Learn three upgrades you need to make to your Beverly Hills home
Our phones at DSI have not stopped ringing since most of our clients started quarantining at home. Most of our clients reside in Beverly Hills, the Westside, or Montecito, and they all have something in common: they do not spend a lot of time at home. Between travel and a demanding work schedule, our clients are typically on-the-go at all times. Because of this, they realize that they have not paid a lot of attention to some of their home systems and are now finding out that they were not quite ready for this quarantine. Our days at DSI are filled resolving failed Zoom calls, interrupted Fortnite games, Netflix lags, non-working gate intercoms, Lutron meltdowns, Crestron, or Savant remotes on the blink, etc. When it comes to smart home automation, it is better to be proactive than reactive. Learn three aspects of your home that you need to upgrade in Beverly Hills, CA.
The first area of importance of the home technology system is the Wi-Fi and computer network. We have been urging our clients for years to splurge in this category to make sure their systems are robust, reliable, and speedy. Almost everything you use in your home relies on internet connectivity. The clients that have listened have had no Wi-Fi issues. If you are muddling through this pandemic with slow or non-existent Wi-Fi, here are a few things you need to consider:
- Sign up for the maximum speed you can get from your internet service provider (Spectrum, AT&T, Frontier, etc.). Spend the extra bucks to get the speed you need. If you have not updated your plan in the past 12 to 24 months, it is time to call the cable company and see what speeds are available. Currently, Spectrum is strained on bandwidth, which is resulting in very low upload speeds that translate to difficulty with Zoom calls, viewing security cameras remotely, and a host of other issues. This is particularly true in homes north of Sunset where the infrastructure is strained.
- If you want better response times for outages or equipment failure, consider upgrading from a residential to a business account . The level of service and responsiveness is markedly better.
- Put in enterprise-grade hardware! Treat yourself to the best unless you enjoy hearing your teenagers scream at you because their connection dropped out in the middle of their AP test. Investing in great hardware results in better coverage, higher reliability, faster speed, fewer drop-outs, and the capacity for many users on the system at once. Although consumer products like Eero and Ecobee are excellent products for the average American home, Beverly Hills or Holmby Hills residents must realize they do not live in the average American household. The spaces are much larger, the construction denser, and the overall complexity of the home system is far greater. An average American home has about 8-10 connected devices. Our typical client has over 200 networked devices in the house. This is more than most small businesses. All systems (HVAC, Pool, Security, Audio, Video, Locks, Garage Doors, Lighting, etc.) are connected to the internet at some level. The gear you should be purchasing should be pro equipment like Ruckus, Access Networks, Cisco, Meraki, or the like.
The other weak point that our clients are discovering in their homes is their home theater systems. Pre-pandemic, the theater might have been getting minimal use or was a space that the kids mostly used. The landscape has changed. Who knows the next time we will feel comfortable sitting in a commercial theater? With Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers releasing some movies in the home at the same time they are in theaters, the importance of an excellent home theater experience is on the rise. I know that many of my clients are having us update their theaters in preparation for Hamilton, the movie being released on Disney+ on July 3rd (more than one year before it was meant to be released in theaters). This and other movie events will make the home theater a space your family will want to spend more time in.
Here are a few things you can do to spruce up that home theater:
