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Simplifying Life Through Technology
SoundVision LLC is a lifestyle technology company located in Mooresville, North Carolina. We interview vendors, clients and staff with the purpose of demystifying the capabilties of new technologies for your home or business and sometimes highlighting local content that is important to our community.
Simplifying Life Through Technology
Outdoor Lighting
On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark and Andrew from SoundVision sit down to discuss our Outdoor Lighting.
Ever wondered how the correct outdoor lighting can transform your home or business space? Join us as we illuminate the myriad of benefits that come with the right choice of outdoor lighting. We're passionate about how a well-lit exterior can enhance security, aesthetics, and even the value of your property. Drawing from our own experiences, we confess to the addictive nature of continuously adding more lights to our spaces! We'll also share details about our go-to vendors for top-notch outdoor lighting solutions.
Listen as we plunge into an engaging comparison of lighting options from two cutting-edge brands, WAC and Coastal Source. Learn about the benefits and unique characteristics that set these two brands apart. Our showroom features WAC products, offering a comprehensive view of their variety of lighting options. Mark's residence features a selection of Coastal Source products. We are more than happy to set up a time to view those products as well. Through a fun game of "Would You Rather," we examine different lighting scenarios and how to make the best lighting choices for various situations - be it high-end homes, outdoor renovations, or sprucing up existing backyards. Listen in and lighten up your world with the right outdoor lighting choices.
Explore WAC Outdoor Lighting:
https://www.waclighting.com/category-landing/outdoor/
Explore Coastal Source Outdoor Lighting:
https://coastalsource.com/outdoor-lighting/
Check out our Instagram to see our recent projects:
https://www.instagram.com/soundvisionllc/
To learn more about SoundVision:
To listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:
https://www.svavnc.com/podcast/
Contact Us Today:
(704) 696-2792 | Info@svavnc.com | soundvisionlkn.com
Hey, it's Andrew. Welcome to Simplifying Life Through Technology. Joining me in the podcast room is our CEO, mark DiPetro, here with me to discuss outdoor lighting. Outdoor lighting has several benefits, including safety, security, aesthetics, navigation and many more. Listen as we shine light onto the impact outdoor lighting can have on your home or commercial space. Be sure to listen to hear the two vendors we use at SoundVision for outdoor lighting projects. And that's not all. Make sure to listen to hear the game we play on outdoor lighting. So, mark, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:We're recording this the week after Thanksgiving, so first we want to really say thank you to all of our customers for the business that we've gotten this year and over the many years. We hope that you and your families had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are getting ready for a beautiful holiday season.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:We had a cool one. As a matter of fact, the biggest thing that happened, my brother-in-law, kristen's brother, proposed to his girlfriend. Yes, that's amazing. Yes, the scandal of it Scandal. Yeah, the scandal was that he didn't tell anybody He'd already done it. It was done all through Thanksgiving and nobody knew about it until after. That's ridiculous and it doesn't make any sense. Thank you, eric.
Speaker 1:I agree, we love his input how about you, what about you? And?
Speaker 2:your family.
Speaker 1:Oh, we had a great Thanksgiving. You know, lots of food altogether. We put up our Christmas decorations, yeah, which I love that Put on some Christmas music do the outside. It was great.
Speaker 2:That was your favorite thing that you did was doing the Christmas stuff. Christmas tree for sure, I love that every year Very, very cool.
Speaker 1:Have you put up your Christmas decorations yet at all?
Speaker 2:You know what we have not? Our Christmas gift to the kids through points is we're going to Puerto Rico. That's right From the 22nd to the 26th. So we're kind of debating on how much we're going to decorate, since we're actually not going to be there on the day of. We're kind of deciding right now. So no, we have not.
Speaker 1:Well, that makes sense. Why put all that energy if you're not going to be there to enjoy it? That's right, all right. So let's get into outdoor lighting, outdoor lighting. So, as we mentioned before, outdoor lighting has many benefits. The addition of outdoor lighting is meant to enhance your space. I don't know about you, but I can't really think of any negatives to including outdoor lighting into your home or space.
