Home Gym and Play Room for Smarthomes

Statistics textbooks still say that weather forecasts are about 75% accurate, at best. There are really two types of Americans: those who think their state's weather is crazy, and those who live outside Texas. Despite that, history tells us there are a lot more days you're free to go outside here than in, say, Buffalo, New York.

In a few weeks, spring will arrive. There will be (somewhat) reliably good weather. Dog walking will be more enjoyable, kids can be out of the house for hours a day, and internet consumption will dip a little bit for everyone.

Until then (and after it), have you considered an active room for your house?

FLOOR SPACE: WHAT ABOUT A HOME GYM OR FAMILY "RUMPUS ROOM"?

In the last century, humans have learned that sitting down too much is bad. Every home has a place to sit down. Now, more of us are adding time to our schedule to get out and get moving; to not sit. Could we find a way to not sit in our house?

Movement and kinesis have become much more important to a healthy life. Newer or modern homes may start to incorporate built-in fitness rooms as exercise becomes less recreational and more utility. 

Uses and Benefits for an Active Room

• Kids can move and throw things
• Play fetch with your pooch
• Take cardio, yoga, or weight training classes
• Ride a bike
• Do strength training
• Get your heart rate up
• Clobber your business partner in a match on Pebble Beach's full 18 holes (from your active room)Clobber your business partner in a match on Pebble Beach's full 18 holes (from your active room)
  
  

BY THE NUMBERS: A SMART, FUN, QUANTITATIVE EXERCISE PROGRAM

Reaching a certain speed, size or weight is part of being fit. When we visit the doctor, some of our health can be seen with simple numbers: blood pressure, resting heart rate. A country can win or lose Olympic events based on the number of inches or seconds from one athlete. It's not everything but being in a healthy range matters.

Beth Frates, MD - President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine - on the Numbers

• "For optimal health, you need at least 150 minutes weekly of aerobic activity vigorous enough to speed up your heartbeat and bring out a light sweat."
• "In addition, you should follow a strength-training program that works for all your major muscle groups at least twice a week on nonconsecutive days"
• (source: “Build a Home Gym You’ll Actually Use.” 2017. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance 71 (1): 70–71.)

Clicking a gym (or home gym) selfie with your camera feels great after hitting your goal. But to get there, we have to be interested in other ways.

SMART FUN FITNESS: QUALITATIVE FUN

It's a cliche and set up for comedian jokes. The personal trainer asks: "so what are your fitness goals?" ("I want to look like that Thor guy," most men would reply.) An app can help crunch the numbers to add mass and lose fat, but there's always the "why".

A complete health and exercise plan is much smarter when there are strong motivations. Who knows what will happen later in life? Being fast, being strong, being resilient--all things we can get from exercise--they make any major life surprise much easier. Aim for a healthy body just in case, someday, you need to have a healthy body: playing with grandkids, mowing your own lawn, walking across the stage for that degree you’ve always wanted. 

In short, sticking with healthy goals is easier when we really, really want to do so.

Strength in Numbers: Fitness Influencers with Followers

• For Moms and busy folks https://www.instagram.com/ivfitness/ > 153k followers 
• For those who like to shake it https://www.instagram.com/dancefitlashawn/ > 14.9k followers
• For dudes: https://www.instagram.com/spotme_bro/ and https://spotmebro.com/ > 96 followers (yes, really)

SCREEN TIME FOR BETTER HEALTH?!

Getting to the gym. We sense that exercise is needed to stay fit. But sometimes our world doesn't have 30 minutes of roundtrip car time. We can all feel the squeeze.

The inventor of Mirror workouts was a Harvard-grad ballet dancer who was squeezed for space with her rented fitness boutique. They met in a Russian Orthodox church during off-time and couldn't set up permanent devices. That, and the lack of more room, gave her the idea for remote digital workouts, and voilà.

Get that workout in, even if it's an angry, uncooperative battle with yourself. Do it at home by getting fitness online; with Mirror or elsewhere.  Mirror or elsewhere. 

