week’s blog is going to be all about cables, and we think it will really help our readers learn a thing or two about what’s connecting their devices. 

Copper Conundrum 

Most cables -- except fiber optic -- have one thing in common: copper. They use a copper conductor to send information. When it comes to cables, it is true that copper is copper, and one manufacturer doesn’t have a patent on a better version of copper. But there are differences in cable design, and you should go in with some understanding before you end up with either an underperforming cable or spending way too much unnecessarily.

Wireless Fidelity 

While wireless technology like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth has become a necessity, it does not provide the means for connecting many of your home’s electronics. “Wireless” rarely means a device is truly wireless; often they still need to plug in to power. Further, to reduce the demand on your Wi-Fi system and to increase performance, every effort should be made to hardwire your devices and free up Wi-Fi bandwidth for devices that truly need it, like your phones, tablets and laptops. 

At AV Design Consultants, people often tell us here that because they aren’t an “audiophile,” they don’t have the ear to appreciate the differences between a good audio system and a great one. However, when we ask if they can hear the difference between streaming or music on a CD versus a live performance, they always say that they can. Most people’s ears are a whole lot better than they think they are. 

What most people don’t realize, however, is that they can get near concert-quality sound right from the comfort of home. A great home audio system with a nice set of speakers can make it feel like you are somewhere else, listening to your favorite musicians play live. Hearing your favorite song reproduced in a way that brings out all the subtlety and soul that the artist intended can feel almost magical. 

It’s time to talk about controlling your smart home. 

The main goal of a smart home is for it to gracefully integrate into your daily life, offering convenience and control options that simply wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Whenever our team at AV Design Consultants designs a project, we keep that in mind. With a focus on ease of use and convenience, two of the best ways to control your smart home are through a smart home touch screens and smart home remotes. 

Don’t get us wrong -- voice control is important and is only going to continue to grow as smart devices improve and can recognize even more commands. But what we’ve found is that more people prefer a combination of voice control, apps, controllers, and remotes. 

This week on our blog, we are going to look at some of the many benefits that touch screens and remotes can bring to your smart home, and how they can help bring about whole new ways of control that you may have yet to consider.

You insure your vehicles. You insure your home. These are major investments that can be costly to repair or replace. It only makes sense for you to protect yourself against potential unforeseen expenses. 

If you’ve invested in a nice audio/video or automation system for your home or business, it makes sense to protect that investment, as well. One of the most important ways to do that is with a high-quality UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and surge protection products.

As technology integrators, our team at AV Design Consultants get requests for service and support on clients’ AV systems all the time. A high number of those equipment issues and failures aren’t because of bad or defective electronics, they’re often due to electrical issues that have adversely impacted the system, either through a catastrophic surge event, power outage, or even small, persistent power issues that can degrade electronics over time. 

Fortunately, there are ways to minimize or even eliminate these issues via a well-designed, power-management system using surge protection and UPS products.

Are you looking for a home theater receiver? The good news is that you don’t have to search alone – our team members here at AV Design Consultants are always ready to help you. 

Before you give us a call, let’s take a look at what you should keep in mind when looking for a new home-theater receiver, as well as all of the benefits one can bring to your home theater. 

The way we wire and light our homes has been relatively consistent for over a century. Inefficient incandescent bulbs and high-voltage wiring has been the standard, with little meaningful advancement, until recently. As LED technology has improved in quality, aesthetic, and form factor, things have started to move away from the high-power, low-efficiency methods of lighting a home to a cleaner, greener, low-voltage standard. 

Many people might not know the difference between these two lighting systems – so this week on the blog, our experts at AV Design Consultants tackle the difference between low and high voltage systems, and look at whether we need to transport so much electrical power to the fixtures throughout our homes. 

If you’ve spent any time around a record shop, a hi-fi music store, or an audio aficionado’s convention, you have surely heard the term “2-channel audio” thrown around.

