High-Tech and Tall Trees of a Memorial Mansion

High-Tech and Tall Trees of a Memorial Mansion

Symbio Lighting + Control is proud to begin home automation work on a new construction estate in the coveted Memorial area of Houston. Slated for completion later this year, this glass-walled, ultra-contemporary home boasts over 10,000 square feet of living area and is nestled among soaring evergreens.

Symbio Lighting + Control has just completed the pre-wiring of the home with nearly 3 miles of technology cabling for security and computer networks including audio/video. The audio/video and surveillance is equally amazing and will be detailed at a later date.

Home Automation Expands the Use, Function, and Enjoyment of all Your Outdoor Spaces

Home Automation Expands the Use, Function, and Enjoyment of all Your Outdoor Spaces

Not so long ago, you fired up the grill, turned up the music and partied until sunset. But let’s face it, sometimes sunset can be an abrupt end to a good day. Today’s home automation technology gives you better choices, literally at the touch of a button. You can keep partying into the night, enjoying the vibe of the bright and the rumbling rhythms of samba.

Or you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the company of friends in a softly lit outdoor den suitable to your favorite smooth jazz ensemble…with outdoor audio that puts you at center stage. Football game or favorite movie starts at eight? Stay right where you are. Any of these options fit that moment where the day-ending sunset of the past melds into a sea of stars. And instead of cleaning up after a good time that ended too early, you transition day into night at the most exclusive club in town…your own back yard.

Homeowners of all ages are frequently taking on the challenge to renovate their homes and dramatically update their outdoor living areas. One of the biggest reasons many homeowners choose to renovate is to either make a newly purchased home really feel like their own or to make the place where they plan on living out their later years, a place that their families and social circles can all enjoy. Whatever the reason, outdoor living renovation is a wonderful way to personalize and express yourself with design.

According to the 2014 Residential Landscape Architecture Trends Survey conducted by the American Society of Landscape Architects, 98.3% of architects reported that their clients are requesting outdoor lighting systems and 97% said outdoor living spaces — kitchens and entertainment areas — are in high demand.

Outdoor living areas offer the most diverse yet practical real estate to upgrade. These areas are most often enjoyed by everyone and are a natural for personalization. Instead of debating the merits of one shade of paint color versus another, one simply highlights and adds to the existing beauty of their landscape design. Compared to the complexity of a kitchen or bath, you really can’t go wrong when you’re working with your own outdoor landscape.

“In Houston, we’re seeing the trend in outdoor living design really pick up momentum,” said Wynne Walker, Vice-President Gulf Coast Lighting, an installer of high-end outdoor LED lighting and outdoor entertainment electronics. “We’ve learned that our clients really enjoy spending time outside cooking, dining, entertaining or just relaxing. Anything that can help extend the use of their space, make them feel more secure or simply make it better is a worthwhile investment.”

A great addition to your outdoor living area is television and wireless networking. Sports fans, movie watchers, video gamers and Netflix addicts all will love being able to entertain in their own yard among their pool and landscape areas. The best part is that now anyone with an Apple TV and iPhone can wirelessly stream content direct to the television. No wires and no extra components means sharing a YouTube video or an entire movie is little more than a touchscreen away. Between outdoor rated flat-panel televisions, high-definition projectors and an array of invisible speakers, there are a myriad of choices available that weren’t even a possibility a few years ago.

Listening to television outdoors doesn’t mean cranking up the volume on a single TV speaker either. Truly immersive audio is available outdoors with weatherproof, outdoor speakers and subwoofers. By creatively using an array of smaller speakers and one or more central subwoofers, you can create the ambiance of a comfortable family room all the way up to an outdoor booming home theater. In fact, the more speakers you add to your system, the lower the volume required for everyone to be able to experience the full audio track. It’s like your own private Disney World. The possibilities are endless.