Speaker 2:The only negative and we like to share this a lot of times in our podcast when we talk about who is it for and who is it not for the only negative is typically it's not cheap. So there is some cost and I don't know that this is a negative, but if you're like me and this is exactly me I got addicted to it and I was really yeah. So one of the products we use that we're going to talk about is a company called Coastal Source. I started doing some Coastal Source at my house and it just ballooned into this huge project and we've added lighting everywhere and so that cost and kind of that addictive part of oh my gosh, now I can light this tree and oh, there's this temperature bulb and oh, you can do this kind of downlight and yeah, it was kind of yeah.
Speaker 1:How did it start? What did you start with?
Speaker 2:Well, so as a company we started doing outdoor lighting probably about three or four years ago. You know, typically this is in the landscaping space or had been in the past, and a lot of companies like us started getting into it around that time and so I really had no experience with it. So kind of behind the scenes here. We never use customers homes as test cases. We don't bring out a product that we've never used before. Back in the day, early on, that used to be the case and it was always an issue, so we always tested in somebody's home or here at the experience center or something. So at the time I said, well, all right, let me try it at my house so I know how it works and I can figure out the positives and if there's any pitfalls and does this stuff really do what they say it's going to do before we tell a customer that? So that's how it started and it just oh, it is so cool.
Speaker 1:So cool. So like, what kind of outdoor lighting did you start with? Like landscaping and like that led to warm and cool dimming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the first thing was lighting pathways, so the walkway that goes up to the front door, the driveway. That was the start. And then the other thing that I learned early on was highlighting landscape trees, bushes, shrubs. If you've got a stone feature in your yard mailboxes, doors, up, lighting your home you'll drive down the street and you will see homes that are dark, dark, dark, dark, and then, all of a sudden, one is lit up.
Speaker 2:Whether it's lit up well or not, draws your attention right away, Right away, and then when you see one lit up, well You're like whoa, that really. Yeah, it's really really nice. And that lighting up is not only like where the lights are positioned and how they are set up but, as you alluded to just a second ago, Andrew, it's also the temperature of the light. So what I mean by that is if it's white, cool blue, at night it looks really cold and it looks really hard. And if it's more amber, orange, warm, it's much more inviting, it's a softer glow, it just it's more homey.
Speaker 1:It makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we really take that into account, not only where we're placing it, what the beams are like, but what the color of the light is too.
Speaker 1:Goes that deep.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, it's important.
Speaker 1:So why don't we start to get into some of the benefits? We've kind of started touching on some of them. Let's get right into them, Yep. So the first one that comes to my mind is safety and security. Survey statistics say that you know, having some kind of outdoor lighting helps deter intruders from coming in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's really good. As a matter of fact, years ago, way before we ever did landscape lighting, we've done security for years and one of the things that we used to tell customers from day one was, yes, you can buy a security system and that's important, but just deterring people from coming up to your home, having it lit up. I was just saying. You go down the street and it's dark, dark, dark, and then there's one lit up. Having it lit up is a deterrent in and of itself. If I'm a thief and I'm driving down the street, there's four houses, three are dark and one's lit up. Which one are you going to choose?
Speaker 1:Right, let's be honest, right, which one are you going last? Yeah, let me really go for the only lit one where they're not going to have security, all that jazz.
Speaker 2:That's right, so even more. The landscape lighting enhances that.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's always going to be the case where you have your ill will criminal, but yeah, most of the time it's really going to help deter them. Even just having a simple one outside your front door. That's right, you know so people. Not only do they get scared off by that, but say someone came in, you can see them on your porch as well.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So another one that comes into mind we keep talking about landscape lighting is enhancing the aesthetic of it all Curb appeal, the ambience.
Speaker 2:So, unlike where we just said, with the security, where almost any light is helpful and that would be like a downlight at a front door or a sconce light on either side of the door or a spotlight is super common right on the corner of a house, like that's good for deterrent, for security. It does light up but it in no way, almost no way, enhances the aesthetic.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:When you are lighting up pathways, when you are warming up stairs, when you are lighting up a feature, maybe you have a waterfall in the front or a little. What do they call it? The little bird? Bat yeah Fountain, thank you, Fountain Trees if you have a sitting area. I mean we do downlights that are actually in the trees down on the sitting area and up lights that light the tree going up. Wow, that is the aesthetic lighting and it creates a mood and a scene totally different than just having a spotlight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're just a little lantern there or just a little lantern.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like those spotlights are good, Like you said, just for the crime deterrent as an example, we have a lot of really beautiful Japanese maples around here and they have different colors and they look incredible during the day. If you have never seen one lit up at night, it's beautiful, oh I bet. So that's more of that aesthetic enhancement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, like you were saying, it helps with navigating. You know, especially now that we're getting into with daylight savings, having it get dark so soon in the afternoon.
