When you leave your house to go to work or out with friends, there’s always that worry in the back of your head of leaving your door or windows unlocked. Maybe you forgot to turn a few lights on or off when you left or perhaps you left your straightener on and forgot about it. Thanks to the technological advancements with smartphones, you can easily control devices in your home with just a touch of a button or a swipe of the finger. If you are worried about doors being left unlocked or lights not turning off, all you have to do is check the settings for your home via your smartphone. Put your worries at ease with installing smart controls to automate your home.

If you are not sure about installing smart controls for home automation, check out these benefits they can provide:

Security Camera Access

We love our pets and we hate leaving them by themselves when we have to leave. Having home automation updates installed will give you access to camera feeds for your home. If you are worried about your pets, kids or house being broken into, you can check the status of your home through your smartphone. Security cameras can protect your family by recording clips when detecting movement or at specific times of the day or night.

Easy Temperature Adjustment

It’s easy to forget to adjust your thermostat before leaving for work. When you come back home, it can be too hot or too cold and you end up waiting for the temperature to adjust in an uncomfortable home.  With a home automation system, you can adjust the thermostat a few hours before heading home. This also saves on money and energy and gives you a nice welcome after returning from a hard day’s work.

Provides Security with Automated Door Locks

This is one of the greatest benefits of an automated home system. Automated door locks help keep your home safe while you are not there. If you forgot to lock your doors while you headed to work, you can have the convenience of locking them via your smartphone. This is also a great benefit if your kids are home alone. Making sure the doors are locked while you are away is an added comfort for them and gives you peace of mind.

Saves You Money

A home automation system can help save you money in the long run. You will see your monthly utility bill decrease as a result of having control over household appliances left on in your family’s absence. The convenience of an automated home system can give you complete control and help you cut back on unnecessary costs as well as benefit the environment around you.

There are many benefits to having an automated home system installed. All of these benefits include two common factors: safety and security. You get peace of mind knowing that you can check on your home and family from the convenience of a smartphone. An automated home system lets you be in control of your home and saves you money on utility bills as well.

Our Top 3 Home Security Cameras

If you’re like me, you have a favorable reaction to yachts, perhaps without ever having stepped foot on one. I have absolutely no idea how I will one day acquire a yacht. All I know is that yachts and I are destined to be together some way, somehow. This amorous examination of yacht lighting exists, yes, because there are interesting things to note about yacht lighting design, but, if I’m totally honest, we’re in the dog days of summer; I’m landlocked; and I want to stare at yachts. Do you want to stare at yachts, too? Let’s stare at yachts in all their luminous glory.

1. In A Word, Yes. 

I am sucker for underwater lights. In pools, in little water features and ponds, they just make me smile. But beaming into a foreign sea from the hull of a yacht? I am slain (in a good way). Of course, that’s not the only amazing thing about the yacht lighting situation above. While the lights are illuminating the sea on either side of our vessel, whaddaya say we project the sea life around us onto this huge sail? OK, great!

I mean, seriously?! Are you seriously watching the sea life around your yacht as it’s projected onto a giant screen in the middle of the beautiful sea with starlight and moonlight above you and light beams shooting out of either side of your vessel? Yes? Well OK, then. I guess I would, too, if I were you.

2. Outdoor Recessed Lights

What an amazing night time mood these recessed lights lend this yacht. I love the way the fixtures form scallops of light along the side of the cabin, especially because the reflective surface of the yacht amplifies the light levels. Very nice via Charter World

And it also says, Come hither thou and hangeth out on me. Basically, these lighting designers have gotten it right. What looks better against the soft night sky than lights with a via Charter World

Those recessed light fixtures with single and multiple lamps are a great choice for this yacht living room/control center/spaceship dashboard. The top level is evenly lit, and the lower level, with its crisp light, invites the eye and the whole body, actually. Take me to Greenland, Captain! If you need me, I will be luxuriating.

7. Cove Lighting!

An important component in your main electrical service panel is commonly known as the breaker. If you’re a homeowner, surely you have visited yours a few times over the years. But what exactly is it? And what does it do? Let’s go over the importance of the breaker and what its doing for your home.

