A Smart Home With Control 4

Technology runs the world today. We are all connected through our computers, mobile devices and social media accounts. We rely on it constantly to get us where we need to go and to accomplish the daily tasks we need to accomplish, not only in our professional careers, but in our personal lives. 

Did you know that this type of technology can also be integrated into your home? With products like Control 4, a home automation system, you can not only program various aspects of your home to respond the way you want them to, but it can also create a much more energy efficient home. Control 4 supports more than 8,000 devices from third-party manufacturers, so I am going to share just a handful of ways we have integrated Control 4 into our everyday lives to make our house a smart home that is as energy efficient as possible.

A major use for Control 4 users is creating various lighting scenes. These scenes can be programmed based on different lighting needs in the home, as well as programmed based on the time of day it is since varying amounts of sun will sometimes require less light in your house. We have created scenes such as Dining, Evening, Night and Morning in our kitchen, for example. This reduces the amount of electricity waste since the lights are programmed to come on at varying percentages versus always on at 100%. We have also programmed our exterior lights to function at certain times based on sunset and sunrise. Things like our address house numbers (which are backlit LEDs), garage coach lights, step lights, and additional exterior lights are programmed to automatically turn on/off. A simple touch of our Goodnight scene, turns off the televisions, lights, fireplace, lowers the shades, locks the entry doors, closes the garage door and arms the security system, so I guess you can say that an added bonus is SAFETY with Control 4!

Additional examples of things that can be controlled by Control 4 are window shades, thermostats, garage door openers, irrigation systems and Nest Protect. Based on the time of the day, our Lutron window shades can be automated to lower or raise based on the location of the sun and the need for filtering the sunlight. By having our thermostat connected to Control 4, it offers us the ability to make thermostat adjustments remotely, as well as the ability to program it. And with the use of our phones, we can remotely raise and lower our garage door, which can come in handy for many reasons, especially if you are traveling and need to allow someone access to your house. Using a smart controller, such as Ratio, for our sprinkler system also limits the water usage based on pulling satellite data from a weather source, and telling the controller how much/how little rain we've received, thus only running the system as needed. 

Lastly, the Amazon Echo is a device that can now be connected to your home automation system, allowing you to speak commands to Alexa, and have your home respond using your voice commands rather than only having the ability to do so from an electronic device! "Alexa, turn on the fireplace" is one simple command that we can speak, and within a second, the gas fireplace is lit and burning! 

There are endless ways to have your home operate on your schedule, making it smart and efficient. Control 4 is an excellent "brain" to control many functions in your home.

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