But, if you’ve grown up in a digital world of streaming music, that term might be unfamiliar to you. So, what is 2-chanel audio? Why is it important, and what benefits can it bring to your home stereo system?

Are you frustrated with your piecemeal smart home technology?

We get it. All of us here at AV Design Consultants love smart tech! Smart home technology is super fun, and it can be easy to start by picking up a smart speaker, then grabbing a smart thermostat, and maybe throwing in a few smart bulbs, as well. 

The problem: Just because it’s all smart technology, doesn’t mean it all knows how to play well together. Especially as the market grows, you could end up with remotes and apps and switches for your different smart toys, and none of them actually being able to communicate or work well with each other. 

That’s the problem we’re here to help with. With a dedicated smart home controller, all your technology can work together in harmony. To really dive into the benefits of a controller, first let’s start by talking about what a smart home controller is. Then we’ll dig into how it can help take your smart home to the next level.

Have you been missing that Hollywood-style movie magic?

Being the big A/V nerds that we are at AV Design Consultants, we know that we’ve been missing the experience of going to check out new movies on the big screen. But just because it’s been a while since we’ve been out to the movies doesn’t mean that we’ve haven’t been able to enjoy the big screen. At least, at home. 

That’s right – with a top-of-the-line movie theater, we can help you bring that movie experience home, no matter how long commercial theaters must remain closed. Let’s look at what a home theater can bring to you and your family, and how we can help you experience stunning silver screen movies right from the comfort of your home.

New year, new semester, but same old walls? We have some smart home solutions for that!

Now that distance learning has been going on for quite some time, we thought that all of you wonderful AV Design Consultants customers might be looking for even more tips on how to handle the situation. Keeping kids busy while also balancing the technological needs of working from home can be a tough act to maintain. 

As we begin the new year, finding ways to keep your kids focused and on task after the holidays and breaks can be especially tricky. We’ve put together a few suggestions with a tech focus, so let’s take a look at some ways to reinvigorate your family’s distance learning efforts. 

It’s time for smart home technology to help with those New Year’s resolutions. 

At AV Design Consultants, we spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of smart home automation and how its many features and offerings can improve the quality of your life. But to help all of our customers start off the year on the right foot, we wanted to hyper focus this week’s blog on specific ways that your smart home can help you remember – and stick to – your 2021 New Year’s resolutions. 

So, we’ve put together a list of some common resolutions and come up with some easily applicable solutions that your smart home will be able to assist with. Whether your goal this year is to lose weight, read more, or something as simple as sleep better – your smart home has you covered. 

Happy New Year everybody! Or at least ... almost.

2021 is right around the corner, which means a few things: First, that we survived 2020! And second, that lots of new tech trends are also right around the corner. At AV Design Consultants, we can’t wait to see what 2021 has in store for smart homes and smart technology.

So, we thought of a great way to both help celebrate the end of this year and ring in the start of next year: A look at some exciting and upcoming tech trends! We’ve only got one week left in 2020, so today our blog is all about looking ahead at what paths the industry may take next year.

Of course, the tech industry is always full of surprises, so this list is only our best guess. But for now, here are just a few trends to keep an eye out for as we head into 2021.

Want to have some fun with your smart lighting this holiday season?

While smart lighting offers year-round benefits, such as ease of control and circadian quality-of-life improvements, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take some time to have a little bit of holiday fun with your smart lighting. 

To do that, we turned to all the expert elves that work here at AV Design Consultants and had them wrack their brains for exciting and fun ways to use your smart lighting to really transform your house for the holidays. We hope that with these tips, you’ll be able to wow your family and guests, and show everyone just how much fun smart home automation and technology can be! 

So, before the hot cocoa cools down and the holidays are over, let’s take a look at some ways you can use your smart lighting to make your holidays this year extra memorable ... and extra smart! 

It’s time to put that basement to good use. 

2020 has been quite a year, but at the very least, it has given all of us here at AV Design Consultants some time to work on projects we’ve had laying around the house. And that got us thinking: 2020 has probably led to a lot of our customers trying to finish up projects around the house, too ... and they could probably use some ideas to really bring out the best in their home projects and renovations.

