Last week we had a look at a room that is often neglected when it comes to home automation, the kitchen. This week, we’re going to move on to a different space that doesn’t always get the automation it deserves – the bedroom.

Home automation exists to enhance different parts of your lifestyle – security, convenience, entertainment, assisted living, safety, energy efficiency, and lets not forget, fun.

There is an opportunity to take advantage of all of these in an automated bedroom. Let’s take a look at few ways that a modern well-designed system can make your life better.

 Privacy and Security

These are two of the most obvious. Motorized window coverings should now be considered standard equipment in the bedroom of any quality home. When you choose a top of the line product like Crestron, you can order double shades. The daytime shade will preserve your privacy while allowing a view of the outside. Put down the blackout blind and night, and you will have total privacy and no street lights or passing headlights to disturb your sleep.

You will also want to make the bedroom part of your housewide security system. Prowlers come around when you’re asleep. A bedroom, especially a ground floor bedroom, should be protected with window break alarms, and lights with motion detectors outside the windows. Make sure one of your security cameras captures the area outside the bedroom too.

 Lighting

In our stressful world, the bedroom should be an oasis of calm. Indirect dimmable LED lights are not only energy efficient, they also enhance the décor of any bedroom. By adding the lights to your home automation system, you can use the touch of a button at your bedside to turn on the lights anywhere in the house. This is especially good if you have to check on a crying baby or find out what that noise is downstairs.

 Music

Music in the bedroom is overlooked, but should be a part of the system. Whether you use the bedroom as a computer room, a refuge to read in or a place to relax and have a nap, your choice of background music can help. Or, you can hear the latest weather report in the morning as you get ready for your busy day. All the music selections can be easily controlled from your bedside touch panel or from an I-device.

 Entertainment

Another item that has become standard equipment in most bedrooms is a flat screen TV. You could just have a cable signal, but why stop there? In a fully automated home, you can have access to the internet, Netflix, cable and satellite. Why not add a wireless keyboard and surf the internet from your bed on the giant screen? Use your bedside touch screen and you can call up any film that is on your media server. Start watching a movie in the living room and finish watching it in bed. Access all your favourite sports channels. The sky is the limit. You can even put the TV sound through the ceiling speakers for a theatre experience in your own bed.

 Fun

The home automation business is always coming up with new devices. There are many that make for fun additions to a bedroom system. How about a robot vacuum cleaner that is programmed to come out every morning after you leave for work and clean the floor? How about using the touch panel to turn on in-floor heaters in the en-suite bathroom before you get there? You’ll never feel cold tiles on your feet again. What about window coverings that react automatically to sunlight, so that even if you aren’t there they will still close and protect your valuable furniture and floors from sun damage. What about a skylight over your bed with a motorized blackout shade? Sleep under the stars when you want, or keep it closed for perfect privacy.

The possibilities are endless and are limited only by your imagination and the skill and knowledge of your home automation integrator. At OneTouch Automation, our designers and programmers carry the highest level of certification in the industry. Offering only the best products from companies like Crestron, AMX, Pakedge, Tannoy and Kaleidescape, our mission is to provide you with systems that are ahead of the curve and ready to provide years of trouble-free system. Our designs are flexible, adaptable and future-friendly.

Call OneTouch Automation today for a no-charge consultation with one of our Home Automation experts.

Sometimes, nothing but the best will do. When it comes to media players, media servers and media vaults, there is one name that stands above the rest. That name is Kaleidescape. OneTouch Automation is proud to announce that they have been appointed as a dealer for this premium product.

The concept for Kaleidescape was born in early 2001. A small group of seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneurs brainstormed the best way to serve up a rich cinematic experience in the home.

The Kaleidescape System

Kaleidescape’s founders began to research everything they could about the motion picture business, licensing, and the technology of digital audio and video to bring their audacious goal to life. This led to their design of the Kaleidescape architecture, several innovative hardware appliances, and the purpose-built software for these products known as KEAOS — the Kaleidescape Entertainment Appliance Operating System.

They discovered that with carefully designed hardware and software they could build a legal system that enables customers to copy their movies to hard disks for immediate playback anywhere in the home. This discovery led to the first Kaleidescape System which was introduced in 2003.

Today, the Kaleidescape experience is unrivaled. The company is known for its unwavering dedication to quality, innovation and customer service, and its unique movie server architecture. Kaleidescape Systems are installed in the finest homes and yachts around the globe. The company has also built and maintains one of the largest and most complete databases of information describing movies and music.

OneTouch is pleased that we can now offer this experience to our clients. Here are a few of the products Kaleidescape offers and what they do:

Servers

A Kaleidescape server stores an exact digital copy of your Blu-ray Discs, DVDs and CDs and streams movies and music across your household Ethernet to players throughout your home. Kaleidescape’s proprietary RAID-K technology protects against data loss. Multiple servers can work together to store thousands of movies and albums as a single collection.

Disc Vaults

Kaleidescape disc vaults make it fast and easy to add movies and music to your Kaleidescape System. You simply insert as many discs as you like, and walk away. Your Kaleidescape disc vault does the rest. Your discs are automatically copied onto your Kaleidescape System and are ready to be enjoyed throughout your home.

Kaleidescape Players

You’re not limited to one room with a Kaleidescape System. You can expand to as many rooms as you like by adding players. Once you’ve added a Kaleidescape player to a room, you can watch any movie, even while someone else watches a different one or even the same one in another room.

Kaleidescape is an exceptional product that will appeal to the discerning home owner who truly appreciates quality. It can become a key part of a state of the art home automation system.  It is the perfect compliment to a top of the line whole home system by Crestron or AMX.

Let OneTouch Automation design that system for you. We can make your dream of a fully automated home into a reality. We turn wish lists into check lists. Call us today for a no-charge consultation and see how easy it can be to get the very best in home automation.

(Thanks to Kaleidescape for the information in this blog. Please visit Kaleidescape website for more about this amazing product line)