If you read our article on the home electrical system a few months back, you will know which step the service panel comes in receiving electricity for your home. The service panel is the gateway for all electricity in your home. After electricity comes through underground or overhead power lines, it goes to your electrical meter and then to the service panel. Electricity branches off from here and travels to the rest of your home. Within the panel are circuits for different areas for electricity to travel. Shutting down a circuit can cause power loss to a part of the home, maybe a room or two. But because the home is on many different circuits, power can remain active in the rest of the house.

After electricity arrives at the service panel, it travels to a circuit. The circuit is a loop in which electricity travels from one end to the other. The breaker splits up to 100 amps or more into the circuits to distribute the power. Usually each circuit in a common residential home operates at 15 amps. The breaker is designed to “trip” if it receives an excess of electricity. If a power surge occurs on the outside of the home, for example a lightning strike, the service panel will stop the flow and turn off. If a surge happens on a circuit within your home, the breaker will also shut down that loop to protect the rest of the house.

Over time if work on a service panel is not completed correctly, the circuits could blow more frequently due to overloading. Parts in the panel can become outdated, loosen, or get burned out. If a service panel is not maintained and up to code, it also poses specific risks, making your home more susceptible to fires and electrical surges.

We offer hundreds of products that are designed for

(CRI) to show the true colors of products or material being displayed. CRI refers to how accurately a light source reveals the true colors of objects, people, and surroundings and involves a distinct testing method with comparisons to incandescent light or daylight. A light source with a CRI close to 100 shows colors very similarly to how incandescent light or daylight shows those same colors.

Many LED lights are also available in a wide variety of colors or shades of white, and LED controllers with wireless remotes allow for customized lighting, dimming, and color modes. These reliable LED lights are built to last and come with a minimum two-year warranty.

relatively high ceilings. Drive by any industrial park, warehouse, or factory, and walk inside and what you will see is a high bay light.

But walk into any factory or warehouse and you will see different styles and options, wattage’s and configurations. Traditional high bay fixtures that were once common place were Mercury Vapor, which were then replaced with High Pressure Sodium and Metal Halide bulbs. As new technologies were introduced, and old technologies became more common, the old HID bulbs were replaced with Induction and Fluorescent light sources. And more recently with the more wide spread approval and popularity of LED, we started to see conversions from these older technologies to the latest energy saving LED High Bays.

A High Bay Fixture, depending on the light source, can take on many forms and shapes. If you consider a Metal Halide or High Pressure Sodium fixture, they typically consist of a large heat sink block at the top of the fixture that typically houses the fixtures ballast. Below is an aluminum or acrylic dome and at the top of the dome is the HID bulb. These bulbs typically come in two wattage’s, 400 and 1000. 400 Watt Fixtures tend to be installed in ceiling heights no higher than 30 feet, 1000 watt fixtures are typically 40 feet or higher. Interestingly enough, spacing of lights is similar to the height they are located off the floor. A fixture installed at 20 feet from the floor is installed in a 20X20 pattern, 30 feet in a 30X30 pattern, 40 feet in a 40X40 pattern. Of the 3 type of HID bulbs, Metal Halide tends to be the best option. High Pressure Sodium Bulbs are very low on the temperature color and have the warehouse aisles have the ability to focus the light where it is needed. A light designed for a warehouse aisle is a lot different than a light designed for a gymnasium or a factory floor. In these spaces, a light that can flood the area evenly is important, in a warehouse aisle, a light that can light up the face of the shelves and the floor below is important. And when selecting energy efficient options, its just as important to understand the technology and what it is capable of doing. Adding controls to a T5 fluorescent fixture is a good idea only if the ballast is designed to handle that requirement and not lower the life expectancy of the bulbs. Motions sensors and daylight controls that dim the light output based on occupants and the amount of daylight available in the space. Technologies such as metal halide and high pressure sodium are not a good choice as these technologies are not good at dimming or turn on or off quickly. Fluorescent can dim, but you need special ballasts for them. So knowing what you want to do and may want to do is important at time of purchase, because not having the proper equipment or options could mean a costly lighting warehouses, factories, gyms and readily available through the utility companies, and mass adoption means the technology of LED had matured to the point where the questions and disbelief of past years have gone away.