One of the most dramatic additions to any outdoor living areas is LED lighting. Featuring low-voltage technology in fixtures that stay cool to the touch and illuminate with energy-efficient LEDs, this addition to your yard is the most compelling upgrade available. For perspective, it would take at least 35 different LED landscape lights to equal the energy use of a single 100 watt conventional bulb!

Landscape lighting on the surface often seems to be no more complicated than pointing a light at a tree or path. However, in the same way that interior design is much more than matching paint and fabric, landscape lighting design can best be thought of as an art. The design starts with identifying each layer of outdoor activity and assigning an intricate level of lighting to it based on how bright the light needs to be; how large of an area to be covered; whether a spot light of flood light effect is needed; and even the color of the landscape to ensure that the color of white light (is it more yellow or more blue) is complementary.

For example, depending on the tree height and shape and foliage color and density, specific techniques of lighting may be used either alone or collectively to create either an expansive backdrop that establishes the boundaries or to create focal point and draw the eye in. These various methods of lighting from uplighting, downlighting and canopy lighting all create different effects that your lighting designer will address during your consultation.

Normally, your contractor would have to run separate electrical and signal wires for each run of audio and each run of lighting. Depending on the size of your yard this additional work could have big implications on your budget. Wynne Walker of Gulf Coast Lighting has an innovative solution: “We feature patented technology manufactured by Coastal Source that allows us to use the exact same wires that power your outdoor lighting to power all your outdoor audio. The benefits of this system mean that clients have the freedom to add lighting and audio simply and easily without the additional worry of damaging their landscape.” According to Walker, the use of the same wiring and power hardware for both audio and lighting ensures that the systems installed will be problem-free and easy to upgrade as the homeowner expands their entertaining footprint. This type of efficiency is something to be mindful of as you start to plan your outdoor living design.

Once you’ve added television, lighting and audio to the mix of outdoor enjoyment, controlling these additions is the next logical point for consideration.

Control of the outdoor space is something that can range from completely passive to fully integrated and automated. Fortunately, advances in home automation and outdoor technology have simplified the ability to expand interior spaces into exterior living. Savant Systems is a well known innovator in how people can manage their homes.

According to Ben Hildreth, President of Symbio Lighting + Control, a local design and install specialist in high-end home automation, “Sophistication and ambiance are two of the most often mentioned items when collaborating with clients on integrating outdoor lighting with home automation. Being able to comfortably work with the best names in lighting, such as Lutron, and in home automation with Savant Systems is important to the success of the technology for the client as well as their satisfaction with actual day-to-day operation.”

With Savant Systems control, sophisticated no longer means “complicated”. Savant Systems is the leader in ease-of-use and customer satisfaction for controlling your home. A peek inside a Savant System explains why: At its core is hardware and software from Apple Computers, both of which are unparalleled in keeping customers happy with their intuitive approaches and powerful capabilities. “By harnessing the ubiquity and power of your existing array of smart phones and tablet computers, controlling everything is as simple as touching a photograph and as intuitive as using your phone,” said Hildreth.

With the advent of energy efficient, low-voltage LED lighting, innovative new electrical connection and integration techniques and robust wireless networking, adding full dimensional television, audio, video, home automation and lighting for outdoor enjoyment has never been easier. It’s the most exclusive club in the town…and it’s waiting just outside your door. All you have to do is imagine it and design it.

Houzz Announces Best Of Houzz 2016 Winners

Houzz Announces Best Of Houzz 2016 Winners

Houzz Inc., the leading platform for home renovation and design, today announced the community’s picks for Best Of Houzz 2016 in North America, a homeowner-to-homeowner guide to the top home builders, architects, interior designers, landscape pros and other residential remodeling professionals on Houzz from cabinetry or roofing pros to painters.

Annual Survey and Analysis of Community of Over 35 Million Monthly Users Reveals the Top-Rated Home Remodeling Professionals and Most Popular Home Designs
“Anyone building, remodeling or decorating looks to Houzz for the most talented, competent and service-oriented professionals,” said Liza Hausman, vice president of Industry Marketing for Houzz. “We’re delighted to join our community of homeowners and design enthusiasts in recognizing our “Best Of Houzz” professionals around the world.”