If you are going to be stuck at home, you might as well have fun, right? Right! So, this week on the blog we are going to look at different ways you can really add value to your home – specifically your finished basement – by creating what we like to call a “wow” space. A space that, when your friends and family walk into it, they just can’t help but say “wow!” A space that makes full use of today’s smart-home technologies to let you easily access and use it. That kind of space. 

Of course, how you chose to really build out that space is up to you, so we wanted to present some different technology-based ideas that could really help transform your basement from a space nobody wants to spend time in, to an area you look forward to using. 

The holidays are always a busy time of year – 2020 being no exception – and all of us at AV Design Consultants wanted to take a second before things got even busier to make sure to educate all of our customers on the latest and greatest in the technology and smart home worlds. 

The industry has seen plenty of ups and downs this year, but December is the perfect time to look back at some of the newer technologies and how they can improve you and your family’s home life. 

So, what are the big topics you should know about? Whether you are just getting started with the wide world of home automation, or you are a long-time adopter, here’s an explainer of some of the newer technology on the marketplace, and a look at what you should be paying attention to for the holidays and as we head into 2021!

It’s time to get your game on.

Most of the time on our blog here at AV Design Consultants is spent helping our customers learn more about all the latest and greatest aspects of smart home technology and how they best can integrate that technology into their life. 

But we all know that your home entertainment system is being used for more than TV and movies, and for a lot of you, a big screen and surround sound means one thing: Better ways to play and immerse yourself into your favorite video games. 

It’s not every day that a new generation of consoles comes out! To help mark the occasion and celebrate a little bit, we’re spending time this week to look at some of the amazing technological advancements coming from Sony and the PlayStation 5, and how to make sure that your home technology is ready to keep up. Let’s take a look and get ready to play! 

It’s time to up the ante with 8K.

While it’s still in its infancy as a resolution, if you are looking for the best picture possible this year, there’s only one to consider: 8K. A step up from 4K resolution, 8K gives you even more pixel density, clarity, and definition than you are used to seeing in Ultra HD – and 16 times as many pixels as you would find in a traditional 1080p TV. 

If you’re reading this, you probably know a thing or two about resolution already. You’ve probably already had a 4K set for a few years and are now ready to upgrade past that to 8K resolution but aren’t sure what next steps to take. Don’t worry – that’s what the team here at AV Design Consultants is for! Whether this is your first time checking out our blog, or you are a long time customer, we’ve put together a list of what to keep in mind as you start to browse 8K TVs, as well as important tips to help you get the best home entertainment experience possible. 

Smart home technology isn’t just for the young. 

Any new technology – and especially new technology in emerging and growing categories like smart home technology – tends to get a reputation of being for younger audiences. But that’s simply not the case. The team here at AV Design Consultants prides itself on being knowledgeable on the best ways, practices, and use cases for the technology we sell, and we thought it would be great to guide our customers through a not-often-talked-about, but quite important, use of smart home technology: to help older adults as they are aging in place.

There are many ways that technology can help keep users independent while assisting with their lifestyle. And as aging in place becomes more common – where older adults stay in their homes longer or multiple generations live together under one roof – using this technology is only going to become more and more important. There’s a big future for such technology out there, and it just goes to show that smart technology can help improve everybody’s homelife. Let’s take a look at how.

Even the best TVs sometimes have problems. 

The good news for all our customers? We have some solutions. We don’t just want to be your one-stop shop for all your smart home needs – we want to help support you throughout the lifetime of your purchases, as well. And that means helping when TV problems occur.  

So, this week we checked in with our expert team here at AV Design Consultants to help us put together a list of the most common TV problems and the best way for you to solve them all on your own. And if you go through the list and your TV problem isn’t here, feel free to give us a call! We’re ready to help you diagnose and troubleshoot exactly what’s going on.