A recent article on ECNmag.com, “Building Value with Energy-Saving Upgrades in Homes and Businesses,” discusses how “improving the energy performance of your home can make it more comfortable and attractive, increase its value, and help you save money on your energy bills.

Easy Being Green: Get Out of Your Hybrid Car and Into Your Green Home

Did you know that the average family spends around $1,900 a year on home utility bills? And, a lot of that energy is wasted through inefficiencies in your home, which is both bad for you and the environment. Of course, there are little things we can do like keeping the heat on a lower temperature and putting on a sweater, installing LED light bulbs, and installing low-flush toilets. But if you’re looking to further green your life, there are some more significant improvements that you can make to your home overall that can help reduce your energy consumption, decrease your energy bills, and even increase the value of your home.

Afraid of Vampires? You Should Be. Energy Draining Appliances Could be Costing You a Fortune

Which electronic appliance do you think uses the most energy in your home? The air conditioner? The refrigerator? Guess again. It’s your cable or satellite DVR set-top box, according to a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report, “Reducing the National Energy Consumption of Set-Top Boxes.” Hard to imagine, but it’s true. This is because today’s cable boxes are basically running at full power all the time, even when switched off, which is costing you money.

Vampires No More? NCTA Moves to Make Cable Boxes More Energy Efficient

The NCTA and CableLabs are forming an Energy Lab facility, which will concentrate on improving energy efficiency and promote the development, testing, and deployment of technologies that will enable users to reduce and manage energy consumption in the home. They will work on manufacturing set-top devices that have sleep capabilities that will reduce power consumption when subscribers are not watching television.

Home Lighting Control

Home lighting control solutions are quickly becoming one of the most popular home improvements. One of the main benefits of home lighting control is the potential energy savings. According to the a white paper produced by the Energy Conservation Enhancement Project at Louisiana State University, “20% of all electricity produced in the U.S. is used for lighting, but 50% of that is wasted by inefficient lighting sources or careless consumers.” And, they recommend that home lighting controls should now be part of every family’s home energy plan.

Certified Connection is the premier provider of custom-designed home control systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape.

By: Certified Connection

UltraViolet arrived on the market recently without a whole lot of fanfare. For some time, announcements of new Sony Pictures movies or television shows were accompanied by “Available on Blu-Ray or DVD.” To aid in the still-stubborn transition to Blu-Ray, the two types of disc were packaged together, leading to “Available in a Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack.” And then, with little explanation: “Available in Blu-Ray/DVD/UltraViolet combo pack.”

So what’s the story with UltraViolet?

In essence, when you purchase a Sony Blu-Ray or DVD of a title, you’re given an UltraViolet redemption code. When you log in to your UltraViolet account and redeem the code, the title is added to your Digital Library. Since UltraViolet is cloud-based, once you have a title in your Digital Library, you can instantly stream it to computers, tablets, or smart phones, or download it to your PC or Mac. You can also share your collection with up to six family members.

With the proliferation of portable devices and the growing preference of some to watch shows and movies on their computers, the appeal of UltraViolet is clear. But will the technology catch on? Will other companies besides Sony develop their own UltraViolet? Only time will tell.

Are you interested in learning more about UltraViolet? Contact Certified Connection to learn more!

Certified Connection is the premier provider of custom-designed home control systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape.

By Certified Connection

• 3D TVs with passive polarized glasses came on the scene. Active-shutter glasses still provide a better picture, but passive polarized glasses are a good option and more options are expected in 2012.
• More and more users of home automation technology want to use their iPads to control their home systems. Some people speculate that someday, instead of coming with a remote, electronics components will come with a downloadable app.
• Projectors are getting smaller and quieter, which means they’re making their way out of a dedicated home theater and into many families’ living rooms. This makes technology like this a viable option for people who want the benefits of a home theater, but don’t have the space for a dedicated room.
• Android’s tablets and smartphones were popular this year and may end up a close second to Apple’s tablets and phones. They could also act as control panels for home systems as more apps are developed.
• Smart TVs became more popular this year, and social media is becoming a more important part of the experience. This trend will definitely continue into 2012.
• Prices on big TVs came down this year, making it more affordable for people to hang a large screen in their living rooms.
• Streaming music is becoming more popular, and may be replacing media storage components. Some streaming music companies have had issues with sound quality in the past, but that issue seems to be slowly fading as quality gets better and better.

It’s not too late to jump on some of these 2011 trends. And if you want to stay on the cutting edge of the hottest trends to come out of 2012, contact us today!

Certified Connection is the premier provider of custom-designed home control systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape.

By: Certified Connection

Here are some of the trends we are seeing as we move into 2012:

Home Automation and Home Entertainment for the People – Probably the biggest and most important trend we are seeing is the affordability of home technologies for the average family. In the past, home control and home automation technologies, including lighting control and security control, and home entertainment technologies, such as home theaters, streaming media servers, and smart TVs, have only been accessible to those on the wealthier end of the spectrum. This is no longer the case. Home control and home entertainment technologies will continue to become commoditized and accessible to the majority of people.

Greening Your Home – More home owners and businesses are looking to both save money on utilities, including electricity, and are more conscious about decreasing their carbon footprint. This trend will only increase as more home control technologies that provide cost savings become available and more affordable.

More Control Than Ever – Home control and automation systems are becoming more and more sophisticated than ever. Home and business owners can control virtually every aspect of their properties, including lighting, security, and environment, from a tablet or smartphone. Providers, such as Control4 and Crestron, are also increasing the number of apps that make all of this possible. This is only going to continue to be the case as the technologies and applications continue to be developed for the home technology market.

