When many people hear ‘home automation,’ they think of glossy screens and futuristic gadgets. But Lutron offers a refreshing alternative for whole-home lighting control: the Aviena keypad.
Designed with antique charm and performance, Aviena proves that smart technology can also be beautiful.
If you’re in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and planning a luxury home build or renovation, here’s why this new lighting control solution deserves your attention.
“Is Ketra really worth it?”
It’s a common question searched online and asked by our showroom visitors. Because while Ketra is regarded as the gold standard of tunable lighting control, it does have a notably higher price tag than products like Philips Hue. So, is it really the best?
To understand Ketra’s value, it’s best experienced in person. But until then, let’s explore what makes Ketra more than just another lighting product, and why it’s trusted by design professionals, homeowners, and architects alike.
While most smart lighting brands focus on retrofittable LED bulbs, Ketra offers an expansive architectural-grade line: recessed downlights, linear tape lights, and track lights, all fully color-tunable across 16 million colors. We can use Ketra alone to create complete lighting designs, from ambient and accent lighting to task-focused areas.
The technology is equally advanced: each Ketra fixture contains a 16-diode chip, giving it the precision to render the exact hues and dynamic white tuning you desire.
You care about how your home looks, right? You aren’t a college kid with thumb-tacked posters and a hodgepodge of random furniture. No, you’re an adult with taste and a home you take pride in.
So, if you’re reading this, you probably understand the clash between interior design and setting up an attractive entertainment system. You could have the most beautifully cultivated furniture, artwork, and lighting—and then a clunky TV setup disturbs the entire aesthetic.
Thankfully, many technology manufacturers are catching on and offering solutions to make TVs appear more aesthetically pleasing. Samsung’s The Frame television resembles a real piece of art when powered off, and fits ultra-slim to your wall.
And now, audio manufacturer Leon has released a soundbar to perfectly fit the width and dimensions of any Frame AV. Meet the Leon FrameBar, the soundbar built for audio and design enthusiasts alike.
Leon’s FrameBar is custom-built to match the precise dimensions and frame color of any Samsung Frame TV, creating a unified, polished look. With its ultra-thin cabinet (as slim as 2.375 inches), the FrameBar installs flush to the wall using Leon’s exclusive mounting brackets.
If you’re interested in audiophile-quality speakers, sound performance should obviously be your top priority.
For the best sound, look for reputable brands with high-quality materials, large drivers, and the ability to accurately replicate high, low, and mid-range sound frequencies. (Unsure where to start? Use our hi-fi guide here.)
And while sound quality is undeniably important, your new speakers’ appearance matters, too. After all, you’re going to live with this hardware in your home for years and even decades. You should like how the hardware looks!
The following speaker brands not only offer incredible ‘inner beauty,’ but their outer beauty makes a great choice for the design-conscious homeowner.
Italy is known for its incredible fashion design (Armani, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana)—and speaker design, too! Sonus Faber has been handcrafting hi-fi speakers in Vicenza, Italy, for almost half a century.
Who doesn’t love a subtle, ambient glow under cabinets or bookshelves? Or gentle illumination behind a mirror and cove ceilings? In the past decade or so, tape lights have become a favorite of interior designers and design-minded homeowners.
Yet people often purchase DIY tape lights that leave much to be desired. “Best Of” lists by Wirecutter and similar publications recommend cheap, low-end models that:
If you’re looking for a high-performance, luxury experience from your tape lights, let us point you towards Lutron and Ketra, the top names in smart lighting control today. Maybe you already have a Lutron lighting control system, or perhaps you’re new to the world of whole-home smart lighting. Here’s what makes their tape lights truly the best available today.
Is your office designed for the way people actually work today?
If your Dallas/Ft. Worth workplace still relies primarily on large conference rooms, you may be missing one of the most effective collaboration spaces in modern offices: the huddle room.
Typically 150 to 200 square feet, these compact meeting spaces have quickly become some of the most valuable real estate in commercial environments. If your office hasn’t carved out space for huddle rooms yet, let’s explore why they’re gaining popularity across Texas businesses.
Do you dream of lighting that automatically adjusts throughout the evening, creating the perfect atmosphere on its own? Or do you wish you could turn off the entire house with just one tap of a button?
Today, ‘smart’ Bluetooth and Wi-Fi bulbs are widely available in stores. But there’s a difference between owning a few smart LEDs and having a truly smart, centralized lighting control system.
When you partner with a professional lighting designer, you’ll gain access to premium fixtures and smart lighting solutions that are only available through certified dealers. You’ll receive a clean, polished installation with all your lights and motorized shades connected to one central hub.
But if you’re still itching to buy some equipment, watch YouTube tutorials, and install it yourself? Let’s walk through the differences between professional and DIY lighting systems.
Most organizations move into an empty office space and from there, build their technology one room at a time. A conference room gets upgraded. A huddle space gets a new display. Another team purchases its own video conferencing solution.
Over time, the office becomes a collection of disconnected experiences, with some rooms up to modern standards—and others left somewhere in the mid-2000s.
Today’s leading organizations are taking a different approach. Instead of making isolated technology decisions, they're designing connected collaboration ecosystems that consistently support hybrid work and create a better experience for all employees, wherever they decide to meet. Here’s how they’re doing it.
Does this sound like your home?
You have a single, consumer-grade Wi-Fi router that’s used on every floor and in every room, serving sometimes dozens of devices at once. Your entertainment, home office, and smart devices all rely on this router alone—and sometimes your technology stalls or becomes unresponsive.
