The Connected Life

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The Connected Life
If This, Then That: Automation and Security
John Sciacca  |  Jul 16, 2014  |  0 comments
When you think about a home security system, you probably think about protection and sirens that go off and keypads that go BEEP-BEEP when someone opens a door. And while that is a huge part of a security system’s mission statement, a security system is also a huge source of information that an automation system can mine to execute events around the home!

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Installations: A Higher Power
John Sciacca  |  Nov 05, 2007  |  0 comments

Cathedrals are almost preternaturally quiet havens where even the softest whispers, shuffling in the pews, or footsteps across marble floors can seem blasphemously loud.

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Custom Installation How-ToThe Connected Life
Installations: Let Us Entertain You
John Sciacca  |  Oct 04, 2007  |  0 comments

While it might take a village to raise a child, it takes an army and lots of time to build an estate! Custom Theater and Audio (CTA) in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, where I work as lead system designer, was recently involved in all aspects of the A/V design and installation for Phil and Janet Pate's new home in North Myrtle Beach.

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The Connected Life
Installing In-Wall/Ceiling Speakers: Part 1
John Sciacca  |  Jan 17, 2018  |  0 comments
In my October blog, I listed 11 must-have tools for your DIY toolkit, laying out the minimum tools you need to tackle some basic audio/video installations. Then I tackled how to wire and mount a flat-screen TV in “Mount a TV Like a Pro:” Part 1 and Part 2. Now it’s time to learn how to install some speakers!
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The Connected Life
Installing In-Wall/Ceiling Speakers: Part 2
John Sciacca  |  Feb 09, 2018  |  5 comments
Last month’s blog detailed the first part of the process of installing new speakers. Since planning before cutting is a massive part of retrofitting new speakers, I focused on making sure you could actually install speakers where you want. This involved determining the best wiring route to the new speakers and ensuring the route was clear of any obstacles like wall purlins.
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The Connected Life
Invest in Your Network
John Sciacca  |  Jun 09, 2014  |  1 comments
The landscape of our entertainment systems and how we enjoy them has continued to evolve with changing technology. And the importance of different components has changed right along with it. Remember when a cassette player/recorder was the most important music playback device? And then it was a CD player. And then a CD changer. And then an iPod. Now you probably never use any of those devices any longer, rather relying on streaming music from a drive on your home’s network, some cloud-based service like Pandora or Spotify, or beaming it via Bluetooth or AirPlay.
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It's All Right to Be Wrong
John Sciacca  |  Sep 16, 2010  |  0 comments

We definitely don't need to be bogged down with more rules. Practically everywhere we go, someone or something is telling us what to do or what not to do. Walk. Don't walk. This lane 15 items or less. Pants required to eat here. Enough!

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The Connected Life
Listening for Life
John Sciacca  |  May 07, 2014  |  0 comments
Good listening is safe listening. Here are three sets of headphones that add to your (and your kids) enjoyment of music without blowing out your eardrums.
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The Connected Life
Living the Automagic Lifestyle
John Sciacca  |  Dec 17, 2014  |  0 comments
Automation describes using control systems to operate equipment or other applications with little or no human interaction. At its simplest, home automation could be a garage door opener or a mercury-filled thermostat kicking on your HVAC system; and at its most complex, there’s virtually nothing an automation system can’t do.

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The Connected Life
Living with Robots (and Gawking Neighbors)
John Sciacca  |  Aug 24, 2016  |  0 comments
When you’re constantly surrounded by technology and automation, you tend to take things for granted, just accepting all the cool stuff happening around you as normal. It isn’t until someone who doesn’t live with this stuff on a daily basis comes over and points out all the stuff that happens in our house as different and special that we pay attention to it and realize how awesome it is.
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The Connected Life
Long Live the (AVR) King!
John Sciacca  |  Jan 20, 2015  |  3 comments
A customer called my installation company recently looking to upgrade his system. We did the original in stall at his vacation home back in 2001, and he wanted to replace the aging DLP with a new flat panel, upgrade to a Netflix-streaming Blu-ray player, and get a new universal remote. When I looked through his file, I saw his AV receiver was approaching 13 years old, so I recommended he replace that as well to take advantage of a generation’s worth of technology improvements.
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The Connected Life
Meet MowBot: Husqvarna's Automower Robotic Lawnmower
John Sciacca  |  Aug 10, 2016  |  3 comments
I’ll be honest, when I first heard about Husqvarna’s Automower robotic lawnmower, my first thought was, “Well, that’s stupid.” I mean, why would someone need a Roomba for their lawn? Dumb.

Then I thought about it a little longer and started to weight the cost of the Automower versus my personal time and cost of cutting the grass or what I have been paying someone else to do it, and how nice it would be to come home and always have a perfectly groomed lawn, and Automower started to make a lot more sense. Then when I started to think about all the grief I get from my lawn guy – broken sprinkler heads, not coming for weeks at a time, yearly price increases – I started getting really excited about the prospect of letting a robot cut my grass.

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Microsoft Achieves Complete Home Domination
John Sciacca  |  Sep 11, 2008  |  0 comments

You may consider Jim Carrey to be many things - comedic genius, overpaid goofball - but technological futurist probably isn't one of them. However, his prediction in the 1996 movie The Cable Guy has proved to be surprisingly accurate: "The future is now!

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The Connected Life
Mount a TV Like a Pro: Part 1
John Sciacca  |  Nov 17, 2017  |  2 comments
In my last blog I listed some essential tools for tackling various DIY custom install projects around the house. This time, we’ll put that toolkit to work mounting a flat-panel TV! I’ll cover running the wiring to your new TV, and in my next blog we’ll tackle the physical mounting of the set.
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The Connected Life
Mount a TV Like a Pro: Part 2
John Sciacca  |  Dec 15, 2017  |  2 comments
Last month’s blog, Mount a TV Like a Pro: Part 1 detailed the first part of mounting a flat-panel TV onto a wall. To recap, it covered determining the size and location of where the new TV will go, figuring out the needed wiring for the install, making a plan for powering the TV, making sure there’s a clear path in the wall for routing the cabling to the TV, and then cutting wall boxes into the sheetrock and running the wiring.
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