Texas smart home garage, foyer, and mudroom possibilities

Your garage can be your launching and landing pad for home. (Mudrooms have made a comeback, more on that in a minute.) But it's easy for the garage to become a dusty location for cars that's usually very hot or cold.

It's where tools, bikes, and sometimes refrigerators only used for drinks go. It's the outer boundary for wearing pajamas. But the garage can be more. 

The First Shall be Last: Garages as Arrival and Departure

The garage is the last thing you see leaving home and the first place you see getting back. It's a space that might need a plan.

There's a lot of design that can be added to the garage for a nicer look. Pulling into a tidy space when you're starting or ending the day adds a lot to the home itself.

The garage is also a major boundary for your home. Front doors still have style. They determine where your mail goes and can even add value to your home. But how often do you the front door? 

Drivers use the garage every day.

Inward Bound: Garage as the Modern Drawbridge

Garage Security Concerns

• intruders and burglars know the garage can be a quick score for lawn tools, bikes (or even the car)
• old-school garage door openers were built using nine simple toggles or DIP-switches; meaning a frequency that is easy to spoof

Evolve Technologies services premium and luxury homes in the Dallas and University Park area. We know it's more than just remembering to close the garage door (but our devices and services can help with that too).

Locking It Down

The garage door is the largest moving thing in your house. The security comes from the size and heft of the door itself.

A physical cylinder lock or bolt is for entryway passage doors. For the main garage entry, however, high tech and prevention are the main things.

All 4 One: Control4

4Sight is the Control4 garage and passage door home integration. Evolve decided early our main brands needed to be innovative, functional, and high-performing. That is why we chose Control4. Control4 works countless add-on apps, digital home suites, and smart devices (Google Echo, Alexa, Apple Smartwatch).

Security lights, easily concealed cameras, and window treatments. All playing nice in the sandbox. The newly revamped operating system, OS3, for Control4, is ready.

Many Interfaces for Control4

• standard 10-inch screen HD wall-mount control hub
• voice-command
• smartphone Android & iOS
• tablet
• (multi and single mechanical light switches can easily be integrated, with or without Lutron customizations)

Contents

Control4 designed its home security items to be concealed. Small, single-wire cameras. Above-average frames per second rate with seven days of footage available in the cloud. Automatic motion-sensor and adjustable lights can feature everywhere for the home's exterior. But a carefully calibrated sensor out front will mean fewer nuisance set-offs by pedestrians or pets.

The garage setup used in 4Sight anticipated well the variety of larger home construction styles. There are two wireless receivers that mount to the rail or the door itself. Adding them to double, side-by-side garage doors is a snap.

. . . And Why Do You Park in a Driveway?

Life gets too busy sometimes and the garage takes over. Or, you're training the dog the kids promised they'd take care of. Either way, in-ground outdoor light features, are an increasingly popular design for the exterior. And they provide security too if you park outside.

In-ground contour lighting to line the driveway is one other way to add style but save space. And who wouldn't want to live in "it's the Mario Kart driveway house at the end of the street."

Show off the holiday decor on the porch. Textured work on the outside, like stucco and stone, are highlighted by exterior lighting too, leaving nothing to waste.

Very Different Sounding Rooms: Foyer and Mudroom

If you still use the front door, perhaps walking to work, the foyer or mudroom is the first thing you see getting home.

A time-sensitive, next-generation LED from Lutron, whether in a chandelier or some understated track lighting, is a nice welcome. Like everything Evolve installs, we can make sure it's a warm, gradual welcome instead of a bright surprise party. That's especially nice getting home, after dark, from a long day.

Seura smart screens have full-length mirrors with numerous light settings and integrations.

Seura Smart Screen TVs and Mirrors

• get that last look with your coat, shoe combo and add confidence heading out the door
• more importantly, get that last look with the type of lighting that will be where you’re planning to go 
• weather (in case you need to revisit the coat choice.)

Ground-breaking Technology: Pre-Build and Low-Voltage Set-Ups

New houses have many types of footprints. Some might even be in the mudroom. But the size of the house and the amount of energy it consumes are two others.

Oddly enough, the more data-driven a consumer appliance is, the less electricity it uses. The motor in a refrigerator or even a hairdryer uses more than a laptop, minute-for-minute.

Evolve Technologies has worked with individuals in their pre-builds using CAD and the latest engineering to craft low-footprint homes. Any size at all, automation, comfort, and customizations are our specialty.

In the Garage

Gen X'ers are now also becoming established homeowners. And they saw a lot happen in garages. Apple computers and Google were birthed in garages. Also created in garages during Gen X times was the last generation of music created with instruments (such as "In the Garage" by Weezer). The start and stop of most days, the garage can be a hub for creativity or a simple nice, secured feature; with automated or on-demand tech for your home. Call us today for a consultation.