The Best Of Houzz is awarded annually in three categories: Design, Customer Service and Photography. Design award winners’ work was the most popular among the more than 35 million monthly users on Houzz. Customer Service honors are based on several factors, including the number and quality of recent client reviews. Architecture and interior design photographers whose images were most popular are recognized with the Photography award.

A “Best Of Houzz 2016” badge appears on winners’ profiles, as a sign of their commitment to excellence. These badges help homeowners identify popular and top-rated home professionals in every metro area on Houzz. Winners will be announced globally throughout the month.

To see the most popular designs: http://www.houzz.com/best-of-houzz-2016

About Houzz Houzz is the leading platform for home remodeling and design, providing people with everything they need to improve their homes from start to finish – online or from a mobile device. From decorating a small room to building a custom home and everything in between, Houzz connects millions of homeowners, home design enthusiasts and home improvement professionals across the country and around the world. With the largest residential design database in the world and a vibrant community empowered by technology, Houzz is the easiest way for people to find inspiration, get advice, buy products and hire the professionals they need to help turn their ideas into reality. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., Houzz also has international offices in London, Berlin, Sydney, Moscow and Tokyo. Houzz and the Houzz logo are registered trademarks of Houzz Inc. worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.houzz.com/.

Major Security Flaws in Commodity-Grade and DIY Home Automation

Major Security Flaws in Commodity-Grade and DIY Home Automation

People often ask why they should use Symbio Lighting + Control for their home automation when companies like Comcast/Xfinity and AT&T offer basic automation already. Well, if you are concerned about security and keeping your personal details out of the hands of hackers, you may want to reconsider this kind of commodity-grade and do-it-yourself home automation.

According to a report by Rapid7, would-be hackers could easily target the ZigBee-based wireless platform Comcast uses in the 2.4-Gigahertz band, which, Rapid7 claims, can be jammed to block communications between the Xfinity Home hub and other components of the home automation and security system, such as door sensors.

Xfinity Home “does not fail closed with an assumption that an attack is underway,” Rapid7 said. “Instead, the system fails open,” meaning that the sensors would believe that all sensors are intact, all doors are closed and no motion is detected. That improper state can last from anywhere from several minutes to three hours, it said.

There are a number of techniques available to cause interference or deauthenticate the underlying ZigBee-based communications protocol, Rapid7 said, including commonplace radio-jamming equipment.

“By creating a failure condition in the 2.4-GHz radio frequency band, the Comcast Xfinity Home Security System fails open, with the base station failing to recognize or alert on a communications failure with the component sensors,” the researchers said. “In addition, sensors take an inordinate amount of time to re-establish communications with the base station, even if their ‘closed’ state is switched to ‘open’ during the failure event.”

http://www.multichannel.com/security-firm-pokes-holes-xfinity-home/396409

Creative Security Cameras Bring Outdoors Inside for Wildlife Enthusiasts

Creative Security Cameras Bring Outdoors Inside for Wildlife Enthusiasts

When most people hire someone to install surveillance cameras into their home, they do it mainly for security purposes. Whether the cameras will be used to keep tabs on the residence while the family is on vacation or as a way to know when someone steps onto the property, they provide the valuable peace of mind that every homeowner craves.

…The cameras function as “virtual binoculars” capturing realtime, full-color, high-res outdoor images to display on the many wall-mounted iPads and TVs located throughout the house. Each camera was strategically positioned to snap footage of the wildlife that frequents the two ponds in the backyard and the nature preserve along the perimeter of the 142-acre property. When an animal passes by a camera, its built-in motion sensor signals the home’s Savant automation system to activate every TV in the residence (eight total). The TVs tune automatically to a preset “wildlife station,” giving the owner a close-up view of the many deer, birds, squirrels, and other creatures.

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