On top of that, every IoT device has its own app, cloud account, and even sometimes its own physical remote. You’re left juggling three or four apps for the smart bulbs, another for the security cameras, and a pile of remotes to control your TV and soundbar setup. It’s madness!
This was the old way. Thankfully, there is now a smarter, simpler approach to living with home technology, with help from your local integrator.
Most people tend to focus on the fun, flashy aspects of smart home living: beautiful lighting scenes, motorized shades, whole-home audio, etc. And it’s understandable—that’s the part you want to experience in your home.
But what many homeowners don't realize is that every one of these experiences depends on something less visible: a professionally designed network. In this article, we'll explore how networking infrastructure supports today's most sophisticated smart homes in and around Dallas–Fort Worth, and what homeowners should consider when building or upgrading their residences.
Are you someone who prefers to purchase high-quality, long-lasting items rather than quick and convenient products that quickly fall apart?
If that sounds like you, we’re willing to bet you’re a little nervous about investing in new outdoor audio or lighting equipment. Speakers that stay outside permanently—how long can they really last?
While it may sound hard to believe, Coastal Source’s outdoor hardware is the real deal. We’ve had a very long partnership with Coastal Source and trust that their outdoor audio and lighting can endure even the harshest Texas weather, year after year.
This may be a bold claim, but we think ViewSonic’s new video display, the LDS135-151, may forever change business presentations and trade events.
It’s rare that a new piece of tech truly shakes up the industry, but what we have here is essentially a portable, foldable video wall.
The LDS135-151 is a 135-inch Direct View LED screen. Typically, most Direct-View LEDs require assembling multiple panels together, taking as long as two hours to install. Now, setup is reduced to as little as five minutes, and the massive display can be wheeled around the room or building.
Let’s take a closer look at ViewSonic’s latest innovation.
Installing a custom smart home is an exciting milestone. Your lighting responds to the time of day, music follows you from room to room, and every system works together with a simple tap or voice command.
But what many homeowners don't realize is that the installation is only the beginning.
Like any sophisticated home system, smart technology performs best when it's maintained over time. Software evolves, devices receive updates, and your family's routines naturally change. The homeowners who enjoy the most reliable, stress-free experience aren't necessarily the ones with the most technology. They're the ones with the right support behind it.
If you’re planning a new home build or a renovation, your technology systems should feel effortless. And the best systems aren’t bolted on after the drywall is finished; they should be thoughtfully designed into your home’s structure itself. That’s where Crestron stands apart.
Unlike many plug-and-play smart home solutions, Crestron becomes part of the fabric of the home. From lighting and shades to audio, video, and security, the system is designed alongside the architecture so every element works together seamlessly.
Here are five reasons discerning homeowners, builders, and design professionals across Dallas/Ft. Worth choose Crestron when building a new residence.
Glass-walled conference rooms are a hallmark of today’s modern, open-concept office. In urban Dallas offices—especially coworking spaces, design firms, and corporate headquarters—they offer sleek aesthetics, natural light, and a sense of transparency.
However, they come with two major acoustic challenges: echo and lack of privacy.
If your glass wall conference room in Dallas, TX, sounds more like a gymnasium than a meeting space, you’re not alone. Fortunately, solutions like acoustic treatments, sound masking, and AV integration can transform your space into a functional, private environment. Let’s explore how.
Is your company building new conference rooms or renovating your existing ones?
What an exciting opportunity! You have the chance to create a dynamic, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing space that makes it easy to collaborate—even with remote team members.
To prepare your business for a future of successful meetings, make sure the following features are on your conference room checklist.
A conference room won't connect before your client presentation. A video call drops audio halfway through a pitch. In both cases, the equipment isn't really the problem. The lost time is.
Any number of reasons could have caused the drop in performance. The network could be overloaded, or a device could have updated its firmware before your meeting, disrupting crucial integrations. For reliable, uninterrupted operation, your technology needs ongoing attention and maintenance to keep it performing as well as it did on day one.
That's why the partner behind your technology matters as much as the technology itself. Whether your business features video conferencing AV, digital signage, security systems, or a Crestron control platform, you need a technology provider that keeps your business running without a hitch. Here’s what to look for.
Walk into three different conference rooms, and you may find three different experiences. One room’s tech connects instantly to the meeting. Another needs adapters. A third requires a call to IT before the meeting can even begin.
For many modern businesses, this inconsistency has become a major operational friction point, especially in hybrid environments. That’s why more organizations are standardizing AV systems across all spaces. Not to make every room identical, but to make every experience predictable, reliable, and easy to support.
In today’s IT-driven world, everything from security to communications is built on scalable, software-driven solutions—except, for many businesses, AV.
Traditional AV systems are still clunky, hardware-heavy, and difficult to integrate, leaving IT teams scrambling to manage disparate devices that don’t play well together.
If your AV setup feels like a constant headache—requiring custom programming, endless troubleshooting, and costly upgrades—you’re not alone. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Q-SYS OS by QSC is changing the game, bringing the same IT-friendly approach to AV that businesses have relied on for decades in their networking and software infrastructures. Here’s how it works—and why your business needs it.
Hybrid collaboration isn't going away any time soon, but subpar meeting experiences should. At Texadia Systems, we know that for collaboration spaces to be truly effective, you need intuitive technology that “just works” every time. That’s why we trust Shure’s IntelliMix Room Kits when integrating Microsoft Teams Rooms.
Whether you're designing a new office in Dallas/Ft. Worth or upgrading an existing meeting space, this solution combines premium audio, intelligent video, and effortless control in a package that eliminates technical headaches. And we’ll install, scale, and support it all for you.