Speaker 2:That's a great point.
Speaker 1:You know, having outdoor lighting extends your usage for longer. In the evening, you know, you're able to still use your patio, access your garden, all those kind of things, and putting them in trees, like you said, that's really extending your space of usage.
Speaker 2:And with the navigation. I saw that actually when you were doing the intro and I wasn't sure where that was going, but I'm glad you brought that up now. Depending on you know, in a lot of cases that doesn't make any sense. If you have a really short driveway, you're really close to the street, it just depends on the home. But if you are set back you know we have a lot of horse farms that are up here and you're set back a good ways from the road that navigation by light is really important and makes a huge difference. So, while it doesn't affect everybody that's listening to this, some people may go. Oh yeah, I never thought about. I've got a 400 foot driveway that may not even be straight, you know, potentially could curve or whatever. That's something that this really helps to.
Speaker 1:But it also, as we were saying, giving that oh wow moment of having exterior lighting can potentially increase your property value.
Speaker 2:So it really does in a way that is maybe not thought of right off the top. But when you're going to sell and you're competing with your comparable sales, let's just pick a million dollars, which is, crazily, not that crazy anymore, like very common around here.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of homes in a million dollars. If you're selling a million dollar home, you've got tons of competition at any point in time, and so those are little differences. Make the difference. Even so much as just taking real estate shots, you know, to put up on Zillow or whatever. Even that separates you from somebody else because you've got that night shot that looks incredible. Right, you're not dependent on the sun for that, but the other thing is it does enhance the value of a comparable, because you've got something that somebody else doesn't have. So, by definition, you know, I did want to touch on one other thing I wanted to go back, and that was the security.
Speaker 2:You mentioned this. You mentioned daylight savings. This time of the year and it has been now for a couple of months is so different. Right, it gets dark so early, you know, way before a lot of people get home from work Very common Heck. A lot of our listeners have older children that go and they have a part-time job or whatever after school or they're playing a sport. They don't get home until after it's dark either. And so that security of being able to come up to a lit property not just house, but lit property or if it's a place of business. We haven't touched on that either and our experience center shows that kind of as a place of business. Whether it's leaving or going, you know having that peace of mind and security that it's not dark is really important.
Speaker 1:So we definitely stress that. Yeah, cause even like think about when you're leaving work, when you're locking the door how scary. You're in the dark. Who can come around if I can't see my surroundings? Or when you're coming home and you get into your driveway walking up that pathway. I've walked up a couple pathways. When it's dark it's a little creepy.
Speaker 1:And then trying to get into that keyhole can be challenging. Simplify your living experience with our comprehensive services, including lighting design, indoor and outdoor, audio video solutions, security systems, network optimization and shading solutions. Our experienced team and dedicated service department guarantee seamless installations, ensuring your home is, and stays, smarter and more efficient. So should we get into some of the vendors that we actually use here for outdoor lighting for our customers?
Speaker 2:Love to do it, love to promote our vendors certainly.
Speaker 1:We typically use WAC lighting and COSO source, which you brought up before. Yes, why don't you tell us a little bit about those?
Speaker 2:two. So again, we like to vet all of our products before we use them in customers' homes, and we do a lot of vetting. It's easy to say that, but what do we do? There is a yearly conference called Lightapalooza, that's in Phoenix, that we go to every year and we get to see all the various brands that are there and so we get to see how they work and what's different about them and that sort of thing. And then we have vendors come in pretty regularly that will show off their products.