Cooler Technology and Fun Gadgets – There is just a lot of cool toys out there in the market. Smart TVs, including 3D TVs, that meet all your family’s home entertainment needs are one of the coolest developments in recent years. They are only going to improve, becoming more user-friendly and interactive, as the market develops. Also streaming and stored media systems that can hold all of your movies, music, TV programs, and more are a huge hit with consumers.

We are looking forward to 2012 and what it holds for home technologies. We’re hoping for increased interoperability and integration between vendors so that we can help you make your home a more efficient and entertaining place to be.

As always, please contact us with all of your home automation and control and home entertainment system questions. Learn how a custom system from Certified Connection can change your life.

Certified Connection is the premier provider of custom-designed home control systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape.

By: Certified Connection

Additional Reading

Lower Energy Costs and Increase the Value of Your Home by Making it More Energy Efficient

Easy Being Green: Get Out of Your Hybrid Car and Into Your Green Home

Control Your Home from Your iPad

Also check out the review of this new media server in Sound + Vision magazine, which would be great for any home or business, the MMS-2 Mirage Media Server.

To incorporate a streaming media server into your home entertainment system, all you need is an Internet connection and an Internet-ready TV or an Internet-ready Blu-ray player. We’ve discussed some of the more popular ones in a past blog post, including Apple TV, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, Rhapsody, etc.

Enjoy music, movies, and TV the way you want it in your home or business with one of Certified Connection’s custom solutions. There are plenty of media servers out there that can simply store media, stream media, or do both. Contact us today to learn more about your options and decide on the one that’s right for you.

Certified Connection is the premier provider of custom-designed home control, home automation systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape.

By: Certified Connection

The NCTA and CableLabs are forming an Energy Lab facility, which will concentrate on improving energy efficiency and promote the development, testing, and deployment of technologies that will enable users to reduce and manage energy consumption in the home. They will work on manufacturing set-top devices that have sleep capabilities that will reduce power consumption when subscribers are not watching television.

And according to the NCTA, 90% of all new set-top boxes purchased and deployed by top cable operators will meet Energy Star 3.0 energy efficiency standards for set-top boxes.

A recent article in Electronic House explains more of the details of the plans for the Energy Lab.

Certified Connection is the premier provider of custom-designed home control, home automation systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape.

By: Certified Connection

Additional Reading:

Afraid of Vampires? You Should Be. Energy Draining Appliances Could be Costing You a Fortune

Easy Being Green: Get Out of Your Hybrid Car and Into Your Green Home

Enter Indian company Violet3D, with a technological innovation that’s looking to change surround sound forever. Violet has developed a wireless surround sound system that allows for speakers to be placed anywhere in the room and still deliver the surround sound experience, irrespective of where you’re sitting. In Violet’s own words, “By using omni-polar speakers, [the Violet sound system] creates unique wave-fronts – one wave-front from one direction for one channel – using ALL the available speakers.”

The range of the speakers is approximately 150 feet, and the system uses digital signal processing along with a uniquely designed amplifier to provide a high-fidelity sound and loudness from small speakers. Violet3D replaces wires of conventional home theater systems with a phase accurate and power adaptive wireless technology that beats the best cables.

So is the Violet3D system a game-changer? At close to $1,300, it’s definitely on the high end, but if more companies adapt and improve upon the basic idea, surround sound could be looking at a whole new ball game.

Have you got a Violet3D system? Let Certified Connection set it up for you!

Certified Connection is the premier provider of custom-designed home control systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape.

By Certified Connection

This is exciting news because as the people in this group get older, they’ll already be familiar with smartphone technology and it can be very helpful to them. Not only are smartphones important in an emergency situation, they can play an important role in home automation, which can help a senior with decreased mobility remain independent or help another just show off for his golf buddies.  

We’ve discussed in the past how many home automation systems can be controlled by an iPad, a touch screen installed in the wall, or a smartphone. Security systems, lighting, temperature, and entertainment in the home can all be controlled by the push of a button. For seniors, an Internet connection and familiarity with a smartphone would allow them to do all that from a comfortable chair, as well as set up medication reminders or other alerts. Concerned family members can set up motion detectors that will provide fall alerts or video cameras that will allow them to check on their loved one throughout the day. 

Baby boomers adopting smartphone technology now is a great thing because as this group ages, home automation combined with smartphone technology will give them a greater chance of staying as independent as they’d like for as long as they’d like.

Certified Connectionis the premier provider of custom-designed home control systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape. 

By Certified Connection

It sounds logical that if you need a particular model to add to your already existing entertainment system you go online to find the lowest price you can. But I’ve seen online retailers ship a different model because they don’t have the one you need in stock. Then you’re stuck trying to clear up the issue on the phone – assuming the online retailer has a good return policy. Or maybe you get help designing a complex home entertainment system and go online to purchase the components. After you have all of the random boxes piled in your living room, you have to get the system working, and complex designs require seamless communication between the components. Assuming those random boxes contain the right component models, you still might need expert help putting it together.

I like to think of myself as a solution provider rather than just a problem solver. By working with an expert from designing your system to hitting the power button on your remote, these problems can be eliminated. Working with an expert ensures that you start with a good design that meets all of your needs, and you’ll never have to worry about getting stuck with the wrong part or having a bug in your system that you just can’t work out. Bargain shopping online is tempting, but sometimes the cost savings just aren’t worth the headaches.        

Certified Connectionis the premier provider of custom-designed home control systems and home theaters to residential and commercial customers. For more than 10 years, Certified Connection has served homeowners and businesses in and around Boston, throughout the South Shore, and the entire Cape. 

By Eytan Vestin of Certified Connection