Keeping the course with exercise goals in your own home is an ideal use for modern smart home technology. Screens, but with less sitting: usually a good combo.

Evolve Technology and Smart Screens: Seura

• A woman-owned, US-based smart screen manufacturer
• Wet, weathered, or rain environments like the back deck: they've designed their smart mirrors and TVs for just such environments
• Screen/TV/mirror adjustable interface
• Illuminated bathroom mirrors for make-up mode, night mode
• Indoor waterproof mirrors for the shower, the tub, the jacuzzi; for everything (including the kitchen sink. Seriously.)

CRI is the ability to create sun-mimicking light. The best man-made sources of light have a high (C)olor (R)endering (I)ndex. Seura is among the world's best with some models reaching 95/100 CRI. This can help to offset the inherent high-frequency blue light output from all the other screens in the 21st-century world.

PUMPING IRON AND JAMS: SMART SPEAKERS (THAT WON'T GET KNOCKED OVER)

That 49 dollar boom box in the corner was okay for garage workouts or the unfinished basement. But workouts are getting more intense. If you're jumping off and on a step block, you need optimal balance. Our sense of hearing is tied directly to balance.

An optimal location for speakers in a workout environment is in the wall (or the ceiling). Evolve Technology uses Triad speakers and Sonance.

If you heard of hand-crafted, real-wood speakers made in Oregon, you might think it's another hipster startup, already starting to fizzle out. But Triad has actually been around for 30 years and hosts Dolby Atmos, the sound equipment gold standard for clear sound.

Not only in-wall or in-ceiling speakers, their nano bar threshold and column speaker models are an avant-garde expression of truly structural sound systems. 

Sonance speakers also incorporate free-standing models, bookshelf speakers, and flush-mount architectural sound.

WIFI THAT SPRINTS

Think about a family home with a single bathroom. One single bathroom for everyone. Most people would say that's a high-demand room.

This is actually how a monitor, computer, game system, and other smart home products connect with data. There's one spot that it goes in and out: that single router.

PackEdge routers used by Evolve Technology have MIMO, multiple in, multiple out data ports. 

They're smaller than most tower routers (that the dog is always knocking over) and they deliver the scoop, i.e. info, i.e. data. The perky, enthusiastic Peloton instructor comes through with no hitch or hiccup. There is no dismounting and asking if your son forgot, 90 seconds after you told him, to stop playing his Xbox for 30 minutes.

HYPER-LINKS: SECOND-GENERATION GOLF SIMULATORS (PLAY PEBBLE BEACH BEFORE YOU PLAY PEBBLE BEACH)

Planning Golf in the Old Days

• Weather needs to cooperate
• The price is high to belong to a club you visit five or six times a year at most
• Liquor is much more expensive at a golf course for some reason

Also, on a public or even private golf course, you can only swear under your breath when you skull a shot. 

A surprisingly versatile and affordable option is an at-home golf simulator.

There is a "sports package" with their other offerings of hockey, soccer, baseball, and other games; a good option for the kiddos when it's a rainy Texas day. 

Evolve has both Trackman and Full Swing. Trackman is the PGA-licensed model where Full Swing has a lot more options for sharing scores and competing outside the basement. You can play all 18 of Pebble Beach or Augusta before you really play it. Priceless.

HEART RATE MATTERS, BUT IT'S STILL HOME

Being healthy, having the ambition to build muscle, lose fat, and have a fitness lifestyle is great. Having that when you can't get outside is even better.

You can be comfortable when you get uncomfortable as you sweat from dancing, lifting, squatting, stepping, pedaling, sprinting, rowing and warrior-posing.

DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF: LET EVOLVE DO THAT

Evolve is the established premium-residence, smarthome firm. We install and service the world's best and newest digital age appliances, audio-video, home security, lighting, window treatments, exterior fixtures, and more. Pre-build with CAD or The Works for a historical home where you want the best technology can offer, we've done it.

Call for a consultation today!