Speaker 2:Both WAC and COSO source while not the only options are two very quality options and two options at different price points. Wac is a little bit more cost effective. Coso source is a little bit more expensive, and part of the reason for that not in every case, but in most cases part of the reason for that is that COSO source has a unique thing to them is the makeup of their fixtures. They're all solid brass. They're very heavy. If you get to hold them you're like, oh my gosh, this is really beefy and they're designed to stand extreme temperatures. They were actually designed in South Florida and so they salt air. They have another office up in New Jersey so they test them in snow and that kind of thing. So maybe not necessarily pertinent here in North Carolina, and that was one of the reasons that we did want an additional vendor, and WAC fit right into that.
Speaker 2:What's cool about WAC is that they've got a broader range of product. Now Coastal source is pretty broad, but WAC is even broader, if you will. A lot of different downlights, a lot of different accent lights, some really cool technology that allows us to both control focus, change the light temperature, that kind of thing. And we have the WAC product all around our experience center. It is completely lit up with their product. So if you are interested in wanting to come out and see we've got trees lit up, we've got bushes lit up, we've got the building lit up, we've got it from up down, so you can see all of that. And when you see that and it's very impressive, that's only a small part of what they offer. So those are the reasons that we use those two vendors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like you said, we have them all around our showroom and they are impactful. And one thing that I noticed about the WAC lighting is just the unique shapes and kind of the designs of the lighting. I think that stands them apart for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, andrew, and in both cases these manufacturers have taken a lot of time to come up with not only a lighting solution that will do everything that we've been talking about. But, going back to the aesthetics, the actual devices, the actual lighting fixtures have a variety of looks to them. They have a contemporary look, they have a traditional look. Some are bigger, so they're more pronounced, some are smaller, so they're less pronounced. They've got little pinhole lights and micro lights, and it's almost endless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the list goes on, for sure, and if you want to know more about all those, you can obviously just contact us. Absolutely, absolutely. So I think we should play a little game.
Speaker 2:A game, a game. I'm nervous. Andrew, are you trying out for the new Wheel of Fortune position? Did you know that Pat and Vanna are like leaving, I think at the end of the year?
Speaker 1:I knew he was. I thought she was staying.
Speaker 2:No, I'm pretty sure she's leaving. I may be wrong on that, but I'm pretty sure she's leaving too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard there were some changes. Do you know who the host is? The new one?
Speaker 2:Yes, the new one.
Speaker 1:No, who's going to be? Do you know?
Speaker 2:I do know Ryan Seacrest no way. He's been begging to be on this podcast and we have said no repeatedly.
Speaker 1:His exposure is too much for us right now.
Speaker 2:That's right, his exposure is too much. Ryan, if you want to be on the podcast, give us a call. We would love to have you. But yeah, it is Ryan Seacrest. Wow, that's because he's not doing enough stuff.
Speaker 1:Of course not All right. So what's the game, would you rather? I'm going to give you two different scenarios, in this case lighting signs okay and you tell me which one would you rather prefer.
Speaker 2:Okay sounds good.
Speaker 1:Would you rather in your backyard, string lights or linear lighting? Now they're very different.
Speaker 2:They're very different. That's interesting because it really the answer kind of depends on what you're trying to achieve, your budget and your planning Right. So if you're doing a backyard that you've already got, you know, you're not renovating it, you're not adding anything, you're not building anything. The string lights are going to be much easier and much cheaper. For sure, you're going to string some lights from a deck to a tree and you got a fire pit, something like that. Right, that's common.
Speaker 1:Looks great.
Speaker 2:That will give you light. It's cool I mean, we had it when we first moved into our home. But going back to the you know, million dollar, two million dollar, three million dollar homes that we have here, it does not necessarily give off the aesthetic look that that type of home may want.
Speaker 2:If you are building something, you're doing a, you know, a rock wall in the back or a fire pit or a pizza oven or something like that that you're adding on your fireplace you know stone fireplace, something very, very common here Then the linear lighting and accent lighting will destroy it. It'll look so much better, so much more integrated. You have control over a lot of different things. It'd be it'd be blow your way Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to agree, I always have been a huge fan of string lights, both indoor, outdoor. I just love the look of them. But now seeing the capabilities of linear lighting, like you said, just how it just enhances pathways or seating it's incredible. It really is Absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2:It really is. By the way, let me throw in one other thing, because we haven't talked about it. I have four of these in the backyard in the area that we used to have. The string lighting Coastal source even makes a Tiki torch light Really. Yep, imagine a Tiki torch and it's got that little top hat on the top. The bottom of the top hat is an LED fixture. The top of the top hat comes off. There's a little cap that comes off and it's got the little Tiki stuff up there and you can light it and it becomes a little fire up there too.
