Many of us have found a newfound appreciation for home offices, due to the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders. Even though some restrictions are lifting here, many businesses choose to operate with greater remote work flexibility than before.

People who didn’t invest in their home office design before the pandemic have probably learned a good lesson: It’s smart to have a solid work-from-home setup. Settling for your couch or kitchen table when trying to get work done isn’t the best for productivity or your comfort.

You may be wondering how to improve your home office design. Here are five steps you can take to create a dream work-from-home setup for your Houston, Texas home.

SEE ALSO: Why Go With a Pro for Your Smart Home Installation?

1. Install a Speaker System

The benefits of speakers for your home office are endless. Speakers can be an extension of your phone and computer, so whenever you have calls or video conferences, you’ll be able to hear everything with top-notch sound quality. If you need a mental break and want to play some music, you can play it on your high-performance home office speakers instead of your computer. In-wall or in-ceiling speakers are great options for enveloping sound — and they won’t take up room on your desk.

2. Add Lighting Control

Your home office’s lighting can go beyond a lamp or natural sunlight. Lamps don’t necessarily produce the best light for your productivity, and natural sunlight feels nice until it hits your computer screen and produces glare. Instead, you can install human-centric, LED lighting that simulates natural light and automatically adjusts color temperatures throughout the day. Human-centric lighting helps regulate your circadian rhythm (your body’s sleep/wake cycle) and can produce specific tones to stimulate activity and concentration. It can give you the benefits of sunlight without you needing to raise all your shades and worrying about your computer displays.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many of us to work from home and spend time indoors as much as possible. Although this period is causing many to deal with the stress of uncertainty, at least there is certainty that collectively staying home limits the spread of the virus.

Now that you’re spending so much time in your home office, have you thought about how smart technology can enhance your space and make you more productive? With the right tools, you can make your home office more convenient, luxurious, and tailored to your needs.

Let’s explore four ways smart home automation can amp up your Woodlands, TX, home office, and improve how you work from home.

SEE ALSO: Why Go with a Pro for Your Smart Home Installation?

Audio/Video System

With stay-at-home orders in place, people have been communicating more and more through phone calls and video conferencing. You don’t have to worry about conducting video calls solely through your computer — you can connect your computer to a 4K monitor or television and hear your conversations through high-performance, in-wall speakers throughout your office. Don’t like the quality of your computer’s camera for video conferencing? You can set up UHD or 4K cameras to get pristine image quality.

Summer is around the corner, meaning it’s time to embrace warmer weather and enjoy your Austin home’s outdoor entertainment. The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you can do outside — you could watch your favorite TV show or sports team on a flat screen TV while barbecuing. Or if you want to take a swim break, why not listen to a playlist through speakers in your pool?

You can extend the top-notch entertainment features from your home’s indoor space to your patio or backyard and still control everything from your smart home automation system. Here’s how you can get your outdoor space equipped for those Texas summer days and nights.

SEE ALSO: Rock or Relax Outside with an Outdoor Sound System

Outdoor Entertainment

Thanks to today’s technology solutions, you can have fun with outdoor entertainment that’s built to withstand the elements and still provide excellent performance. You can enjoy music from high-quality outdoor speakers that seamlessly blend in with your landscaping. If you want to watch a summer flick, you can view it on a flat screen TV that can weather storms and the heat of the sun.

Don’t worry about glare — there are solutions to minimize it and give you prime viewing, always. Séura’s ultra-bright TVs offer best-in-class picture quality, advanced HDR, and 4K UHD capability, even in sunlight. If you’re wondering how to place a TV in your outdoor space, Future Automation manufactures exceptional TV lifts and mounts to fit your functional and aesthetic needs.

Given the wide availability of a plethora of smart home devices from security to lighting, you might think this is an area where a professional is not needed. Can't you do a smart home installation in Dallas on your own?

You certainly can. But if you run a business, you may need the services of an information technology professional either full time or for specific help. Why? Because they know how to install and maintain complex systems, and you have other responsibilities. Think of smart home automation the same way – you could do it yourself with off-the-shelf technology, but if you want a system that works consistently and smoothly, there are compelling reasons to hire a professional smart home company.

Read on for more!

SEE ALSO: 4 Questions to Ask When Upgrading to a Smart Home

Simplified, Unified Control

If you’ve acquired any smart device, it’s almost a given that it comes with its own control app. App control is useful and convenient, but if five devices have five different apps, things can start getting confusing.