If you’re a handy man, a fixer-upper, or someone who prefers to do things their own way, it’s entirely possible to assemble a smart home system by yourself. Devices like Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung’s SmartThings are available in stores, and with video tutorials and blogs like this one, DIY installations are more accessible than ever.

The downside? Doing it yourself is not easy. If you want a truly integrated home, you will need to mount cameras, install thermostats, wire your speaker systems, and trickiest of all, get your separate devices working and communicating with each other. You don’t want to juggle different remotes and phone apps; everything should work in unison together automatically. To achieve that, you’ll need the assistance of a smart home company.

To decide if the professional or DIY route is best for you, continue reading to discover how a smart home integrator can help your Guilford, CT home.

No one can say that we don’t have varied weather on the East Coast. From bone-chilling winters to humid summers and everything in between, we’ve got it all. Fortunately, the waterfront location on the Rhode Island coast tempers the weather just enough to make the snowstorms slightly less worse and bring the cool sea air in the summer.

In the winter, when the light is at a premium, we might want to let in as much of it as possible. In the summer with a hot sun, we may want to control it better and minimize the use of air conditioning.

What’s the solution? The easiest way is with motorized shades, where you can touch a button – or issue a voice command – and raise or lower window treatments in seconds. Shades can be lowered when the sun is fully streaming in but can be raised to enjoy the view later, especially if you happen to have one of Narragansett Bay or the Atlantic.

Many people think that to get this automated convenience you need to limit yourself on style. That may have been true in earlier days, but there are a plethora of options now with motorized shades. C&T Systems works with Lutron for motorized shading as well as their lighting control systems because both offer a wealth of possibilities. Read on to learn more about Lutron Sivoia QS and Serena shading to see if they're right for your Newport-area residence.

The number of smart devices that are being connected to home networks is exploding every year. We dare say that you won't likely remember how many devices are connected to your home's network. Smart lights, cameras, speakers, thermostats, appliances, streaming devices, and TVs all need reliable networking for proper operation. When the network is faltering, you’ll likely notice.

If you stream high definition and 4K video from services like Netflix, your show may annoyingly stutter, pause to buffer or fail to play at all. Your smart thermostat may not keep the temperature settings you wanted. Beyond annoyances, more severe issues can happen if a spotty network doesn't inform you of an alarm from a water sensor or suspicious activity captured by a security camera.

Networking is a very technical area of computing. Features that are familiar to networking professionals like port forwarding, VLANs, and WPA2 security are practically meaningless to the average homeowner. Consumers rely on the wireless router option supplied by their Internet Service Provider (ISP), and in many cases, they do not even know how to change the default password that lets one manage the router – which is a security hole left wide open for hacking.

If you have a smaller property or perhaps can tolerate the occasional network hiccup because you don't entirely depend on it, maybe you can get by without professionally installed and optimized networking equipment.

But if you want to run a smart home with many devices, you rely on your network for security features and essential automation that has dependencies on many things working in tandem, and you need high bandwidth for work and entertainment at home, you should consider professional home network installation services and equipment for your home in the Guilford, Connecticut area.

Every day seems to bring another new smart device to the market.  Several key technology areas are driving the innovation – the availability of inexpensive, powerful chips, cloud-based software platforms, multiple wireless technologies, and machine learning – are enabling the addition of intelligent features to a slew of home devices.

Earlier this year at the CES consumer technology show, we saw a host of new smart devices introduced.  Smart lights, speakers, thermostats, coffeemakers, washing machines, irrigation controllers, refrigerators, ranges, and even toilets are getting injections of smart technology.  The technology in your home is accelerating from interesting novelty to genuine usefulness. Automation will bring about a change in how we use and manage our homes.  The functionality of smart home devices and systems is only getting better every year, and as it matures, we will become more accustomed to it and grow to depend on it in our daily lives – much like the smartphone.

Since we're early in this new year, we want to highlight the trends that will be driving the new smart products you will see in 2019.  This is the year when smart home automation becomes mainstream.  If you haven't yet invested in a home automation system for your Groton residence, there is no better time. 

Read on to learn more about the smart home automation trends you’ll be seeing this year.