Speaker 1:Oh, so there's lights and fire up there. Yes it's so cool. That's really cool.
Speaker 2:But he wants to see that they're at my house and set up time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the address is no.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, if a customer wants to see some of those things. We have taken customers there in the past and we're happy to do that. But it's very cool yeah, very cool for outdoor lighting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool because Tiki lights are kind of, I feel, in my opinion, along like the whole string lights. It's more for the aesthetic of it all too, yeah, so all right. Would you rather landscape lights or built-in patio lights? Where do you like to showcase Mmm? What would you prefer?
Speaker 2:You know I'm not sure I actually have both. When we first moved into our home in the back, we actually had like a sidewalk that kind of went around the house and then went down to the basement door. Originally we found it was really slippery. So we had Ramon a lot of our customers will know Ramon because we work in the mall at the time Yep, he came in, he kind of roughed up the sidewalk so that it had some texture to it, a little grip, yeah, so that you wouldn't slip, yeah. So we did that. Well then we did a kind of a little bit of a backyard renovation and we took that out and we had like a cobblestone, brick, paver sort of thing done. And when we did that I said, ooh, we need to like put in lighting into this. So there's a literal accent like mini micro lights that are flushed into the brick. We actually cut into the brick, drilled into it and put the lights on there, and they're designed for this. You can like walk on them, that's cool.
Speaker 2:It's really cool. So as you walk down, there's different ways to light paths. We've talked about lighting paths, we haven't talked about the different ways to do it, but it's really elegant, it's really really cool. So that's what I would call. At least in my world that's what I would call. It's not really patio, but kind of patio. You could do that in the patio, but then landscape lighting would be if you're lighting up something indirectly. So let's say you're lighting up some trees, bushes, something, and then by those lights being on, you also have the indirect light on where you're sitting at the fire pit, so you don't have anything but say the fire going on there. The other lighting is outside of that. They're both really cool. I mean, if I absolutely like, had to pick one, I'd probably pick the built-in patio lights, but they're both can be done, you know, elegantly and give a really nice result.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I think it just goes along with the guess who's it for? Like someone like myself, I like entertaining in my backspace, so that would be my priority, versus someone who says really into gardening and they take so much pride into their you know they're going to want to highlight that before they're going to start highlighting their pathways around their patio.
Speaker 2:So yeah, good call.
Speaker 1:It's again like you always say who's it for you?
Speaker 2:know, depends, that's right.
Speaker 1:Anything else you want to add about outdoor lighting while we're here today, I think we covered a good bit of it.
Speaker 2:As we've been talking, what's really kind of come to mind is how many different options of fixtures and things that we have and how many different ways we can do things. So it's a really good opportunity if customers are interested in it. Again, this is a great time of year, because it does get dark so early to come by and see them at our showroom. There's also certainly pictures on Instagram and whatnot, so you can see kind of what we've done. I mean even lighting signs. So, businesses, if you are interested in lighting your sign, we've done that too. So you can kind of see that we do have customers that are interested in seeing coastal sources different brand and I do have a lot of that stuff at my home, and so we're happy to set up appointments that folks can see that too. But if you're interested, I would encourage you to come in and talk to our design team about you know how we can do it, what your interest is, what your budget is. Absolutely yeah, we can work inside of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I promise you they will blow your mind with the possibilities that you can have.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right, and we'll put the manufacturers links as well in the show notes, so you can go and do a little.
Speaker 1:Check out their websites. Yeah, you can check out their products. Sure Well, that's all I got for today, me too. Thanks, andrew, thank you. Thank you for joining us. You can learn more about SoundVision at soundvisionlakenormancom. You can follow us on Twitter at soundvisionlkn. Find us on Instagram and Facebook at soundvisionllc.
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