A common way to decide if a new purchase is a worthy investment is to figure out how often you would use it. We all have that one pair of shoes that hasn’t seen the light of day in years. This can be true of bigger purchases as well, and it often comes up when clients are considering installing a private home theater in their Memorial, TX home. For movie enthusiasts, the decision is a no-brainer. But there are also a lot of others ways you can use your new theater to make it a worthwhile investment.

SEE MORE: How Can You Design the Perfect Home Theater?

Host the Ultimate Movie Marathon

Get all your family and friends together for the ultimate movie marathon. With comfortable seating, immersive audio, dynamic images, and your personal popcorn machine there's no reason to leave the room for hours. With smart control, it's easy to browse through your Kaleidescape media library to find the movie you want to watch. As soon as you hit play, the shades open to reveal your screen and the lights dim in the theater.

Prepare for Some Streaming Binges

Imagine how great it would be to listen to your favorite music anywhere in your Houston, TX home at the touch of a button. With a whole home audio solution that centralizes control of your music, you can take it with you anywhere you go. But sound systems aren't one-size-fits-all. In this blog, we'll focus specifically on which types of speakers would work best for your system, depending on where and how you're using it.

SEE MORE: How to Build a Whole-House Audio System

In-Ceiling Speakers

Whether you're cooking or hosting a party, you can liven up the atmosphere with the right playlist. In these cases, in-ceiling speakers are the best option. They blend in with your décor, so you can install multiple ones to get evenly distributed sound. Most in-ceiling speakers also use wide-dispersion technology, so sound waves don’t go out in one specific direction. This way, if you walk past a ceiling speaker, you won’t notice you’re standing directly under it. In-ceiling speakers can also be useful in surround sound settings. In Dolby Atmos-enabled setups, you need a couple speakers above the viewer to get truly immersive, three-dimensional sound.

In-Wall Speakers

Landscape lighting is an excellent way to illuminate your River Oaks home, drawing attention to the beautiful architecture and providing light for outdoor entertainment. Getting started with landscape lighting means choosing the types of lights you want throughout your outdoor space. Continue reading to learn about the four main types of landscape lighting and how they can enhance your Texas home.

SEE MORE:Illuminate Your Landscape and Light Up Your Life

Bullet Lights

Bullet lights are typically used to highlight specific areas of your outdoor space, such as topiaries, statues, or artwork. Coastal Source, the top provider of high-end landscape lighting, provides bullet lights with a built-in mechanism that allows you to adjust the scope of the light. This design enables you to shift from sharply focused light to softly diffused light within the same fixture. And with a Lutron control solution, you can manage it all from a touchpad, tablet or smartphone.

Path Lights

When it comes to home networking, you’re probably familiar with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. But with the advent of smart automation, Zigbee and Z-Waves are also becoming important protocols for wireless communication. These popular mesh network technologies can be incorporated into the automation system in your River Oaks, Texas home to increase the flow of traffic and boost reliability. Below we explain what a mesh network is and why it’s so popular when it comes to smart devices.

SEE MORE: Is Your Home Equipped to Handle a Connected Home?

What Is a Mesh Network?

A mesh network is one in which devices can speak directly with each other without having to go through a central router. Each device becomes its own standalone node in the network. All your nodes create echoes (imagine many small rocks falling into water and creating individual ripples) to give a broad reach to your signal as it finds the quickest way to its final destination.

This kind of technology is also used in cell phone networks on a bigger stage. When you call or text someone, your signal doesn’t have to go through AT&T or Verizon headquarters. Instead, the closest cell phone tower will relay the message.